Nullification: The Rightful Remedy to Curb Federal Tyranny - Part II | Eastern North Carolina Now

    The success of H.R. 982 will have much to do with Rep. Stam's character as a public official. Will he honor his oath and defend the Constitution of the United States and the NC constitution as well? Or will he kill a bill simply because he doesn't like Rep. Bradley. Will he take the notion of dual sovereignty seriously or continue to believe that states have no right to question the authority of the federal government?

Conclusion

    The first duty of a person who has taken an oath to the Constitution is to support and protect the Constitution of the United States - from enemies foreign and domestic. The primarily purpose of the Constitution is to confine and constraint the federal government, define limits of government with respect to individuals, and protect those fundamental rights to Life, Liberty, and Property. It does not give "We the People" our fundamental rights, because our rights, under Natural Law, predate the Constitution and derive from our relationship with the Creator.

    Never in the history of the United States have our citizens pledged their allegiance to the federal government. If a public servant determines a law or proposed law to be unconstitutional, he has an affirmative and active duty to enlighten his fellow representatives as well as citizenry. First, he is obligated to not support or enforce such law. Second, he is obligated to sound a public alarm regarding any such legislation or law and to rally public action against it. The duty under the Constitution is to keep the federal government in check. The ultimate goal of Nullification, of course, is to safeguard individual liberty and to preserve our Republic. We don't ever want to be in the situation of ancient Rome, as depicted in the greatest movie of all time, Gladiator, where the Senate, the voice of the people, was losing significance and the Republic itself was in its last days. Emperor Marcus Aurelius summed up what had become of Rome: "There was once a dream that was Rome. You could only whisper it. Anything more than a whisper and it would vanish... it was so fragile. And I fear that it will not survive the winter." Our republic is also perilously frail.

    The National Defense Authorization Act is a perfect example of when nullification and interposition should be used in current times, or as Thomas Woods' would say - "to resist federal tyranny in the 21st century." The post 9/11 government has put this country on a dangerous slippery slope that Germany knows all too well. When Hitler became Chancellor of the Reich on January 30, 1933, a fire broke out "suspiciously" during the night of February 27, which destroyed the Reichstag and set in motion a series of actions which took the civil liberties away from political dissidents, then certain undesirables, and finally the Jews. (The "suspicious" fire was set on Hitler's own orders, in order to set his agenda in motion).

    James Madison spoke before the Virginia Ratifying Convention on June 16, 1788 and warned: "There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."

    Justice Jackson warned about the responsibility the Supreme Court holds with respect to the protections afforded the Bill of Rights when he wrote his stirring dissent in Korematsu v. United States, the 1944 case which challenged the internment of Japanese citizens during World War II:

    "Much is said of the danger to liberty from the Army program for deporting and detaining these citizens of Japanese extraction. But a judicial construction of the due process clause that will sustain this order is a far more subtle blow to liberty than the promulgation of the order itself. A military order, however unconstitutional, is not apt to last longer than the military emergency. Even during that period, a succeeding commander may revoke it all. But once a judicial opinion rationalizes such an order to show that it conforms to the Constitution, or rather rationalizes the Constitution to show that the Constitution sanctions such an order, the Court for all time has validated the principle of racial discrimination in criminal procedure and of transplanting American citizens. The principle then lies about like a loaded weapon, ready for the hand of any authority that can bring forward a plausible claim of an urgent need. Every repetition imbeds that principle more deeply in our law and thinking and expands it to new purposes. All who observe the work of courts are familiar with what Judge Cardozo described as "the tendency of a principle to expand itself to the limit of its logic." A military commander may overstep the bounds of constitutionality, and it is an incident. But if we review and approve, that passing incident becomes the doctrine of the Constitution. There it has a generative power of its own, and all that it creates will be in its own image. Nothing better illustrates this danger than does the Court's opinion in this case."

    We can't allow the erosion of our most important constitutional protections just so that the government can catch one or two bad guys.


    References:

    Thomas Woods, Nullification: How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century, 2010; Regnery Publishing; pg. 3.

    Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, The Federalist Papers (1788); New York: Mentor Books, 1961), No. 45, p. 292-93.

    Thomas Jefferson, "Draft Kentucky Resolves of 1798," The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, (Memorial Edition) Lipscomb and Bergh, editors ME 17:387.

    Letter to Major John Cartwright, 5 June 1824; in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson , ed. Albert Ellery Bergh, 20 vols. (Washington: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1907), 16:47. See also ibid., 15:328; The Federalist Papers, No. 39, p.245.

    United States v. Sprague, 282 U.S. 716, 733 (1931).

    Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803).

    Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507 (2004)

    Ex parte Milligan, 71 U.S. 2 (1866).

    Ex parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1 (1942).

    Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944). [Jackson's dissent at pp. 245-246]

    Remarks in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 6, 1788. Referenced at: http://www.constitution.org/rc/rat_va_05.htm

    H. D. Hazeltine, M.A., Litt.D., "Magna Carta and the US Constitution," The Forum. Referenced at: http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=604&Itemid=284

    Stewart Rhodes, "Understanding Enemy Combatant Status and the Military Commissions Act, Part I. Enemy Combatant Status: No More Pernicious Doctrine, Dirt Rhodes Scholar, October 28, 2006. Referenced at: http://stewart-rhodes.blogspot.com/2006/10/enemy-combatant-status-no-more.html

    Stewart Rhodes, "Solving the Puzzle of Enemy Combatant Status," 2004. Referenced at: http://jpfo.org/pdf/sr-enemy.pdf

    Stewart Rhodes, founder and president of Oath Keepers, talks about the danger of applying military law (law of war) to American citizens (May 31, 2012) - http://www.livestream.com/theintolerableacts

    Glenn Greenwald, "Obama Takes Bush's Secrecy Games One Step Further," Salon, May 26, 2012. Referenced at: http://www.salon.com/2012/03/26/obama_takes_bushs_secrecy_games_one_step_further/

    Michael Boldin, "NDAA Nullification Becomes Law in Virginia. Effective July 1st," The Tenth Amendment Center, April 18, 2012. Referenced at: http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2012/04/ndaa-nullification-passes-in-virginia-governors-signature-expected-shortly/

    "Pennsylvania Constable to Nullify NDAA and Patriot Act," Before It's News, May 21, 2012. Referenced at: http://beforeitsnews.com/story/2162/657/Pennsylvania_Constable_to_Nullify_NDAA_and_Patriot_Act.html

    H.B. 1160. http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?121+sum+HB1160

    Text: http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?121+ful+HB1160H2+pdf

    The Patriot Coalition - http://patriotcoalition.com/

    The Intolerable Acts Action Center - http://www.theintolerableacts.org/

    The Mecklenburg Declaration of May 20, 1775 - http://www.hartslog.org/declar/1775.htm

    NOTES:

    1. Judge Spencer Roane would have been appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court by Thomas Jefferson had President John Adams not appointed John Marshall in the waning hours of his presidency].

    2. Note that in the 1790's, the Twelfth Amendment had not yet been added to the Constitution and so the candidate who received the greatest number of electoral votes became president and the second highest vote-getter became the vice-president].

    3. Unfortunately, the Kentucky Resolutions of 1799, as important a political document as it was, was largely overlooked by the rest of the country because George Washington, the Father of our County, passed away just weeks after they were ratified and his death dominated national news and national publications].

    4. Notice how our Founders viewed our new nation, after the ratification of the Constitution - by looking at their writings: (just 2 examples are given below, but there are countless others)

    On November 26, 1787, James Wilson gave the following remarks in Pennsylvania's ratifying convention: "Governments, in general, have been the result of force, of fraud, and accident. After a period of six thousand years has elapsed since the creation, the United States exhibit to the world the first instance, as far as we can learn, of a nation, unattacked by external force, unconvulsed by domestic insurrections, assembling voluntarily, deliberating fully, and deciding calmly concerning that system of government under which they would wish that they and their prosperity should live."

    On July 19, 1791, George Washington wrote these words in a letter to Catherine Macaulay Graham: "The United States enjoy a scene of prosperity and tranquility under the new government that could hardly have been hoped for."

    In both quotes, notice how the verb following "United States" denotes a 'plural' subject... that is "united" states. The term "united" describes the status of the states. The verb following "United States" doesn't end with an "s" and therefore does NOT indicate a singular unit; it does not indicate a singular subject. The term "United States" refers to the status of states and not the name of the country.

    5. Read how a Tea Party member in Ashville (NC) had a surprise visit by the Feds and a local police officer because he wrote to get an EPA administrators contact info. The account is unbelievable and appalling. The interrogation of Mr. Keller is beyond anything a reasonable citizen should expect from government. Decent, law-abiding citizens have the fundamental right to "be left alone" by government, as Supreme Court Justice Brandeis once announced.

    This concept of the "right to be left alone" dates back to a 1928 Supreme Court wiretapping decision (Olmstead v. United states), in which Justice Brandeis wrote: "The protection guaranteed by the amendments of the Constitution is much broader in scope. The makers of our Constitution understood to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness. They recognized the significance of man's spiritual nature, of his feelings and of his intellect. They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions, and their sensations. They conferred as against the government the right to be left alone - the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men."

    Please pass on and let everyone know that "Big Brother is Watching."

    "Larry Keller's visit with Special Agents from the EPA," Posted May 10, 2012. http://ashevilleteaparty.org/?p=3690

    Larry Keller of Buncombe, GOP member and part of the WNC Objectivist group had a horrible encounter with Big Brother feds. Below is the story - "Our Government at Work." [Western North Carolina Objectivists; objectivism is the philosophy of Ayn Rand -"I swear, by my life and my love of it,that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."]

    Our Government at Work

    On Wednesday, May 2, 2012 at about 1:45 pm two Special Agents from the EPA and an armed police officer who stood 6'6" tall visited our house in Asheville, NC. Their visit was a total surprise as we had not received any communications requesting an appointment. The agents presented very official looking badges and asked if we could sit and chat awhile. We moved to the back porch and took our seats with the exception of the armed officer who stood by the door to the house the entire time.

    Special Agent Michael Woods, who acted as the leader, then asked if I ran a business out of our house and if, what kind of business. What does that have to do with the EPA I thought. I answered yes - I own and run a consulting business focused on data visualization and analysis. After explaining my business to them, he then asked if I had ever sent any emails to anyone in the EPA. I answered no initially and then recalled that I had tried to reach Dr. Al Armendariz, the then EPA Regional Administrator who had made comments about crucifying big oil companies last week. Further, using Google, I had searched for his contact information and landed on his domain which was a subset of Southern Methodist University. There Dr. Armendariz tells visitors to email Dr. David Gray, Director of External Affairs for the EPA. I sent an email to Dr. Gray and stated the following:
   
    "Hello Mr. Gray-Do you have Mr. Armendariz's contact information so we can say hello?"

    At this point Agent Woods reach into a file and from it he pulled out a copy of my email to Dr. Gray. He handed it to me and I asked what was there about the content that justified their driving across the state of NC to visit me with no prior warning. The other agent then stated that my choice of words in the email could be interpreted in many ways. At that point I asked them to be specific as they were wasting my time. I stated that I pay for agents' salaries and that of the police officer and they have bigger fish to fry. Special Agent Woods then asked if I had ever been arrested - the answer was a swift no. I then asked for a copy of the email they presented and they said that was impossible as the investigation was not yet complete.
   
    At this point I asked for business cards which they said they had when the first entered. Both agents suddenly discovered they were out of business cards. They left via the back staircase and to my shock the agents had parked their car almost blocking my driveway and the police officer parked in my neighbor's driveway.
   
    Welcome to the new America.


    6. The Mecklenburg Declaration of May 20, 1775:

    (1). Resolved . . . That whosoever directly or indirectly abets, or in any way, form, or manner countenances the invasion of our rights, as attempted by the Parliament of Great Britain, is an enemy to his country, to America, and the rights of man.

    (2). Resolved . . . That we the citizens of Mecklenburg County, do hereby dissolve the political bands which have connected us with the mother country, and absolve ourselves from all allegiance to the British Crown, abjuring all political connection with a nation that has wantonly trampled on our rights and liberties and inhumanly shed innocent blood of Americans in Lexington.

    (3). Resolved . . . That we do hereby Declare ourselves free and independent people; that we are, and of a right ought to be, a sovereign and self-governing people under the power of God and the*General Congress; to the maintenance which independence we solemnly pledge to each other our mutual co-operation, our lives, our fortunes and our scared honor. *(Reference here was to the Provincial Congress of North Carolina.)

    (4). Resolved . . . That we hereby ordain and adopt as rules of conduct all each of our former laws, and that the crown of Great Britain cannot be considered hereafter as holding any rights, privileges, or immunities among us.

    (5). Resolved . . . That all officers, both civil and military, in the country, be entitled to exercise the same powers and authorities as heretofore; that every member of this delegation shall henceforth be civil officer and exercise the powers of a justice of the peace, issue process, hear and determine controversies according to law, preserve peace, union and harmony in the country, and use every exertion to spread the love of liberty and of country until a more general and better organized system of government be established.

    (6). Resolved . . . That a copy of these resolutions be transmitted by express to the President of the Continental Congress assembled in Philadelphia to be laid before that body.

Model NDAA Nullification Resolution for Local Governments:

    WHEREAS, the Constitution of the United States is the foundation of our nation's rights and freedom, and the basis of our representative democracy; AND

    WHEREAS, on December 15, 2011, the US Senate passed the conference report to H.R. 1540, the "National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012" (NDAA); and on December 31, 2011, President Barack Obama signed that conference 10 report into law; AND

    WHEREAS, Section 1021 of the NDAA authorizes, before a military commission, the military trial of American citizens and lawful residents accused of levying war against the United States or adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort; AND

    WHEREAS, Section 1021(c)(1) of the NDAA directly violates the right of the people against unreasonable seizure by allowing them to be snatched up (kidnapped) by the United States military, by the authority of the military alone, and taken to a military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, or to some other location, to be held in "(1) Detention under the law of war without trial until the end of the hostilities authorized by the Authorization for Use of Military Force," or, under Section 1021(c)(4), to be turned over to the custody or control of "any other foreign country, or any other foreign entity"; AND

    WHEREAS, under Section 1021(c), the American people can be treated exactly the same as any person captured on a foreign battlefield, such as Iraq or Afghanistan, where anyone who is suspected of being an unlawful belligerent in the war on terrorism, or of aiding belligerents, is simply picked up by the military and taken away to wherever the United States military sees fit, with no involvement by or access to civilian courts; AND

    WHEREAS, Section 1021(b)(2) defines a person who can be targeted as "A person who was a part of or substantially supported Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces." ; AND

    WHEREAS, "belligerency" is a term used in international law to indicate the status of two or more entities, generally sovereign states, being engaged in a war, yet the NDAA is purported to address the war on terror, which is a 'tactic' and not a sovereign state; AND

    WHEREAS, the proper charge for American citizens and lawful residents accused of levying war against the United States or giving aid and/or comfort to the enemy is Treason, as defined in Article III, Section 3, which provides certain evidentiary and procedural protections to said American citizens and residents, including the requirement of presenting two witnesses to the same overt act or a confession in open court, before they can be found guilty by a jury of their peers; AND

    WHEREAS, the indefinite military detention of any person without trial violates the 4th, 5th and 6th amendments of the Constitution of the United States, Article III of the Constitution of the United States, and the Posse Comitatus Act; AND

    WHEREAS, the NDAA offends the ideals of presumed innocence and right to a fair trial with all its procedural safeguards, including the threshold right of first being charged with a crime before taken into custody, on which our nation was founded, and which generations of activists and military servicemen and women have fought to preserve; AND

    WHEREAS, the NDAA's detention provisions could allow the recurrence of torture in military detention in violation of the 8th Amendment; AND

    WHEREAS, the NDAA's detention provisions could, under Humanitarian Law Project v. Holder (2011) and Hedges v. Obama (2012), allow the targeted detention of activists, journalists and other Americans exercising their First Amendment rights despite the crucial role of Free Speech in preserving liberty; AND

    WHEREAS, the language of the aforementioned sections of the NDAA is vague enough to also potentially chill the first amendment right of assembly and the second amendment right to have and bear arms; AND

    WHEREAS, the detention provisions could force US military service members to serve as domestic jailers, a role for which they are neither trained nor equipped, nor is ever appropriate; AND

    WHEREAS, a government that does what is permitted under Section 1021(c) to its own people is consistent with the behavior of every despotic and totalitarian regime in world history; AND

    WHEREAS, the very reason for the Bill of Rights is to prevent arbitrary and capricious conduct by the government against its own citizens; AND

    WHEREAS, the very reason for the Article III Treason clause is to provide to those citizens and legal residents who have engaged in war against their country or provided aid and comfort to the enemy certain protections that were absent in such arbitrary, corrupt, and maligned courts as the Star Chamber Courts, which were notorious during the 17th century to prosecute the political enemies of James I and his son Charles I. The judges appointed to the Star Chamber were the King's own hand-picked men. The courts were known for their abuses, corruption, and misuse of authority because of such concentration power in an autonomous group, not subject to the checks and balances of common law and which held its proceedings in secret; AND

    WHEREAS, a government that is permitted to apply law of war provisions to its citizens for being "belligerents" can easily take those powers to target citizens for political opposition; AND

    WHEREAS, the State (or City) of _________ re-affirms its allegiance to the US Constitution and Bill of Rights, as intentioned by the States when they ratified them; AND

    WHEREAS, the State (or City) of _________ re-affirms its respect and gratitude for our Founding Fathers for their knowledge and command of history and government and for crafting our founding documents so brilliantly and so protective of individual liberty; AND

    WHEREAS, the State (or City) of _________ re-affirms its gratitude for the supreme sacrifice of those in the Armed Forces who have died in battle in the name of those same cherished rights and liberties; AND

    WHEREAS, state governments and local governments have a right and a duty to its citizens to protect their sovereign and civil rights under the doctrine of federalism from federal legislation and policy that exceeds the power delegated to it under the US Constitution; AND

    WHEREAS, the Article VI, clause 2 of the Constitution itself acknowledges that only laws made pursuant to the powers granted in the US Constitution are to be considered the supreme law of the land; all laws and policy enacted in excess or abuse of such powers are void from their inception and have no force of law, thereby need not be enforced; AND

    THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the State (or City Council) of _______________, acting in the spirit of the 1776, pursuant to intentions of the federal compact, and answering the call of history, does hereby declare that the aforementioned sections of the NDAA offend the Bill of Rights and therefore instruct all our public officials and agencies to decline requests by federal agencies acting under detention powers granted by the NDAA that could infringe upon residents' freedom of speech, religion, assembly, privacy, or rights to counsel.

    OPTIONAL (the sections below are optional, but recommended):

    BE IT RESOLVED that the State (or City Council) of _______________, does hereby declare that persons holding executive offices in this State, including sheriffs, police, and town clerks, are restrained by the duties and allegiance they owe this State and the People from affording any official conduct, aid, or co-operation in the execution in the aforesaid unconstitutional act, and that no court in this State shall relinquish jurisdiction over any citizen to any federal court.

    BE IT RESOLVED, that no agency, political subdivision, employee, or member of the military of ________ (State) will be permitted to assist an agency of the armed forces of the United States in the investigation, prosecution, or detention of a citizen pursuant to the NDAA, in violation of the United States Constitution and the Constitution of ______ (State).

    BE IT RESOLVED, that no federal agent shall be permitted to exercise jurisdiction over any citizen in this State pursuant to the NDAA.

    The Governor (or Mayor) of ___________________ shall send copies of this resolution to our US Congressman and Senators, the US Senate Committee on the Judiciary, the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the US House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary, the US House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the US Attorney General, and the President of the United States.

    Diane Rufino has her own blog For Love of God and Country. Come and visit her. She'd love your company.