Gun Control, the Dick Act of 1902, Bills of Attainder & Ex Post Facto Laws

By Publius Huldah

The latest round of rubbish flooding our in boxes is an ignorant rant claiming that the Dick Act of 1902 (which respects our Right to be armed) can’t be repealed because to do so would “violate bills of attainder and ex post facto laws”.

Who dreams up this stuff? Does anyone check it out before they spread it around?

Of course we have the God-given right to keep and bear arms, to self-defense, etc., etc.  Our Declaration of Independence (2^nd para) recognizes that our Rights come from God and are unalienable.

The 2nd Amendment to our federal Constitution recognizes that this God-given right to keep and bear arms is to be free from any interference WHATSOEVER from the federal government.

Our Framers were all for an armed American People – they understood that arms are our ultimate defense in the event the federal government oversteps its bounds.  See, e.g., what James Madison, Father of Our Constitution, writes in the second half of Federalist Paper No. 46!  The reason the Citizens – the Militia – are armed is to defend ourselves, our families, our neighborhoods, communities, and States from an overreaching, tyrannical federal government.

Accordingly, the federal government is nowhere in the Constitution granted authority to restrict, in any fashion whatsoever, guns, ammunition, etc. Thus, ALL laws made by Congress, and ALL regulations made by the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, and Tobacco (ATF), are unconstitutional as outside the scope of the powers granted to Congress and to the Executive Branch by our Constitution. Regulation of arms and ammunition is NOT one of the “enumerated powers” delegated to Congress or the Executive Branch.

Furthermore, all pretended regulations made by the ATF are also unconstitutional as in violation of Art. I, Sec. 1, U.S. Constitution, which vests ALL legislative powers granted by the Constitution in CONGRESS.   Executive agencies have no lawful authority whatsoever to make rules or regulations of general application to The People!

In addition, the President and the Senate may not lawfully by treaty do anything the Constitution does not authorize them to do directly.   Since the Constitution does not authorize the federal government to disarm us, the federal government may not lawfully do it by Treaty.   See, http://publiushuldah.wordpress.com/2009/09/19/the-treaty-making-power-of-the-united-states/

But the assertion that one Congress may not repeal acts of a previous Congress is idiotic.

And the assertion that Congress can’t repeal the Dick Act because a repeal would “violate bills of attainder and ex post facto laws” shows that whoever wrote that doesn’t know what he is talking about. He obviously has no idea what a “bill of attainder” is, and no idea what an “ex post facto law” is.

This accurately explains what a “bill of attainder” is: http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/Bill-of-Attainder.htm

An “ex post facto” law RETROACTIVELY criminalizes conduct which was not criminal when it was done.

Say you barbequed outside last Sunday. That was lawful when you did it. Next month, Congress makes a pretended law which purports to retroactively criminalize barbequing outdoors. So, now, what you did is a crime (for which you are subject to criminal prosecution); even thou when you did it, it wasn’t a crime. That is an ex post facto law.

Now, say Congress passes a pretended law making possession of firearms a crime and ordering everyone to turn in their guns. Only if you do not turn in your guns will you have committed a “crime”.  That is not an ex post facto law because if you turn in your guns, you won’t be criminally prosecuted. The “crime” is the failure to turn in your guns – not the prior possession of guns.

Such a law would be totally UNCONSTITUTIONAL, because gun control is not one of the enumerated powers of Congress. Thus, the law would be outside the scope of the powers delegated to Congress.

It would also be unconstitutional as in violation of the 2nd Amendment.

But it would not be an ex post facto law.

People shouldn’t sling around terms, the meanings of which, they do not understand. It is immoral.

If TRUTH spread as rapidly as lies, our problems would have been resolved long ago.  But if People can come to love TRUTH more than they love the ignorant rubbish they circulate, perhaps it is not too late to restore our Constitutional Republic. PH

Endnote:

In Federalist Paper No. 84 (4^th para), Alexander Hamilton says re ex post facto laws (and of the importance of the writ of habeas corpus):

“…The creation of crimes after the commission of the fact, or, in other words, the subjecting of men to punishment for things which, when they were done, were breaches of no law, and the practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny…” PH

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Chicago: All American City?

CNS News quotes Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel as saying, “Chicago is the most American of American cities”. It’s not so much that I disagree with our illustrious Mayor, although I think he is premature in his evaluation. Chicago is what Wall Street would refer to as “a leading indicator”, but even in that, it is not number one. Cities like Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Detroit and New York City are other leading indicators, as are the states of Illinois, California and New Jersey. If you want to know what your city or state will be like in a few years, assuming the current trends continue, you only need to look at these leading indicators of our culture.

Chicago has the highest murder rate in the country, along with the most stringent gun control laws. Its schools are among the worst in the nation, which may explain why its former school Superintendent, Arne Duncan was tapped by Barack Obama to be his Secretary of Education. Chicago’s property, business, sales, gasoline and cigarette taxes are consistently among the highest in the nation. Along with the high taxes, Chicago continues to gouge its citizens with additional “fees” for city services such as, ambulance, parking, and public transportation. The Fiscal Times reports that Illinois leads the nation in citizen exodus following a recent 67% increase in the state’s income tax rate.

Chicago has always been a leader in our slide into socialism. As far back as 1889 a Nationalist Club, advocating for the nationalizing of the nation’s economy was formed in Chicago with famous attorney Clarence Darrow as its head. In 1927, the University of Chicago became the home of America’s first Humanist Fellowship. The U of C has been the Midwest center of the socialist/progressive movement since the turn of the nineteenth Century. It is not by coincidence that President Obama and a surprisingly large number of his closest advisors have their roots in the Chicago socialist/progressive community.

While Chicago has long been a breeding ground for liberals, socialists, communists, humanists, and progressives of every stripe, it is still a long way from being an “all American city” as the 2012 election map shows.

2012 Election Map by County

The electorate was fairly evenly divided in both the 2008 and 2012 elections. The problem was that not enough Republicans, represented by the red states  turned out in sufficient numbers to overcome the Democratic city machines located in the blue patches. Almost all of the (blue) areas where Democrats won in the ’08 and ’12 elections are located around major cities with Democratic Mayors and controlled by “machine politics”.  As this map shows, there is not a single state, with the exception of New England where the Democrats dominate the entire state.

In rural areas the “ground game” is not as effective in getting out the vote because the low population density makes person to person communication more difficult; and they are not as exposed to the constant bombardment of political advertising as those in “major markets”. Also, people in sparsely populated areas are not as affected by regional despots in their day-to-day lives as those in more densely populated areas, therefore they do not “feel” the urgency to vote or see the danger as clearly as their city cousins.

Before the next election we have to figure out how to get patriots in the rural areas of the country more organized and focused on the need for their participation in saving their country from the ravages of humanistic socialism. Tea anyone?

The Progressive Mind: Tactics

Why Are Progressives So Successful? Why Do Governments Collapse?
By David F. Delorey, Jr.
Political patronage is defined as the use of state resources to reward individuals for their electoral support. Progressives (American Socialists) use this approach, culling people by race, sex, religion, income, class and/or political affiliation, and then appealing to each group’s specific wants and desires, with the overall goal to cobble together a majority vote to get their Progressive politicians elected. In process, they promote and inculcate the need to band together with other Progressives and rebel against the “enemy” — the dastardly politicians, the rich, and the greedy corporations, who by no mere coincidence collectively represent a minority of the voting pool.

In practice, Progressives put forth the need for hasty “emergency” measures to combat the “enemy”, and justify these “temporary” needs for setting aside the requirements of the Republic’s Constitution and laws, presumably for the “greater good”. Fiscal restraint is a foreign concept to Progressives — there is rarely a mention of how the cost of their agenda bears upon government’s capacity to fund it. Often times their process oriented “emergency” measures have lofty goals and promises for results, delayed long into the future. Most of these measures lack clear implementation details, especially the negative elements, before such is enacted. This gives the Progressive the initial opportunity to claim a measure of success with “change”, then blame any failures on the “enemy”, which gives rise to the need for even more “emergency” measures to sustain combat with the “enemy”.

Claims by the “enemy” are often met with personal attacks against them when the “enemy” puts forth logical, sound and compelling evidence against the Progressive measures. Progressives prefer to focus on selecting “victims” to justify the expansion of the welfare state, rather than resolve issues using the traditional nature of people to provide charity. They achieve the goal of producing an expanded government by promoting the confiscation of wealth from one group to benefit another group in order to curry political favor. They rely heavily on redistribution of wealth as the key to success. However, the recipients of wealth redistribution often go not to the “victims”, but to the expansion of Progressive machinery creating more and more government control over the people. The economy worsens. No matter, the Progressive presses on -– such is the fault of the “enemy”, world events or political opponents — not them.

Progressives have powerful tools in their toolbox — they foster hatred, envy, blame, grievance and demands for entitlements to “victims.” Lost by them, is the American spirit embodied in the Declaration of Independence and a Constitution that encourages initiative, personal responsibility and the right to be free from an unlimited federal government. TEA Party patriots are the newest group of conservative “extremists” as defined by Progressives. This is entirely logical because Progressives oppose our Republic’s fundamental founding principles and ignore the Constitutional requirements which are inconsistent with the Progressive agenda. Their philosophy is a paradox of values -– it represents a body of political elements that collectively contradicts itself. One need look no further than our history books to learn that the Progressive march toward a utopian socialist state, facilitated by an expanded federal government, finds little respect for such as those, more or less fortunate, who lie outside of their political critical mass of potential voters, or for human life for such as the unborn.

The plain fact is that government is the actual “enemy” of the engine of growth and prosperity because it does not create wealth — it consumes it. Applying the Progressive’s goal to expand government results in incrementally punishing achievement and rewarding failure. Interference into business by a government that would confiscate business profits, enslaves producers of goods and services. Liberty and freedom become casualties. Plainly, jobs are reduced when government makes it more difficult for employers to earn success in a diminished level of free market opportunities. Big government has a compelling and sustained historical record of inefficiency in using resources and producing politically driven regulations.

These factors stand to undercut the tenets that the country was founded upon: fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government and free markets. And so it is that the more an economy is centrally planned by government, the further we move away from our founding principles which have kept us safe, free and economically stable. And there we have it -– the Progressive movement in America today is a quest to affect broader governmental powers over the individual; it is based on an insidious and
deceptive process which constantly seeks out “victims”, then divides the “victims” into discrete groups of voters, with focused promises to each group of their “fair share” level of largesse from the public treasury, or from such wealth confiscated from the “enemy”, in exchange for their vote for Progressive politicians.

The cycle continues with Progressives promising more largesse and blaming all promised failures on the dastardly “enemy” which accordingly justifies the need to vote for more Progressives. The cycle ends in bankruptcy – that is, when the treasury of the government can no longer support the levels of largesse demanded by the Progressives and their “victims.”

Conclusion: A politician who is committed to telling the truth in an election campaign will usually be defeated by a clever and resourceful purveyor of deception. That is why Progressives are so successful and that is why governments collapse.

– Copyright © September 25, 2012 – David F. Delorey, Jr.

Time To Wake Up, America

Perhaps nothing illustrates the depth of depravity and corruption to which the American political system and the American culture have sunk than the practice of deferred taxation. Our national debt today is $15,701,934,801,235. That amount equals a debt load of $50,100 per citizen and $138,300 per taxpayer. (U.S. Debt Clock)

Government does not have the means or the capacity to generate wealth. By its very nature, it can only consume wealth. The only income governments have for paying off debt or purchasing necessary goods or services for its operation is the wealth confiscated from citizens through taxation of one type or another, whether it is through overt taxation, fees, inflation, fines or other means of raising revenue.

Since all debts eventually come due and since this generation insists on living off borrowed money while refusing to pay the taxes necessary to support our leaders’ opulent life styles and prolific spending, or to defray the debt, that debt necessarily falls on future generations. This generational theft, or as Frederic Bastiat would no doubt call it if he were alive today, “generational plunder”, is both our national crime and our national sin. We are plundering the livelihood of our children, grandchildren and future generations in pursuit of the impossible utopian promises of the godless socialists that have infiltrated and now control our governments and our political parties.

Again to quote Bastiat, “…legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways. Thus we have an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs, protection, benefits, subsidies, encouragements, progressive taxation, public schools, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed profits, minimum wages, a right to relief, a right to the tools of labor, free credit, and so on, and so on. All these plans as a whole –with their common aim of legal plunder — constitute socialism…” ~Frederic Bastiat, 1801 – 1850; The Law, p. 15.

…With this in mind, examine the protective tariffs, subsidies, guaranteed profits, guaranteed jobs, relief and welfare schemes, public education, progressive taxation, free credit, and public works. You will find that they are always based on legal plunder, organized injustice.” ~Frederic Bastiat, 1801 – 1850; The Law, p. 21.

There are no innocents in this scenario. Both political parties, progressives, conservatives and even our beloved tea parties must share in the guilt. The Democrat Party has exploited the natural greed, jealousy and envy of its constituents to win votes by promising free food, clothing, medical care, education, loans, money, etc., all at the expense of other citizens. The gullibility, of what seems to be a majority of the American people, has allowed the Democrat Party and its socialist leadership to gain control over our government. They are using that power to destroy our cultural, economic and political institutions in order to replace them with socialist institutions that they believe will ultimately afford them total control over the lives and liberty of the American people.

The Republican Party has not escaped, by any means, the influence of socialism among its leadership. They may not be as taken in by the utopian mythology of socialism as their Democrat counterparts, but they are every bit as motivated by the lust for power as are the Democrats. In some ways, the Republican Party is even more devious than the Democrat Party. Democrats publicly reveal their intentions, depending on the apathy and gullibility of the American people and the ever-increasing financial dependency of their base, to return them to power. The Republican Party campaigns on conservative values promising to return America to its founding principles. However, once in office too many of them succumb to the perks and powers of office and become more intent on protecting and supporting the Party establishment so as not to risk their own coveted position than in their promises to the voters.

As we witnessed in the last several election cycles the Republican Party sometimes even seems willing to sacrifice the Presidency in order to maintain its dwindling power in Congress as well as in State and local government bodies. In primaries, they denigrate true conservative challengers, supporting candidates they believe will be most advantageous to the Party establishment. Once they have succeeded in winning their spot on the party ticket they drop the conservative façade they exhibited while campaigning and “move to the center” in order to hopefully gain the support of progressive republicans and the coveted “independents”. Once in office their sole consideration becomes how to hold onto the power they have won, perceiving that in order to do so they must kowtow to the Party leadership and support the establishment’s agenda. Their loyalty is to the Republican Party not to republican principles.

This lust for power, present in the breast of all professional politicians was the primary theme of debates during the Philadelphia Convention in 1787. For 84 hot, humid days during that Philadelphia summer from May 25 to September 17, the framers wrestled with the problem of how to organize a government that would protect the liberty and property of its citizens while preventing it from being overcome by its leaders’ desire for power. They succeeded in creating the most effective and practical plan of government ever devised, the United States Constitution. However, like all plans, it only works when it is followed. Our Constitution is incompatible with socialism. For that reason, the socialists among us have been working for over a hundred years to destroy it. They have almost accomplished their goal. Actions by the Supreme Court this summer and/or the actions of voters this fall could sound the death knell for our Constitutional Republic.

Conservatives generally recognize this truth and have fought valiantly for the past couple of years in an effort to reverse course. The problem is that not enough conservatives recognize or accept the remedies necessary to cure all our national ills. Take, for example, the tea parties. The sole focus of many tea parties is fiscal responsibility. Some add to that focus, political reform, calling for a return to the Constitution. A few even address the cultural decay so rampant in America today; this diversity in purpose results in a splintered effort that in the long run may have little effect on the outcome. Many fiscal conservatives often overlook blatant breaches of the Constitution in order to enjoy their share of the socialist pie. They like the taste of the pie, they just don’t like the price attached to it. At the same time, many fiscal conservatives and constitutional conservatives alike denigrate the values conservatives, believing those values would somehow disturb the enjoyment of their pleasures and harm the chances of realizing their political agenda.

The idea that voters “always vote their pocketbooks” when they go to the polls is perhaps the greatest fallacy of all. It is not their pocketbooks they are voting, it is the pocketbooks of future generations. As for themselves, they will never agree to the increase in taxes necessary to pay for their leaders’ prolific spending. For generations we have been returning the same professional politicians to office in election after election. Obviously this practice is not working. Our debt keeps growing, our tax bills keep going up and our standard of living continues to decline. Our social programs are bankrupt, our unemployment rate is higher than it has been in eighty years, and few can say they are better off, spiritually, financially, or physically today, than were past generations. We can attend protest meeting and march with our cleverly worded signs all we want, but the only protest that counts is that expressed at the ballot box.

To solve our problem we have to change our system. We have to change the way our government is run and the people who run it. Thankfully, the Founders gave us a way to do that at the ballot box and not on the battlefield. In November, we need to vote out as many of the professional politicians as possible, replacing them with patriots who have the courage, knowledge and understanding to bring about true reform. As we have pointed out before, the American system has three components, its political system, its economic system and it culture. It is useless to believe that we can reform any one or two parts of this system and leave the other as it is, and hope that we can secure a lasting cure for our ills.

We must have political reform that restores the rightful authority to our Constitution, replacing our corrupt and self-serving political parties with ones made up of true patriots who take their oath of office seriously and abide by it. We must have economic reform that rejects crony capitalism and replaces it with the true market capitalism that made America the most prosperous nation on earth for generations. Last, but by no means least, we must revive the American culture that made us the beacon of liberty and opportunity the world over. In short, we need a political, economic and spiritual revival if we are to survive as a free nation.

To realize this revival we must learn all over again to cherish and abide by our founding principles as set forth in our founding documents, the Bible, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. I have heard mothers threaten their errant offspring with the threat, — insincerely, of course — “I brought you into this world, and I can take you out.” America was brought into this world by the benevolent providence of God and therefore, it can be taken out by His judgment…. Think about it.

Balanced Budget Amendment May Be Only Way Out

I have been opposed to the Balanced Budget Amendment proposed in the Republican Cut Cap and Balance Bill for a number of reasons. The two most important ones are the probability of unintended consequences and the ongoing lawlessness of the federal government.

1. Unintended Consequences: We do not have a very good track record with attempts to improve on the Constitution left us by the Founders. The seventeen Amendments added to the Constitution since the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791 have consistently been used by progressive legislatures and courts to circumvent the intent of the Framers and assault the liberties of the people. The most onerous of these unintended consequences have been found in the Fourteenth Amendment.

Congress and the courts are peopled with lawyers whose stock in trade is their ability to find loopholes in legal documents. Even as I write this a number of Congressional Democrats are suggesting to the President that he “invoke” the Fourteenth Amendment and raise the debt ceiling without the approval of Congress. Even such concise language as that found in the First and Second Amendments have been twisted by progressives to infringe on the very liberties they were intended to protect.

Every unnecessary word in an amendment becomes fodder for progressives in their efforts to twist the Constitution to fit their socialist agenda. Based on our two hundred and twenty year history of Amendments, it is easy to predict that future Presidents and Congresses would claim the power of the purse for the Executive Branch rather than the people’s assembly where it has been throughout our history. They will also claim that the federal government is “entitled” and even “guaranteed” 18% of the money earned by citizens from their intellectual and physical labors for its use for any purpose it desires. These are only two of several possible unintended Consequences of the Proposed Amendment.

2. Wanton Lawlessness: The Constitution proclaims itself to be the “Supreme Law of the Land” governing the operations of the federal government. Every official in the federal, state, and local governments have taken an oath to preserve and defend it; many have done so multiple times as they move from office to office. However, until the rise of the patriot movements in the past few years and the constitution conservatives among its members, government officials have routinely ignored the constraints imposed by the Constitution whenever they were unable to find any previously undetected meanings to justify their progressive agenda. Constitutional lawlessness has been steadily growing for generations and has reached epidemic proportions in our own time. Our first and most important job in restoring the liberties we have lost is to return the federal government to its lawful place under the Constitution.

We now find ourselves on the abyss of extinction as a nation of peace, liberty, freedom and prosperity. Based on recent developments in the progressive’s attempts to bankrupt the treasury and impose a servitude of debt on future generations, a well-crafted Balanced Budget Amendment may be the only hope for saving “America as we know it.” It is likely that in the near term such an amendment would be adhered to until the ardor for constitutional government that is now strong among our citizens, cooled and lost its attraction.

However, any Balanced Budget Amendment passed and sent to the states, must be concise with no “wiggle-room” for politicians and lawyers to exploit. Section one of the proposed amendment seems to meet that criteria.

“Total outlays for any fiscal year shall not exceed total receipts for that fiscal year, unless two-thirds of the duly chosen and sworn Members of each House of Congress shall provide by law for a specific excess of outlays over receipts by a roll call vote.”

Everything else in the proposed amendment should be by statutory law — if necessary —  under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. Anything more is only inviting unintended consequences that will do more harm than good.

The value of such an Amendment will only be realized in the present crisis if it is used to force Congress and the President to curtail their unsustainable appetite for spending. Conservatives should hold fast to the demand that no increase in the government’s spending limit will be approved until a satisfactory Balanced Budget Amendment has been passed and submitted to the States for ratification. If the progressive Democrats maintain their “no compromise” position, they will be forced to downsize the federal government substantially when they run out of money to spend. That will cause major hardships for many, however, we are in a position much like the passengers on United Flight 93 over the hills of Pennsylvania, September 11, 2001. If we do nothing, we are going down as a nation. If we take a stand we may go down anyway, but if we succeed we can save the future for ourselves and our children and grandchildren.

Call or e-mail your Congressman today and urge them to hold out for a Balanced Budget Amendment as an uncompromising condition for raising the debt ceiling.

Rethinking The Debt Limit Farce

My first impression of Barack Obama when he appeared on the national political scene in 2008 was “why, he’s just a kid”.  I tried to convince myself that my impression of him was just one more sign I was getting old. After watching him for three years I am starting to think my first impression was right on target. Since being in office his hair has begun to turn grey — a good hair dresser can do that for you — and he is beginning to show signs of aging. However, his sense of responsibility and grasp of reality in the grown-up world is still that of a spoiled adolescent.

Unfortunately he does not have any adult supervision in Washington. His tantrums because those mean Republicans don’t think his allowance should be increased is reminiscent of the kid who creates a scene in the local super market because his mom balks at buying him that goodie he jut saw on the shelf. When that happens in real life, observers are always more critical of the parent because of the evident lack of discipline they enforce. Most of the time, the real problem is that the parent herself or himself has no self-discipline of their own to draw on. That’s why the debate over the debt ceiling is such a farcical exercise in absurdity.

The Founders expected that Congress would provide the adult discipline for the federal government. It’s time for Congress to stop behaving toward the President like the doting parents of an out of control teen-ager and start exercising the Constitutional discipline over the nation‘s budget the Framers expected. The excessive spending in Washington does not originate in the White House, but in Congress. The debt ceiling was never intended to control the spending habits of the President. That would be absurd because the President does not have the freedom to spend money on anything he wishes unless Congress allows it.

Article 1, Section 9, Clause 7 of the Constitution says, “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.”

I have been called many things, but I have never been called an Obama Supporter or a progressive. Nevertheless, it is grossly irresponsible and disingenuous to blame President Obama alone for America’s current fiscal problems. That blame lies squarely at the doorstep of Congress, more particularly, at the feet of the Democratic leadership in Congress and the spineless Republicans who go along with their socialist utopian fantasy that all problems can be solved and economic equality among the people can be realized through redistributive policy.

The level of the debt ceiling is immaterial. It could be raised tomorrow to $20 trillion and neither diminish or amplify the problem in Washington. Regardless of the debt limit the Executive Branch and the Treasury Department can only spend money that has been appropriated by Congress. The Constitution is clear on this point “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law;”

We need to be clear on exactly which part of the government is responsible for out of control spending and in the final analysis, it is not the Executive Branch. Article I, Sections 7, 8, and 9 gives total control over the nation’s Treasury to Congress, in particular the House of Representatives. The House and only the House has the power to levy taxes, appropriate funds, or borrow money on the credit of the United States.

It’s time for Speaker Boehner, Minority Leader McConnell; et al to grow up and take on the responsibility the American people gave them when they elected them to Congress. Getting rid of Obama in 2012 is not going to solve our fiscal problems unless we also get rid of the progressives (American Socialists) on both sides of the aisle in Congress at the same time. And when we change Congress we have to be sure we only elect candidates who will take seriously their oath to honor and defend the Constitution.

Who Enforces The Constitution?

By Jerry McDaniel

The number of people calling for Constitutional Amendments and Conventions seems to be growing along with America’s increasing dissatisfaction with Barack Obama and the direction his administration is taking the country. I have never quite understood the call for adding more amendments to the Constitution, but since so many of our fellow citizens seem to think that would solve our problems, why not give it a try.

We could start with an amendment listing what it is that we want the government to do for us, and then we could add one forbidding them to pass laws not related to those functions. How about one that says government cannot tax us except for what is necessary to carry out the functions listed? While we are at it, why not pass an amendment allowing us to keep firearms for the protection of our families and perhaps even allowing us to carry them when we go out in public? We could also pass an amendment forbidding government to interfere with our right to express our own mind when it comes to politics and religion. In fact, we could just tell the government our religious practices are none of its business. We could also pass an amendment that allows only Congress to make law, not the President, bureaucrats or judges.

My point is that calling for more constitutional amendments is like Mayor Daley of Chicago asking for more gun control laws to control crime. It is obvious that criminals who commit crimes with firearms are not particularly intimidated by laws against robbery, murder, assault and so on. So why would we expect them to be intimidated by more laws against guns. The same thing applies to adding more amendments to the constitution in the hope that they will in some way influence what government does. Adding another amendment to the Constitution is simply adding another law to regulate government to those already contained in the Constitution.

Any law is effective only when there is a very real likelihood that a penalty will be exacted for its violation. When the criminal knows there is little chance of their being punished for what they do, the fact that it is illegal will not prevent them from committing the crime. The same thing is true with members of government. The Constitution, along with its amendments is the law for government; therefore it applies mainly to politicians and government officials. The only penalty for its violation is removal from office, either through impeachment or through the ballot box. Expecting Congress to impeach its members for violating the Constitution is like deputizing Jesse James to apprehend train robbers or John Dillinger to arrest bank robbers.

The reason illegal immigration is the problem it is today is because those who are responsible for enforcing immigration law are not doing their job. Most thinking Americans realize that simply adding more laws will not correct the problem. The reason government’s violation of the Constitution is the problem it is, is because those responsible for enforcing it are not doing their job. Virtually every elected official who has been in office for any length of time is guilty of violating the Constitution. It is a crime to violate the Supreme Law of the Land, and yet, ninety to ninety-five percent of all incumbent politicians are returned to office by the voters to continue their criminal activities.

It is not the role of the Supreme Court or the Justice Department to enforce the Constitution any more than it is responsibility of drivers to enforce traffic laws. It is their duty to follow the law not to enforce it. When it comes to the enforcement of the Constitution, we, as voters, are the Prosecutor, Jury, Judge and Executioner. We are solely responsible for enforcing the rule of law on government. Until the American people realize and accept this fact, we can add all the amendments we want to the Constitution and it will make no difference. As long as we shirk our duty as the watchdogs of government, we have no right to expect someone else to do our work for us.

The voters of Arizona, while bemoaning the out-of-control problem with illegal immigration, again nominated John McCain as their candidate for Senate in the November elections. McCain has been one of the leading advocates for “comprehensive immigration reform” and amnesty for years. Illinois voters nominated progressive Mark Kirk as their candidate, again one of the most constitutionally criminal republicans on the ballot. Are we really sincere when we demand a return to Constitutional government and then go into the voting booth on Election Day and vote for a candidate that we know from experience, will not honor his oath of office and defend the Constitution?

The Enemy Within

The next two elections are going to be critical to the survival of America, as we know it, politically, economically and culturally. Domestic enemies threaten America, as founded and represented in its founding documents, as never before. That threat is focused in the Democrat Party that now controls the White House and both Houses of Congress. For generations the Executive and Legislative Branches of government, with the aid of the Judicial Branch at critical junctures of change, have colluded to shift the day-to-day administration of government to unelected and unaccountable bureaucracies.

This departure from the Founders’ concept of government, based on the sovereignty of the people and accountable to them, has placed us on the road to despotism. With the institutions of government gradually shifted to the control of unelected progressives throughout the national bureaucracy, ordinary citizens have less say in the domestic policies of their government.

Our domestic enemies are not exclusive to either of the two major political parties. Both the Republican Party and the Democrat Party are infiltrated with progressive statists whose primary goal is to control the destiny of America. Both parties depend on the active support of voters in order to maintain their power. Historically, voters have supported those whose election seems most likely to benefit them personally rather than the country as a whole. Since most voters only pay attention to politics during the few months leading up to elections, it is easy for candidates to make promises in broad general terms knowing they will be unable to fulfill those promises after election. The promises, which are soon forgotten, become more important than their fulfillment, to both the voter and the official elected.

While both parties are complicit in America’s possible collapse, it is the Democrats and their progressive voter base that bears the primary responsibility for our present political crisis. In order to prevent the complete collapse of our way of life, it is necessary for constitution loyalists to take back control of their government. The first step has to be control of one of the two major parties. Since the Republican Party is less influenced by progressivism than the Democrat Party, it is the logical one to pursue. Progressivism in the Republican Party exists mostly in the professional political class that we most often refer to as the Party Establishment. The Party base is made up mostly of conservatives, but it is the establishment that selects the candidates.

The control exercised by the Party over the primary process assures that, more often than not, the candidates whose name appears on the ballot is the establishment candidate and not the base’s candidate. In the general election voters choose between voting for a less than desirable candidate, not voting, voting for the opposition candidate or voting for a third party candidate. The despotic nature of progressivism has become so apparent to the average conservative voter during the Obama administration they are no longer willing to tolerate “business as usual” from their elected representatives. The coming elections will either be the turning point in American politics or the end of (small “r”) republicanism. The determining factor will be the conservative vote.

While all Constitution loyalists are conservatives, not all conservatives are Constitution loyalists. However, it is my belief that all conservatives have an instinctive affinity to constitution principles once they understand them. We have to build on that inclination over the next few weeks to make sure that as many conservatives as possible are expressing a loyalty to the Constitution and not a loyalty to the Party when they go to the polls. As the Roman Statesman, Marcus Tullius Cicero pointed out centuries ago,

“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation”.

Will Third Parties Spoil the 2010 and 2012 Elections For Republicans?

“Those who refuse to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it.” ~Santayana

An increasing number of conservatives and misguided patriots are considering supporting a third party in the 2010 and 2012 elections.  The traditional home of conservatives, the Republican Party, has been courting “moderates” for years, ignoring its conservative base. The Republican establishment is convinced that moderates are the key to winning elections because they believe only moderates can attract the independent voters necessary to win any election. Experience has shown this to be an erroneous assumption on the part of Republicans. On a level playing field moderates lose every time. Voters tend to gravitate to candidates with a clear set of values and the ability to articulate them.

As long as the main stream media keep promoting the moderate myth and party leaders keep believing it, the Republican Party will continue promoting moderates. Party leaders, like their counterparts in private business are always trying to increase “market share”. They do this by protecting the incumbents already in office and attempting to add to their share by gaining seats currently held by the opposition party. Both parties practice this tactic.  Democrats running in Republican districts try to sound conservative and Republicans running in Democrat districts try to sound progressive. The problem is that too many candidates on the Republican side actually are progressive Republicans.

Conservatives have become fed up with this game that ends up giving them a choice in the general election between a progressive Republican and a progressive Democrat. That is one reason why so many are considering a Third Party. Third parties have played an important role in American political history, but they do not win elections. That is not because they do not have good ideas; it is because of the “winner take all” system set up by the Founders. Whether it requires a majority to win or a plurality, the end result is the same. One of the two major parties win and third parties only become spoilers for the one most closely aligned with its own position.

The first candidate to run for President on a third party ticket was William Wirt in 1832, running on the Antimasonic ticket.  He got a whopping 7 electoral votes out of the 286 cast. John Floyd, running as an independent (no party) in the same election got 11 votes by comparison. The two major party candidates at the time, Democrat Andrew Jackson and National Republican Henry Clay, got 219 and 49 electoral votes respectively. The most successful third party candidates in Presidential elections were Theodore Roosevelt running on the Progressive Party ticket in 1912, Strom Thurmond running on the States Rights Democratic ticket in 1948, and George Wallace running on the American Independent ticket in 1968. State and local politics are different than Presidential politics because of the Electoral College, but the results are the same.

Third parties have succeeded in winning a smattering of elective offices at the state and local level out of the tens of thousands there are nationwide. Although third parties have had limited success in electing state and local candidates, those successes have always proven temporary, lasting only until the “Peter Principle” kicks in and they reach their level of incompetence. To understand the dynamics of third party influence, we have only to look at two modern examples of groups that have exercised a substantial influence over American politics.

Although the tea party movement is not a political party, no one can deny that they are having a tremendous influence on the political establishment in America today. They give us one of the models of the dynamics at work when third parties are effective in molding public opinion to their cause. The other model comes from the opposite end of the political spectrum, the Democratic Socialists of America.  What do these two groups have in common? Both have a remarkable influence in American politics, yet neither nominate candidates of their own. Instead they wield their influence by backing like-minded candidates in one of the two major parties; the tea parties in the Republican Party and the socialists in the Democrat Party.

To understand how effective this tactic is, consider the testimony of the Democratic Socialist of America itself as expressed in the Q & A section of their website.

Q. Aren’t you a party that’s in competition with the Democratic Party for votes and support?

A. No, we are not a separate party. Like our friends and allies in the feminist, labor, civil rights, religious, and community organizing movements, many of us have been active in the Democratic Party. We work with those movements to strengthen the party’s left wing, represented by the Congressional Progressive Caucus. (emphasis added)

The process and structure of American elections seriously hurts third party efforts. Winner-take-all elections instead of proportional representation, rigorous party qualification requirements that vary from state to state, a presidential instead of a parliamentary system, and the two-party monopoly on political power have doomed third party efforts. We hope that at some point in the future, in coalition with our allies, an alternative national party will be viable. For now, we will continue to support progressives who have a real chance at winning elections, which usually means left-wing Democrats.”

Using this tactic, progressives (American socialists) have succeeded in taking over the Democrat Party and now control the White House and both branches of Congress.  Conservatives do not need to reinvent the wheel, they simply need to follow the example of the tea parties and the socialists. In the end, as the socialists have discovered, third party candidacies always prove counter productive to their own goals. It is difficult to argue with the lessons of history.  The lesson is there and well stated by the DSA. We can only hope that conservatives learn it before it is too late.

For a discussion of the DSA’s role in giving us Barack Obama, see our post from a year ago, “Obama’s Four Year Plan”

Unintended Gift From a Democrat Patriot

I was looking at my blog stats today and noticed that several visitors came from a particular site. I clicked on the site and was directed to what seemed to be an anti-tea party website called KnoxViews. One of their discussion subjects was the question, “Are the Tea Baggers domestic terrorists?”

Since that is a common theme today in the media, I thought I would check out some of the discussion. Half way through the comments I ran into a post by an “Eric Pearson for Congress”. The title of his comment was “I Can Tell You the Tea Party are not Progressives”.  After reading the first couple of sentences I realized he had copied verbatim my post “Progressivism: Philosophy of Evil” in total, and pasted it in the comments section on “Knox Views”.

Now my curiosity is really aroused.  At the end of the post there was a link to the Democratic Reform Party .  Naturally, I followed the link. If you like surprises, I suggest you do the same.  Anyway, I found this video on the DRP site, and turn about is fair play, so, I plagiarized it.  It’s a great video and sure to encourage  Constitution loving patriots.  I encourage you spend the three minutes required to watch it.

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Our thanks to Eric Pearson