WASHINGTON (July 26, 2019) – Trump’s bipartisan spending deal took a step closer to reality on Thursday when the House passed a budget bill by a 284-149 vote.
The bill increases discretionary spending from $1.32 trillion in the current fiscal year to $1.37 trillion in fiscal 2020 and then raises it again to $1.375 trillion the year after that. The deal will allow for an increase in both domestic and military spending.
In other words, no spending cuts. The deal includes $320 billion in additional spending over existing law and simply suspends the debt ceiling until mid-2021.
Poof. Debt ceiling eliminated. Just keep on borrowing, boys!
This deal is a product of “bipartisan cooperation.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hammered out the deal with Trump’s Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.
So, just to be clear, this bill has the full support of Pres. Trump.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) used a procedural move to force a vote on changing the name of the bill from the “Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019” to “A bill to kick the can down the road, and for other purposes.” The vote failed 384-47.
Democrats overwhelmingly supported the legislation, voting to pass it 219-16. But GOP support in the House was tepid. Only 65 Republicans voted for the bill with 132 casting no-votes.
This gives you a little glimpse into party politics in Washington D.C. With Democrats overwhelmingly supporting the bill, Republicans could safely vote no without derailing a bill party leadership and the president wants to pass. And it almost certainly will clear the Republican-controlled Senate. Majority leader Sen. Mitch McConnell said increasing the Pentagon budget “achieves the No. 1 goal of the Republican side of the aisle, providing for the common defense.”
And Trump will sign the bill.
In fact, the president pushed hard to get the bill passed in the House. According to the Washington Post, Trump “held a conference call with several dozen fence-sitting House Republicans on Thursday to urge them to back the legislation. But even some close Trump allies shrugged off the president’s views, especially as it became evident the legislation was going to pass with or without their votes.” [Emphasis added]
D.C. politics at its best.
It’s important to understand how this works. These House Republicans will now run around and claim they were fiscally responsible. They’ll hit the campaign trail and blame Democrats for the spending. But the fact is they would have voted for the spending if there was any chance the bill wasn’t going to pass. Trump wants it. Pelosi wants it. McConnell wants it. Democrats want it. Republicans want it. This is bipartisan fiscal suicide. Anybody who says otherwise is lying to you.
Virtually nobody in Washington D.C. outside a few principled folks like Massie really cares about getting spending under control. And make no mistake: it’s completely out of control. The debt elevator just keeps going up.
The Trump administration ran up another $8.5 billion deficit in June. This comes on the heels of an all-time record May deficit. With an additional $8.5 billion added to the budget deficit last month, spending in fiscal 2019 now stands at $747.1 billion over revenues. That’s a 23.1 percent year-on-year increase. The budget deficit for all of 2018 was $779 billion. The administration projects the deficit will top $1 trillion in fiscal 2019.
And we’re not even factoring in mandatory spending such as Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare. So far, Uncle Sam has spent $3.36 trillion in fiscal 2019. That’s up 6.6 percent year-on-year.
Just last week, I wrote:
Things won’t likely improve with a split Congress. Politicians will grandstand, and there will be a big hue and cry. You’ll even hear some people talk about fiscal responsibility. It’s all political theater. When it’s all said and done, Congress will raise the debt ceiling and keep right on spending.
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
Many people today seem to think it’s the federal government’s job to protect their liberty. But the Founding Fathers didn’t.
In fact, they feared the new government would become too powerful and trample individual liberty. They had a healthy distrust of centralized authority and expected the states to step up and hold the federal government in check.
Unfortunately, the states aren’t doing their jobs.
Last week I was having a conversation with an Ohio State Representative. As is the case with most of my conversations with state politicians, the topic turned to nullification. I got the predictable three responses from the rep. First, “If we do that, then the feds will cut off the money.” Second, “No state is nullifying.” And last, I got the knowing “smile,” the smile that says, “You don’t understand how politics really work, leave it all to me.”
Well, my response has become predictable too.
First, I ask if they even know what nullification is. And then I asked if they have ever heard of the anti-commandeering doctrine and if they know what the founding fathers said about the role of the states when the federal government oversteps its constitutional boundaries?
They still give me the “smile,” but it’s never quite as wide now as it was.
Let’s tackle my questions to the legislators one at a time.
First, let’s clarify something; what does it mean when a state “nullifies” something?
It simply means “We refuse to do it.”
That’s it in just five words.
As James Madison put it in Federalist #46, we are talking about “a refusal to cooperate with officers of the union.” The states simply refuse to use their resources, i.e. manpower, time, and money to put into effect an unconstitutional federal law or regulation. The founders made it very clear in their writings that it was the state’s obligation and duty to oppose unconstitutional federal law.
When it comes to the state’s role, I think we all need reminding from time to time about what the Founder’s actually said:
“ … Besides this security [Bill of Rights], there is a great probability that such a declaration in the federal system would be enforced; because the State Legislatures will jealously and closely watch the operations of this Government, and be able to resist with more effect every assumption of power, than any other power on earth can do; and the greatest opponents to a Federal Government admit the State Legislatures to be sure guardians of the people’s liberty…” ~ James Madison Introduction to the Bill of Rights, June 1789
“ … But there is another check, founded in the nature of the Union, superior to all the parchment checks that can be invented. If there should be a usurpation, … it will be upon thirteen legislatures, … having the means, as well as inclination, successfully to oppose it. Under these circumstances, none but madmen would attempt a usurpation… “ ~ Theophilus Parsons, Massachusetts Ratifying Convention 1788
“…It may safely be received as an axiom in our political system, that the State governments will, in all possible contingencies, afford complete security against invasions of the public liberty by the national authority…” ~ Alexander Hamilton Federalist #28
“If the interposition of the State legislatures be necessary to give effect to a measure of the Union, they have only NOT TO ACT, or to ACT EVASIVELY, and the measure is defeated.” ~Alexander Hamilton, Federalist #16
“Where powers are assumed which have not been delegated, a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy: that every State has a natural right in cases not within the compact, (casus non fœderis) to nullify of their own authority all assumptions of power by others within their limits: that without this right, they would be under the dominion, absolute and unlimited, of whosoever might exercise this right of judgment for them.” ~Thomas Jefferson, Kentucky Resolutions, 1798
“But ambitious encroachments of the federal government, on the authority of the State governments, would not excite the opposition of a single State, or of a few States only. They would be signals of general alarm. Every government would espouse the common cause. A correspondence would be opened. Plans of resistance would be concerted. One spirit would animate and conduct the whole.” ~James Madison, Federalist #46
Don’t amend the Constitution. Don’t sue the federal government in federal courts. The states are supposed to protect us by NULLIFYING unconstitutional federal laws by refusing to enforce them.
Next, let’s discuss the Anti-Commandeering doctrine.
What is it?
The basis for this doctrine was the advice of James Madison. Writing in Federalist #46, he advised four primary tactics for individuals and States to effectively push back against federal overreach, including a “refusal to cooperate with officers of the Union.”
Going back over 177 years the Supreme Court has said that States do not have to use their manpower or money to enforce federal law or any regulatory programs.
Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842) – The Federal Govt. could not force States to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793. ~Chief-Justice Joseph Story
New York v. United States (1992) – The Federal Govt. cannot “commandeer the legislative process of the States by directly compelling them to enact and enforce a federal regulatory program ~ Justice Sandra Day O’Connor
Printz v. United States (1997) – Federal Govt. can neither direct the States to address Federal problems or command the States’ officers or political sub-divisions to administer or enforce a federal regulatory program. ~ Justice Anthony Scalia
N.F.I.B v. Sebelius (2012) – “The Constitution has never been understood to confer upon Congress the ability to require the States to govern according to Congress’ ~Chief-Justice John Roberts
Murphy v. NCAA (2018) – The Court held that Congress can’t take any action that “dictates what a State legislature may and may not do” even when the State action conflicts with federal law, “a more direct affront to State sovereignty is not easy to imagine.” ~Justice Samuel Alito No States are nullifying. This one is easy to dispense with. Right now there are 34 States nullifying federal drug laws by legalizing marijuana for either medical use, recreational use or both.
Lastly, let’s talk about the biggest worry for most State legislators, the M-O-N-E-Y. That’s always the first thing a legislator brings up: if we nullify something, they will cut off the money.
I say to them, if you aren’t using state resources to enforce an unconstitutional law or regulation, i.e., not spending any money on them, then it doesn’t matter if they cut off that money, does it? They can’t cut off money for programs states are running, just for the ones they aren’t.
You can tell by reading the words of the Founders that they expected the state governments to jealously guard against the federal government encroaching on powers that rightfully belonged to the states.
“…and the greatest opponents to a Federal Government admit the State Legislatures to be sure guardians of the people’s liberty…” ~ James Madison Introduction to the Bill of Right, June 1789
The problem with Nullification is that it is misunderstood by most people or not even known about by the rest.
It is up to us, the people, to see to it that our state legislators know about nullification and that we expect them to use it to start reining in a federal government that is out of control.
Jim served in the USMC from 1972 -1976 and he firmly believes in the Constitution and he still holds the Oath he took in 1972 to protect and defend it as binding upon himself and any others who have ever taken it.
Jim started teaching classes on the Constitution in 2011, and currently is the Chairman of “Building Blocks for Liberty”. Building Blocks For Liberty is a 501c3 non-profit educational organization dedicated to the preservation of the U.S. Constitution by teaching others the importance of this historical document that governs our nation. BBFL teaches ONE DAY Boot Camps on reading and understanding the Constitution, and they have held over 70 Boot Camps in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan and Texas since incorporating in July of 2014.
Jim also teaches the Constitution at the Providence Extension Program to 11th & 12th grade students and teaches American History at the Miami Valley Christian Academy.
“There will come a time when it isn’t ‘They’re spying on me through my phone’ anymore. Eventually, it will be ‘My phone is spying on me.’” ? Philip K. Dick
Red pill or blue pill? You decide.
Twenty years after the Wachowskis’ iconic 1999 film, The Matrix, introduced us to a futuristic world in which humans exist in a computer-simulated non-reality powered by authoritarian machines—a world where the choice between existing in a denial-ridden virtual dream-state or facing up to the harsh, difficult realities of life comes down to a red pill or a blue pill—we stand at the precipice of a technologically-dominated matrix of our own making.
We are living the prequel to The Matrix with each passing day, falling further under the spell of technologically-driven virtual communities, virtual realities and virtual conveniences managed by artificially intelligent machines that are on a fast track to replacing us and eventually dominating every aspect of our lives.
Science fiction has become fact.
In The Matrix, computer programmer Thomas Anderson a.k.a. hacker Neo is wakened from a virtual slumber by Morpheus, a freedom fighter seeking to liberate humanity from a lifelong hibernation state imposed by hyper-advanced artificial intelligence machines that rely on humans as an organic power source. With their minds plugged into a perfectly crafted virtual reality, few humans ever realize they are living in a dream world.
In our case, the red pill—a one-way ticket to a life sentence in an electronic concentration camp—has been honey-coated to hide the bitter aftertaste, sold to us in the name of expediency and delivered by way of blazingly fast Internet, cell phone signals that never drop a call, thermostats that keep us at the perfect temperature without our having to raise a finger, and entertainment that can be simultaneously streamed to our TVs, tablets and cell phones.
Yet we are not merely in thrall with these technologies that were intended to make our lives easier. We have become enslaved by them.
Look around you. Everywhere you turn, people are so addicted to their internet-connected screen devices—smart phones, tablets, computers, televisions—that they can go for hours at a time submerged in a virtual world where human interaction is filtered through the medium of technology.
This is not freedom.
This is not even progress.
This is technological tyranny and iron-fisted control delivered by way of the surveillance state, corporate giants such as Google and Facebook, and government spy agencies such as the National Security Agency.
We are living in a virtual world carefully crafted to resemble a representative government, while in reality we are little more than slaves in thrall to an authoritarian regime, with its constant surveillance, manufactured media spectacles, secret courts, inverted justice, and violent repression of dissent.
So consumed are we with availing ourselves of all the latest technologies that we have spared barely a thought for the ramifications of our heedless, headlong stumble towards a world in which our abject reliance on internet-connected gadgets and gizmos is grooming us for a future in which freedom is an illusion.
It’s not just freedom that hangs in the balance. Humanity itself is on the line.
Indeed, while most people are busily taking selfies, Google has been busily partnering with the NSA, the Pentagon, and other governmental agencies to develop a new “human” species.
But here’s the catch: the NSA and all other government agencies will also know you better than yourself. As William Binney, one of the highest-level whistleblowers to ever emerge from the NSA said, “The ultimate goal of the NSA is total population control.”
Cue the dawning of the Age of the Internet of Things, in which internet-connected “things” will monitor your home, your health and your habits in order to keep your pantry stocked, your utilities regulated and your life under control and relatively worry-free.
This “connected” industry—estimated to add more than $14 trillion to the economy by 2020—is about to be the next big thing in terms of societal transformations, right up there with the Industrial Revolution, a watershed moment in technology and culture.
Between driverless cars that completely lacking a steering wheel, accelerator, or brake pedal and smart pills embedded with computer chips, sensors, cameras and robots, we are poised to outpace the imaginations of science fiction writers such as Philip K. Dick and Isaac Asimov. (By the way, there is no such thing as a driverless car. Someone or something will be driving, but it won’t be you.)
The aim of these internet-connected devices, as Nest proclaims, is to make “your house a more thoughtful and conscious home.” For example, your car can signal ahead that you’re on your way home, while Hue lights can flash on and off to get your attention if Nest Protect senses something’s wrong. Your coffeemaker, relying on data from fitness and sleep sensors, will brew a stronger pot of coffee for you if you’ve had a restless night.
Internet-connected techno gadgets as smart light bulbs can discourage burglars by making your house look occupied, smart thermostats will regulate the temperature of your home based on your activities, and smart doorbells will let you see who is at your front door without leaving the comfort of your couch.
Nest, Google’s $3 billion acquisition, has been at the forefront of the “connected” industry, with such technologically savvy conveniences as a smart lock that tells your thermostat who is home, what temperatures they like, and when your home is unoccupied; a home phone service system that interacts with your connected devices to “learn when you come and go” and alert you if your kids don’t come home; and a sleep system that will monitor when you fall asleep, when you wake up, and keep the house noises and temperature in a sleep-conducive state.
It’s not just our homes that are being reordered and reimagined in this connected age: it’s our workplaces, our health systems, our government and our very bodies that are being plugged into a matrix over which we have no real control.
Moreover, given the speed and trajectory at which these technologies are developing, it won’t be long before these devices are operating entirely independent of their human creators, which poses a whole new set of worries.
As technology expert Nicholas Carr notes, “As soon as you allow robots, or software programs, to act freely in the world, they’re going to run up against ethically fraught situations and face hard choices that can’t be resolved through statistical models. That will be true of self-driving cars, self-flying drones, and battlefield robots, just as it’s already true, on a lesser scale, with automated vacuum cleaners and lawnmowers.”
For instance, just as the robotic vacuum, Roomba, “makes no distinction between a dust bunny and an insect,” weaponized drones will be incapable of distinguishing between a fleeing criminal and someone merely jogging down a street.
Unfortunately, in our race to the future, we have failed to consider what such dependence on technology might mean for our humanity, not to mention our freedoms.
Ingestible or implantable chips are a good example of how unprepared we are, morally and otherwise, to navigate this uncharted terrain. Hailed as revolutionary for their ability to access, analyze and manipulate your body from the inside, these smart pills can remind you to take your medication, search for cancer, and even send an alert to your doctor warning of an impending heart attack.
If you were shocked by Edward Snowden’s revelations about how NSA agents have used surveillance to spy on Americans’ phone calls, emails and text messages, can you imagine what unscrupulous government agents could do with access to your internet-connected car, home and medications?
Imagine what a SWAT team could do with the ability to access, monitor and control your internet-connected home: locking you in, turning off the lights, activating alarms, etc.
After all, who cares if the government can track your whereabouts on your GPS-enabled device so long as it helps you find the fastest route from Point A to Point B? Who cares if the NSA is listening in on your phone calls and downloading your emails so long as you can get your phone calls and emails on the go and get lightning fast Internet on the fly? Who cares if the government can monitor your activities in your home by tapping into your internet-connected devices—thermostat, water, lights—so long as you can control those things with the flick of a finger, whether you’re across the house or across the country?
It’s hard to truly appreciate the intangible menace of technology-enabled government surveillance in the face of the all-too-tangible menace of police shootings of unarmed citizens, SWAT team raids, and government violence and corruption.
However, both dangers are just as lethal to our freedoms if left unchecked.
Consider that on any given day, the average American going about his daily business is monitored, surveilled, spied on and tracked in virtually every way by both government and corporate eyes and ears.
Whether you’re walking through a store, driving your car, checking email, or talking to friends and family on the phone, you can be sure that some government agency, whether the NSA or some other entity, will be listening in and tracking your behavior.
This doesn’t even begin to touch on the corporate trackers that monitor your purchases, web browsing, Facebook posts and other activities taking place in the cyber sphere.
In other words, there is no form of digital communication that the government cannot and does not monitor: phone calls, emails, text messages, tweets, Facebook posts, internet video chats, etc., are all accessible, trackable and downloadable by federal agents.
The government and its corporate partners-in-crime have been bypassing the Fourth Amendment’s prohibitions for so long that this constitutional bulwark against warrantless searches and seizures has largely been rendered antiquated and irrelevant.
We are now in the final stage of the transition from a police state to a surveillance state.
Having already transformed local police into extensions of the military, the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department and the FBI are in the process of turning the nation’s police officers into techno-warriors, complete with iris scanners, body scanners, thermal imaging Doppler radar devices, facial recognition programs, license plate readers, cell phone Stingray devices and so much more.
Add in the fusion centers and real-time crime centers, city-wide surveillance networks, data clouds conveniently hosted overseas by Amazon and Microsoft, drones equipped with thermal imaging cameras, and biometric databases, and you’ve got the makings of a world in which “privacy” is reserved exclusively for government agencies.
In other words, the surveillance state that came into being with the 9/11 attacks is alive and well and kicking privacy to shreds in America. Having been persuaded to trade freedom for a phantom promise of security, Americans now find themselves imprisoned in a virtual cage of cameras, wiretaps, sensors and watchful government eyes.
Just about every branch of the government—from the Postal Service to the Treasury Department and every agency in between—now has its own surveillance sector, authorized to spy on the American people.
And of course that doesn’t even begin to touch on the complicity of the corporate sector, which buys and sells us from cradle to grave, until we have no more data left to mine. Indeed, Facebook, Amazon and Google are among the government’s closest competitors when it comes to carrying out surveillance on Americans, monitoring the content of your emails, tracking your purchases and exploiting your social media posts.
“Few consumers understand what data are being shared, with whom, or how the information is being used,” reports the Los Angeles Times. “Most Americans emit a stream of personal digital exhaust — what they search for, what they buy, who they communicate with, where they are — that is captured and exploited in a largely unregulated fashion.”
It’s not just what we say, where we go and what we buy that is being tracked.
We’re being surveilled right down to our genes, thanks to a potent combination of hardware, software and data collection that scans our biometrics—our faces, irises, voices, genetics, even our gait—runs them through computer programs that can break the data down into unique “identifiers,” and then offers them up to the government and its corporate allies for their respective uses.
For instance, imagine what the NSA could do (and is likely already doing) with voiceprint technology, which has been likened to a fingerprint. Described as “the next frontline in the battle against overweening public surveillance,” the collection of voiceprints is a booming industry for governments and businesses alike. As The Guardian reports, “voice biometrics could be used to pinpoint the location of individuals. There is already discussion about placing voice sensors in public spaces, and … multiple sensors could be triangulated to identify individuals and specify their location within very small areas.”
Total control over every aspect of our lives, right down to our inner thoughts, is the objective of any totalitarian regime.
George Orwell understood this. His masterpiece, 1984, portrays a global society of total control in which people are not allowed to have thoughts that in any way disagree with the corporate state. There is no personal freedom, and advanced technology has become the driving force behind a surveillance-driven society. Snitches and cameras are everywhere. And people are subject to the Thought Police, who deal with anyone guilty of thought crimes. The government, or “Party,” is headed by Big Brother, who appears on posters everywhere with the words: “Big Brother is watching you.”
Make no mistake: the Internet of Things is just Big Brother in a more appealing disguise.
Now there are still those who insist that they have nothing to hide from the surveillance state and nothing to fear from the police state because they have done nothing wrong. To those sanctimonious few, secure in their delusions, let this be a warning: the danger posed by the American police state applies equally to all of us, lawbreaker and law-abider alike.
In an age of too many laws, too many prisons, too many government spies, and too many corporations eager to make a fast buck at the expense of the American taxpayer, there is no safe place and no watertight alibi.
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (July 24, 2019) – Today, an Arkansas law decriminalizing the manufacture and possession of firearm sound suppressors in the state goes into effect. The new law not only removes a layer of state regulation; it will help foster an environment hostile to federal gun control in Arkansas.
Sen. Bob Ballinger (R-Berryville) introduced Senate Bill 400 (SB400) earlier this year. The new law repeals current Arkansas statutes prohibiting the possession, manufacture, transport, repair, or sale of firearm “silencers,” more appropriately referred to as “suppressors.” It also removes a prohibition on a “firearm that has been specially made or specially adapted for silent discharge,” while modifying the prohibition on certain weapons so that a person must “knowingly” possess or sell them.
Suppressors simply muffle the sound of a gun. They do not literally silence firearms. Nevertheless, the federal government heavily regulates silencers under the National Firearms Act. The feds charge a $200 tax on the purchase of the devices. Buying one also requires months-long waits after filing extensive paperwork with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
The Arkansas Senate passed SB400 by a 29-6 vote. The House approved the measure 75-12. With Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s signature, the bill went into effect July 24.
The repeal of state suppressor restrictions will not alter federal law, but it does remove a layer of law hindering access to these harmless devices. The widespread easing of suppressor regulation in states subtly undermines federal efforts to unconstitutionally regulate firearms.
This is particularly important given Pres. Donald Trump said he will “seriously look at banning silencers,” after a shooter in Virginia Beach used a handgun with a sound suppressor to kill a dozen people.
“I’d like to think about it. I mean nobody’s talking about silencers very much. I did talk about the bump stock and we had it banned and we’re looking at that. I’m going to seriously look at it. I don’t love the idea of it.”
As we’ve seen with marijuana and industrial hemp, a federal regulation becomes ineffective when states ignore it and pass laws encouraging the prohibited activity. Or when the state decriminalizes and people start ignoring the federal prohibition without any further state “permission” to do so.
Either way, the federal government lacks the enforcement power necessary to maintain its ban in such a climate, and people will increasingly take on the risk of federal sanctions if they know the state will not interfere. This increases when the state actively encourages “the market.”
Less restrictive state gun laws such as SB400 can have a similar impact on federal gun laws. It will make it that much more difficult for the feds to enforce federal gun control, should the people defy it, and increase the likelihood that states with few limits will simply refuse to cooperate with future federal enforcement efforts.
State actions like SB400 lower barriers for those wanting to the option of defending themselves with firearms and encourage a “gun-friendly” environment that would make federal efforts to limit firearms that much more difficult.
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
“But these weren’t the kind of monsters that had tentacles and rotting skin, the kind a seven-year-old might be able to wrap his mind around—they were monsters with human faces, in crisp uniforms, marching in lockstep, so banal you don’t recognize them for what they are until it’s too late.” ― Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
Enough already.
Enough with the distractions. Enough with the partisan jousting.
Enough with the sniping and name-calling and mud-slinging that do nothing to make this country safer or freer or more just.
We have let the government’s evil-doing, its abuses, power grabs, brutality, meanness, inhumanity, immorality, greed, corruption, debauchery and tyranny go on for too long.
We have seen this convergence before in Hitler’s Germany, in Stalin’s Russia, in Mussolini’s Italy, and in Mao’s China: the rise of strongmen and demagogues, the ascendency of profit-driven politics over deep-seated principles, the warring nationalism that seeks to divide and conquer, the callous disregard for basic human rights and dignity, and the silence of people who should know better.
Yet no matter how many times the world has been down this road before, we can’t seem to avoid repeating the deadly mistakes of the past. This is not just playing out on a national and international scale. It is wreaking havoc at the most immediate level, as well, creating rifts and polarities within families and friends, neighborhoods and communities that keep the populace warring among themselves and incapable of presenting a united front in the face of the government’s goose-stepping despotism.
We are definitely in desperate need of a populace that can stand united against the government’s authoritarian tendencies.
Surely we can manage to find some common ground in the midst of the destructive, disrupting, diverting, discordant babble being beamed down at us by the powers-that-be? After all, there are certain self-evident truths—about the source of our freedoms, about the purpose of government, about how we expect to be treated by those we appoint to serve us in government offices, about what to do when the government abuses our rights and our trust, etc.—that we should be able to agree on, no matter how we might differ politically.
Disagree all you want about healthcare, abortion and immigration—hot-button issues that are guaranteed to stir up the masses, secure campaign contributions and turn political discourse into a circus free-for-all—but never forget that our power as a citizenry comes from our ability to agree and stand united on certain principles that should be non-negotiable.
Yet no matter how we might differ about how the government allocates its spending, surely we can agree that the government’s irresponsible spending, which has saddled us with insurmountable debt, is pushing the country to the edge of financial and physical ruin.
That’s just one example of many that shows the extent to which the agents of the American police state are shredding the constitutional fabric of the nation, eclipsing the rights of the American people, and perverting basic standards of decency.
No matter how we might differ about the role of the U.S. military in foreign affairs, surely we can agree that America’s war spending and commitment to policing the rest of the world are bankrupting the nation and spreading our troops dangerously thin.
All of the imperial powers amassed by Barack Obama and George W. Bush—to kill American citizens without due process, to detain suspects indefinitely, to strip Americans of their citizenship rights, to carry out mass surveillance on Americans without probable cause, to suspend laws during wartime, to disregard laws with which they might disagree, to conduct secret wars and convene secret courts, to sanction torture, to sidestep the legislatures and courts with executive orders and signing statements, to direct the military to operate beyond the reach of the law, to operate a shadow government, and to act as a dictator and a tyrant, above the law and beyond any real accountability—were inherited by Donald Trump. These presidential powers—acquired through the use of executive orders, decrees, memorandums, proclamations, national security directives and legislative signing statements and which can be activated by any sitting president—enable past, president and future presidents to operate above the law and beyond the reach of the Constitution.
Yet no matter how we might differ about how success or failure of past or present presidential administrations, surely we can agree that the president should not be empowered to act as an imperial dictator with permanent powers.
Increasingly, at home, we’re facing an unbelievable show of force by government agents. For example, with alarming regularity, unarmed men, women, children and even pets are being gunned down by twitchy, hyper-sensitive, easily-spooked police officers who shoot first and ask questions later, and all the government does is shrug and promise to do better. Just recently, in fact, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals cleared a cop who aimed for a family’s dog (who showed no signs of aggression), missed, and instead shot a 10-year-old lying on the ground. Indeed, there are countless incidents that happen every day in which Americans are shot, stripped, searched, choked, beaten and tasered by police for little more than daring to frown, smile, question, or challenge an order. Growing numbers of unarmed people are being shot and killed for just standing a certain way, or moving a certain way, or holding something—anything—that police could misinterpret to be a gun, or igniting some trigger-centric fear in a police officer’s mind that has nothing to do with an actual threat to their safety.
No matter how we might differ about where to draw that blue line of allegiance to the police state, surely we can agree that police shouldn’t go around terrorizing and shooting innocent, unarmed children and adults or be absolved of wrongdoing for doing so.
Nor can we turn a blind eye to the transformation of America’s penal system from one aimed at protecting society from dangerous criminals to a profit-driven system that dehumanizes and strips prisoners of every vestige of their humanity. For example, in Illinois, as part of a “training exercise” for incoming cadets, prison guards armed with batons and shields rounded up 200 handcuffed female inmates, marched them to the gymnasium, then forced them to strip naked (including removing their tampons and pads), “bend over and spread open their vaginal and anal cavities,” while male prison guards promenaded past or stood staring. The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the entire dehumanizing, demoralizing mass body cavity strip search—orchestrated not for security purposes but as an exercise in humiliation—was legal. Be warned, however: this treatment will not be limited to those behind bars. In our present carceral 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. In a carceral state, there are only two kinds of people: the prisoners and the prison guards.
No matter how we might differ about where to draw the line when it comes to prisoners’ rights, surely we can agree that no one—woman, man or child—should be subjected to such degrading treatment in the name of law and order.
No matter how we might differ about the deference due to those in uniform, whether military or law enforcement, surely we can agree that America’s Founders had good reason to warn against the menace of a national police force—a.k.a. a standing army—vested with the power to completely disregard the Constitution.
We labor today under the weight of countless tyrannies, large and small, disguised as “the better good,” marketed as benevolence, enforced with armed police, and carried out by an elite class of government officials who are largely insulated from the ill effects of their actions. For example, in Pennsylvania, a school district is threatening to place children in foster care if parents don’t pay their overdue school lunch bills. In Florida, a resident was fined $100,000 for a dirty swimming pool and overgrown grass at a house she no longer owned. In Kentucky, government bureaucrats sent a cease-and-desist letter to a church ministry, warning that the group is breaking the law by handing out free used eyeglasses to the homeless. These petty tyrannies inflicted on an overtaxed, overregulated, and underrepresented populace are what happens when bureaucrats run the show, and the rule of law becomes little more than a cattle prod for forcing the citizenry to march in lockstep with the government.
No matter how we might differ about the extent to which the government has the final say in how it flexes it power and exerts its authority, surely we can agree that the tyranny of the Nanny State—disguised as “the better good,” marketed as benevolence, enforced with armed police, and inflicted on all those who do not belong to the elite ruling class that gets to call the shots— should not be allowed to pave over the Constitution.
At its core, this is not a debate about politics, or constitutionalism, or even tyranny disguised as law-and-order. This is a condemnation of the monsters with human faces that have infiltrated our government.
For too long now, the American people have rationalized turning a blind eye to all manner of government wrongdoing—asset forfeiture schemes, corruption, surveillance, endless wars, SWAT team raids, militarized police, profit-driven private prisons, and so on—because they were the so-called lesser of two evils.
Yet the unavoidable truth is that the government has become almost indistinguishable from the evil it claims to be fighting, whether that evil takes the form of terrorism, torture, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, murder, violence, theft, pornography, scientific experimentations or some other diabolical means of inflicting pain, suffering and servitude on humanity.
No matter how you rationalize it, the lesser of two evils is still evil.
So how do you fight back?
How do you fight injustice? How do you push back against tyranny? How do you vanquish evil?
You don’t fight it by hiding your head in the sand.
We have ignored the warning signs all around us for too long.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the government has ripped the Constitution to shreds and left us powerless in the face of its power grabs, greed and brutality.
What we are grappling with today is a government that is cutting great roads through the very foundations of freedom in order to get after its modern devils. Yet the government can only go as far as “we the people” allow.
Therein lies the problem.
The consequences of this failure to do our due diligence in asking the right questions, demanding satisfactory answers, and holding our government officials accountable to respecting our rights and abiding by the rule of law has pushed us to the brink of a nearly intolerable state of affairs.
Intolerable, at least, to those who remember what it was like to live in a place where freedom, due process and representative government actually meant something. Having allowed the government to expand and exceed our reach, we now find ourselves on the losing end of a tug-of-war over control of our country and our lives.
The hour grows late in terms of restoring the balance of power and reclaiming our freedoms, but it may not be too late. The time to act is now, using all methods of nonviolent resistance available to us.
“Don’t sit around waiting for the two corrupted established parties to restore the Constitution or the Republic,” Naomi Wolf once warned. Waiting and watching will get us nowhere fast.
If you’re watching, you’re not doing.
Easily mesmerized by the government’s political theater—the endless congressional hearings and investigations that go nowhere, the president’s reality show antics, the warring factions, the electoral drama—we have become a society of watchers rather than activists who are distracted by even the clumsiest government attempts at sleight-of-hand.
It’s time for good men and women to do something. And soon.
Wake up and take a good, hard look around you. Start by recognizing evil and injustice and tyranny for what they are. Stop being apathetic. Stop being neutral. Stop being accomplices. Stop being distracted by the political theater staged by the Deep State: they want you watching the show while they manipulate things behind the scenes. Refuse to play politics with your principles. Don’t settle for the lesser of two evils.
As British statesman Edmund Burke warned, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men [and women] to do nothing.”
You often hear that an action is “constitutional” or “unconstitutional.” More rarely, you hear the term “extra-constitutional.” Exactly how do these words differ?
An action is constitutional if taken in accordance with a governing constitution. The governing constitution may be written or unwritten. In Britain, to become law a bill must pass the House of Commons and (usually) the House of Lords, and then be approved by the Queen. That is the constitutional procedure. An attempt to enact a law purely by passage in the House of Lords would be unconstitutional.
Of course, a constitutional rule may be changed. In the 18th century, it was unconstitutional to make a law unless both the House of Commons and the House of Lords approved. In the 19th and 20th centuries, however, the rules were changed to allow lawmaking in certain circumstances without the consent of the Lords. That procedure thereby became constitutional.
The same general principle applies to written constitutions. Under the U.S. Constitution, a law that has passed the House and Senate and been signed by the president is constitutional unless it is inconsistent with some other term of the Constitution. A measure that attempted to ban free speech for all Democrats would be unconstitutional as violating the First Amendment, even if it somehow managed to win approval of Senate, House, and president.
In our federal system a state measure may be constitutional under the U.S. Constitution but unconstitutional under the basic law of the state—or vice versa. For example, nothing in the U.S. Constitution bans states from making gifts of public money to private persons or entities.
As far as that document is concerned, a state legislative act making such a grant is perfectly constitutional. However, some state constitutions do contain provisions banning gifts of public money to private persons or entities. In that case, such a grant is unconstitutional at the state level, even if perfectly legal at the federal level. (Note: In some states with constitutional provisions of this kind, activist courts have gutted them.)
On the other hand, suppose a state legislature adopted a “bill of attainder”—a legislative measure declaring a person to be a felon. If the state’s constitution does not contain an express or implied ban on such measures, then it would be constitutional at the state level.
But it is unconstitutional at the federal level, because the U.S. Constitution forbids states from adopting bills of attainder. In this instance, the federal document controls.
Of course, an enactment also may be unconstitutional under the basic laws of both the state and federal governments. Most, if not all, state constitutions protect free speech, so a law banning speech by Democrats would be unconstitutional at both levels.
Finally, we come to the term extra-constitutional. This refers to an action that is simply outside the purview of the governing constitutions. For example, American constitutions have nothing to say about whether you must or must not wear a hat. Your decision on that subject is extra-constitutional. (Some would argue that it is covered by the Ninth Amendment, but I disagree for reasons outlined in my book, The Original Constitution: What It Actually Said and Meant.)
Here’s another example: The U.S. Constitution authorizes, under certain circumstances, three kinds of conventions (ad hoc meetings for specific political purposes). Article V authorizes both a “Convention for proposing Amendments” and state conventions for ratifying proposed amendments. Article VII authorizes state conventions for ratifying the Constitution itself. Calling any of those gatherings in compliance with the Constitution’s rules is, of course, constitutional.
But the U.S. Constitution does not authorize a constitutional convention—that is, a gathering charged with drafting and proposing an entirely new basic law. If the states wished, they could call such a meeting, but doing so would be extra-constitutional. Indeed, states have done so on two occasions: Virginia called, and 12 states, staffed the 1787 constitutional convention outside the Articles of Confederation. And in 1861, seceding southern states called and staffed a constitutional convention in Montgomery, Alabama. Both of these actions were extra-constitutional.
An extra-constitutional action may be legal or illegal under the law of the prevailing government (“positive law”). Deciding whether to wear a hat is both extra-constitutional and legal. Similarly, because the Articles of Confederation comprised a mere treaty or league rather than a true government, it was perfectly legal for the sovereign states to hold the 1787 Constitutional Convention and then set aside the Articles in favor of the convention’s proposal. On the other hand, the U.S. Constitution rendered it illegal for the southern states to implement the Montgomery convention’s proposed constitution.
The right of revolution defended in the Declaration of Independence is the American people’s ultimate extra-constitutional remedy. Of course, revolutions violate the prevailing government’s positive law. But as the Founders recognized, sometimes a government becomes so oppressive that natural law permits a people to override positive law. **************************************************************************************
Rob Natelson 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.
You’ll often hear the term “states’ rights” thrown around. When I use that term (and I really don’t like to) somebody will invariably respond, “States can’t have rights. Only people have rights.”
You know what? They’re right.
A geographical area can’t have rights. That’s nonsensical. And a state government can’t have rights. It has powers. So, what in the world to do we mean by “states’ rights?”
Well, it’s really just a short-hand way to talk about the rights of the people of the states.
In the American system, the people of each state are sovereign. In that sense, states constitute the 50 independent, sovereign political societies that make up the United States. It was the people of the states who ratified the Constitution and formed a union.
And of course, people do have rights.
This is a key concept to understand. The United States are not a “nation” – not in the strict sense of the word. The U.S. system is a federated republic. This is a crucial distinction that I talk about in a recent podcast. You can listen HERE.
James Madison explained the meaning of the “states” as sovereign parties to the Constitution in the Virginia Report of 1800. He was defending the Virginia Resolutions of 1798 where he asserted that the “states” ratified the Constitution. As Madison makes clear, by states he meant “the people of the states.” This is one of the foundational principles underlying the American political system.
Madison wrote:
“The other position involved in this branch of the resolution, namely, ‘that the states are parties to the Constitution or compact,’ is in the judgment of the committee, equally free from objection. It is indeed true that the term ‘States,’ is sometimes used in a vague sense, and sometimes in different senses, according to the subject to which it is applied.
Thus it sometimes means the separate sections of territory occupied by the political societies within each; sometimes the particular governments, established by those societies; sometimes those societies as organized into those particular governments; and lastly, it means the people composing those political societies, in their highest sovereign capacity.
Although it might be wished that the perfection of language admitted less diversity in the signification of the same words, yet little inconveniency is produced by it, where the true sense can be collected with certainty from the different applications. In the present instance whatever different constructions of the term ‘States,’ in the resolution may have been entertained, all will at least concur in that last mentioned; because in that sense, the Constitution was submitted to the “States”: In that sense the ‘States’ ratified it; and in that sense of the term ‘States,’ they are consequently parties to the compact from which the powers of the Federal Government result.” [Emphasis added]
So, when we talk about states’ rights, we really mean the rights of the people who make up each sovereign political society in the American system – their right to establish governments, delegate powers and even to rescind those powers.
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
What did our Framers really say we must do when the federal government usurps power?
They never said, “When the federal government ignores the Constitution, amend the Constitution.”
They never said, “File a lawsuit and let federal judges decide.”
Instead, they advised two manly remedies. We’ll look at one of them – nullification – in this paper. 1
First, let’s look at the Constitution we have.
OUR FEDERAL GOVERNMENT HAS ENUMERATED POWERS ONLY
With our federal Constitution, we created a federal government. It is:
A federation of sovereign States united under a national government ONLY for those limited purposes itemized in the Constitution;
With all other powers reserved by the States or the People.
We listed every power we delegated to the federal government: Most of the powers delegated over the Country at large are listed at Article I, §8, clauses 1-16.
All our Constitution authorizes the federal government to do over the Country at large falls into four categories:
Military defense, international commerce & relations;
Immigration & naturalization;
Domestically, create a uniform commercial system: weights & measures, patents & copyrights, money based on gold & silver, bankruptcy laws, mail delivery & some road building; and
With some of the amendments, secure certain civil rights.
That’s basically it! All other powers are reserved by the States or the People. Depending on how you count, Congress only has 18-21 powers over the Country at Large. 2
It is only with respect to the enumerated powers listed in the Constitution that the federal government has lawful authority.
If it’s on the list, Congress may make laws about it.
But if it’s not on the list, Congress usurps power & acts unlawfully when it interferes.
Is “education” on the list of delegated powers? Raising children? Health Care? Environmental regulation? Is most of what they do on the list? Since these are not delegated powers listed in our Constitution, the federal government usurps power and acts unlawfully when it meddles.
So then, what do we do when the federal government usurps powers not on the list?
DON’T SUBMIT TO UNCONSTITUTIONAL LAWS – NULLIFY THEM! 3
Our Framers said the federal government is our “creature” and must obey our Will as enshrined in our Constitution. And when it doesn’t, we must defend the Constitution by invoking our natural right of self-defense:
Alexander Hamilton said in Federalist No. 28 (last 5 paras): [I’m condensing]
“If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government, and which against the usurpations of the national rulers, may be exerted … [by] … State governments [which] will … afford complete security against invasions of the public liberty by the national authority…” [emphasis mine]
“If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature it is, must appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution as the exigency may suggest and prudence justify.” [emphasis mine]
“…where powers are assumed which have not been delegated, a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy: that every State has a natural right in cases not within the compact … to nullify of their own authority all assumptions of power by others within their limits: that without this right, they would be under the dominion, absolute and unlimited, of whosoever might exercise this right of judgment for them…” [emphasis mine]
“… the right of nullification meant by Mr. Jefferson is the natural right, which all admit to be a remedy against insupportable oppression…” [emphasis mine]
Note that Hamilton, Jefferson, and Madison said nullification is a natural right – it is NOT a “constitutional right”. Rights don’t come from the Constitution – they come from God. 4
Here is Madison’s “Report of 1799-1800 on the Virginia Resolutions”. He said under his discussion of the 3rd Resolution [I’m condensing]:
The States, in their sovereign capacity, are the parties to the constitutional compact; and are thus the final authority on whether the federal government has violated the Constitution. There can be no tribunal above the authority of the States to decide whether the compact made by them has been violated by the federal government. (p 192)
That if, when the federal government usurps power, the States don’t stop the usurpation, and thereby preserve the Constitution; there would be no relief from usurped power. This would subvert the Rights of the People as well as betray the fundamental principle of our Founding. (p195)
That the Judicial Branch is as likely to usurp as are the other two Branches. Thus, the Sovereign States have as much right to judge the usurpations of the Judicial Branch as they do the Legislative and Executive Branches. (p196)
That all 3 Branches of the federal government obtain their delegated powers from the Constitution; and they may not annul the authority of the States. And if the Judicial Branch connives with other Branches in usurping powers, our Constitution will be destroyed. (p196)
So the Judicial Branch does not have final say as to the rights of the parties to the constitutional compact. Otherwise, the delegation of judicial power would annul the authority delegating it; and the concurrence of the judicial branch with the other branches in usurping powers, would subvert the Constitution forever. (p196)
In Federalist No. 46, Madison says, respecting unconstitutional acts of the federal government:
the People can refuse to cooperate with federal officers [7th para];
State officials can oppose the feds [7th para];
State Legislatures can invent legislative devices to impede & obstruct the federal government [7th para];
States can cooperate in concerted plans of resistance [8th para];
States can easily defeat the federal government’s schemes of usurpation [10th para]; and as the last resort,
States must defend themselves from the federal government – that’s why the People are armed.
So Jefferson, Hamilton and Madison tell us: When the federal government asks or directs States to do things which aren’t on the list, the proper response is, “No!”
STATE GOVERNMENTS MUST MAN UP AND PRESERVE OUR CONSTITUTION.
The Declaration of Independence says at the 7th para that the colonials “opposed with manly firmness” the King’s “invasions on the rights of the people”.
To allow terminally ill people access to experimental drugs & medical treatments despite FDA rules – drugs & medical treatments are not on the list! And the 10th Amendment didn’t stop them from usurping powers in this area.
Deny resources and assistance to the National Security Agency – spying on us is not on the list! And the 4th Amendment didn’t stop them from spying on us!
Nullify federal bans on growing hemp & marijuana. Agriculture and drugs are not on the list! And the 10th Amendment didn’t stop them from usurping powers in this area.
An Indiana Legislator filed a bill to nullify all federal EPA Regulations – environmental protection is not on the list! And the 10th Amendment didn’t stop them from usurping power over the environment.
Disarming the American People: If Congress by law, or the President by executive order, or the BATF by rule, or the supreme Court by opinion, or the federal government by UN Treaty, orders The People to turn in our arms, We must refuse to comply. The Constitution doesn’t authorize the federal government to disarm us. Gun control is not on the list! And the 2nd Amendment didn’t stop them from regulating ammunition, firearms, and firearms dealers.
Accordingly, States should pass laws directing their firearms and ammo dealers to ignore all federal dictates which pretend to restrict arms, firearms, ammo, and sales of same. The Law should also provide that the State Attorney General will defend any Citizen of the State from unlawful acts committed against him by agents of the federal government attempting to enforce unconstitutional federal dictates within the borders of the State.
Prayer in the Public Schools: When, in 1962, the US supreme Court began its war against Christianity by banning prayers in the public schools, State legislatures should have passed laws directing their public schools to ignore the unconstitutional opinion of the supreme Court. “Religion”, “prayers”, and “public schools” are not on the list of delegated powers. And the 1st Amendment didn’t stop them from “prohibiting the free exercise of religion”.
BRAVE CITIZENS MUST MAN UP ALSO.
As noted above, Madison says in Federalist No. 46 that the People can refuse to cooperate with federal officers.
Rosa Parks & Martin Luther King showed us spine 50 years ago when they nullified the State & local Jim Crow laws by refusing to obey those unconstitutional laws.
Recently in Connecticut, Citizens refused to obey an unconstitutional State law which pretends to require them to register their firearms. Art. I, §15, CT Constitution says:
“Every citizen has a right to bear arms in defense of himself and the state.”
If you are a “Citizen”, you have the right to bear arms – that’s all you need in Connecticut. So the Connecticut Statute making it a felony to possess guns which are not registered is unconstitutional as in violation of Art. I, § 15 of the State Constitution.
And The People – as the creators of the State government – are the ones to ultimately decide!
All nullification requires is a spine. And Rosa Parks & MLK showed us what spine looks like: You say, “No more!”
THE “WE LOST THE CIVIL WAR” OBJECTION TO NULLIFICATION.
Those who chant this objection seem to have in mind the “nullification crisis of 1832”. Let’s debunk it:
The southern States were agricultural. They bought manufactured goods from England. England bought southern cotton. Infant industries in the North East were producing some of the same manufactured goods as England; but because they were more expensive than the imports, they couldn’t compete.
So in 1828, Congress imposed a high tariff on the imports. The Southern States called this the “tariff of abominations”, because it made the English goods too expensive to buy; and when the Southern States stopped buying English goods, England stopped buying Southern cotton. This devastated the Southern economy.
Note that Congress has specific authority to impose tariffs on imports: Art. I, § 8, cl. 1. So the Tariff Act of 1828 was constitutional.
The nullification crisis of 1832 was brought on because S. Carolina wanted to “nullify” the Tariff Act of 1828 – a constitutional law! South Carolina developed a bizarre theory that
A State has a “constitutional right” to nullify any federal law; and
The nullification is presumed valid unless ¾ of the States say it isn’t valid.
The federal government has delegated authority to impose tariffs;
The Constitution requires that tariffs be uniform throughout the United States;
States can’t nullify tariffs authorized by the Constitution;
¼ of the States don’t have the right to dictate to ¾ of the States on matters within the powers delegated to the federal government; and
Nullification is not a constitutional right.
Near the end of his Notes, Madison quoted Thomas Jefferson’s famous statement:
“…but where powers are assumed which have not been delegated, a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy: that every State has a natural right in cases not within the compact …to nullify of their own authority all assumptions of power by others within their limits …” [emphasis mine]
Madison then says:
“Thus the right of nullification meant by Mr. Jefferson is the natural right, which all admit to be a remedy against insupportable oppression.” [emphasis mine]
Do you see? Madison’s points are:
States may not properly nullify constitutional acts of the federal government; and
When an act of the federal government is unconstitutional, nullification is a NATURAL RIGHT – not a “constitutional right”. 5
START DOING YOUR DUTY
Your Duty is to read our Declaration of Independence and Constitution and learn The List of Enumerated Powers. You were supposed to enforce the Constitution with your votes. But instead of supporting only candidates who knew and obeyed our Constitution, you abdicated your Responsibility and voted for candidates who told you what you wanted to hear.
For the Sake of your Country and Posterity, you must also renounce cowardice and appeasement as the response to evil.
If you fail us, hell on Earth is just around the corner.
Endnotes:
1 The other Remedy is to elect faithful representatives. At the Virginia Ratifying Convention on June 20, 1788 at [223], James Madison said our Constitution depends on the people having the “virtue and intelligence to select men of virtue and wisdom” to office. In Federalist No. 44 [12th para from end], he says when Congress usurps powers, and the executive and judiciary departments go along with it,
“…a remedy must be obtained from the people who can, by the election of more faithful representatives, annul the acts of the usurpers…” [emphasis mine]
But we keep electing ignorant phonies who know nothing about our Constitution. Why do we do this?
2THIS Chart lists the enumerated powers over the Country at Large and illustrates how Principles in our Declaration of Independence were implemented in our Constitution.
3Stop quibbling over terminology. As a People, we have lost the ability to think conceptually. When some don’t see the word, “nullification”, in a writing, they insist the writer didn’t support it. But the concept is refusal to submit to unconstitutional laws. You can call it “non-violent civil disobedience”, “that original right of self-defense”, “resistance”, “refusal to obey”, “impeding & obstructing”, “nullification”, “interposition”, or something else. I use “nullification” because the term has a distinctive meaning and was used by our beloved Thomas Jefferson. You may call broccoli “broccoli”, a “green vegetable”, a “cruciferous vegetable”, a “super food”, or “little trees”. But “broccoli” is the most precise and distinctive term. Do you see?
4 So when Michael Farris, and others who tell us a convention is the only way out, disparage nullification as an “extra-constitutional doctrine”, the proper response is: Nullification is NOT a “constitutional right or remedy” – it is that NATURAL RIGHT of self-defense which pre-dates and pre-exists the Constitution. Farris has repudiated our Founding Principles that Rights come from the Creator God, and that the purpose of government is to secure the Rights GOD gave us (Declaration of Independence, 2nd para). In Farris’ brave new world, “rights” come from the Constitution – where they are subject to the will of human governments. See, e.g., his so-called “parental rights” amendment HERE. “Child raising” is not now on the list of delegated powers – but §3 of Farris’ “parental rights” amendment would delegate power over children to the federal government. Read it.
5 Rights don’t come from the Constitution! They come from GOD! PH
Publius Huldah is a retired litigation attorney who now lives in Tennessee. Before getting a law degree, she got a degree in philosophy where she specialized in political philosophy and epistemology (theories of knowledge).
HONOLULU, Hawaii (July 17, 2019) – Last week, Hawaii Gov. David Ige caved to law enforcement pressure and vetoed a bill that would have reformed the state’s asset forfeiture laws to prohibit the state from taking property without a criminal conviction in most cases.
A coalition of six Democrats sponsored House Bill 748 (HB748). The legislation would have required prosecutors to get a criminal conviction before proceeding with the forfeiture process in most situations.
The House unanimously approved Senate amendments to HB748. The Senate previously passed the bill 25-0.
Ige vetoed the bill on July 9 and issued a 12-page veto statement that largely parroted law enforcement lobbyist talking points. Ige indicated he planned to veto the bill prior to taking action, saying that “safeguards presently exist in Hawaii’s asset forfeiture statutes that prevent the abuses cited in the bill.”
Drug Policy Forum of Hawaii executive director Carl Bergquist said, “The notion that there is no abuse of civil asset forfeiture here in Hawaii is quaint.”
The Institute for Justice calls Hawaii’s asset forfeiture laws “among the nation’s worst.” As it stands police can take people’s property without even charging them with a crime. According to Forbes, the state took in over $11.5 million in asset forfeiture proceeds between 2006 and 2015. Over 92 percent of the attorney general’s forfeiture expenditures last year—nearly $314,000—funded payroll for its Asset Forfeiture Unit.
According to Forbes:
A state audit from last summer revealed that the government forfeited property “without a corresponding criminal charge in 26 percent of the asset forfeiture cases closed” in fiscal 2015. And in another 4 percent of cases, the state forfeited property even when charges were dismissed. In other words, property was confiscated without a criminal conviction in nearly one-third of Hawaii’s forfeiture cases.
HB748 addressed the “policing for profit” motive inherent in the current asset forfeiture process by changing how forfeiture proceeds are disbursed. Under the law, proceeds after reimbursing expenses incurred by the attorney general would have been deposited in the general fund. Under current law, 25 percent of forfeiture funds go directly to police department budgets, 25 percent to prosecuting attorneys and 50 percent to the attorney general.
NECESSARY
While some people believe the Supreme Court “ended asset forfeiture,” the recent opinion in Timbs v. Indianaended nothing. Without further action, civil asset forfeiture remains. Additionally, as law professor Ilya Somin noted, the Court left an important issue unresolved. What exactly counts as an “excessive” in the civil forfeiture context?
“That is likely to be a hotly contested issue in the lower federal courts over the next few years. The ultimate effect of today’s decision depends in large part on how that question is resolved. If courts rule that only a few unusually extreme cases qualify as excessive, the impact of Timbs might be relatively marginal.”
Going forward, opponents of civil asset forfeiture could wait and see how lower federal courts will address this “over the next few years,” or they can do what a number of states have already taken steps to do, end the practice on a state level, and opt out of the federal equitable sharing program as well.
FEDERAL LOOPHOLE
While final passage of HB748 would have significantly reformed Hawaii’s asset forfeiture laws, it failed to address a loophole that allows state and local police to get around more strict state asset forfeiture laws in a vast majority of situations. This is particularly important in light of a 2017 policy directive issued by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions for the Department of Justice (DOJ).
A federal program known as “Equitable Sharing” allows prosecutors to bypass more stringent state asset forfeiture laws by passing cases off to the federal government through a process known as adoption. The DOJ directive reiterates full support for the equitable sharing program, directs federal law enforcement agencies to aggressively utilize it, and sets the stage to expand it in the future.
Law enforcement agencies can circumvent more strict state forfeiture laws by claiming cases are federal in nature. Under these arrangements, state officials simply hand cases over to a federal agency, participate in the case, and then receive up to 80 percent of the proceeds. However, when states merely withdraw from participation, the federal directive loses its impact.
Until recently, California faced this situation. The state has some of the strongest state-level restrictions on civil asset forfeiture in the country, but state and local police were circumventing the state process by passing cases to the feds. According to a report by the Institute for Justice, Policing for Profit, California ranked as the worst offender of all states in the country between 2000 and 2013. In other words, California law enforcement was passing off a lot of cases to the feds and collecting the loot. The state closed the loophole in 2016.
The Hawaii legislature should close this loophole by effectively withdrawing from the federal program.
A local, county or state law enforcement agency shall not refer, transfer or otherwise relinquish possession of property seized under state law to a federal agency by way of adoption of the seized property or other means by the federal agency for the purpose of the property’s forfeiture under the federal Controlled Substances Act, Public Law 91 513-Oct. 27, 1970.under the federal Controlled Substances Act or other federal law.
In a case in which the aggregate net equity value of the property and currency seized has a value of $50,000 or less, excluding the value of contraband, a local, county or state law enforcement agency or participant in a joint task force or other multijurisdictional collaboration with the federal government (agency) shall transfer responsibility for the seized property to the state prosecuting authority for forfeiture under state law.
If the federal government prohibits the transfer of seized property and currency to the state prosecuting authority as required by paragraph (1) and instead requires the property be transferred to the federal government for forfeiture under federal law, the agency is prohibited from accepting payment of any kind or distribution of forfeiture proceeds from the federal government.
As the Tenth Amendment Center previously reported the federal government inserted itself into the asset forfeiture debate in California. The feds clearly want the policy to continue.
Why?
We can only guess. But perhaps the feds recognize paying state and local police agencies directly in cash for handling their enforcement would reveal their weakness. After all, the federal government would find it nearly impossible to prosecute its unconstitutional “War on Drugs” without state and local assistance. Asset forfeiture “equitable sharing” provides a pipeline the feds use to incentivize state and local police to serve as de facto arms of the federal government by funneling billions of dollars into their budgets.
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
