Judge Andrew Napolitano announced on the Glenn Beck Show this week that he is planning to do a Constitutional Law seminar on Fox News. I see this as the next avenue of Tea Parties: We begin to talk about the U.S. Constitution, and what liberty really consists of, in detail, and we keep talking about it.

Thomas Jefferson said:

“… God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed.

The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive.

If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty…. And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.

The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”
Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334 (C.J. Boyd, Ed., 1950)

That is an awesome quotation – an awesome thought.

Napolitano is the author of a wonderfully informative book, Constitutional Chaos. I’m looking forward to the lecture or lectures as a way to get the conversation started.

Not everyone is anxious to hear the Judge’s ideas, however. It would be naive to think Liberals would be interested in the U.S. Constitution. I found one Liberal site admitting they are “more than a little queasy” at some of the issues Napolitano addressed yesterday:

Freedom of choice and control over your own body will be lost.

More of your hard earned dollars will be at the disposal and tender mercies of federal bureaucrats. It was not intended to be this way.

We can vote the bums out of their cushy federal office

…we can persuade the state governments to defy the Feds in areas like health care where the Constitution gives the federal government zero authority.

We can ask our state legislatures to threaten to amend the Constitution to abolish the income tax, to return the selection of US senators to state legislatures and to nullify, to nullify! all the laws that Congress has written that are not based on the Constitution.

But there is one thing we can’t do. Just sit back and take it.”

Napolitano has been laying out our politically incorrect abuse of the US Constitution for a very long time. Here’s a snippet from the introduction to his book Constitutional Chaos:

What’s at Stake in America Today

I, myself, am a strong and fervent believer in Natural Law. The only valid laws are those grounded in a pursuit of goodness. Anything else – like taking property from Person A and giving it to Person B, like silencing an unpopular minority, like interfering with freedom of worship – is an unjust law, and, theoretically, need not be obeyed. St. Thomas Aquinas said only just laws impose an obligation of obedience, because unjust laws are not within the power of the government to enact; and only laws that seek goodness are just. This is the essence of Natural Law. No government may enact laws interfering with our freedoms no matter how popular the enactment.

The positivist would say since the government gives freedom, the government can take it away. The Natural Law says only God gives freedom and the government can only take it away as a punishment for violating the Natural Law, and then only through due process.

To a positivist, the government’s goal is to bring about the greatest benefit to the greatest number of people. Under the Natural Law, the only legitimate goal of government is to secure liberty, which is the freedom to obey one’s own free will and conscience, rather than the free wills or consciences of others.

The problem today in America – the greatest and gravest threat to personal freedom in this country – is that the positivists are carrying the day. Under their sway, the government violates the law while busily passing more legislation to abridge our liberties.

If we wish to survive the near future with our rights intact, we need to understand the size and scope of the threat. We must also understand its true identity: a government that breaks its own laws. ~  Constitutional Chaos, Judge Andrew Napolitan

About Natural Law, new President George Washington said:

The foundation of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality; …the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained…”

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A few days ago, Hans Bader writing for Stop the ACLU reported on the hate crimes legislation Bill. This article is intended to be a further discussion of what is behind the language in the Bill. The question is, is double jeopardy a factor in this new legislative language?

The answer is kinda-sorta. It’s really more about The Dual Sovereignty Doctrine negating the double jeopardy clause in the 5th Amendment.

The government now does have the right to try hate crime suspects after they have been tried by the state, and even if already tried and found guilty by the state. This position is confirmed by a letter from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights to members of the U.S. Senate. Read it at NationaReviewOnLine. So how does it happen a person can be tried twice for the same crime?

Here is a portion that I believe gives the DOJ the opportunity to retry a hate crime: (The text of the Bill is here).

(b) (1) IN GENERAL – No prosecution of any offense described in the subsection may be undertaken by the United States, except under the certification in writing of the Attorney General, or his designee, that- (C) the verdict or sentence obtained pursuant to State charges left demonstratively unvindicated the Federal interest in eradicating bias-motivated violence; or (D) a prosecution by the United States is in the public interest and necessary to secure substantial justice.

(b) (2) RULE OF CONSTRUCTION- Nothing in this subsection shall be construed to limit the authority of Federal officers, or a Federal grand jury, to investigate possible violations of this section.

This gives the DOJ the right to try any case on behalf of a victim they feel has not received justice, while also eliminating “the badges…and relics of slavery and involuntary servitude.”

A quick reading of the Bill might lead you to think it will simply “support” state’s with money, but it goes much deeper than the $5 million to be given to states in each of the years 2010 and 2011. If a state can “certify” the need for government assistance to “investigate or prosecute the hate crime,” then that state will get that assistance. But read about the”sham and cover” exception a few paragraphs below. We have to ask why this administration believes this legislation is necessary.

The Dual Sovereignty Doctrine expects those administering under the Doctrine to “limit” their actions. This from TheFreeLibrary:

The court did not, however, fully eliminate the double jeopardy prohibition from this context. The dual sovereignty doctrine continues to be limited by what is referred to as the “sham” exception, which was described by the Bartkus Court.

The sham exception provides that a prosecution by one sovereign cannot be used as a “sham and a cover” for another sovereign’s re-prosecution of the same defendant.

This doctrine would operate to prevent, on double jeopardy grounds, a prosecution brought by one sovereign with the encouragement and support of another sovereign that has already failed in its attempt to prosecute the same defendant.

The doctrine is founded on the rationale that the two sovereigns are acting as one. Unfortunately, this exception has been construed so narrowly as to make it difficult to be utilized successfully.

Apparently, this DOJ and Barack Obama believe that justice is not done often enough, and courts do not punish, often enough, those who commit hate crimes. So the question remains: is it possible for any violent crime to be classified as a “hate crime” when it is perpetrated against a Jewish or a white person?

[Emphasis by Lobo]

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The Justice Department’s ruling, which affects races for City Council and mayor, went so far as to say partisan elections are needed so that black voters can elect their “candidates of choice” – identified by the department as those who are Democrats and almost exclusively black.

The department ruled that white voters in Kinston will vote for blacks only if they are Democrats and that therefore the city cannot get rid of party affiliations for local elections because that would violate black voters’ right to elect the candidates they want.

Several federal and local politicians would like the city to challenge the decision in court. They say voter apathy is the largest barrier to black voters’ election of candidates they prefer and that the Justice Department has gone too far in trying to influence election results here. Stephen LaRoque, a former Republican state lawmaker who led the drive to end partisan local elections, called the Justice Department’s decision “racial as well as partisan.” “On top of that, you have an unelected bureaucrat in Washington, D.C., overturning a valid election,” he said. “That is un-American.”

The decision, made by the same Justice official who ordered the dismissal of a voting rights case against members of the New Black Panther Party in Philadelphia, has irritated other locals as well. They bristle at federal interference in this city of nearly 23,000 people, two-thirds of whom are black.

In interviews in sleepy downtown Kinston – a place best known as a road sign on the way to the Carolina beaches – residents said partisan voting is largely unimportant because people are personally acquainted with their elected officials and are familiar with their views.

More here

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

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I suppose it makes it easier for Obama to claim that his healthcare policies are “revenue neutral” when the federal government just makes rules and expands healthcare services that it doesn’t fund then turns around and forces the states to pay for much of it out of groaning state budgets, but that seems like what is happening.

The Congressional Budget Office has reported that the costs of Obamacare’s mandates will fall heavily on the states . Obamacare will increase Medicaid coverage to one in five Americans, a growth from 50 million to 60 million Americans covered.

According to the CBO these unfunded mandates will cost the states an estimated $33 billion. Naturally, this estimate is likely low and costs to state budgets will be much higher in reality.

USA Today asked some pertinent questions about this unfunded increase in coverage mandated by Obamacare.

• Can states afford it? Medicaid already consumes about 22% of state budgets, and 13 million people are eligible but not enrolled, the National Governors Association says. The expansion also could tempt more of those currently eligible to sign up.
• Can states handle the expansion? Fourteen states, half of them in the South, only accept parents at less than 50% of the poverty level, so the expansion would be vast. Aging computer systems used to set eligibility may not be up to the task, says Ann Kohler, director of health policy at the American Public Human Services Association.
• Will there be enough doctors? Many parts of the country already face an acute shortage of general practitioners, 35% of whom did not accept new Medicaid patients last year, according to the Center for Studying Health System Change. House legislation would require states to raise Medicaid payment rates to doctors, but Senate legislation would not.

The answer, of course, is that the states cannot afford it. Earlier in the year, news reports showed that 46 of our 50 states were facing budget shortfalls, yet Obama wants to force these same states to come up with billions more for his unfunded Obamacare mandates?

With most states on the verge of the equivalence of bankruptcy Washington and Obamacare will force billions more in spending on states that simply cannot afford it. And Obama calls it “reform.”

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An Arizona sheriff known for aggressively cracking down on illegal immigration has been stripped of some of his special power to enforce federal immigration law, and he claims the Obama administration is taking away his authority for political reasons. Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, whose office faces racial profiling allegations over crime and immigration sweeps in some heavily Latino areas of metro Phoenix, said officials from Washington won’t let him renew a deal that let his deputies make federal immigration arrests.

“Let them all go brag that they took away the sheriff’s authority. Let them all do that. That doesn’t bother me. I don’t have an ego. I will continue doing the same thing,” the Republican sheriff said, noting he can still enforce state immigration laws. “What has changed, other than the politics and the perception emanating from Washington?”

The U.S. government, which does most of the nation’s immigration enforcement, is changing its rules for allowing local police to enforce more expansive federal immigration laws. Nationally, more than 1,000 local police and jail officers have been granted the power since 2002 to make immigration requests and speed up deportations. Arpaio has more officers with the special powers than any other local police agency in the country. For more than two years, 100 of his deputies have made immigration arrests and another 60 jail officers have identified inmates who are illegal immigrants.

Even though federal officials declined to let the sheriff keep making immigration arrests, Arpaio last week renewed a deal that will let his jail officers determine inmates’ immigration status. Arpaio said federal officials offered no explanation of why his powers were cut in half. Vinnie Picard, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which grants the special powers, declined to comment on the curtailment of Arpaio’s powers or whether any of the other 62 participating local agencies across the country have been denied renewals.

The agencies face an Oct. 14 deadline to renew their agreements. So far, at least three agencies have dropped out of the program.

Giving federal powers to local police helps supplement the small staff of federal agents who enforce immigration laws in the country’s interior, said Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which favors tougher immigration enforcement. He said it’s hard to tell whether the limits on Arpaio’s authority will extend to other agencies and would hamper the movement for local police to confront illegal immigration. “I suspect there is some effort there to send a warning to other police departments: Don’t get too aggressive with this, because we will yank it out from under you,” Mehlman said.

Joan Friedland, immigration policy director for the National Immigration Law Center, said the federal government wasn’t making a serious attempt to rein in Arpaio, because his jail officers still have the power to question jailed people about their immigration status. “All he has to do is get people to the jail, rather than being able to question them about their immigration status on the street,” said Friedland, whose group advocates for low-income immigrants.

For his part, Arpaio said he plans to continue cracking down illegal immigration by enforcing state laws that prohibit immigrant smuggling and ban employers from knowingly hiring illegal immigrants. Arpaio said his deputies can still detain suspected illegal immigrants who haven’t committed state crimes, as long as his officers call Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to pick them up.

Critics say some of Arpaio’s deputies racially profiled people during immigration sweeps. Arpaio maintains that people pulled over in the sweeps were approached because deputies had probable cause to believe they had committed crimes. His office is being investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice over allegations of discrimination and unconstitutional searches and seizures.

Arpaio’s approach to immigration has frustrated other public officials. The mayor of Mesa complained in 2008 that Arpaio didn’t warn his city of raids by deputies who were looking for illegal immigrants working at his city’s library and City Hall. And as Arpaio’s sweeps began to draw heavy criticism in 2008, then-Gov. Janet Napolitano, a Democrat, cut off immigration enforcement dollars to his office.

Napolitano, who as the country’s homeland security secretary now oversees the federal government’s immigration agencies, had said it wasn’t an attempt to change Arpaio’s approach to cracking down on illegal immigration. Rather, she said the funding was reallocated to try to clear a backlog of thousands of outstanding felony warrants across the state. [And who believes that?]

SOURCE

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

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If any of these state legislatures ultimately approve a constitutional change to outlaw the insurance mandates that Obama is trying to force on the nation it could set up a legal showdown between advocates of state’s rights and federal control that will likely end up in the Supreme Court.

Some of these efforts, though, are not a response solely to Obama’s push to take over the nation’s healthcare system. Many of these efforts started after the Massachusetts healthcare plan, derisively called Romneycare, was instituted in 2006.

The Times cites more legal doubters than those that imagine the efforts can successfully nullify a federal mandate, but even the Times admits that if any of these laws pass in the states it could be a morass for Obamacare.

Opponents of the measures and some constitutional scholars say the proposals are mostly symbolic, intended to send a message of political protest, and have little chance of succeeding in court over the long run. But they acknowledge that the measures could create legal collisions that would be both expensive and cause delays to health care changes, and could be a rallying point for opponents in the increasingly tense debate.

These efforts bring up the issue of the Constitutionality of Obamacare. Several discussions about this have already started (also here, and here) and are expect to continue as Obamacare comes closer to a vote.

Certainly these efforts could be the first salvo in a Constitutional battle, but let us hope that we have a Supreme Court that is strong enough to void Obamacare as Franklin Roosevelt’s first Supreme Court was strong enough to defeat much of the early parts of the economically disastrous New Deal — before FDR was able to stack the court with compliant justices that stood in his favor, of course.

(Cross posted to HealcareHorseRace.com)

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Politically, of course, the mandate is essential to winning insurance industry support for the legislation and acceptance of heavy federal regulations. Millions of new customers will be driven into insurance-company arms. Moreover, without the mandate, the entire thrust of the new regulatory scheme—requiring insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions and to accept standardized premiums—would produce dysfunctional consequences. It would make little sense for anyone, young or old, to buy insurance before he actually got sick. Such a socialization of costs also happens to be an essential step toward the single payer, national health system, still stridently supported by large parts of the president’s base.

The elephant in the room is the Constitution. As every civics class once taught, the federal government is a government of limited, enumerated powers, with the states retaining broad regulatory authority. As James Madison explained in the Federalist Papers: “[I]n the first place it is to be remembered that the general government is not to be charged with the whole power of making and administering laws. Its jurisdiction is limited to certain enumerated objects.” Congress, in other words, cannot regulate simply because it sees a problem to be fixed. Federal law must be grounded in one of the specific grants of authority found in the Constitution.

These are mostly found in Article I, Section 8, which among other things gives Congress the power to tax, borrow and spend money, raise and support armies, declare war, establish post offices and regulate commerce. It is the authority to regulate foreign and interstate commerce that—in one way or another—supports most of the elaborate federal regulatory system. If the federal government has any right to reform, revise or remake the American health-care system, it must be found in this all-important provision. This is especially true of any mandate that every American obtain health-care insurance or face a penalty.

Read it all…

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Though his first promise in office is to work on the economy, President Barack Obama vowed on his new Web site this week to deliver on an old promise: Rebuild Louisiana. (snip)

On his new White House Web site, Obama vows to “keep the broken promises made by President Bush to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. He and Vice President Biden will take steps to ensure that the federal government will never again allow such catastrophic failures in emergency planning and response to occur.”

Remember all the promises he made during the campaign? So, how’s that working?

Specifically, Obama would ensure New Orleans has a levee and pumping system to protect the city against a 100-year storm by 2011, free up rebuilding funds that had been allocated but not released and to rebuild hospitals and schools.

Much of the work remains on the drawing boards. The administration got into a tussle with Sen. David Vitter, R-La., after he briefly stalled the nomination of Craig Fugate to head the Federal Emergency Management Agency because new federal flood maps included areas that were not previously designated flood zones, including much of Louisiana’s Cameron Parish, Grand Isle, and Lafourche Parish.

Apparently, he has way too much on his plate, what with outsourcing Stimulus, Cap and Tax, and Health System overhaul to Congress, along with all his campaign trips, vacations to the Grand Canyon, Europe, Yellowstone, and Martha’s Vineyard, among others. Oh, and let’s not forget trips to the Middle East, offering apologies for America being great.

Seriously, what is he actually doing in office other than yapping and going after private citizens?

But that means a large number of political promises Obama made during his historic campaign have been pushed to the back of the agenda. Most, in fact. The PolitiFact.com Web site, which compiled a list of 515 Obama pledges, lists 374 under the category of “no action.”

Again, what the hell is he actually doing?

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Hitler? Obama? It is in fact a 1939 rally in London of the British Union of Fascists (BUF), led by Sir Osward Mosley.

Via Powerline, who also note that Sir Oswald was an early advocate of socialized healthcare. Mosley would no doubt be gratified by the extent to which his party’s socialist vision of government control over the healthcare industry has become the policy of the current administration in the U.S.A. Note the following quote from the BUF health policy:

The voluntary hospitals which have done so much in the training of doctors, dentists and nurses, are undoubtedly finding it extremely difficult in carrying on at the highest pitch of efficiency, for financial reasons. The British Union of Fascists views with admiration the work done by the men and women who are responsible for the building up of this system, and it sees no reason for the abolition of the voluntary hospitals. On the assumption of power we envisage the appointment of a National Director of Hospitals, who would co-ordinate the working of all the different hospitals (both Voluntary and State hospitals) and who would be represented by a single nominee on the governing Committees of all the voluntary hospitals. The State would make it its duty to find the necessary additional funds for the management of the voluntary hospitals and would not interfere in their internal management.

Does that remind you of someone who repeatedly assures people that they will all be able to keep their existing healthcare insurance after his socialist plan is implemented?

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

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The Constitution is the people’s permission for the federal government to operate. As originally written, any issue not directly given as a responsibility of the federal government was to be left to the states. As specified in the 10th Amendment.

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

The supreme authority in the United States is actually granted to us, the people, by our Creator as stated in the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration was much more than our asserting our emancipation from an oppressive dictator, it was our establishment as a people. This establishment went on without direction until after the American Revolutionary War when the Articles of Confederation were established. This loose agreement among the newly freed former colonies of the British crown established them as independent states with no way to settle disputes among them. This facilitated the Constitutional Convention which was empowered by the states to refine the existing Articles of Confederation.

When it was convened a decision was quickly made that the current Articles of Confederation were so flawed that they needed to be abandoned and a new agreement of the states needed to be made.

The intent of those who drafted our Constitution need not be interpreted as those who believe that it is a living breathing and evolving document would have you believe. For the love of Pete it is written in English. The intent is just as clear today as it was in 1787 when it was signed. The United States was and is to be a Constitutional Federal Republic in that the political power of the nation is to be centered in the various states NOT as some would have you believe the federal government.

Upon its signing, the US Constitution was nothing more than 7 Articles establishing the responsibilities of the Congress, President, Supreme Court and subordinate courts, interstate relations, a method of amendment, an establishment of authorization for the payment of debts, supremacy, and oaths of office, and the mode of ratification. It was to be understood, that if the Constitution did not address an issue specifically, it was for the states themselves to deal with or the people.

The USA Began to Unravel Before the Ink Was Dry

Since it’s ratification in 1789, the United States Constitution has been modified for better or for worse according to Article V.

The first fracture in this limited government was made with the adoption of the Bill of Rights. Jefferson, the Democrat that he was, believed that by establishing a bill of rights it would open the Constitution up to assumptions. If the government can assume one right over the people, where would it end. We now know. It doesn’t end.

How Abortion Has Led to the Downfall of a Nation

The next crack was with the adoption of the 14th Amendment. As necessary as the 14th was at its time in history, the amendment was written so broadly that those who cannot understand that a document written in English needs no interpretation will find meaning in its lack of wording to define rights or responsibilities that were never intended. This is how a Constitutional right to terminate life can be found in an amendment adopted to establish citizenship for all persons living in the United States at a specific moment in time regardless of previous state of servitude; and that those persons could not be denied due process under the law. I’m sorry people but slavery has been illegal in the United States since 1862. NO ONE living in 1972 – or since – had ever been a slave. Subsequently they could not be denied due process of law based upon a previous status of servitude. The basis for the legalization of abortion in the United States as legislated by the Supreme Court – a clear violation of Articles I and III of the Constitution – could not and should not have been made by the Warren court. The Amendment cited does not apply.

In contrast to the Warren Court’s establishment of the superiority of the 14th Amendment over all other provisions of the US Constitution, the 10th Amendment shines brightly above it. Or at least with any free thinking individualist with skills to comprehend a sentence written in plain English.

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Abortion is in the most liberal of terms a medical procedure. There is no Constitutional authority for the federal government to regulate, over-see, fund, or otherwise interfere with medical procedures in this country in spite of the establishment of Medicare and Medicaid. Simply put, there is no existing authorization in the Constitution allowing the federal government to do so. However, under the 10th Amendment the states have such a right.

The Warren court decided to supercede the right of the State of Texas to deny a woman an abortion because the state had established the procedure as being not lawful within its jurisdiction. The Warren court’s decision to hear the case much less find some twisted “Constitutional right” was a clear violation of states’ right as defined under the 10th Amendment. Their justification for even hearing the case in the first place – interstate commerce. A medical procedure – legal or illegal – has suddenly become a matter of interstate commerce. This will be the justification for Obamacare next. But I digress.

With this decision, the Warren court made it possible to argue that since every product and/or service performed in this country – legal or illegal – has an intrinsic value and might be a cause for an individual to cross a state line in order to seek said product or service, it is automatically a matter of interstate commerce and thus the jurisdiction of the federal government. And if a product or service is denied to a citizen of a state by the state, it can be argued that the citizen’s rights of due process have been violated even though, that person had no previous condition of servitude.

Using that argument, in Nevada, anyone can walk into any public building and play a slot machine. Here in Ohio we cannot. Therefore my right to feed a potential gambling addiction (which I don’t have) cannot be satisfied. Because companies in Nevada supply these type of machines, it can be argued that Ohio’s anti-gambling laws constitute a violation of my 14th amendment rights under interstate commerce. I don’t have readily available access to those machines. (note: this is actually a better argument for interstate commerce due process interference than the Roe decision was.)

In a sense, the Roe decision opened the 14th amendment up for bastardization by any liberal crazy with a wild hair to do anything that is currently forbidden by a state government.

The Income Tax and the Beginning of Class Warfare

The next modification to our Constitution that contributed to our demise as a country is the 16th Amendment. A very simple amendment the establishment of an income tax.

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

This removed the requirement established in Article I requiring an enumeration of the people before the levying of any taxes in Article I Section 2 Paragraph 3. I know the reason for doing so however, that does not justify the levying taxes without an enumeration of the people as required by our founders. Removing the racial make-up and devaluation of the human-being implied by Article 1 Section 2, it still should be required that if any new tax is to be imposed on the people, an enumeration of the populous should be conducted in order to know how much revenue would be generated by said tax. This only makes common sense and thus why it was originally written into article I.

This income tax has been a vehicle by which a particular political party has created a separation of the people based solely on one’s ability to earn. Hard work, effort, and the taking of risks in this country is what makes it great. Those who wish to impose some twisted sense of social equality based solely on existence have created in a sense a war among the classes that takes place every 4 years at the ballot box. Those who ‘have’ continue to be vilified in this nation rather than rewarded for creating wealth and providing opportunities for others to establish themselves and provide for their families. A progressive and overly burdensome tax system has been implemented in order to spread the wealth in a quest to redistribute the wealth of the nation according to Karl Marx and Frederick Engels.

The worst kept political secret in this nation is that the Democrat party has been working towards full implementation of social Communism by way of income redistribution. And the vehicle used most often is the 16th Amendment.

The Popular Election of Senators – The States Are Removed from the Equation

With the passage and ratification of the 17th Amendment, the people would in a sense have two Houses of Representatives. Originally, the state legislatures had the responsibility of appointing 2 Senators in different term classes to the United States Senate for terms of 6 years. This is outlined in Article 1 Section 3 of the Constitution.

The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote.

Being appointed by the state legislature made a Senator accountable to the state from which he/she was appointed. This gave the state more power. With the passage of the 17th Amendment, the people of this nation removed this accountability to the states and in a sense made the states subservient to the federal government. And the end of our Republic was begun.

Clause 1. The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures.

Clause 2. When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of each State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.

Clause 3. This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the election or term of any Senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of the Constitution.

As of the ratification of the 17th Amendment, we are no longer a collection of 50 separate and independent nations, we are nothing more than 50 provinces or districts within the out of control monster known as the United States.

Conclusion

Many cite the Constitution as the ultimate authority in the United States. This idea is nothing more than fiction. It is the will of the people as expressed by the people. We will it or it cannot be so. This authority is granted to us by GOD and declared to the world as such by the Declaration of Independence.

With the growing emergence of the sovereignty movement among the states, I can see a day when the United States as we know it could – and I emphasize the word COULD – be obsolete. If every one of the 50 states declared themselves independent again – like the Constitution originally intended – then perhaps a new agreement among the states could replace the now totally flawed and bastardized Constitution like it replaced the Articles of Confederation. One could only hope.

Gribbit Reporting for Stop the ACLU – Ohio

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