Archive for the ‘Founding Documents’ Category
by Nicholas Testaccio
The first law of this nation is the Declaration of Independence. It outlines the relationship between government, and the People who are governed by “consent.” It note’s “that [we] are endowed by [our] Creator with certain unalienable Rights” as a principle of restricting bureaucratic intrusions and highlighting the fact that we are a nation of sovereigns who answer to a Higher Power.
It is declared in unique form for the entire world to be made aware “that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed”. It goes on to assert, “That whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it”.
The Declaration then details the many abuses of the government that the good People of the 13 Colonies were forced to endure, and therefore “declare the cause which impel[ed] them to the separation.”
Among the many causes, the delegates noted; “He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.” This seems most notable to me when considering the current political landscape where rights have been converted into privilege by the vermin we continually re-elect, but even more important is the mindset of those who consider themselves to be patriotic.
There are few who stand up “with manly firmness” to tell our representatives that they have crossed the line. Instead we grovel, hope, and pray for a resolution in a game that our abusers have instituted for their own benefit.
We philosophize in great detail about how, what, when, and where. We speak circles around theories and events that may never occur, nor do we have the historical basis for those events.
We have allowed changes to the Constitution without a bona fide amendment process. We’ve allowed the meaning of the words to be interpreted away when it was understood that “In expounding the constitution of the United States, every word must have its due force, and appropriate meaning; for it is evident from the whole instrument, that no word was unnecessarily used, or needlessly added. The many discussions which have taken place upon the construction of the constitution, have proved the correctness of this proposition; and shown the high talent, the caution, and the foresight of the illustrious men who framed it.” – Holmes v. Jennison et al., 14 Pet. 540, 570-571, 614, 618 Appx.
We’ve allowed so many incursions into our rights and powers that we can no longer call this nation a functional Republic. It is exactly or might be considered far worse than what the Colonists endured.
How do we approach restoring the Republic without a violent revolution?
Before answering the question I’ve posed, I should express my doubts as to whether it is possible at this point to avoid bloodshed.
This nation was founded on a principle. It is a principle that seems to be impossible for almost every American to comprehend and embrace. That belief is stated in the Declaration as a government of the People that “deriv[es] its just powers from the consent of the governed.”
Let me expand on that a bit. We judge the Law, we “execute the Law”, and we enforce the Law. We do not sit on juries and rubber stamp statutes that infringe our rights. We do not allow for the creation of agencies that go beyond the scope of government’s limited authority. We do not allow government thugs to perform functions specifically enumerated to ourselves.
The Founders instituted a government that had little power to act without the People taking the specific steps or expressing the authority to resolve an issue. On a subject that I’ve almost beaten to death in my articles, the expressed authority “to execute the Laws of the Union” is in the hands of We the People. That is to say, “the whole people”, acting with the recognized authority in the institution that flows throughout the Constitutions, and both state and federal statutes. It has not been changed, nor can it be changed without re-writing literally hundreds of statutes, the constitutions of the states and federal government, and the admission that there has been an obvious violation of fundamental law.
On that subject, today, I will only say that if we are avoiding the return of power to the People in its constitutional forms, we are embracing the destruction of liberty, and more importantly, the inevitability of a bloody revolution. Stop claiming that you are opposed to bloodshed when you endorse it by the aversion of the People’s stated authority.
This nation has morphed into an oligarchy with a population of dreamers. One side dreams that they will destroy the other with lies and deceit. While they preach tolerance, they are the most intolerant people. Their motto seems to be that you can speak freely only if you agree with me.
The other side dreams that they can do the same thing over and over and obtain different results. An example of which is to go into a court that has consistently worked to violate most of our rights and expect it to turn around because it is the law.
What plagues us today troubled the colonists back then; men with no scruples, and those with swords to enforce the exploitation. How do we overcome?
This system is dependent on the voracity of the various components, which are executive, legislative, and judicial. Three branches, taught to us in school, that function to limit abuses by the other. This is all well and good, but it is not a legitimate diagram of our form of government.
There is the state, the People, and our jury system; it was pure beauty in its simplicity. The system has been corrupted, in main part by a branch with little oversight, and our willingness to do nothing but follow its often-illegitimate decrees.
The delegated authority of the courts was to function as a stop-gap to unlawful acts of any branch, agency, or bureaucracy that stepped on the law. However, what the Founders hoped ...
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by Nicholas Testaccio
What would I do if I were in the position as the person directing the NRA?
Where would I start?
What goals would I set?
What confessions would I make to, not only the membership, but also the entire country?
Would I be bold enough, and brave enough to set the record straight on the organization I have the opportunity to direct?
Would I receive the backing of the board, and the Five Million members?
I am not in the position of Wayne LaPierre so I must go at this a different way knowing full well that people in his position are more likely to dismiss my thoughts, and just go on about the business of keeping the gun control issue on the table. My goal would be to wake the membership, and others of course, to the true nature of the Second Amendment.
My first task will be to remind the members of the NRA that Fifteen Years before the ratification of the Constitution, Thomas Jefferson penned what is considered the seminal document on the relationship between the People and the governments they form to “secure” their “unalienable Rights.” The document that recognizes our God given rights, and among those is the individual right to keep and bear arms.
My second task, and this should be the object of all so-called supporters, would be to read, and study these words until they sink in; “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
For One-Hundred Fifty years prior to the Declaration, militia were organized, armed, and trained. They were generally Able-Bodied men between the ages of 17 to 45 bearing the arms that a regular soldier would carry, and maintaining the equipment, including artillery, that an army would employ in battle.
The militia was not voluntary. It was not comprised of individuals pretending to be soldiers, but rather organized by colonial statute compelling all to serve in a fashion, with duties, and armament prescribed. They trained much the same as our reserves do today, and performed the all-important tasks of protecting the Colony, and enforcing the law.
Most importantly, while a significant part of government, they were not obliged to obey commands they thought unlawful, and dangerous to liberty. Thank you Captain John Parker and your Minute Men for clarifying.
The Founders, those people who had first hand experience with the institution, explained it in this manner “I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people.” – George Mason. “Little more can be aimed at with respect to the people at large than to have them properly armed and equipped.”- Alexander Hamilton. “The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun.” – Patrick Henry.
At that point I would have to pose the question to not only the board, but also the entire membership as to whether they have done even a modicum of research on the body that the Founders declared to have the authority “to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections, and repel Invasions”? – See Article 1, Section 8, Cls. 15
Correcting the fallacy seems a daunting task based on years of misinformation, and indoctrination, but as we look out upon our current political landscape, what options do we have to change the course?
Those of us who understand the foundations laid in the Declaration of Independence “That *** Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed” have both the right and the duty “to alter or to abolish” the institution when it runs afoul of our rule of law are often labeled as “conspiracy theorists”, or nuts. How do you overcome what appears to be a very potent form of mind control that has the general public questioning that, which is right, but abiding that, which is wrong?
So how do you turn a potential powerhouse such as the NRA into a true force for truth, and freedom?
To answer my own question, I’ll start with a letter to each and every member of the board of directors. I will also contact Wayne LaPierre, Pete Brownell, Chris Cox, and Dana Loesch.
Since I am no longer a member of the NRA, one reason being that I’ve seen them deliberately assist in the passing of anti-2nd amendment legislation, I’ll have to start my campaign to restructure the group by asking for the help of those who recognize that there is something really amiss in the organization.
The membership must speak up if they have not already completely succumbed to the propaganda both those who are anti-2nd, and those who claim to be pro-2nd have fostered for decades.
I might start with a letter of the following nature.
Dear Sir or Madam:
I am a former member of the NRA, an American Eagle plank holder, and a firm supporter of all Twenty-Seven words of the Second Amendment.
You can ask why I am a former member, but the fact that in the eyes of the men who authored both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution I understand “the whole people” to posses the power and authority “to execute the Laws of the Union” should suffice. However, if it is not clear then allow me to explain further.
My understanding of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the first Thirteen words of the Second, including “necessary”, is significantly different from yours. The law can only be understood in the way that “would be most likely to fulfill the intentions of those who framed the Constitution.” – See Ogden v. Saunders, 25 U.S. 213, 332.
I can abide no theories of later day jurists who seek to undermine our Fundamental Law to support their own political agenda by “build[ing] magnificent legal edifices on elliptical constitutional phrases —or even the white spaces between lines of constitutional text.” – Silveria v Lockyer, Ninth Circuit, Justice Alex Kozinski, dissenting.
I certainly cannot be tolerant of those who ignore “the theory of our institutions of ...
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by Nicholas Testaccio
Execution of the law requires some means of actually enforcing in terms of bringing about a form of relief, bringing a perpetrator to justice, or enforcing a judgment. A principle that is at best a clouded issue in our system wherein sovereignty is supposed to remain with the People.
In response to the Supreme Courts decision in Worcester v Georgia, President Andrew Jackson said, "John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it." Jackson was saying that I am the enforcement branch of this government, but I have no intention of forcing compliance with a decision, for which I do not agree.
“The government of the United States has been emphatically termed a government of laws, and not of men.” That is to say that “We the People” have delegated certain sovereign powers to agencies of government, and we expect that representatives of the People abide by those rules. If they do not, if they overstep their bounds, and the rule is enforced by created agencies, how do we reconcile the abuses, and corruption?
Let us start with some basic principles.
“The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government, are few and defined. *** The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.” – Federalist 45, written by James Madison
To which the Supreme Court declared in kind; “We start with first principles. The Constitution creates a Federal Government of enumerated powers. See U.S. Constitution, Art. 1, 8. As James Madison wrote, “[t]he powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.”” – United States v. Lopez
“There is no position which depends on clearer principles, than that every act of a delegated authority, contrary to the tenor of the commission under which it is exercised, is void. No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid. To deny this, would be to affirm, that the deputy is greater than his principal; that the servant is above his master; that the representatives of the people are superior to the people themselves; that men acting by virtue of powers, may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid.” – Federalist 78, written by Alexander Hamilton
To that fundamental idea of government the Supreme Court confirmed that “Certainly all those who have framed written constitutions contemplate them as forming the fundamental and paramount law of the nation, and consequently the theory of every such government must be, that an act of the legislature repugnant to the constitution is void.
“This theory is essentially attached to a written constitution, and is consequently to be considered by this court as one of the fundamental principles of our society.” – Marbury v Madison.
What’s that you say? We have laws, and the states have unlimited powers. NONSENSE!
First, and foremost in any logical thinking persons mind is whether, or not the political genius of the Founders created a document that reads “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof *** shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding”, but then turned a blind eye to the possibility of abuses that may be perpetrated in any given state. The conclusion can only be no, because tyranny can spread much the same as ignorance, greed, and corruption across all boundaries as the Founders experienced first hand.
If you are not convinced of the fact that the states must comply in all matters within the federal Constitution, you need only look to the Fourteenth Amendment that reads in part; “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
What would be the solution, if any, to abuses of government at any level? Could the People maintain a free and independent life if bureaucrats, or elected representatives at local, state, or federal positions declared that they were not obliged to adhere to the principles of limited delegated authority? Would a slow decay of society bring us full circle, and back into the hands of an oligarchy if there were no means of control for the general public?
The Founders recognized what had already been established and relied upon to enforce the law, and help to prosecute the Revolution. They drew upon what they experienced for decades, and years of guerrilla fighting.
The Founders added a Bill of Rights with restrictions, and guarantees that incorporated a body of law enforcement designated as “necessary to the security of a free State” so that in any one given district, county, or state, the good People could employ their arm “to execute the Laws of the Union”, and thereby obtain justice. Restraining government could be as easy as placing power in the hands of the People to determine, and then alter abuses perpetrated by bureaucrats.
As we study the nature of our institution of government and its development, more questions should form in any thinking mind. Would the Fifty-Six men who signed the Declaration of Independence, and essentially their own death warrants, have written the words “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government” without recognizing and institutionalizing a lawful method for the People to not only prevent, but to also arrest, prosecute, and jail those who run afoul of our “rule of law”?
I’ve presented some questions in ...
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Fiction is meant for entertainment. When grandpa told you stories about his youth, and he embellished a bit, his idea was to make it exciting. It’s done for the entertainment of the child.
When your fishing buddy tells the story of the one that got away, everyone has a good laugh while chiding him on the details.
I loved the Bourne series of the books, and the movies. The movies were a far cry from the books, but they were action packed. The movies were exciting, entertaining, and added the visual effect that you might not have imagined in the books. The fight sequences drew the viewer into the story, while the books told a story of intrigue about two mortal adversaries.
Fiction is all well and good when it’s made for the enjoyment of the public. When the fiction is part of the legal system it is a means of dismantling the law. It is not designed for the well being of the people, but rather the consolidation of power by government, and the powerful forces that choose our elected representatives.
These fictions lead to erroneous notions, concepts, and case law that are an affront to “A Declaration”, and The Constitution of the United States. The design can be nothing else but a strategy to bring us into the slow but inevitable decay of tyranny.
It seems to be the general belief that our unalienable rights are not unlimited, and that they can be regulated and licensed. In order to sanctify the blatant contradiction of the fact that the People “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights”, fictions are created as points of law. Often cited, as the proof is the statement that “you can’t yell fire in a crowded theater”. This fiction of law is based in part on the half-truth related to the opinion of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes writing for the court in Schenck v United States, 249 U.S. 47.
The fiction occurs because of the fact that the common man will not sit down and examine the details, nor take the time to read the actual case, from which this massive fraud derives. I say massive because men, women, talking heads, government crony’s, and even those pretending to be patriots repeat it. Someone said it somewhere along the line so it is believed, and truth will not overcome the combination of ignorance, and ego.
The case is based on the fact that Schenck, and others, were inciting people to violate a law that the congress actually had the power to create. It was 1917, and the United States was entering the war in Europe. Congress declared war, and as delegated at Article 1, Section 8, the Congress used its power “To raise and support Armies”.
I am a firm believer in the fact that those powers delegated to the government should be recognized as valid, but I am diametrically opposed to perceived or created powers based on interpretations. I do not subscribe in any way to the notion that we have a living Constitution. All these maneuvers are of course fictions created by the courts, and carried out by myths, compliance, and conspiracies.
In Schenck, Justice Holmes wrote, “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic”. The controlling aspect of the statement points to the fact that the act inflicts an injury to wit, “causing a panic”. Even to the most casual observer a panic can, and will inflict some form of harm on those in the theater.
Holmes goes on to say, “The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent”.
In Schenck, the defendants were charged “with the mailing of printed circulars in pursuance of a conspiracy to obstruct the recruiting and enlistment service, contrary to the Espionage Act of June 15, 1917”.
Holmes clarifies by writing “We admit that, in many places and in ordinary times, the defendants, in saying all that was said in the circular, would have been within their constitutional rights. But the character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done”. Congress had declared war on Germany for the sinking of the Lusitania, an act that was considered an attack on the sovereign United States. In order to prosecute this war they exercised their power to protect this nation by calling forth the men of this country.
This entire case pivoted on arguments that were inadequate, and obviously detrimental to congresses authority “To raise and support Armies”.
Schenck could have argued that the war created a “clear and present danger that” it “will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent”.
The obvious underlying fact of the matter for those of you who run from the term “conspiracy theory” would have been that the Lusitania was indeed stocked with munitions, that congress should have been aware of this violation at least by way of their oversight of the War Department, and that the entire scenario was cooked up by J.P. Morgan and his associates who had lent the British and French over One Billion Dollars.
The British and French were loosing the war so Morgan and his associates needed a means of bringing the United States in to save the day, or more appropriately the money. None of this would have been a complete secret from the members of congress as not to make a viable defense. Over and above this is the fact that if congress perceived a “clear and present danger” then it had the duty to muster Militia to exercise its duty to “repel invasions”.
The congress does of course have the delegated power “To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States” in ...
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The year was 1924. In an article for The Baltimore Evening Sun, H.L. Menchen wrote, “All the extravagance and incompetence of our present Government is due, in the main, to lawyers, and, in part at least, to good ones. They are responsible for nine-tenths of the useless and vicious laws that now clutter the statute-books, and for all the evils that go with the vain attempt to enforce them. Every Federal judge is a lawyer. So are most Congressmen. Every invasion of the plain rights of the citizens has a lawyer behind it. If all lawyers were hanged tomorrow, and their bones sold to a mah jong factory, we’d be freer and safer, and our taxes would be reduced by almost a half.”
What Menchen wrote was a restatement of what the Founders feared most; a legal institution that would consolidate its power. For the most part, lawyers operate under the control of a legal system, but not the “rule of law” as those who delegated certain sovereign powers to the state instituted it. Lawyers abide by the court, and not in accordance with what was intended as a nation wherein the People are the ultimate arbiters of the law.
During the ratification debates there were those who felt that there was wording in the Constitution that could be interpreted to mean other than what was clearly decided by the delegations. Suspicion was cast on the legal profession as a primary vehicle for corruption.
Writing as Brutus for those who opposed the Constitution, Robert Yates stated, “The supreme court under this constitution would be exalted above all other power in the government, and subject to no control. The business of this paper will be to illustrate this, and to show the danger that will result from it. I question whether the world ever saw, in any period of it, a court of justice invested with such immense powers, and yet placed in a situation so little responsible.”
The ink was not yet dry on the Constitution when the court started to dismantle the document by first taking allegiance to the Bar as the method, by which an attorney could counsel. Eventually by conferring upon itself the authority to interpret the law, the legal profession has made law a cesspool. When a lawyer speaks it is legalese based on misdirection, misinformation, misapplication, propaganda, and in many cases outright lies. I have seen enough judges perjure themselves from the bench, and I’ve seen one too many attorney’s sell out their client.
Lawyers take an oath that states in part, “I will not counsel or maintain any suit or proceeding which shall appear to me to be unjust…” Are we to believe that the position of state prosecutor, one that was despised by the Founders, is in any form complying with that oath?
From time to time the good People of this nation must be reminded that this is a nation of popular sovereignty. The state is an establishment, by which we the People band together in order to have a forum and method for protecting rights, freedom, and tranquility. We do so because there is, first and foremost, evil about that seeks to disrupt the lives of the common man. In the hope that they could limit, or possibly eliminate the encroachment upon liberty, the Founders created, and intended to maintain a uniform “rule of law” so that the state could not impose its awesome power on the individual by making rules outside its delegated authority.
It should be obvious that in order to maintain this system, it was up to the good People to enforce the law so that no one could unjustly prosecute, particularly by the hand of the state, any individual. Some clearly defined tools were incorporated into this nations Constitution that were to stand for justice, and prevent state abuses.
Government can never be a perfect institution. This was understood, and so the Founders attempted to design a functional government with certain limited delegated sovereign powers while “sovereignty itself remains with the people, by whom and for whom all government exists and acts”.
The Constitution established as indisputable law with enumerated powers and mechanism a bulwark against encroachment by the state. Even the common dirt farmer of the day understood the principles for which they had suffered through years of turmoil in order to create a nation of free People.
However, we now have a system of government that is beyond corrupt. It is everything that the Founders feared, and by no means the nation that farmers, merchants, laborers, and even clergy laid down their lives to create.
It has morphed into this, not because we lack the utility to thwart tyranny, but because we are a population that is as intellectually dishonest as the system that we allow to exist. We are a people that are so ignorant of the design of this nation that we work to support the encroachment and infringements by the bureaucracy rather than working to halt the obviously budding police state.
There is still hope, but that hope lies in a very few who are not encumbered by their ego. They are those people who live by the doctrine that every word in law has its intended meaning, and that assumptions in law, opinions of attorney’s, and judicial wrangling are the enemy of a free society.
You cannot maintain liberty if you subscribe to the notion “that any act of the legislature, contrary to the tenor under which it was created” is lawful. You cannot maintain liberty if you believe that it is the state, rather than the People who should possess the power of the ‘Sword’.
Logic should tell us that almost every lawyer is either ignorant of the law, or as many already believe, a liar. They do not fight the system, but rather operate in a fraud shrouded in legalese. Misapplication of law, improperly and illegally instructed jury’s are common place without an attorney lifting a finger to put an end to those acts of judicial tyranny.
In most cases, instead of assisting your ...
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