WHEN THE FEDERAL COURTS FAIL, WE THE PEOPLE MUST APPEAL TO THE SOVEREIGN STATES
by John Charlton
(Oct. 31, 2009) — With three Federal Courts giving adverse judgments in 3 separate cases, which challenged Obama to prove what he is not: that is prove that he is eligible for the office of President, according to the natural born citizen requirement in Article II, Section i, paragraph 5; things are not lost.
Dr. Edwin Vieira, Jr., Ph.D., J.D., renowned constitutional attorney, who argued many a case before the Supreme Court of the United States, gives some advice on the necessity of concerted political action, NOT in Washington, D.C., but in crucial states. Writing in July he counseled America:
Moreover, anyone who studies the history of the modern “constitutional interpretation” for which those judges and graduates are responsible will soon realize what the Constitution does not mean and could not possibly mean. For decades, the legal gurus of the Bench, the Bar, and the law schools have inundated this country with tortuous and truly tortured theories of “the general Welfare”, “regulation of Commerce”, “implied powers”, “compelling governmental interests”, “judicial supremacy”, “the unitary executive”, and so on ad nauseum—all intended to infuse, increase, and intensify power in the General Government, at the expense of the States and especially of the people. What they failed to take into account, though, is that now Americans can see with the exactitude of personal experience how disastrously these crackpot notions have worked out in practice, and on that basis can foresee how much more harm they will undoubtedly cause—even unto this country’s utter destruction—if they are allowed to control the course of constitutional law any longer. As applied, these theories have engendered the exact opposite of what the Preamble to the Constitution catalogues as its purposes: namely, “to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity”. Unless the Founding Fathers were veritable political idiots, they could never have written the Constitution so as even to suggest such aberrant theories of misconstruction. And unless contemporary Americans are worse than veritable political idiots, they will not suffer this travesty to continue at their own expense. Because, unlike the Founding Fathers who never lived with the horrific results that these perversions of the Constitution have visited upon this country, contemporary Americans now know that these theories were intended, not to “interpret” the Constitution, but to overthrow it—and to bury the common man’s liberty and prosperity in the rubble. This was never a matter simply of stupidity (although that, no doubt, played some part in it), but of calculated subversion.
Knowing what is wrong is not the same as supplying a remedy, however. Although patent to everyone with the eyes to see, the subversion continues apace. America’s enemies intend even to expand upon it, destroying what is left of the Constitution—and the Declaration of Independence along with it—by submerging this country in some hemispheric North American Union or global New World Order. But that in itself is highly instructive. For if America’s enemies are dead set on murdering the Constitution, common Americans should want that much more to preserve, protect, and enforce it. America’s enemies, after all, are no men’s fools. They know full well that if the Constitution is correctly construed and rigorously applied then they are finished. Which it why they have been undermining it for generations, and now want to eliminate it entirely, before too many Americans finally wake up and take action in their own and their country’s self-defense. Self-evidently, then, Americans need, not to give up on the Constitution, but instead to stand up for it—because that is what their enemies themselves admit, by their own actions, would be the most effective defense against them.
How can the Constitution, so twisted out of shape that it is barely recognizable, be straightened out and put to work for common Americans’ salvation and their enemies’ defeat? Not by amendments. Amendments are very difficult to enact. Worse yet, any new amendment will have to be “interpreted”—by the very same people, or at least the very same type of people, who are now misinterpreting the Constitution. So, self-evidently, the problem lies not in the document but in rogue public officials. We the People have allowed weasels to guard the chicken coop. As Cassius rightly chided Brutus in Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”, “the fault * * * is not in our stars but in ourselves that we are underlings”. Now, We the People must muster the self-reliance and self-confidence to correct that error—because no one else is going to do it for them.
But where to begin? Of course, patriots must continue to oppose all of the horrendous legislation being proposed by their enemies. Mere opposition, though, even if successful in individual instances, will not suffice. For, as General MacArthur reminded America, “There is no substitute for victory!” And victory can hardly ever be won by defensive measures alone, particularly when the enemy already controls so much of this country. We the People must assume the offensive.
Yet a thoroughgoing reform cannot be accomplished all at once. Americans have to take back their Constitution, and with it their country, steadily and systematically, piece by piece. At the present moment, the most important powers that We the People need to reclaim for themselves are the Power of the Purse and the Power of Sword—not only because political philosophy has always treated these powers as the essence of sovereignty, but also and especially because America is now confronted by an accelerating economic collapse (to which the Power of the Purse must be addressed) and threatened by the imposition of a police state (against which the Power of the Sword must be applied).
Even such a partial reform cannot be effected everywhere at one fell swoop. Yet it must be done somewhere, to prove that it can be done anywhere. That “somewhere”, moreover, must offer the possibility of establishing a powerful political and economic base for further action. For We the People cannot be satisfied with nothing more than “political and economic survivalism”. Instead, they must establish a bridgehead from which to launch a political offensive that eventually will sweep across the entire country.
Fortunately, Americans can take advantage of the opportunities offered by the federal system: namely, that there are fifty States, each enjoying a large measure of sovereignty with the exercise of which rogue public officials in the General Government have no legal authority to interfere. Of course, in some States the odds against effecting any rational political and economic reforms are dauntingly high. In those States, both the “patricians” and the “plebeians” rightly deserve Marullus’s denunciation of the Roman mob in “Julius Caesar”: “You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!” Nothing can be done with them. For the nonce, they must be left (as an old saw has it) like cheap sausages in a hot pan, to smoke and sputter in their own indigestible grease. But that is not the case in every State. In some States—in at least one State—it surely must be possible for We the People to regain control over their legislators. And even one State will be enough to start the ball rolling.
The basis steps in the strategy are straightforward:
1. Identify a State in which a sizeable segment of the population will support—yea, will demand—two measures:
(a) regaining the Power of the Purse through the introduction of an alternative-currency system based on silver and gold; and
(b) regaining the Power of the Sword through revitalization of “the Militia of the several States” in that State.2. Draft comprehensive legislation for this purpose exactly as it needs to be enacted—thus embodying fully and precisely what We the People themselves demand, not some crumbs that legislators deign to throw to them.
3. Find patriotic, courageous, and sagacious legislators to introduce the bill and shepherd it through the legislative process.
4. Mobilize a mass of grass-roots activists, not only from that State but also from all over the country, to lobby for the legislation. Because the first State is the starting-point for reform throughout America, every patriot in every State has a vital interest in seeing the reform legislation enacted there.
5. If the bill does not pass, in the very next election remove from office as many as possible of those legislators who voted against it, replacing them with new legislators pledged to carry the reform to completion—legislators drawn from among We the People themselves, not from the ranks of professional politicians. The crucial, if not the only, issue in the election must be the candidates’ support for the reform legislation.
6. Return to step 3, and reiterate this process until the bill finally passes and is signed into law.
Once one or two States have enacted such legislation, others will follow because of the obvious economic and political advantages of doing so.
Then, with the Power of the Purse and the Power of the Sword firmly held in We the People’s hands, in jurisdictions with constitutional authority, other problems can be addressed, one after another, from a position of ever-increasing political, economic, and legal strength.
What is the alternative? This country’s enemies have been winning—and will continue to win—the political battles because they are organized, whereas We the People are not. The strategy advocated here will enable We the People, not simply to organize themselves, but also to organize around the two most important powers of sovereignty. Everything else—from Tea Parties, to resolutions invoking the Tenth Amendment, to calls to audit the Federal Reserve System, even to the demands of the 9/11 truth movement for a comprehensive investigation of that horrendous crime—amounts to mere political theater and wheel-spinning, because those endeavors, laudable as they are, have no teeth. They are not self-enforcing. In any country, those who actually wield the Power of the Purse and the Power of the Sword are the true sovereigns. Everyone else is a subject. For the Power of the Purse and the Power of the Sword are the fundamental enforcement-mechanisms for every form of government. If self-government is to exist in America, as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution require, then We the People—and only We the People themselves—must wield these powers. Not just “ought to”, but must.
One shrinks from adopting the apocalyptic tone of a Cassandra, that it is “now or never”. But, if not now, when?
To read Dr. Vieira’s full article at News with Views: click this link. To read a discussion of Dr. Vieira’s proposal click here.