When I criticize President Trump, some people get very, very angry with me. It elicits comments like this one.
You’re so full of sh*t , your breath stinks 😷 !!!! The economy’s doing better than it has in 50 years. You’re just another annoying Trump basher. Go find something productive to do!
By the way, his assertion about the economy is absolutely false, as I explain in my most recent Thoughts from Maharrey Head podcast. You can listen HERE.
So, why do I “pick on” Trump?
Because he does a lot of things that suck.
It’s the same reason I picked on Obama for years.
The truth is I’m going to criticize whoever is in the Oval Office. It’s not about personalities. It’s about fidelity to the Constitution. I am going to rip anybody who takes or supports unconstitutional actions. And more generally, anybody who does things that threaten my liberty.
If you ask me, too many people are wrapped up in Donald’s cult of personality and have abandoned their conservative principles. If anybody should be calling out unconstitutional and anti-liberty actions by Republicans, it’s Republicans. Clean your own house, you know?
The common refrain is, “Well, Trump is better than Hillary.” Yes. Yes, he probably is. But is that really your standard? Seriously?
Look, if you wanted me to criticized Hillary, you should have voted for her.
A growing public debate about the use of facial recognition surveillance in Detroit, New York, and California gives some insight on what to expect everywhere this technology is launched.
America’s fear of mass-shootings is about to take a truly bizarre turn. That’s because our law enforcement will soon be used as fortune-tellers to spy on future criminals.
How will law enforcement be used as fortune-tellers?
A recent Albuquerque Journalarticle revealed that law enforcement agencies in New Mexico will flag people that they think might pose a potential risk.
“Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham directed state Homeland Security and Emergency Management Secretary Jackie Lindsay to start enrolling all 33 county sheriffs in a data-sharing program so that individuals deemed a potential risk could be flagged and monitored.”
What types of things could Americans do that law enforcement would consider threatening?
Inside Sourcesrevealed that police would be looking for “certain indicators.”
State Police Chief Tim Johnson said, “I think it’s obviously important for all of the citizens of New Mexico to be on the lookout for certain indicators of these types of folks that would do this. And part of our job as government officials is to ensure that the citizens of the community understand what those indicators are so they can report them.”
This isn’t just happening in New Mexico.
The Tampa Bay Timesreports that police are looking for “certain critical threat indicators” on students social media posts and has even created their own FortifyFL app that allows anyone to secretly report suspicious behavior.
What these “indicators” are is anyone’s guess.
Johnson also said that it was “important for law enforcement and other social services to follow up” on reports of possibly dangerous citizens “in the hopes of preventing” acts of domestic terrorism.
Law enforcement and other agencies are being encouraged to report on and flag anyone that they deem a “potential risk.”
What could possibly go wrong?
It was only a couple of months ago when I warned people about the “Threat Assessment, Prevention and Safety Act” that basically allows law enforcement to label anyone a potential threat.
“The TAPS Act would encourage law enforcement to give everyone a personal threat assessment (kids and adults) and single out those that they deem as future threats.”
Police across the country are already using “red flag” laws to take weapons away from people they deem a potential threat. So why is Homeland Security creating a whole new class of suspicious people?
Because the War on Terror constantly needs new enemies if it is to keep Americans living in fear.
The Albuquerque Journal revealed how law enforcement plans to use the red flag bill to allow law enforcement and other agencies to give people secret threat ratings.
“Sheriffs had been working with the Democratic sponsor of a proposed red flag bill toward a possible compromise. In its original form, the bill would have allowed courts to order the temporary taking of guns from someone deemed an immediate threat, “San Juan County Sheriff Shane Ferrari said.
From Homeland Security spying on everyone’s social media posts to the FBI, it seems like no one is safe from Big Brother’s prying eyes.
Reason.comwarned that the FBI’s “red flag” social media spying tool is “a meme-illiterate Facebook-stalking precog from the Minority Report.”
Reason also warned that spying on everyone’s social media posts could spiral out of control.
“There are operations centers and watch floors, which monitor news and events to create reports for the relevant FBI team. These would spur the activation of fusion center, tactical teams which use early notification and accurate geo-locations. Which could allow law enforcement to target and even disenfranchise social media users whose posts may have been misinterpreted.”
Placing people on a secret risk chart is a disaster waiting to happen, just ask those people on the no-fly list or terror watch list.
There are no law enforcement risk rating charts yet.
Based on DHS’s old risk advisory chart we could expect law enforcement to use something similar to Canada’s workplace risk assessment rating chart.
Canada’s workplace risk assessment rating chart is a disturbing example of how DHS could give everyone a personal risk assessment
Asking law enforcement to guess who might become a criminal is at best fortune-telling and at worst, an excuse to incarcerate more people.
This article was originally published at MassPrivatel
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (Aug 28, 2019) – Last week, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed a bill that expands a state law barring warrantless location tracking to include historical location data. Enactment of this bill will not only strengthen privacy protections in Illinois, but it will also take another step toward hinder the federal surveillance state.
Rep. Ann Williams (D-Chicago) along with a bipartisan coalition of cosponsors, introduced House Bill 2134 (HB2134) on Feb. 6. Under the old law, police were required to get a court order based on probable cause before obtaining a person’s current or future location information. HB2134 removes the words “current or future” from the statute. In effect, the law now includes historical location information under the court order requirement.
On May 30, the Senate passed HB2134 by a 59-0 vote. It previously passed the House by a 113-0 vote. With Gov. Pritzker’s signature on Aug. 23, the law went into immediate effect.
IMPACT ON FEDERAL SURVEILLANCE PROGRAMS
The feds can share and tap into vast amounts of information gathered at the state and local level through fusion centers and a system known as the “information sharing environment” or ISE. In other words, stingrays create the potential for the federal government to track the movement of millions of Americans with no warrant, no probable cause, and without the people even knowing it.
Fusion centers were sold as a tool to combat terrorism, but that is not how they are being used. The ACLU pointed to a bipartisan congressional report to demonstrate the true nature of government fusion centers: “They haven’t contributed anything meaningful to counterterrorism efforts. Instead, they have largely served as police surveillance and information sharing nodes for law enforcement efforts targeting the frequent subjects of police attention: Black and brown people, immigrants, dissidents, and the poor.”
Fusion centers operate within the broader ISE. According to its website, the ISE “provides analysts, operators, and investigators with information needed to enhance national security. These analysts, operators, and investigators…have mission needs to collaborate and share information with each other and with private sector partners and our foreign allies.” In other words, ISE serves as a conduit for the sharing of information gathered without a warrant. Known ISE partners include the Office of Director of National Intelligence which oversees 17 federal agencies and organizations, including the NSA. ISE utilizes these partnerships to collect and share data on the millions of unwitting people they track.
Limiting information collected by state and local law enforcement agencies limits the amount of information that can flow into federal databases through fusion centers and the ISE.
PARALLEL CONSTRUCTION
By prohibiting the collection of location information “obtained” without a court order would hinder one practical effect of NSA spying in Illinois.
Information released by Edward Snowden and other whistleblowers revealed the NSA tracks the physical location of people through their cellphones. In late 2013, the Washington Post reported that NSA is “gathering nearly 5 billion records a day on the whereabouts of cellphones around the world.” This includes location data on “tens of millions” of Americans each year – without a warrant.
We also know the NSA shares this information with state and local law enforcement. Reuters revealed the extent of such NSA data sharing with state and local law enforcement in an August 2013 article. According to documents obtained by the news agency, the NSA passes information to police through a formerly secret DEA unit known Special Operations Divisions and the cases “rarely involve national security issues.” Almost all of the information involves regular criminal investigations, not terror-related investigations.
In other words, not only does the NSA collect and store this data, using it to build profiles, the agency encourages state and local law enforcement to violate the Fourth Amendment by making use of this information in their day-to-day investigations.
This is “the most threatening situation to our constitutional republic since the Civil War,” Binney said.
Michael Maharrey [send him email] is the Communications Director for the Tenth Amendment Center.He proudly resides in the original home of the Principles of ’98 – Kentucky.See his blog archive here and his article archive here.He is the author of the book, Our Last Hope: Rediscovering the Lost Path to Liberty. You can visit his personal website at MichaelMaharrey.com and like him on Facebook HERE
OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. (Aug 28, 2019) – Today, an Oklahoma law that prohibits the denial of firearms ownership to patients using medical marijuana went into effect despite federal prohibition.
Last summer, Oklahoma voters approved a measure legalizing medical marijuana in the state. A coalition of three Republicans introduced House Bill 2612 (HB2612) on Feb. 4 to create a regulatory structure and establish important patient protections for the state medicinal cannabis program.
The Oklahoma House passed HB2612 by a 93-5 vote. The Senate approved the measure 43-5. With Gov. Kevin Stitt’s signature in March, the new law went into effect Aug. 28.
The expanded patient protections written into HB2612 are significant. Under the law, “a medical marijuana patient or caregiver licensee shall not be denied the right to own, purchase or possess a firearm, ammunition, or firearm accessories based solely on his or her status as a medical marijuana patient or caregiver licensee.”
It also prohibits the state from denying a medical marijuana patient access to public assistance programs, including Medicaid, SNAP and WIC.
As Suzanne Sherman noted, the federal government has long claimed the power to restrict the right to keep and bear arms of medical marijuana patients:
If you purchase a firearm from an FFL, you will be presented with the Firearms Transaction Record form 4473, which you must, under penalty of perjury, answer fully and truthfully. You may see it for yourself HERE.
Question 11(c) asks prospective gun purchasers if they are unlawfully using any controlled substances. You think, “Hey, I can answer ‘no,’ as marijuana is now legal in my state. Immediately following the inquiry is the following admonition (in bold letters):
“Warning: The use or possession of marijuana remains unlawful under Federal law, regardless of whether it has been legalized or decriminalized for medicinal or recreational purposes in the state where you reside.”
Not surprisingly, in 2016, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of appeals ruled that this restriction does not violate the Second Amendment.
Most states have formally adopted this federal ban on owning firearms for medical marijuana users, or simply help in its enforcement. For instance, police in Hawaii sent letters to medical marijuana patients who owned guns telling them they had 30 days to surrender their weapons.
While passage of HB2612 does not overturn the federal Gun Control Act of 1968, it does remove the state and local enforcement arm of that unconstitutional act as it applies to medical marijuana users in Oklahoma.
FEDERAL PROHIBITION
While medical marijuana has become widely accepted across the U.S., the federal government still claims it is illegal. As we’ve seen with immigration sanctuary cities, when state and local enforcement ends, the federal government has an extremely difficult time enforcing their acts.
Under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) passed in 1970, the federal government maintains complete prohibition of marijuana. Of course, the federal government lacks any constitutional authority to ban or regulate marijuana within the borders of a state, despite the opinion of the politically connected lawyers on the Supreme Court. If you doubt this, ask yourself why it took a constitutional amendment to institute federal alcohol prohibition.
Oklahoma’s medical marijuana program removes a layer of laws prohibiting the possession and use of marijuana, and the passage of HB2612 expands that, but federal prohibition remains in place.
FBI statistics show that law enforcement makes approximately 99 of 100 marijuana arrests under state, not federal law. By curtailing state prohibition, Oklahoma sweeps part of the basis for 99 percent of marijuana arrests.
Furthermore, figures indicate it would take 40 percent of the DEA’s yearly annual budget just to investigate and raid all of the dispensaries in Los Angeles – a single city in a single state. That doesn’t include the cost of prosecution either. The lesson? The feds lack the resources to enforce marijuana prohibition without state assistance.
A GROWING MOVEMENT
Enactment of HB2612 further ignores federal prohibition and continue the process of nullifying it in practice.
Colorado, Washington state, Oregon and Alaska were the first states to legalize recreational cannabis, and California, Nevada, Maine and Massachusetts joined them after ballot initiatives in favor of legalization passed in November 2016. Michigan followed suit when voters legalized cannabis for general use in 2018. Vermont became the first state to legalize marijuana through a legislative act in 2018. Illinois followed suit this year.
With 33 states including Delaware allowing cannabis for medical use, the feds find themselves in a position where they simply can’t enforce prohibition anymore.
“The lesson here is pretty straightforward. When enough people say, ‘No!’ to the federal government, and enough states pass laws backing those people up, there’s not much the feds can do to shove their so-called laws, regulations or mandates down our throats,” Tenth Amendment Center founder and executive director Michael Boldin said.
Michael Maharrey [send him email] is the Communications Director for the Tenth Amendment Center.He proudly resides in the original home of the Principles of ’98 – Kentucky.See his blog archive here and his article archive here.He is the author of the book, Our Last Hope: Rediscovering the Lost Path to Liberty. You can visit his personal website at MichaelMaharrey.com and like him on Facebook HERE
A strong movement to end state conceal carry permit requirements has blossomed in the U.S. over the last couple of years. Supporters dub the idea “constitutional carry,” and often argue, “The Constitution is my gun permit,” or a variation on the theme, “The Second Amendment is my gun permit.”
While I fully support the idea of permitless conceal carry, this insistence that the Second Amendment counts as some kind of gun permit makes me want to stab an icepick through my eardrum. Not only does the idea fundamentally misrepresent the purpose of the Second Amendment, it actually assumes a fundamental change in the American constitutional system that a vast majority of “gun rights” advocates would likely reject wholesale if they really thought about it.
The first problem with the “Second Amendment is my gun permit” mantra lies in the fact that it implies the amendment creates a right.
It doesn’t.
It does not “give you” the right to keep and bear arms. It merely prohibits the federal government from infringing on a right you already had.
The right to keep and bear arms flows from a more basic right – the right to self-defense. This falls within the umbrella of “natural rights.” You have them “naturally” simply because you exist. The right to defend yourself and your property makes up part of what it means to be human. In other words, it’s natural to human existence.
No government can bestow natural rights – and no government can take them away. But governments can “infringe” on natural rights. Or to put it another way, interfere with them.
St. George Tucker wrote the first systematic commentary on the U.S. Constitution and stood as one of the preeminent constitutional scholars through the 18th century. Tucker called the right of self-defense the “palladium of liberty.”
“The right of self defence is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible.”
The Second Amendment was drafted and ratified to prevent the federal government from doing just that. But it was not meant to apply to the states.
This leads us to the second, more dangerous aspect of this notion that “the Second Amendment is my gun permit.” To make it so requires a complete transformation of the American constitutional system in order to make the Second Amendment limit state governments’ ability to regulate firearms.
The preamble to the Bill of Rights makes it clear exactly which government the provisions apply to. State ratifying conventions insisted on a Bill of Rights as a condition of ratification “in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its [the government created by the constitution] powers.”
There simply exists no credible founding era evidence supporting the idea that the Bill of Rights – including the Second Amendment – was intended to restrict state actions. State constitutions feature their own bills of rights for that purpose. And it’s unthinkable that a founding generation so wary of centralizing power would have created a mechanism for federal courts to veto or nullify state laws. In fact, this idea was floated in the Philadelphia Convention during the drafting of the Constitution and soundly rejected.
The Constitution created a federal system. The states maintained their sovereignty except within a few spheres where power was delegated to the federal government. The Constitution did not create a national government with all power and authority flowing from it. In fact, most Americans in the founding era feared this.
Many will argue everything changed after the War Between the States. They claim that the 14th Amendment now applies the Bill of Rights to the states, and that should include the Second Amendment. But the weight of evidence does not support what has become known as the “incorporation doctrine.” In fact, Supreme Court justices milked the idea out of the words of the 14th Amendment nearly five decades after it was ratified. (You can read more about the original intent of the 14th Amendment HERE.)
During the Massachusetts ratifying convention, delegate Fisher Aims argued for the inclusion of what would later become the Tenth Amendment.
“A consolidation of the States would subvert the new Constitution, and against which this article is our best security. Too much provision cannot be made against consolidation. The State Governments represent the wishes and feelings, and the local interests of the people. They are the safeguard and ornament of the Constitution; they will protect the period of our liberties; they will afford a shelter against the abuse of power, and will be the natural avengers of our violated rights.” [Emphasis added]
Today, many gun advocates essentially want to go ahead and consolidate the states under a national government, so they can empower Washington D.C. to enforce the Second Amendment on the states. They happily appeal to a Supreme Court invented incorporation doctrine to accomplish their goal. But in so-doing, they subvert the Constitution. They tacitly accept a consolidated, national government, bound by Supreme Court precedent. They remain painfully unaware that when they nationalize gun laws based on Supreme Court precedent, they open the door to nationalize everything under Supreme Court precedent, no matter how badly it bastardizes the constitutional structure.
Conservatives who support the Supreme Court enforcing the Second Amendment in every state generally bemoan that same panel of politically connected lawyers enforcing their conception of religious liberty, their conception of marriage and their conception of abortion rights on all of the states. But you can’t have it both ways. You either accept the Supreme Court’s version of a consolidated, national government or you don’t. If you continue to insist on a nationwide application of the Second Amendment, then you can never again question the constitutionality of Row v. Wade, or the constitutionality of Obamacare, or the constitutionality of federal marriage laws, or the constitutionality of federal education, or the constitutionality of school prayer bans. It all grows out of the same philosophical soil – consolidation, nationalism and the supremacy of federal courts.
“But Mike,” some will ask, “Are you saying the states can just violate our right to keep and bear arms, and we can’t do anything about it? We have to have somebody to protect us from state governments.”
But that raises a bigger question. If you can’t control the political process in your own state and ensure that it protects the right to keep and bear arms, what in the world makes you think you can control a bigger, more powerful, more intrusive, less responsive federal government?
And therein lies the rub. You can’t. That’s exactly why the founding generation created a decentralized system with very little power at the top. They recognized that while every level of government threatens liberty, centralized, monopoly governments pose the greatest threat.
Sadly, many Americans seem to think subverting the Constitution and concentrating authority in an oligarchy along the Potomac in exchange for federal permission to carry a gun across state lines is a good trade-off.
Michael Maharrey [send him email] is the Communications Director for the Tenth Amendment Center.He proudly resides in the original home of the Principles of ’98 – Kentucky.See his blog archive here and his article archive here.He is the author of the book, Our Last Hope: Rediscovering the Lost Path to Liberty. You can visit his personal website at MichaelMaharrey.com and like him on Facebook HERE
Under pressure to “do something” about mass killings, some Republican politicians have followed their Democrat counterparts by endorsing red flag laws. These laws authorize confiscation of firearms if a judge finds the owner poses a risk to himself or others.
But the history of red flag laws should make those politicians reconsider.
Modern red flag laws deny gun owners prior notice or a chance to defend themselves against an initial confiscation order. A judge may issue the order after an uncontested hearing. In some states, the person seeking the order is held to a relatively low burden of proof.
This disregard for due process would be wrong even if red flag laws were proven effective. But the few studies on the subject suggest they are not. One study even concludes that these measures may increase rape.
In politics, if we know a proposal doesn’t serve its advertised purpose, then the advertised purpose usually is not the real one. In this case, the dominant motive seems to be to take guns away from people, despite the undeniable role of firearms in self-defense and crime prevention.
Ironically, by adopting the term “red flag law,” promoters inadvertently admitted their real motive is not safety. This is because the phrase “red flag law” has been proverbial for an enactment masquerading as a safety measure but really passed for more sinister reasons.
Here is the background:
Many people think automobiles were invented around the turn of the last century. But a steam-driven car successfully navigated the streets of London as early as 1803. A car powered by an internal combustion engine was designed in 1808. By mid-century, steam autos appeared regularly on English roads.
This new invention—then often called the “road locomotive”—posed a financial threat to entrenched special interests. Railroads and horse-drawn carriage services (such as stage coaches) feared competition. Buggy makers and farmers who raised horses for sale recognized that automobiles could reduce public demand for their products.
So instead of adapting to the market, those special interests lobbied politicians for laws protecting them from competition. The advertised reason was automobile safety. But the dominant motivation was to regulate automobiles into oblivion.
Beginning in 1861, the British Parliament and some American state legislatures and cities imposed draconian restrictions on “road locomotives.” Some enacted absurdly low speed limits such as two miles per hour in town and four miles per hour on the highway. (Light horse-drawn carriages routinely ran down the highway at 12 miles per hour). Another rule was that any person with a horse could force a car to stop for any reason or for no reason, simply by raising his hand. A Pennsylvania bill (vetoed by the governor) would have required the owner of any automobile who encountered a horse or other livestock to dismantle his vehicle and conceal the parts in the adjacent bushes!
The most famous enactment of this kind was the British Locomotive Act of 1865 (28-29 Vict. c. 83). Among other regulations it mandated that every car have a crew of at least three persons, one of whom was to “precede such Locomotive on Foot by not less than Sixty Yards, and shall carry a Red Flag constantly displayed, and shall warn the Riders and Drivers of Horses of the Approach of such Locomotives, and shall signal the Driver thereof when it shall be necessary to stop, and shall assist Horses, and Carriages drawn by Horses, passing the same.”
The requirement that a crew member precede the car with a red flag gave these restrictive enactments their popular name: red flag law.
Unfortunately, red flag laws stalled automobile progress for years. After they were loosened late in the 19th century, progress resumed. That is why many think of cars as not being invented until the late 19th or early 20th centuries.
In 1904, John Scott-Montagu, a British M.P., wrote a survey of automobile laws for an American scholarly journal. Scott-Montagu decried “the continual, misdirected effort of the law to control vehicles about which the law-makers have had, as a rule, but shadowy and erroneous ideas . . . Future generations . . . will laugh at the cumbrous and illogical efforts their forefathers made to restrict the use of the automobile . . . .”
Scott-Montagu might just as well have been describing red flag laws of today.
In private life, Rob Natelson is a long-time conservative/free market activist, but professionally he is a constitutional scholar whose meticulous studies of the Constitution’s original meaning have been repeatedly cited in U.S. Supreme Court opinions and published or cited by many top law journals (See: https://i2i.org/author/rob/) He co-authored The Origins of the Necessary and Proper Clause (Cambridge University Press) and The Original Constitution (Tenth Amendment Center). He was a law professor for 25 years and taught constitutional law and related courses. He is the Senior Fellow in Constitutional Jurisprudence at Colorado’s Independence Institute.
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (Aug 29, 2019) – Today, a new Alabama law abolishing marriage licenses in the state went into effect. This will effectively nullify in practice both major sides of the contentious national debate over government-sanctioned marriage.
Sen. Greg Albritton (R-Bay Minette) introduced Senate Bill 69 (SB69) on March 5. The new law abolishes all requirements to obtain a marriage license in Alabama. Instead, probate judges will simply record civil contracts of marriage between two individuals based on signed affidavits.
According to the bill summary, SB69 will “eliminate the requirement for solemnization of a marriage for it to be considered valid” and “specify that the judge of probate would have no authority to reject any recording of a marriage, so long as the affidavits, forms, and data are provided.”
While this change in the law may seem like semantics, it is quite significant. It ends the requirement to get state permission before getting married. The state will now record signed contracts between consenting individuals. In effect, it removes the state from the approval process and relegates it to a mere record-keeper.
The law will maintain a few state requirements governing marriage. Minors between the ages of 16 and 18 still must obtain parental permission before applying to record a marriage, the state will not record a marriage if either party was already married, and the parties cannot be related by blood or adoption as already stipulated in state law.
Civil or religious ceremonies will have no legal effect on the validity of the marriage. The state will only recognize the legal contract signed by the two parties entering into the marriage.
In practice, the state’s role in marriage will be limited to recording marriages that have already occurred.
Enactment of SB69 takes a step toward returning to the traditional Western custom in which the state had little to no involvement in marriage, even though it was a legal contract as well as a religious institution. Marriage in medieval Europe technically fell under the legal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church, with priests officiating weddings at the door of the community church. However, it was ultimately a private arrangement that did not require a third party in order to be considered legitimate.
In “The Middle Ages: Everyday Life in Medieval Europe,” Jeffrey Singman writes that proposed marriages were announced at the parish church of both persons for three Sundays, but this was in order to ensure problems such as preexisting marriage agreements did not arise. Still, “not every marriage followed these formalities.”
Singman writes:
According to canon law, marriage could be contracted either by a vow of marriage expressed in the present tense or by a statement of future intent to marriage followed by sexual consummation. The latter sort of marriage in particular could take place without the participation of church or community. Such marriages were illegal, but not invalid; the although the couple might be prosecuted in the church courts, they remained legally married.
In fact, state marriage licenses were initially used as a way to prevent interracial marriages. As a 2007 New York Times op/ed points out, licenses later became necessary in order to subsidize the welfare state.
“The Social Security Act provided survivors’ benefits with proof of marriage. Employers used marital status to determine whether they would provide health insurance or pension benefits to employees’ dependents. Courts and hospitals required a marriage license before granting couples the privilege of inheriting from each other or receiving medical information.”
In a modern political context, SB69 will reduce the state’s role in defining and regulating marriage, which has become a contentious issue and places a burden on government officials torn between the legal requirements of their jobs and their personal religious convictions. By limiting the state’s role in marriage, the legislation will allow Alabamans to structure their personal relationships as they see fit without interference or approval from the government.
Something rarely considered by those seeking to control the state’s definition of marriage is that a marriage license means a person requires government permission before getting married. In America, people generally cannot drive a vehicle without a license. People cannot practice law without a license, nor can they provide medical care. Put another way, under a licensing scheme, marriage is not a right, nor a religious institution, but a privilege granted by the state and limited by its requirements.
Consider this: In the same way a driver can lose their license if they break certain traffic laws, a man or woman, theoretically, could one day find their marriage license revoked for breaking certain “marriage” rules, whether it pertains to childrearing or their religious and political convictions.
Christopher Wesley, an associated scholar at the Mises Institute, wrote that “marriage is most endangered when it rests in the coercive hands of the State.”
Constitutionally, marriage is an issue left to the state and the people.
Removing state meddling in marriage will render void the edicts of federal judges that have overturned state laws defining the institution. The founding generation never envisioned unelected judges issuing ex-cathedra pronouncements regarding the definition of social institutions, and the Constitution delegates the federal judiciary no authority to do so.
Michael Maharrey [send him email] is the Communications Director for the Tenth Amendment Center.He proudly resides in the original home of the Principles of ’98 – Kentucky.See his blog archive here and his article archive here.He is the author of the book, Our Last Hope: Rediscovering the Lost Path to Liberty. You can visit his personal website at MichaelMaharrey.com and like him on Facebook HERE
This is how you condition a populace to life as prisoners in a police state: by brainwashing them into believing they are free so that they will march in lockstep with the state and be incapable of recognizing the prison walls that surround them.
Face the facts: we are no longer free.
We in the American Police State may enjoy the illusion of freedom, but that is all it is: an elaborate deception, rooted in denial and delusion, that hides the grasping, greedy, power-hungry, megalomaniacal force that lurks beneath the surface.
Brick by brick, the prison walls being erected around us by the government and its corporate partners-in-crime grow more oppressive and more pervasive by the day.
Brick by brick, we are finding there is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.
Brick by brick, we are being walled in, locked down and locked up.
That’s the curious thing about walls: they not only keep those on the outside from getting in, they also keep those on the inside from getting out.
Consider, if you will, some of the “bricks” in the police state’s wall that serve to imprison the citizenry: Red flag gun laws that strip citizens of their rights based on the flimsiest of pretexts concocted by self-serving politicians. Overcriminalization resulting in jail time for nonviolent offenses such as feeding stray cats and buying foreign honey. Military training drills—showy exercises in armed intimidation—and live action “role playing” between soldiers and “freedom fighters” staged in small rural communities throughout the country. Profit-driven speed and red light cameras that do little for safety while padding the pockets of government agencies. Overt surveillance that turns citizens into suspects.
These are just a small sampling of the oppressive measures used by the government to control and constrict the American people.
What these despotic tactics add up to is an authoritarian prison in every sense of the word.
Granted this prison may not appear as overtly bleak as the soul-destroying gulags described by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in his masterpiece The Gulag Archipelago, but that’s just a matter of aesthetics.
Strip away the surface embellishments and you’ll find the core is no less sinister than that of the gulags of the Cold War-era Soviet Union.
The word “gulag” refers to a labor or concentration camp where prisoners (oftentimes political prisoners or so-called “enemies of the state,” real or imagined) were imprisoned as punishment for their crimes against the state. As Applebaum explains:
Over time, the word “Gulag” has also come to signify not only the administration of the concentration camps but also the system of Soviet slave labor itself, in all its forms and varieties: labor camps, punishment camps, criminal and political camps, women’s camps, children’s camps, transit camps. Even more broadly, “Gulag” has come to mean the Soviet repressive system itself, the set of procedures that prisoners once called the “meat-grinder”: the arrests, the interrogations, the transport in unheated cattle cars, the forced labor, the destruction of families, the years spent in exile, the early and unnecessary deaths.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was such a political prisoner.
For the crime of daring to criticize Stalin in a private letter to a school friend, Solzhenitsyn was arrested and sentenced to eight years in exile in a labor camp.
That was before psychiatry paved the way for totalitarian regimes such as the Soviet Union to declare dissidents mentally ill and consign political prisoners to prisons disguised as psychiatric hospitals, where they could be isolated from the rest of society, their ideas discredited, and subjected to electric shocks, drugs and various medical procedures to break them physically and mentally.
In addition to declaring political dissidents mentally unsound, government officials in the Cold War-era Soviet Union also made use of an administrative process for dealing with individuals who were considered a bad influence on others or troublemakers. Author George Kennan describes a process in which:
The obnoxious person may not be guilty of any crime . . . but if, in the opinion of the local authorities, his presence in a particular place is “prejudicial to public order” or “incompatible with public tranquility,” he may be arrested without warrant, may be held from two weeks to two years in prison, and may then be removed by force to any other place within the limits of the empire and there be put under police surveillance for a period of from one to ten years.
The age-old practice by which despotic regimes eliminate their critics or potential adversaries by making them disappear—or forcing them to flee—or exiling them literally or figuratively or virtually from their fellow citizens—is happening with increasing frequency in America.
We saw it happen with Julian Assange. With Edward Snowden. With Bradley Manning.
They, too, were exiled for daring to challenge the powers-that-be.
It happened to 26-year-old decorated Marine Brandon Raub, who was targeted because of his Facebook posts, interrogated by government agents about his views on government corruption, arrested with no warning, labeled mentally ill for subscribing to so-called “conspiratorial” views about the government, detained against his will in a psych ward for standing by his views, and isolated from his family, friends and attorneys.
Raub’s case exposed the seedy underbelly of a governmental system that is targeting Americans—especially military veterans—for expressing their discontent over America’s rapid transition to a police state.
Now, through the use of red flag laws, behavioral threat assessments, and pre-crime policing prevention programs, the government is laying the groundwork that would allow it to weaponize the label of mental illness as a means of exiling those whistleblowers, dissidents and freedom fighters who refuse to march in lockstep with its dictates.
That the government is using the charge of mental illness as the means by which to immobilize (and disarm) its critics is diabolically brilliant. With one stroke of a magistrate’s pen, these individuals are declared mentally ill, locked away against their will, and stripped of their constitutional rights.
These developments are merely the realization of various U.S. government initiatives dating back to 2009, including one dubbed Operation Vigilant Eagle which calls for surveillance of military veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, characterizing them as extremists and potential domestic terrorist threats because they may be “disgruntled, disillusioned or suffering from the psychological effects of war.”
Coupled with the report on “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment” issued by the Department of Homeland Security (curiously enough, a Soviet term), which broadly defines rightwing extremists as individuals and groups “that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely,” these tactics bode ill for anyone seen as opposing the government. Although these initiatives caused an initial uproar when announced in 2009, they were quickly subsumed by the ever-shifting cacophony of the news media and its ten-day cycles.
Yet while the American public may have forgotten about the government’s plans to identify and disable anyone deemed a potential “threat,” the government has put its plan into action.
Thus, what began as a blueprint under the Bush administration has become an operation manual under the Obama and Trump administrations to exile those who are challenging the government’s authority.
An important point to consider, however, is that the government is not merely targeting individuals who are voicing their discontent so much as it is locking up individuals trained in military warfare who are voicing feelings of discontent.
Under the guise of mental health treatment and with the complicity of government psychiatrists and law enforcement officials, these veterans are increasingly being portrayed as ticking time bombs in need of intervention.
For instance, the Justice Department launched a pilot program aimed at training SWAT teams to deal with confrontations involving highly trained and often heavily armed combat veterans.
One tactic being used to deal with so-called “mentally ill suspects who also happen to be trained in modern warfare” is through the use of civil commitment laws, found in all states and employed throughout American history to not only silence but cause dissidents to disappear.
For example, in 2006, NSA officials attempted to label former employee Russ Tice, who was willing to testify in Congress about the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program, as “mentally unbalanced” based upon two psychiatric evaluations ordered by his superiors.
In 2009, NYPD Officer Adrian Schoolcraft had his home raided, and he was handcuffed to a gurney and taken into emergency custody for an alleged psychiatric episode. It was later discovered by way of an internal investigation that his superiors were retaliating against him for reporting police misconduct. Schoolcraft spent six days in the mental facility, and as a further indignity, was presented with a bill for $7,185 upon his release.
In 2012, it was Virginia’s civil commitment law that was used to justify arresting and detaining Marine Brandon Raub—a 9/11 truther—in a psychiatric ward based on posts he had made on his Facebook page that were critical of the government.
Each state has its own set of civil, or involuntary, commitment laws. These laws are extensions of two legal principles: parens patriae Parens patriae (Latin for “parent of the country”), which allows the government to intervene on behalf of citizens who cannot act in their own best interest, and police power, which requires a state to protect the interests of its citizens.
The fusion of these two principles, coupled with a shift towards a dangerousness standard, has resulted in a Nanny State mindset carried out with the militant force of the Police State.
The problem, of course, is that the diagnosis of mental illness, while a legitimate concern for some Americans, has over time become a convenient means by which the government and its corporate partners can penalize certain “unacceptable” social behaviors.
In fact, in recent years, we have witnessed the pathologizing of individuals who resist authority as suffering from oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), defined as “a pattern of disobedient, hostile, and defiant behavior toward authority figures.” Under such a definition, every activist of note throughout our history—from Mahatma Gandhi to Martin Luther King Jr.—could be classified as suffering from an ODD mental disorder.
Of course, this is all part of a larger trend in American governance whereby dissent is criminalized and pathologized, and dissenters are censored, silenced, declared unfit for society, labelled dangerous or extremist, or turned into outcasts and exiled.
Red flag gun laws, growing in popularity as a legislative means by which to seize guns from individuals viewed as a danger to themselves or others, are a perfect example of this mindset at work. “We need to stop dangerous people before they act”: that’s the rationale behind the NRA’s support of these red flag laws, and at first glance, it appears to be perfectly reasonable to want to disarm individuals who are clearly suicidal and/or pose an “immediate danger” to themselves or others.
Where the problem arises, of course, is when you put the power to determine who is a potential danger in the hands of government agencies, the courts and the police.
Remember, this is the same government that uses the words “anti-government,” “extremist” and “terrorist” interchangeably.
This is the same government whose agents are spinning a sticky spider-web of threat assessments, behavioral sensing warnings, flagged “words,” and “suspicious” activity reports using automated eyes and ears, social media, behavior sensing software, and citizen spies to identify potential threats.
This is the same government that keeps re-upping the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which allows the military to detain American citizens with no access to friends, family or the courts if the government believes them to be a threat.
This is the same government that has a growing list—shared with fusion centers and law enforcement agencies—of ideologies, behaviors, affiliations and other characteristics that could flag someone as suspicious and result in their being labeled potential enemies of the state.
This is the same government that has, along with its corporate counterparts (Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc.), made it abundantly clear at all levels (whether it be the FBI, NSA, local police, school personnel, etc.) that they want no one challenging their authority.
This is a government that pays lip service to the nation’s freedom principles while working overtime to shred the Constitution.
Yes, this is a prison alright.
Thus, for those who take to the streets to constitutionally express their opinions and beliefs, rows of riot police, clad in jackboots, military vests, and helmets, holding batons, stun guns, assault rifles, and sometimes even grenade launchers, are there to keep them in line.
For those who take to social media to express their opinions and beliefs, squadrons of AI censors are there to shadowban them and keep them in line.
As for that wall President Trump keeps promising to build, it’s already being built, one tyranny at a time, transforming our constitutional republic into a carceral state.
Yet be warned: in a carceral state, there are only two kinds of people: the prisoners and the prison guards.
In a carceral state—a.k.a. a prison state or a police state—there is no difference between the treatment meted out to a law-abiding citizen and a convicted felon: both are equally suspect and treated as criminals, without any of the special rights and privileges reserved for the governing elite.
With every new law enacted by federal and state legislatures, every new ruling handed down by government courts, and every new military weapon, invasive tactic and egregious protocol employed by government agents, “we the people”—the prisoners of the American police state—are being pushed that much further into a corner, our backs against the prison wall.
This concept of a carceral state in which we possess no rights except for that which the government grants on an as-needed basis is the only way I can begin to comprehend, let alone articulate, the irrational, surreal, topsy-turvy, through-the-looking-glass state of affairs that is being imposed upon us in America today.
You see, by gradually whittling away at our freedoms—free speech, assembly, due process, privacy, etc.—the government has, in effect, liberated itself from its contractual agreement to respect the constitutional rights of the citizenry while resetting the calendar back to a time when we had no Bill of Rights to protect us from the long arm of the government.
Aided and abetted by the legislatures, the courts and Corporate America, the government has been busily rewriting the contract (a.k.a. the Constitution) that establishes the citizenry as the masters and agents of the government as the servants. We are now only as good as we are useful, and our usefulness is calculated on an economic scale by how much we are worth—in terms of profit and resale value—to our “owners.”
Under the new terms of this revised, one-sided agreement, the government and its many operatives have all the privileges and rights and “we the prisoners” have none.
Whenever a debate comes up relating to the Second Amendment, somebody inevitably asserts that the right to keep and bear arms only applies to members of the National Guard.
They come to this conclusion based on the first clause of the Second Amendment – “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State…” But even if that clause limited the right to keep and bear arms to militia members – and it doesn’t – those who make the “National Guard only” argument don’t understand what the militia actually was at the time.
Mr. Chairman, a worthy member has asked who are the militia, if they be not the people of this country, and if we are not to be protected from the fate of the Germans, Prussians, &c., by our representation? I ask, Who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers. But I cannot say who will be the militia of the future day. If that paper on the table gets no alteration, the militia of the future day may not consist of all classes, high and low, and rich and poor… [Emphasis added]
Practically speaking, “the whole people” generally meant all able-bodied white men. The point is the militia wasn’t a select military force. It was a defense force made up of the general population. In fact, part of the reason the Second Amendment was proposed was to ensure the people at large would not be disarmed and replaced by a “select militia.” I expand on this argument in my original takedown of Arends.
But I left out one bit of evidence that further undermines the “National Guard only” narrative. The Militia Acts of 1792 were some of the first bills passed by the First Congress. The Militia Act passed on May 8, 1792, defines the militia in a way that supports the broader understanding of the term used by Mason and others during the ratification debates.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years (except as is herein after excepted) shall severally and respectively be enrolled in the militia, by the Captain or Commanding Officer of the company, within whose bounds such citizen shall reside, and that within twelve months after the passing of this Act. And it shall at all time hereafter be the duty of every such Captain or Commanding Officer of a company, to enroll every such citizen as aforesaid, and also those who shall, from time to time, arrive at the age of 18 years, or being at the age of 18 years, and under the age of 45 years (except as before excepted) shall come to reside within his bounds; and shall without delay notify such citizen of the said enrollment, by the proper non-commissioned Officer of the company, by whom such notice may be proved. That every citizen, so enrolled and notified, shall, within six months thereafter, provide himself with a good musket or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch, with a box therein, to contain not less than twenty four cartridges, suited to the bore of his musket or firelock, each cartridge to contain a proper quantity of powder and ball; or with a good rifle, knapsack, shot-pouch, and powder-horn, twenty balls suited to the bore of his rifle, and a quarter of a pound of powder; and shall appear so armed, accoutred and provided, when called out to exercise or into service, except, that when called out on company days to exercise only, he may appear without a knapsack. That the commissioned Officers shall severally be armed with a sword or hanger, and espontoon; and that from and after five years from the passing of this Act, all muskets from arming the militia as is herein required, shall be of bores sufficient for balls of the eighteenth part of a pound; and every citizen so enrolled, and providing himself with the arms, ammunition and accoutrements, required as aforesaid, shall hold the same exempted from all suits, distresses, executions or sales, for debt or for the payment of taxes. [Emphasis added]
So, pretty much every able-bodied free man was part of the militia.
You’ll also note that the act actually requires all men between the age of 18 and 45 to have military-grade weapons. This kind of undermines the whole, “the Second Amendment wasn’t so you could have an ‘assault rifles’” argument.
As I said in my original article, the debate over the militia is a bit overplayed. Preservation of state militias made up of the “whole body of people” was certainly part of the impetus that led to the ratification of the Second Amendment, but the right to keep and bear arms wasn’t exclusively attached to militia service. It was part of the broader natural right of self-defense. The text of the Second Amendment makes clear that the right to keep an bear arms applied to everybody. “The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
Not some of the people.
All of them.
And this was necessary because the militia included virtually all of the free men, as the Militia Act shows.
I don’t generally give a lot of weight to congressional acts, judicial opinions or presidential actions when it comes to determining the original meaning of the Constitution – even to those that occurred immediately after ratification. The federal government quickly went off the rails and began usurping power, and the fact that Congress, a president or a court did something doesn’t definitively prove it was constitutional. Nevertheless, the militia act reaffirms the definition of the militia expressed during the ratification debates by both opponents and supporters of the Constitution. It provides what I would call “supplemental evidence” that further strengthens the case.
Michael Maharrey [send him email] is the Communications Director for the Tenth Amendment Center.He proudly resides in the original home of the Principles of ’98 – Kentucky.See his blog archive here and his article archive here.He is the author of the book, Our Last Hope: Rediscovering the Lost Path to Liberty. You can visit his personal website at MichaelMaharrey.com and like him on Facebook HERE
