by Tom Mullen, DumpDC

At some point in the past, the American ethos was centered on suspicion of government –whether liberal, conservative, or otherwise. For most of America’s first two centuries, Americans were taxed less, regulated less, and left more alone by their government than any other people in the world. These conditions resulted in an explosion of innovation, wealth, and culture unsurpassed at any time in human history.

As that trend seems to have reversed, Americans look to their past to try to establish where we have gone wrong and what we can do to solve our problems. Increasingly, some Americans point to the U.S. Constitution and our abandonment of its “limits on government” as the reason for our downfall. It is generally argued by “strict constitutionalists” that the purpose of the U.S. Constitution was to limit the power of the government. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Don’t get me wrong. If our government were limited to the powers granted it in that document, the United States of America would be far freer, far more prosperous, and likely not facing any of the monumental problems that it is facing now. However, that does not change the facts about why the Constitutional Convention was called or why the Constitution itself was created. If you are astounded that any Republican can still claim that George Bush was “pro-freedom” or that any Democrat can claim that Barack Obama is “anti-war,” you should be equally surprised that anyone can claim that the U.S. Constitution limited the powers of the central government.

Remember that there was already a federal government of the United States prior to the U.S. Constitution. It was defined in a document called the Articles of Confederation and had been in existence since 1778. Under the Articles, the young nation had defeated the mightiest military empire in human history to win its independence. Acknowledging the true meaning of the words “federation” and “federal,” the document defined the relationship between the states as “a firm league of friendship with each other.” There was no implication that the United States was one nation and the several states merely subdivisions within it. There was no president to usurp power. There was no Supreme Court to legally sanction tyranny. There was no IRS. While the federal government would pay for any war fought by the federation out of a common treasury, the Articles left the actual act of taxation to the States.

“The taxes for paying that proportion shall be laid and levied by the authority and direction of the legislatures of the several States within the time agreed upon by the United States in Congress assembled.”[1]

Compared to the overtaxed, overregulated society that is America today, the America of the 19th century was one of astounding liberty and prosperity. However, even America after 1787 had much more government than America in its first decade. We are taught that this was a grave problem and that the Constitution was necessary to avoid imminent destruction from any number of horrors, including invasion by a foreign power, civil war, or economic upheaval as a result of protectionism by the states. We accept these assertions as facts because of the reverence we hold for the founders of our country. However, how different was the atmosphere surrounding the Constitutional Convention from that surrounding the Patriot Act, the TARP bailout, or the current efforts to expand government power in the name of environmentalism? Despite the pure heresy of the idea, there was really no difference at all.

By 1787, there were two dominant parties in America. Unlike the two dominant parties today, the Federalists and what would later become the Democratic-Republicans of that time really were diametrically opposed on fundamental issues. Led by Alexander Hamilton, the Federalists sought a much more powerful central government with a central bank, a standing army, and an alliance with big business that would control the economy. In opposition to them were Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and their followers that believed that the central government’s powers should be limited, and that power should be concentrated locally (and mistrusted generally). They opposed a central bank and a standing army and supported a truly free market.

It was not Thomas Jefferson or Patrick Henry that led the effort to call the Constitutional Convention, which neither even attended. It was Hamilton and his Federalists that wanted it. As superbly documented in his book, Hamilton’s Curse, Thomas Dilorenzo reminds us that Hamilton actually wanted even more power for the central government than he eventually got into the Constitution.

“At the convention, Hamilton proposed a permanent president and senate, with all political power in the national government, as far away as possible from the people, and centered in the executive. He also wanted “all laws of the particular states, contrary to the constitution or the laws of the United States [government], to be utterly void,” and he proposed that “the governor…of each state shall be appointed by the general government, and shall have a negative [i.e., a veto] upon the laws about to be passed in the state of which he is governor.”[2]

Hamilton did not succeed in getting all of the power he wanted for the central government, but he succeeded in increasing that power quite a bit. This too should seem familiar. At every point in American history that interested parties have tried to expand the power of government, they have attempted at expansive powers and settled for something less than they sought but more than they previously had. With each “compromise,” Americans have lost a little more of their liberty.

When viewed objectively, the very words of the Constitution reveal its true purpose. Constitutionalists often cite Article I Section 8 as proof of the limits on the powers granted to the federal government, but let’s not forget what that section actually says. It begins,

“The Congress shall have the power to…”

What follows is a long list of powers that the central government did not previously have. Each subsequent section of the Constitution invests power in the one of the three branches of government. Nowhere in the document are these powers limited, except for the short (but nevertheless important) list of exceptions contained in Section 9.

Of course, supporters of the Constitution would point out that the first ten amendments to the Constitution are actually a list of specific limits on government. Indeed they are. However, most people miss the point of those precious amendments. They represent the compromise, the attempt to limit the damage that was already done by the original document. Although several states tried to hold out for a bill of rights before ratifying the Constitution, those ten amendments weren’t actually ratified until 1791 – four years after the Constitution was ratified. They do not change the intent or nature of the Constitution itself – the massive expansion of the power of the central government.

Like the Patriot Act, the TARP bill, and the coming Climate Treaty, The U.S Constitution was conceived and drafted in an atmosphere of panic that was created by proponents of big government for the express purpose of using fear to win support for a massive expansion of government power. Also like TARP or the Patriot Act, it was debated in secret by a convention of delegates that were told that unspeakable horrors awaited America if they did not pass it immediately. Like most expansions of government power, its proponents did not get everything that they hoped for, but they got a lot more power than they had. Most importantly, the next debate over the size and scope of government started from there. The seeds of America’s multi-trillion dollar welfare-warfare state really lie in this seminal expansion of government power.

The U.S. Constitution does not embody the American spirit. It is a document that grants power to government. The document that truly embodies the American spirit is the Declaration of Independence, which was written expressly to remove all power from the existing government. If Americans are truly interested in reclaiming their liberty, they should look to this revolutionary document as the source of their inspiration. After such a long train of abuses, it is past time that we instituted new guards for our future security.

[1] Article VIII, Articles of Confederation

[2] Dilorenzo, Thomas Hamilton’s Curse Crown Publishing Group (Random House) New York, NY 2008 Pg. 16

Copyright Tom Mullen 2010

http://thomasmullen.blogspot.com

A reader and show listener asks:

I have a hypothetical question for you…

If one takes an oath to uphold the US Constitution.. doesn’t that put that individual at odds with the government as it currently exists?

With respect to an Oath to the Constitution putting us at irreconcilable odds with the present power ruling this Nation…  I would say that this Country is under the tight control of offshore banks, the Federal Reserve and its sister institutions, the Bank of England, etc. They, along with the Zionist element and an ill-defined cabal of Anglo-American, masonic go-alongs (for lack of a better handle), have our political and credit systems sewn-up. Yes, our Oath to protect and defend makes us the bitter enemy of the grotesque thing that presently claims to be our government.

Our “representatives” to Congress and our “senators” are whores paid to enact a stage play contrived to beguile us into thinking that the power of government is still in our (the people’s) hands if we would but take it up, i.e. write more letters, send more emails and telegrams, make more phone calls to our “elected representatives,” become precinct delegates, whatever.

Its all a bunch of hooey. The Country has been under a coup since at least 1963, some would say 1861.

Certainly, our currency has been controlled by a private institution, in flagrant violation of the Constitution, since 1913, and not much else matters once that particular power slips from the hands of the people.

If you take a realistic look at the elective process, you will find that both the favored, or seated, candidate and all of the “viable” alternative candidates in any given election are consistent in their policies with respect to the big agenda items of the New World Order. No coincidence.

Sure, they will vary in a few domestic policies, like gun control, incremental tax code changes, etc. But with respect to keeping our southern border wide open, intensifying the domestic security state (controlling “Bubba”), maintaining the post 9-11 foreign wars, integrating us into the North American Union, and thence into the One World, they are the same.

No significant coalition of anti-establishment candidates will ever receive sufficient funding, or sufficiently fair treatment in the controlled press, to become a countervailing force against these traitors in our Federal Legislature.

The overthrow of the present system of controlled opposition, two-parties-that-are-one, the phony dialectic — whatever one wishes to call it — cannot be enacted through that system. And, thus shall things remain until the people at large are made so materially uncomfortable that they are forced to resist. By that time, the gulag state we now see taking shape will have matured, accommodations for the non-compliant made ready.

The coming conflict, one sided as it now seems, will definitely be for keeps. Refusniks in the death camps. The rest quiet and Soviet.

The hand of the people whom I am attempting to describe, the haters of all things Western, all things Caucasian, will also soon be forced. More moderate, intermediate methods of control are going to obsolesce pretty quickly in the coming drama because the alternative media has created, in the last few years and perhaps unexpectedly, a faction in the population, albeit a modest minority, which is fully awake to the vile endgame the powers have in mind for this continent. There will be resistance. Not as much as we might hope for. But as the violence displayed in reaction to this non-compliance intensifies, the “authorities” might have a more difficult task than they presently anticipate — by dint of the alienation their methods will have sown. Admittedly, “more difficult” would have to be pretty heavy, though, because the Powers already look like they’re getting ready for a war here.

Ironically, there was an accommodation made by the Founders for a political solution to just the kind of crack we presently find ourselves in. Its a long shot, though. And, I can’t see it ever being allowed, by the people who hold the purse strings, to flourish.

In the 1990s the British called it devolution, though that term isn’t legally accurate when applied to the United States because the States never surrendered their sovereignty when forming the Union. But, it serves to convey the general idea.

In essence, as the Federal hegemon becomes sufficiently intrusive in the coming years, such that even the most complacent “citizen” will have difficulty maintaining his non-involvement in politics, State sovereignty movements may become viable. States can interfere with unjust, unconstitutional Federal mandates through nullification (messy, complex process) or through outright secession. The seeds of this process are already germinating in Oklahoma, Texas, Wyoming and, depending on your interpretation, a number of other states. But, the people at large still often confuse such movements with disloyalty to America. Hopefully the Rahm Emanuels and David Axelrods of this world will keep pushing until more people look to their own State for shelter from the Feds. This would be a welcome “devolution,” by any name.

Some hope to see a number of States combine into coalitions in order to fortify one another’s resolve to break central government tyranny. Later, if desired, the United States, in its original conception as a mutual defense pact between sovereign states, might be reconvened.

As far as I understand my own obligation to Country and Constitution, helping this process along is the essence of the Oath to which your question refers, and the definition of Duty as defined by the Declaration of Independence.

The current junta which runs this cattleyard we still call the United States has no more regard for the will of the people than any third world dictatorship has for its population.

As evidence of this, I suggest that one look at the poll numbers regarding foreign wars, foreign aid, immigration policy, national sovereignty and taxation. Then compare those numbers to the voting record of our rep.s. One quickly finds that there is no representative government here and, thus, no duly elected government. The two sets of numbers really are that disparate.

The current system not only stands athwart the rights of the people but is, in fact, the mortal enemy of every single soul who takes to heart the Oath you mentioned in your email.

Thin as the chance of the States reclaiming their lawful sovereignty is, I believe that such a pass is the one hope of liberty on this continent. And, if hope is that thin here, it leaves pretty slim pickens for the rest of the world, doesn’t it?      -D.W.

When even politicians are ignorant of the founding documents, our system is in trouble

by Christopher Dreisbach, Baltimore Sun

On Nov. 5, Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, the House minority leader, took the podium at a Republican rally, waved a document defiantly and declared:”This is my copy of the Constitution, and I’m going to stand here with the Founding Fathers who wrote in the Preamble, We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed with the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ?” Mr. Boehner was encouraging participants to protest the pending House vote for health care reform by demanding their constitutional right to make medical decisions.

Pop quiz: What’s wrong with this picture?

If you said that there is no explicit constitutional right to make medical decisions, you score some points. If you said that the passage Mr. Boehner quotes is from the Declaration of Independence you get an A. If you also noted that the quotation is not even from the Declaration’s preamble, you earn extra credit.

Mr. Boehner is not the first opinion leader to confuse the Constitution with the Declaration, nor is he apt to be the last. Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell, for example, said, “As our Constitution declares, we are endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights ?” Of course, Mr. Boehner, unlike Mr. Falwell, entered the profession by promising to protect the Constitution.

Mr. Boehner noted his 19 years of public service, yet how could he protect the Constitution when he can’t distinguish it from the Declaration? Indeed, how many public servants, for whom an oath to the Constitution is an entrance requirement, know the document well enough to protect it? Judging from the foregoing, from political rhetoric in media and from many anecdotes, one suspects that constitutional literacy is too low. This is a problem for sworn professionals who cannot protect what they don’t know, and it is a problem for the ordinary citizen who, in a democracy, is supposed to be running the country through informed voting and participation in public conversations.

Read the rest at this link.

by Hawk, TruthAlliance

“You can bind my body, tie my hands, govern my actions: you are the strongest, and society adds to your power; but with my will, sir, you can do nothing. ~George Sand”

At the expense of sounding callous and unpatriotic I will attempt to lay out exactly why the “Support the Troops” mantra is anti-American and detrimental to the health of our Republic.

Though I certainly do pray for them, I simply can’t and won’t “support” the American soldiers mission fighting in the middle east anymore than I would support an abortion doctor. The fact remains that both the American soldier and the abortion doctor have abandoned their oaths.

The abortion doctor like all doctors have taken the Hippocratic oath, which emphatically states that they are to protect life at all costs. Instead they use their skills as a physician to murder.

Hippocratic Oath

I SWEAR…I WILL FOLLOW that method of treatment which according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patient and abstain from whatever is harmful or mischievous. I will neither prescribe nor administer a lethal dose of medicine to any patient even if asked nor counsel any such thing nor perform the utmost respect for every human life from fertilization to natural death and reject abortion that deliberately takes a unique human life.

…
WHILE I CONTINUE to keep this Oath unviolated may it be granted to me to enjoy life and the practice of the art and science of medicine with the blessing of the Almighty and respected by my peers and society, but should I trespass and violate this Oath, may the reverse be my lot.

The same can be said about the American soldier, all have taken a oath to protect and uphold the Constitution of the United States. Whether on the front-lines or in a support role the fact remains that anyone serving in the armed forces without complaint and conscientious objection are in violation of their oath. You can not currently be serving in the armed forces and support the Constitution for two fold reasons.

I, (NAME), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.

Reason One: The overt wars in Afghanistan, and Iraq and also the covert wars in Pakistan, Iran, Yemen and Somalia are totally undeclared and therefore unconstitutional and illegal like Rep. Ron Paul laid out in the build up to war in 2002.

The Constitution states that no one other than the Congress can declare war, yet billions of dollars of tax payer money and bodies are continually being fed to these undeclared and out right unconstitutional wars.

Every bullet fired, town burned, tank destroyed, and insurgent killed is in all reality a death to the Constitution itself, irregardless of whether or not we are fighting a real enemy threat. The true causality is the one of our republic and those who continue to fund or serve unthinkingly in the war on terror is its killer.

Reason Two: The phrase, “I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic” is rendered entirely useless in the life of the American solider as long as they continue to serve under those who operate in total disdain for our countries founding document. The real enemy is anyone who dares to circumvent the rule of law, and those who allow such things are party to the heinous crime of treason against these United States. 

Thus by not disobeying unconstitutional orders, they have also abandoned their oath to serve and protect the Constitution.

So let’s not delude ourselves into believing we must “support the troops”, to do so is to disregard the Constitution itself. A hundred Al-Qaeda suicide bombers armed with suitcase nukes couldn’t so thoroughly wipe out this republic as those in office and our armed services can, who fail to uphold and protect the document that gives us those freedoms.

Instead let’s be plain when talking about these wars and our fighting men and women. What they really are is mercenaries, fighting for the promise of scholarships once out of the military. They have un-wittingly be duped into believing they are fighting for freedom when they are most assuredly fighting against every enshrined principle we hold dear by failing to uphold the Constitution and rule of law.

The few who have gone against direct orders to deploy on the corporate battle field are the ones that deserve our respect and support, for they are the true embodiment of what it means to self sacrifice for their country and our freedoms. By standing up against the lawlessness and despotism they have demonstrated to all of us the real price of what it means to live and perhaps die as free men and women.

Soldiers who have refused orders

The true battlefield for our freedoms, resides in the boardrooms of the military industrial complex, the switching hubs of AT&T’s spy unit, the committees and floor of the congress, the pen of the chief executive and now in the airports as we all line up to get our naked bodies scanned when we travel.

The middle east sideshow has no honor, and has done more to destroy liberty than preserve it, if you truly wish to support our troops then support the Constitution and encourage our service men and women to do the same.

by Russel D. Longcore, DumpDC

“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.” Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence, 1776

Jefferson wrote that the People had a duty to “throw off” a despotic government.

“Throw off.”

That sounds to me like a somewhat unfriendly separation. It doesn’t sound particularly cordial. It also makes me think that the throwee ain’t exactly thrilled about getting thrown off and might take exception to the decision of the throwers.

The quote above is only once sentence from the Declaration of Independence. But it is one of the most seminal thoughts and principles of the document. Let’s take it apart and consider its words, their meanings, and the consequences.

“…A long train of abuses and usurpations…” In 1776 that was the caprice of King George III as he and his Parliament created laws that affected the colonies in ways that did not affect any other Englishmen. Those laws included the Stamp Act, various taxes and tariffs, prohibitions on imports and exports, more and more taxes, Redcoats patrolling American streets, the suspension of habeas corpus, and requiring those charged with crimes to travel back to England for trial.

Today, Washington has ignored the strictures of the Constitution of the United States, and has done so for over a hundred years.

It violates the First Amendment. There are plenty of laws that abridge free speech, not the least of which is the Patriot Act.

It violates the Second Amendment by enacting laws and regulations infringing on the rights of the people to keep and bear arms, simultaneously destroying the militia and making citizens less safe and states less secure.

It violates the Fourth Amendment through internet surveillance, airport searches and warrantless searches.

It violates the Fifth Amendment by rendition of American citizens without due process and IRS double jeopardy prosecutions. You also are compelled to be a witness against yourself every time you sign your tax return.

It violates the Sixth Amendment as no one gets a speedy trial.

It violates the Seventh Amendment when it does not protect the right to jury trial, but allows judges or administrative bodies to adjudicate cases.

It violates the Eighth Amendment as excessive bails and fines are imposed regularly.

It violates the Ninth Amendment as it ignores certain rights retained by the People.

It violates the Tenth Amendment by accruing to itself powers not delegated to it, and others reserved to the States and the People.

Need I go on? There are seventeen more Amendments.

“…pursuing invariably the same object…” What was that object? The object was to milk the maximum revenue from the colonies as possible. England had won the Seven Years War from 1756 to 1763 and were heavily saddled with war debt. So the more taxes and tariffs that King George laid on the colonies, the more the colonists rebelled. Then, the King made still more laws to bring the rebels to heel.

Washington’s object today is much the same. It has a crushing war debt as well as a crushing domestic debt load. Then add the mind-boggling financial liabilities, like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae and the total comprises nearly 1000% more than the entire Gross Domestic Product of the USA. Then consider the ramifications of laws like The Patriot Act.

“…evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism…”To evince is to show clearly. Colonists could see clearly that King George’s taxes and laws, designed only for the colonies, were a design to reduce their rights as free Englishmen and confiscate their wealth without due process.

Today’s long train of abuses and usurpations coming from Washington evince a design to accomplish the same objects by turning the Constitution on its head. The Federal Government of the USA started with very limited roles and clear restrictions. Washington’s design has been to acknowledge no restrictions on its power and to accomplish anything it desires.

“…it is their right, it is their duty…” American citizens may have rights that they do not exercise. But that is different than duty. Many Americans consider that military service is a duty, and there is nothing in the Constitution that states anything of the sort. But find me a person who argues with the content of the Declaration of Independence. If you run into a person who is against secession, show them the Declaration and see what they do with fulfilling their duty.

“…to throw off such government…” The process of state nullification does not throw off government. It merely attempts to control the actions of the government, and to nullify its unconstitutional laws while staying a part of the whole. Throwing off such government can only mean secession, which is the act of withdrawing formally from the United States of America.

“…and to provide new guards for their future security.” To explain this, we return to the Declaration for another quote: “whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”

For the People to provide new guards for their future security can only mean to institute new government. That precludes and omits any continuing relationship with the old government.

That means secession.

State secession is the only reasonable, logical and pragmatic solution to overcome the absolute despotism and criminal tyranny pouring out of Washington, DC.

DumpDC. Six Letters That Can Change History.

© Copyright 2009, Russell D. Longcore. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.