There is a secession movement afoot and its proponents are determined to put a halt to the federal governments ambitions to destroy and reconstruct an entire economy and dissolve the last remnants of individual liberty. Twenty-eight states are invoking the law of the land, the U.S. Constitution, by rolling out legislation to assert their sovereignty as free states in order to keep from being undermined by the never-ending swarm of unrestrained federal decrees. The speed with which the federal government intends to take over private institutions and usurp states rights and individual autonomy is unprecedented. When the Bush-Obama regime maneuvers are compared to the Hoover-FDR New Deal era, it looks like todays hare vs. yesterdays turtle. The states various propaganda arms, from big media to institutionalized special interest forces, are being empowered to publicize and sell the agenda of the totalitarian state by painting it in glossy colors that warm the hearts of unresisting Americans. There are, however, growing pockets of dissenters who conclude that life, liberty, property, and the futures of their children are more important than the trivial things that occupy the minds of the submissive class. For that reason, the states militarized police force, which has been given unparalleled powers by the contrived crises following 9-11, has snowballed in size and is being fortified in expectation of confronting rebellion from those citizens who intend to resist the tyranny of an over-reaching Leviathan. Since the Bush II regime took control and 9/11 became its launch pad for sweeping hegemony, the police state has moved more swiftly than ever to demonize resistance and criminalize dissent. The most recent example is the Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC) report that profiled individuals according to their political convictions, especially those ideas that agitate against the institutionalization of unconstitutional acts that are intended to grow state power at the expense of individual liberties. Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin, Bob Barr (!), guns & ammo, taxes, the Federal Reserve, secession, and resistance to universal government service or anti-privacy actions all of those topics have become keywords in the crusade to criminalize individuals who refuse to be rounded up like cattle and marched toward serfdom. Two years ago, a similar thing happened in Alabama when its Homeland Security Department released a report pigeonholing freedom activists as "anti-government types" who "claim that the U.S. government is infringing on their individual rights, and/or that the government's policies are criminal and immoral." Such groups, the report said, "May hold that the current government is violating the basic principles laid out by the U.S. Constitution" Dont bother to look up that report, however, because LewRockwell.com blogger Chris Brunners post on the Alabama report spread like wildfire round the Internet, resulting in that report being pulled from the website. In addition, the MIAC report was quickly stifled by hordes of liberty activists, leading Chuck Baldwin to say, "the most effective way to fight an ever-encroaching federal leviathan is to focus on our individual states." The struggle for sovereignty, though begun on the part of spontaneous individuals with leanings toward the radical principles of our nations founding, has reached state legislatures across America in the form of sovereignty bills. According to the Christian Science Monitor, twenty-eight states are now commencing resolutions as a reaction to the sudden and massive expansion of federal powers. Even the Republic of Lakotah is declaring its withdrawal from all treaties and agreements imposed on it by the US government. The notion of state secession, once written off as a subject matter for political crackpots and eccentrics, has become a legitimate and practical solution for undoing the years of accumulated assaults on individual liberty that has come from the centralized state.
With revolutionary die-hards behind him, Mr. Pitts has fired a warning shot across the bow of the Washington establishment. As the writer of one of 28 state "sovereignty bills" one even calls for outright dissolution of the Union if Washington doesn't rein itself in Pitts is at the forefront of a states' rights revival, reasserting their say on everything from stem cell research to the Second Amendment. And although Pitts [state rep from South Carolina] hails from Abbeville, the place where the South's first secession votes were cast, he insists that today's efforts to check federal power aren't limited to regional pockets or even political affiliation. "The mainstream media would portray some of us as rednecks, whether we're from Pennsylvania, Oregon, or South Carolina," says Pitts. "But this is a wake-up call. And if Washington doesn't heed that wake-up call, revolution is on the horizon."
That is from a recent issue of the Christian Science Monitor. Walter Williams, a respected academic and popular, syndicated columnist, declared this in his most recent column:
Our Colonial ancestors petitioned and pleaded with King George III to get his boot off their necks. He ignored their pleas, and in 1776, they rightfully declared unilateral independence and went to war. Today it's the same story except Congress is the one usurping the rights of the people and the states, making King George's actions look mild in comparison. Our constitutional ignorance perhaps contempt, coupled with the fact that we've become a nation of wimps, sissies and supplicants has made us easy prey for Washington's tyrannical forces. But that might be changing a bit. There are rumblings of a long overdue re-emergence of Americans' characteristic spirit of rebellion.
Emory Professor and constitutional scholar Don Livingston notes, in his Secessionist Paper No. 19: What is Secession?, "talk about secession makes Americans nervous. For many it evokes images of the Civil War, and is emotionally (if not logically) tied to slavery, war, and anarchy. That the word "secession" is laden with these negative connotations should be surprising since America was born in an act of secession." He goes on to describe secession as an act that "does not seek to overthrow or alter the government of a modern state, but seeks merely to limit its jurisdiction over the seceding territory." But still, the negative connotations of secession live on, even within some libertarian circles. Perhaps the most puzzling thing I keep hearing from some libertarians is that those of us who adhere to secessionist ideas are wacky outliers who offer no value "to the movement," and instead, we only throw up red flags that warn others to avoid us, and libertarianism as a whole. Thus we are led to believe that our founding fathers, the architects of rebellion and the champions of Jeffersonian principles, were reactionary wackos. The anti-radical libertarians ask for practical solutions, with "practical" being the code word for something that is acceptable to the majority of the Oprahized masses. This kind of thought is known as "libertarian lite," or as I call it, "car wash libertarianism." The car wash libertarians persuade others especially those new to libertarianism to stay away from the radical, "crazy" stuff and hold true to the agenda of getting "our people" elected through legitimate political means. The car wash libertarians still have a voice in the modern LP, which is also known as GOP 2.0. These libertarians are in the game not for reasons of deep-rooted principles and love of liberty, but for the social, bonding aspects, with some mild libertarianism sprinkled on the side. They love attending their local meetings and dinners each month and discussing who is going to run for what local post, and when, and applying strategy. How fun it all is. City council or board of county commissioners? Now those are appointments that will have a significant impact upon an America that is quickly descending into a Communistic hellhole. Truth is, the car wash libertarians will be the ones cowering in a corner the day they come for our guns (under a massive, federal gun control act) and our children (under federal, child "protective services" laws or a national service act). But they may have a post or two at some tiny township, with such important duties as arranging for an annual dinner at the VFW or setting up the car wash fundraiser to pay for new lamp posts along Main Street. The car wash libertarians tend to have scant knowledge of history, monetary policy, constitutional disputes, and the political philosophers who have, over the years, defended states' rights and the natural rights of the individual against the totalitarian, centralized state. In fact, they tend to shy away from the intellectual life because it's not as fun, or as social, as the monthly meetings and supper club invites. In spite of the radicalism of many of the early LPers, in 30+ years the LP has made no advances whatsoever, except that a few of them hold feeble local offices where it is their brand of politics in charge as versus the other guy's rules. One guys coercion in place of another guys coercion offers us no progress whatsoever in terms of quelling the federal expansion that is speedily choking off life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The rapid-fire socialization of America, I hope, will have the effect of turning many of these libertarians toward more radical plans of action. The Feds are engaged in a sweeping series of measures to take complete control of the financial system (which is forever destroyed) and selected business entities; ratchet up plans for perpetual war; socialize health care; further implant federalized education and criminalize homeschooling; grab guns and ammo; remove children from the homes of dissenters; commence race wars and class wars; force young adults into mandatory state service camps; send protesters to FEMA camps; and on and on and on. At this point, none of this can be undone through time-consuming, political means. Rahm Emanuel, Eric Holder, and the other agents of Obama's unfreedom brigade were brought to Washington D.C. for one very specific purpose: to centralize every last bit of property and life and put it all under federal rule, from money to education to personal behavior. Note the condescending and arrogant behavior of King Obama on the 60 Minutes television show as he laughed at the inability of majority opinion to do a damn thing to stop his freight train of power grabs and federal takeovers. Perhaps the most significant move on the part of the Feds, outside of crushing the free market through rapid nationalization, is the move on the part of the centralizers to extinguish the single most important characteristic of a free society the right to bear arms. A society in which individuals cannot bear arms is a society doomed to eternal serfdom and oppression from self-serving overlords. Attorney General Eric Holder has long been an advocate of snuffing out gun rights, yet he got through the confirmation process with nothing more than a few feeble whimpers from helpless Republicans playing partisan games. Even worse is a recent occurrence that is perhaps unprecedented on the part of modern presidential administrations. Rahm Emanuel, in his capacity as Chief of Staff, is being utilized outside of his official role and is acting in the role of propagandist by lobbying for absolute and unconditional gun control. Emanuel, an Israeli citizen, is attempting to target gun owners by categorizing them in terms that will brand them as terrorists (the governments favorite buzz word) in the eyes of their fellow Americans. Yet there has been no challenge to Emanuel for stepping outside his role and becoming an official flag-bearer for the disarming of America. Gun rights is one of the most visible issues causing states to retreat and claim the federal government has gone way beyond its limits. In Montana, elected officials have signed a resolution declaring that any ruling by the Federal government on the Second Amendment violates its statehood contract. In fact, Montanans are moving to add more lenient concealed weapons laws to whats already on the books. In Tennessee, state Senator Doug Jackson, a Democrat, has filed legislation that would ban the sale of micro-stamped firearms and ammunition. Such laws will mean a federal registry of gun owners, and Jackson calls this insanity "a preamble to gun confiscation." The other prime mover spurring claims of sovereignty on the part of states is rejection of the Federal Reserve and its illiberal policies that enslave the citizens of states by locking them into its inflationary fiat money machinations and debases their currency. Legislators in some states, such as Georgia and Montana, have agitated in favor of throwing off the Federal Reserve in favor of instituting a sound money policy advocating the use of gold and silver as opposed to the Feds legal tender notes. In Montana, Representative Bob Wagner introduced a sound money bill (HB 639), though it later died in committee along partisan lines. As times go on and the economic landscape becomes even gloomier, we are more likely to see many more of these kinds of initiatives on the part of state legislatures. Gold, as such, is a tool for protection against the collapse of the dollar, which is why opponents of the Federal Reserve desire to buy it and hold it. Guns are the tools with which you defend yourself, not only from the local criminal who wants what you have, but even more so, they provide free men with the capability for physical resistance from a federal government whose expansion of powers and oppressive tactics are out of control. Think Rahm Emanuel and Eric Holder, and ask why it is that they champion an agenda that puts guns only into the hands of the government and its approved agents. The only way to get this oppressive tyrant known as the federal government off our back is to break away from it and start anew. That twenty-eight states are starting to fan the flames of rebellion by moving towards a sovereign itinerary is fairly remarkable. States and people must declare their sovereignty and remove the tentacles of the federal government's oppressive laws from their necks. Only a breakup of this monstrous and out-of-control, despotic giant can restore freedom and keep us all from descending further into the federal governments grip.
April 1, Anno Domini 2009
Karen De Coster [send her mail] is a Certified Public Accountant, has an MA in Economics, and works in finance and accounting in the securities industry. See her website and her blog.
For many years, the peoples attention in the Battle for America has been directed toward the federal government and its offices. Candidates stand for the House and the Senate. Patriotic groups publish voting records of incumbents. Considerable time, effort and money are expended in support of candidates for President. After decades of such commendable activity, the record shows it is an utter failure. The danger to the nation is worse than it ever was.
For many of those years, Republicrud bosses whined that if the people would only give them control of the federal government, they would undo Democrud damage and restore Free Enterprise. Finally, the people gave it to them. Remember? The Republicruds controlled the House, the Senate and the Oval Office long enough to turn the country around. What happened? The Republicruds made our problems much worse. Their spending made the profligate drunken sailor look like Scrooge. They deserved it when the people kicked them out. They lost all credibility.
Yes, there is Dr. Ron Paul. But Dr. No is a political aberration. Time and again, he stands alone. He has neither mens room problems nor woman problems. He doesnt take congressional retirement. He actually returns money (computer entries) to the federal treasury. He proposes abolishing the Fed and the income tax and replacing them with nothing. In foreign affairs he suggests that we mind our own business. Imagine! But, again, he is an aberration.
Why? Certainly one reason has to be that we ship the successful congressional candidate off to the District of Corruption. However good the new congressman may have been when he or she boarded the plane to the District; he is subjected to intoxicating blandishments when he arrives in the enemy camp.
Soon, he succumbs to the blandishments, maybe even making himself blackmailable, and begins to vote as the party boss says, without even reading the bills. Instead of representing the people of his congressional district in the District of Criminals, he represents the D.C. to the C.D. He or she now is one of the boys or the girls. It has happened hundreds of times.
So, if the long, heroic effort to elect federal legislators has failed, does there remain any governmental Horatius who can stand in the gap; who can lead the Battle for America and restore the Constitution? There is. Lock and load, mount up and prepare for the return of the sheriff.
My guess is that in the minds of many Americans the sheriff is an antiquated figure who lives in the movies. In the older movies he is the hero; he is Gary Cooper in High Noon, awaiting the train that will bring killer Frank Miller back to town. In the new ones, he is the southern sheriff, even bigger than Rosie ODonnell, sneering, sadistic, racist, violent, etc. He has no modern relevance.
But now here comes Sheriff Richard Mack, elected and re-elected in Graham County, Arizona, where he served for eight years. During his tenure, three federal agents came to a meeting of Arizona sheriffs and told them in certain terms how they would be dragooned as unpaid federal bureaucrats and administer the new, federal Brady gun registration law.
The law was named of course for Ronald Reagans press secretary, who was severely wounded in the immensely suspicious attempt to assassinate the President. Since then, Mrs. Brady has become a leader of the campaign for Nazi gun confiscation. I dont know whether she was as crazy before the shootings as she is now. Just one more increment of lunacy and they would have to lock her up.
Richard Mack and the other Arizona sheriffs at the meeting rebelled. Sheriff Richard says the language he heard in which he did not participate could not be repeated in the presence of genteel Christian ladies, so we cant tell you here what the sheriffs said. But Sheriff Mack did take the government to court. He sued the United States, and Sheriff Jay Printz of Montana joined him as plaintiff.
On June 27th, 1997, the sheriffs won; in Printz v. U.S. (521 U.S. 898) the U.S. Supreme Court struck Brady down. Associate Justice Antonin Scalia wrote the ruling for the Court, in which he explained our system of government at length. The justly revered system of checks and balances is the key:
. . . The great innovation of this design was that our citizens would have two political capacities, one state and one federal, each protected from incursion by the other a legal system unprecedented in form and design, establishing two orders of government, each with its own direct relationship, its own privity, its own set of mutual rights and obligations to the people who sustain it and are governed by it. (P. 920)
Scalia quotes President James Madison, father of the Constitution: [T]he local or municipal authorities form distinct and independent portions of the supremacy, no more subject, within their respective spheres, to the general authority than the general authority is subject to them, within its own sphere. The Federalist, No. 39 at 245.
Again and again, Justice Scalia pounds the point home (page 921): This separation of the two spheres is one of the Constitutions structural protections of liberty: Just as the separation and independence of the coordinate branches of the Federal Government serve to prevent the accumulation of excessive power in any one branch, a healthy balance of power between the States and the Federal Government will reduce the risk of tyranny and abuse from either front.. . . Gregory, 501 U.S. at 458.
He quotes President Madison again: In the compound republic of America, the power surrendered by the people is first divided between two distinct governments, and then the portion allotted to each subdivided among distinct and separate departments. Hence a double security arises to the rights of the people. The different governments will control each other, at the same time that each will be controlled by itself. (P. 922)
No one could make this any clearer. The primary purpose of the Fathers was to prevent someone from grabbing all the power. When that happens, they knew, the result is arbitrary, confiscatory, government, the kind Tom Jefferson described in the Declaration of Independence. We would call it totalitarian.
Madison explains: The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. Federalist No. 48, February 1, 1788.
To prevent that from happening, they divided the power. First, they divided the federal power into three parts: the executive, the legislative and the judicial. They would bicker among themselves, so that no one of them could seize all the power the Constitution grants to the federal government.
The Founders divided the power even more. They set the limited power the Constitution grants the general authority, Madisons term for the federal government, against the vast residual powers of the states. Each sphere of government, state and federal, would be supreme in its own sphere. Neither could control the other. Each protects itself from intervention by the other. Each has its own laws and rules.
Madison says this: Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Loc. Cit.
What does all this mean today in the Battle for America? Sheriff Mack says it proves that the sheriff is the highest governmental authority in his county. Within that jurisdiction inside his county the sheriff has more power than the governor of his state. Indeed, the sheriff has more power in his county than the President of the United States. In his county, he can overrule the President and kick his people out. Remember, the President has few and limited powers.
What? The sheriff can do that? Hes not just a character in a movie? Thats right. Not only can the sheriff do that; sheriffs have already done that, more than once. Most Americans are not aware of that because lying, conspiracy scumbags like Rush Humbug, Shallow Sean Hannitwerp and Hugh Blewitt (a lawyer) etc., havent told them.
Remember, the office of sheriff has a pedigree so long, we are not positive about when it was created. We think it was in the Ninth Century in England. We do know that each land district, or shire, was governed by a reeve. The sheriff of Nottingham became famous. At first, the king appointed them. With few exceptions, our American shire reeves are elected by the people.
In 1997, in Nye County, Nevada, federal agents arrived to seize cattle that belonged to rancher Wayne Hage. The sheriff gave them a choice: skedaddle or be arrested. They skedaddled. The cows stayed where they were. Wyoming sheriffs have told federal agencies they must check with the respective sheriff before they serve any papers, make any arrests or confiscate any property.
In Idaho, a 74-year-old rancher shot an endangered gray wolf which had killed one of his calves. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service sent three armed agents to serve a warrant. Lemhi County Sheriff Brett Barslou said that was inappropriate, heavy-handed and dangerously close to excessive force. More than 500 people turned out for a rally in the small towns of Challis and Salmon to support the sheriff and the rancher and to tell the federal government to back off.
While Richard Mack was sheriff of Graham County, Arizona, a bridge washed out. Parents had to drive twenty six miles to get their kids to school half a mile across the river. But the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers wouldnt fix it. First they had to do an environmental impact study, to replace a bridge already there. They were in no hurry. The study would take a mere ten years.
The peoples suffering reached the board of supervisors. The board voted to dredge the river and fix the bridge. The feds warned that they would be fined $50,000 per day if they tried. The supervisors hesitated. Sheriff Mack promised them and the workers protection and pledged to call out a posse for the purpose if necessary. They built the bridge and the Corps of Engineers faded. The board never paid a dime.
So the long dormant spirit of America is reviving. The states are beginning to adopt Tenth Amendment resolutions, using powers they have always had. The people are restoring our long unbalanced constitutional system. There is something blowin in the wind, but it isnt what Bob Dylan thought it was. Recently, Sheriff Mack addressed 570 people in Fredericksburg, Texas. He reports that the reception was beyond fantastic.
What can you do? For once we are not just complaining. There is a plan. I do not argue that you should forget about Congress. Not at all; if you see an opportunity there, take it. Always remember that right now it is run by people like Barney the Bugger of Taxachusetts, who will be elected by moronth in hith dithtrict until he dieth of AIDS.
Most of the time, when you approach your congressman, you come to complain. In the new crusade, you will approach your sheriff and tell him that he is not only handsome, charming and overwhelmingly masculine, but also that he has powers he may not be aware of. You have come to tell him what they are and to back him up. My guess is, when you tell him that, he will not kick you out.
Tell him you expect him to return the courtesy when the Nazis come from the District of Criminals to get the guns. Tell him you are ready in a minute to serve under his direction in a posse. He will not move to Washington and be corrupted. He will stay there with you. Show him the ten orders the Oath Keepers will not obey. The Oath Keepers are retired and active duty military and police. Their web site is oath-keepers.blogspot.com. The first order they promise to disobey is an order to disarm you.
Put him together with Sheriff Mack. You will find him at sheriffmack.com. His telephone numbers are 928 792-4340 and 928 792-3888. Bring the sheriff to your town to speak. He will explain all this. Invite your own sheriff. At the meeting I attended, the local sheriff and chief of police were there and loved what they heard. No one dislikes hearing how important he is.
What if your sheriff is stupid or a federal factotum? That is what you will find in many big cities. I once interviewed Los Angeles County Sheriff Peter Pitchess, who said no one should have a hand gun. I asked him how a five foot lady alone in bed could defend herself from a rapist. Realizing he was perilously close to making himself look even dumber than he did usually, Pitchess conceded she could have a long gun.
I brightened. A street sweeper isnt really the best weapon for close quarters, but it would give the lady a chance. Unfortunately, Pitchess added the word, unloaded. I asked him what that five foot lady with an unloaded shotgun could do against a six foot rapist. A police captain sat beside Pitchess during the interview. His job was to extricate Peter from the jams he persisted on getting himself into. The police captain extruded a barrage of miasma. It was effective. I did not get an answer.
In such cases, says Sheriff Mack, move to a county where the sheriff is receptive. Many more will be. For instance, in Texas there are 254 counties. Each has a sheriff. If it is feasible to do so, run for sheriff yourself. Even your wife will be impressed when she sees you with a hog leg on your hip and a star on your vest. Imagine the intense joy of meeting IRS Communists or BATFE Nazis at the county line and denying them admission.
The Battle for America will be decided in your county at your front door. If you act now, later you will not need to fill your hand.
[Announcement: Alan Stang's radio show, The Sting of Stang, airs from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Central, M-F, via Republic Broadcasting Network. Call him on the air at (800) 313-9443. To listen, go to republicbroadcasting.org and click on Listen Live. If you can't listen at that time, do so via the archives. I'll be talking about the various manifestations of the conspiracy for world government, its tactics, such as the illegal alien invasion, its purposes and its players, from Jorge W. Boosh on down.]
Alan Stang was one of Mike Wallaces original writers at Channel 13 in New York, where he wrote some of the scripts that sent Mike to CBS. Stang has been a radio talk show host himself. In Los Angeles, he went head to head nightly with Larry King, and, according to Arbitron, had almost twice as many listeners. He has been a foreign correspondent. He has written hundreds of feature magazine articles in national magazines and some fifteen books, for which he has won many awards, including a citation from the Pennsylvania House of Representatives for journalistic excellence. One of Stangs exposés stopped a criminal attempt to seize control of New Mexico, where a gang seized a court house, held a judge hostage and killed a deputy. The scheme was close to success before Stang intervened. Another Stang exposé inspired major reforms in federal labor legislation.
His first book, Its Very Simple: The True Story of Civil Rights, was an instant best-seller. His first novel, The Highest Virtue, set in the Russian Revolution, won smashing reviews and five stars, top rating, from the West Coast Review of Books, which gave five stars in only one per cent of its reviews.
Stang has lectured in every American state and around the world and has guested on many top shows, including CNNs Cross Fire. Because he and his wife had the most kids in Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic, where they lived at the time, the entire family was chosen to be actors in Havana, directed by Sydney Pollack and starring Robert Redford, the most expensive movie ever made (at the time). Alan Stang is the man in the ridiculous Harry Truman shirt with the pasted-down hair. He says they made him do it.