FreeWestRadio.com

by Patrick Krey, NA

The “Principles of 98,” as they came to be known, are rarely discussed in modern history lectures even though these are integral to understanding how our federal Constitution was intended to function. These are the principles of state interposition or nullification that assert that if the federal government fails to check itself through one of its three branches, then it would be up to the states to rein in the feds.

The main basis for the theory is that the states created the national government when they joined the compact and not the other way around. The states therefore retained the power to judge for themselves the constitutionality of federal laws and reserved the right to refuse to enforce them if they went beyond their constitutionally delegated powers. As a matter of fact, nullification was used even before the implementation of the Constitution when the Colonists nullified laws made by the British Monarchy. The concept of a state nullifying a federal law simply means that a state refuses to comply with the law or permit its enforcement within state boundaries.

The man widely regarded as the “Father of the Constitution,” James Madison, described just how a federal system would work in his essay Federalist No. 51. Madison, encouraging his fellow countrymen to ratify the newly drafted Constitution, described a system of horizontal as well as vertical checks and balances between the federal and state governments — a system known as federalism. “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.”

Madison, joined by Thomas Jefferson, would later go on to expand upon this in the famous Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798. The federal government had recently passed the blatantly unconstitutional and shameful Alien and Sedition Acts to silence and intimidate political enemies. Those despicable acts were instituted by advocates of unwritten constitutional power and a more robust central government. Both Jefferson and Madison argued that the states constitutionally had the right to refuse not only to comply with such unconstitutional actions of the federal government, but also to actively prevent the feds from enforcing them within their state boundaries.

These visionaries and their resolutions gave a voice to a peaceful revolution of constitutional principles that would govern this great nation for years to come. Many states have in fact utilized state nullification to check the federal government throughout the history of our Republic. From the Fugitive Slave Act to unpopular tariffs, states did indeed nullify federal laws they found to be unconstitutional.

Nullification has started to be mentioned in the news, as states have once more started to utilize the practice to resist federal overreaching. Many states have either passed or proposed legislation or amendments to their state constitutions that nullify federal laws in the areas of firearms, medical marijuana, and healthcare, to name just a few.

by Russell D. Longcore, DumpDC

The US Federal Government is a cancer that has affected nearly every organ and cell in the body of our nation. Trying to get rid of the cancer may very likely kill the host, just like chemotherapy or radiation do.

There is virtually no possibility of getting the citizens of any state to agree to secede in sufficient numbers that will move the lawmakers of that state to action. The biggest reason is that there are too many citizens of any state that feed at the Federal trough. If those folks saw that secession would mean the end of their jobs, benefits or incomes, they would fight secession with all their energy.

Here is a short list of people who are either Federal employees directly, or whose jobs are directly affected by Federal money:

• State government at every level, from Governor to dogcatcher, that receive and spend Federal money
• Federal bureaucracy personnel: there are tens of thousands of them in Federal offices including managers, IT personnel, secretaries, janitors, security guards, drivers, inspectors, etc.
• IRS personnel
• I.T. personnel
• Accountants: most accountants would not have work to do without the Federal tax code.
• Retirees: anyone who gets a Social Security check or Medicare benefits.
• Pensioners: see retirees. Most get both.
• Medicaid recipients: the poor who get their medical treatment from Uncle Sam.
• Military personnel: active duty would be unemployed. Retirees could lose pensions.
• Tax Attorneys
• Regulatory compliance attorneys
• Bankers: without the Federal Reserve and fractional banking, most people in banking would be out of a job.
• Post office workers: a seceding state would likely privatize this business.
• Law enforcement personnel: lots of Federal agencies have workers with badges and guns.
• College students with Federally backed loans or grants
• Mortgagees with Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae-backed loans
• Hospitals who accept Federal healthcare patients
• Doctors who accept Federal healthcare patients
• Nurses working for those doctors
• Hospital personnel: RNs, techs, orderlies, cafeteria workers, janitors.
• Federal Judges and their staffs
• Grant writers and grant recipients
• Colleges and universities: Huge staffs directly affected by college loans.
• Public schools
• Construction companies building and maintaining Federal structures
• Any company that gets Defense Department contracts of any kind
• Federal politicians and their staffs
• Social Security office workers: secretaries, inspectors, regulators, managers, executives
• Army Corps of Engineers
• Churches and non-profit organizations might lose their tax-exempt status and have to pay taxes.
• Farmers: some get Federal subsidies that would vanish.
• Manufacturers and suppliers of any product or service you can imagine that goes to the Federal government
• Lobbyists
• Property management companies that lease to Federal agencies
• Welfare office workers
• Media (radio, TV, internet, print media): all get advertising revenue from gov’t.
• And most of the workers above have families that rely on their incomes.
• And most of those workers and their families spend their incomes in businesses that rely on their incomes.

This list could go on and on if I thought about it some more. There are likely some obvious people I’ve omitted. But this list alone should give you a flavor of just how much the Federal government has infected America on every level.

Now…consider this wild card.

The inevitable economic collapse occurs. For some reason, the dollar begins its unavoidable hyperinflation because the worldwide economy collapses. The Dow Jones, Standard & Poors, and the NASDAQ all lose at least 50% of their value. The worldwide bond market collapses, and foreign/institutional boldholders refuse to accept dollars as payment. Banks close all over the USA en masse. Catastrophic layoffs begin at all levels of the economy. Unemployment soars to 40 or 50%.

The Federal Government panics…even more than they are panicking today…and starts laying off Federal workers. Their tax revenue is off by 50%.

OK…got the scenario? Now, at every level of society, from Washington to Walla Walla, every person has been affected by the collapse.

When the people on the list above aren’t getting paid anyway…or are getting paid with dollars that are becoming worthless…and the seriousness of the situation sinks in to their minds and stomachs…secession will finally make sense.

As I’ve said before, the number one job of the secessionist movements today it to educate the populace about the benefits of secession. The number two job of the secessionist movements is to begin to create a stable of the best people to occupy crucial positions in the state so it can secede. The politicians likely won’t help.

Albert Einstein said “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” I say that we cannot solve our problems with the same PEOPLE that created them.

The politicians of today must be swept aside to make room for those who will bring the solutions to the table. What of politicians who have a change of heart, and join the movement? My opinion is that they should be “quarantined” and watched closely, and not allowed to participate in the solutions without constant supervision.

The secessionist movements all over the USA must acknowledge the near impossibility of pre-collapse secession, and devote themselves to the post-collapse secession model. Anything else is Tea-Party rah-rah hype just to raise money for their coffers.

Secession is the Hope for Mankind. Who will be first?

DumpDC. Six Letters That Can Change History.

© Copyright 2010, Russell D. Longcore. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.

by Brian Stanley, DumpDC

In the 1868 case of Texas v. White, 74 U.S. (7 Wall.) 700, a case dealing with the title to some U.S. bonds, the Supreme Court ruled that Texas’, and hence the South’s, attempted secession in 1861 was unconstitutional. But the opinion also contained some wording that might give secessionists a way around White.

It’s unfortunate that the Court used White as the vehicle to address the constitutionality of secession. The Court reached the constitutionality issue only because of a jurisdictional question; and it was virtually impossible for the Court not to hold secession unconstitutional a mere three years after the end of the War Between the States. A finding of constitutionality would have rendered unnecessary all the death and misery of that war. Of course, it was unnecessary. But the point is that the Court was under tremendous pressure to uphold the result of the war as if constitutional issues are settled on the battlefield. (For an excellent overview of why secession was constitutional, Lincoln’s arguments against it, and various other aspects of the secession issue, see “Was the Union Army’s Invasion of the Confederate States a Lawful Act?” by James Ostrowski.)

No, this was certainly not the optimum test, or a fair test, for a decision on such a vital constitutional matter. Nevertheless, the case, wrongly decided as it probably was, is out there and serves as a significant hurdle for secessionists if we hope to secede lawfully. If we look at secession as a matter of political will and are not concerned with secession’s constitutionality, White is not particularly important. But let’s assume for now that the goal is lawful, constitutional secession.

So what is the potentially helpful language the Court used? After noting that it was “needless to discuss at length whether the right of a State to withdraw from the Union for any cause, regarded by herself as sufficient, is consistent with the Constitution of the United States[,]” the Court then determined that the Union was intended to be perpetual and then stated that after Texas entered into “an indissoluble relation” with the Union: “There was no place for reconsideration, or revocation, except through revolution or through the consent of the States.” (Emphasis added.)

Consent of the states. What does that mean? We know it doesn’t mean a constitutional amendment. That is a term of art, and there is no logical explanation as to why learned justices would use the phrase “consent of the states” if they meant constitutional amendment. Does this phrase tell secessionists that there is another way to secede other than constitutional amendment? Does it mean the consent of a majority of states?

Opponents of secession will no doubt say that the phrase is mere dicta and has no controlling effect. Dicta are, basically, a comment that isn’t essential to the case’s outcome. (The full term is obiter dicta: dead words. Dictum is singular.) Dicta aren’t part of the holding. But lawyers and judges argue all the time about whether a phrase is dicta or holding. Richard Posner, judge and legal scholar, once noted that the distinction between the two concepts “is fuzzy not only at the level of application but also at the conceptual level.” Posner, “The Federal Courts: Crisis and Reform” (1985). Some have said calling something dicta merely means: I don’t want to follow this decision. So dismissing the phrase as dicta, while a predictable tactic, isn’t necessarily fatal to the use of the phrase by secessionists.

Complicating matters more there’s a concept called judicial dicta. These are dicta that deal with an issue that was briefed and argued and was directly involved in the decision but isn’t essential to the decision in the case. Judicial dicta, also difficult to define, are given more weight than dicta.

The “consent of the states” phrase is, at worst, judicial dicta, as the issue of constitutionality was briefed and argued. The Court’s comment must be given some weight. It has some meaning. And it helps secessionists. Constitutional amendment requires 38 states. And getting the Court to overturn White is highly unlikely. So this consent concept provides a third, possibly somewhat easier, option than either amendment or overturning of the case.

Michael C. Dorf, a law professor at Columbia and a constitutional scholar, is one of the few commentators who has addressed this language in White. In an article about secession, Dorf, after saying that White held secession unconstitutional, looked to the “consent of the states” language and said, essentially, that we don’t know what it means but it may provide an argument for states that want to secede. The article, interestingly, was addressed to a question about whether blue states could secede after the 2004 election. The title of the article, in fact, was “Does the Constitution Permit the Blue States to Secede? With Permission, Perhaps; Unilaterally, No” FindLaw (Wednesday Nov. 24, 2004).

If the White language does allow secession on the approval of the states (however that approval is given), how likely is it that secessionists could get 26 states? Well, the original 11 Confederate states would be a good start. Vermont has one of the most active secessionists movements in the U.S., so it might join in. North and South Dakota, Montana and Idaho are possibilities. Oklahoma is a likely candidate. Missouri and Kentucky are possibilities. That’s a total of 19. Approval by these states won’t happen immediately, but if the federal government continues to trample on the rights of the people who thinks it won’t? And if the secessionist movement can effectively educate the public, especially in states that might agree to secede, maybe getting 26 states isn’t out of the question in the foreseeable future. And it’s always possible that a few blue states will approve of secession just to get rid of us.

by Russell D. Longcore, DumpDC

Ever heard of the “Third Rail” of politics?

The concept of a “third rail” comes from electric trains…the big kind that people travel on. The wheels of the train run on the normal rails, and a third rail is the electric power source for the train’s electric motors. Touch the rails for the wheels and you have no problems. But touch the third rail, usually electrified with hundreds of volts, and you die.

In politics, the Social Security system became known as the “third rail” of politics. The system became sacrosanct over time, and politicians who wanted to reform Social Security came to find out that touching the system meant certain political death.

But there is a new political “Third Rail” in America today…Secession. It evokes fear and dread in most politicians, no matter if those politicians are at the state or federal level. Even the lone Congressman leading a revolution in Washington for liberty…Dr. Ron Paul of Texas…won’t speak of secession as a solution to end Federal tyranny.

I had opportunity to speak to Dr. Paul in person at the Campaign for Liberty’s regional conference in Atlanta a week ago. When I asked specifically about secession, he said that states had no chance for secession at the present time. Rather, he stated that as the Federal government implodes, the states would be able to nullify or simply ignore Washington…a “de facto secession” is what he called it.

Doctor Paul is privy to a vast breadth of information to which I have no access. So, I cannot simply dismiss his opinion about secession. And perhaps his opinion about secession will change as circumstances change in America. But it appears to me that Ron Paul is not yet willing to support the concept of state secession as the solution to DC tyranny. He will not touch the Third Rail.

In his recent“State of the Republic” Address, he outlined all of the reasons that America is in such deep, unavoidable trouble as a nation. Here is the summation that Congressman Paul offered:

The only way that we can prevent blood from running in the streets is to offer a better idea of the proper role of government in a society that desires first and foremost -liberty.
And that is impossible without a firm commitment by our thought leaders to the ideas of freedom, the source of all creative energy and prosperity. An all-powerful state is the threat to that ideal.
The prevailing attitude of the people-as it once was in early America-must be that of liberty and self reliance, rather than the nanny state and dependency relying on government force to mold all private choices.
If this is understood, a smooth-although not painless-transition to a free society is achievable. Ignoring this option will be very destructive to everything that is dear to the hearts of most Americans.
What is it that we must do? We must immediately:

• Balance the budget by reducing spending
• Change our foreign policy to that of non-intervention
• A full audit and more supervision of the Federal Reserve leading to abolishing the Federal Reserve
• Legalize competition to the Federal Reserve with competing currencies
• Regain respect for civil liberties and privacy while reigning in the CIA
• Wean ourselves off the dependence of wealth transfers by government
• Abolish crony capitalism-no subsidies, no bailouts, no regulatory or tax privileges to protect the powerful elite, especially the military industrial complex
• Eliminate the income tax, inheritance tax and taxes on savings and dividends.
None of this can happen without the restoration of Congress to its dominant position of the three Branches of Government as was originally intended by the Constitution. The Executive and Judicial must be reined in, and Congress must assert its prerogatives over all legislation curtailing all unconstitutional agendae through budgetary controls.

Signs abound that angry Americans are now more ready than ever before for a change in direction that is indeed real. If this program were improvised-even suddenly and dramatically-the adjustment, though significant and to a degree somewhat painful, would be much shorter and of minor consequence compared to the chaos and poverty that will result if we refuse to change our gluttonous appetite for a free lunch.

While I agree with Dr. Paul’s analysis, no amount of videotape…no amount of ink on a page…not even the complete agreement of all pundits will convince me that Washington will EVER contemplate any one of the eight bullet point actions listed above. And if they won’t contemplate them, Congress will most assuredly NOT enact any of them. Actions speak louder than words.

Rep. Paul stated openly at the conference that, even with 315 co-sponsors to HR 1207, the bill to audit the Federal Reserve, he does not anticipate that a vote on this bill will be allowed in the year 2010.

So, in the obvious absence of ACTION by Congress on the eight recommend-ations by Rep. Paul, what practical solution is left to solve the empire-ending problems coming from DC and affecting every American?

There remains only one solution.

Secession.

I disagree with Doctor Paul. I do not believe that we can prevent “blood from running in the streets.” State secession would not prevent the economic collapse of the Dollar. And when the dollar melts down, crime, hunger, poverty and death are still going to happen widely in America. I also believe that the President will invoke nationwide martial law as soon as the economic collapse occurs. At that moment, governors and state legislatures are going to have to make a hard decision who is finally in charge.

But if a state will secede and immediately adopt a gold/silver monetary policy combined with the freedom of currency competition (just like Paul wrote in the Free Competition in Currency Act, HR 4248), that state or states will have the ONLY chance on the North American continent to shorten the suffering of its citizens and create a new nation based upon individual liberty and sound money.

Secession is the Hope For Mankind. Who will be first?

DumpDC. Six Letters That Can Change History.

© Copyright 2010, Russell D. Longcore. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.

by Russell D. Longcore, DumpDC

“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” ~Arthur Schopenhauer

I was on a conference call Thursday night with the leadership of a state secessionist movement. The general theme of the call was the need to present a unified message to all seekers of truth.

Later, as I tried to slow my mind down before sleep, I had an “AHA!” moment which is why you’re reading this now.

There is a war being waged for your mind. There are only two sides in this fight.

One side believes that government is good, and more government is better. They want to minimize individual liberty, and they promote the interests of groups.

They believe in:

No restrictions on the power to tax, spend and regulate
Their superiority to make decisions for your own good
State ownership of your assets and liberties and their right to take either or both
Deficit spending
The Federal Reserve
Printing counterfeit money
Planned inflation
Fractional reserve banking
Bailouts of banks, insurers and automakers
Unending foreign wars
Acceptable death and casualty tolls of American military personnel on foreign soil
Imperialistic foreign policy
Social Security
Medicare
Health Care “reform” legislation
Meaningless elections
Voting fraud
The military-industrial complex
The Patriot Act
Thousands of pages of new laws and regulations every year
Constant, mind-numbing propaganda through the Main Stream Media
Government schools, low achievement and substandard educational quality
The Supreme Court’s rulings on which laws DC will obey
Abortions on demand
Preventing American energy independence
Alienating all of our world allies
Selling our sovereignty to foreign nations who buy American debt

The other combatant camp believes in individual liberty and natural rights bestowed upon man by his Creator. They know that power corrupts. They know that any government must be bound with strong chains to protect life, liberty and property.

They believe in:

Tightly defined government
Enforcement of restrictions on government
Free Enterprise
Balanced budgets
Honest elections
Gold and silver-backed money (hard money)
No counterfeiting
Property rights
Protection of human life
The sanctity of contracts
Justice that defends the innocent and restores the injured
Defense by militia

No matter what you see on TV, hear on the radio, or read on the printed page…all of the rhetoric and rumble boils down to you deciding which side you support.

It’s ALL ABOUT your guiding principles. Your world view defines your actions.

The “AHA” moment was that the big government side is intellectually bankrupt. Every scheme they have tried for 150 years has eventually failed. They have no new ideas that don’t begin with a preconception of government solutions. They have no solutions that protect liberty and restrict government. They exhibit no willingness to return to the Constitution. Their regime is repressive and exhibits the low, negative energy of tyranny and despotism.

The small government camp has the solutions. Their message is one of high-energy and a positive attitude. Their ideas harken back to the Reformation and Enlightenment principles of God-granted liberty and self-determination. At the same time they project a realistic, achievable vision of tomorrow.

The decision you must make is whether to take action or not. If you take no action whatsoever, you will default into the big government camp. They already own you. So you need to do nothing at all to keep moving on toward destruction.

If you do not want to go down with the big government ship, it will be required of you that you take some sort of action in opposition to the despots and tyrants. Happily, the small government camp does not force you to act. You’re free to take any action you choose to throw off such oppressive government and embrace liberty.

But act you must if you ever want to live free.

Secession is the hope for mankind. Who will be first?

DumpDC. Six Letters That Can Change History.

© Copyright 2010, Russell D. Longcore. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.