Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve edited this…
http://wedeclare.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/the-united-states-constitution.pdf
Who’s been bought off?
It makes news when some foreigner (like Henrique Capriles Radonski) challenges a foreign, long-entrenched murderous thug (like Hugo Chavez). Such news makes headlines and waves all over the world. In foreign politics, sports, and even in real life, we love a “come from behind” “Cinderella Story” of bravery challenging the odds.
But what do we hear about those who’d challenge the world’s longest-running and most-corrupt crony network operating here in the USA? Do we admire the underdogs who’d offer an alternative to a machine of war, theft and deceit that’s been left alone with near-total power in the USA since 1913?
From personal experience, I must say, no. In fact, we call them “fringe,” “lunatic,” or at best, when we don’t want to come out and say, “loser,” we call each of them a “wasted vote” with “no chance” in that entrenched, violent, stinking-rotten and generally disliked two-faced regime we’ve come to call (because we’ve been told to) “the Two Party System.”
Why is that? Why do we voluntarily choose to live in a downward-spiraling, robbing-Peter-to-pay-Paul cronyism, lawless and brutish debt bomb?
Well, I think it’s because we’ve been bought off with our own money, that’s why.
Who among us doesn’t at least at some point in the day feel a part of some arbitrary abstract “class” of citizen that has a “special interest” in our adversarial system of politics? Whether it’s the struggle of men versus women, gay versus straight, black versus white, or something even more abstract like activated Reserve, beneficiary, incorporated businessman or taxpayer, we all seem forced to “take a side” in a system that is now entirely based upon taking something from somebody, and sometimes, giving it to somebody else.
Sometimes it’s just taking; and we hope to keep a little more than the next guy gets to keep. Sometimes we’re on the receiving end (Medicare, Social Security are the biggest, broadest examples), and we have come up with all manner of justification for what we take from our neighbors.
Always, it seems, one half of the “two party system” is “on your side;” while the other half is “against you.”
It’s hard for me to imagine why we’ve not demanded at least a year’s military peace since the War to End All War, but we’ve been told that our whole system will crash down like dominoes unless we keep ferreting out and smacking down the hobgoblins and demons always lurking somewhere overseas.
Anyway, you have invested, and you feel stuck. You’ve witnessed “rope a dope.”
That it is immoral in the extreme as well as very clearly illegal doesn’t matter. It is, we’re always told, and so we always say, “The Way Things Are.”
Well, life is what you make it. We The People have exactly and only what we choose. It’s in your power to keep “The Way Things Are” the way things are; or change it to whatever you want.
I have a proposal. I offer rules that apply to everybody equally – written rules that are few enough that everybody can know them; simple enough that everybody can understand them; and important/useful/critical enough that everybody must obey all of them without exception, all the time. The rules are proven to work if obeyed, and they’ve been called brilliant and exemplary by people all over the world. They are also the law, right now.
I’m not holding my breath that my quixotic campaign will do any better than ever before. I’m not even saying that I’m a brave person to offer such a challenge to our corrupt status quo. And please don’t call me Cinderella.
I’m just putting rule of law under existing state and federal constitutions on the ballot under the name Andrew Horning (L).
Whatever happens next isn’t my decision at all.
It’s all yours. You’re the one who must decide if you want to keep doing what you’ve been doing, or something else for a change. A real change. It’s up to you, and the time to choose is just around the corner.
Do you really want to live like this?
According to our Declaration of Independence, governments derive “…their just powers from the consent of the governed.” But as demonstrated in the Middle East today, all government powers, just or unjust, are by consent of the governed; and that consent can be withdrawn from even the most oppressive dictators.
So the problem with despotism is never really the despot. The problem is that for every despot there is a majority of citizens who empowered that despot. Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Caligula and countless others didn’t kill hundreds of millions by themselves, you know. Do not fool yourself; people like Kim Jong Il, Charles Taylor, Hirohito, Mugabe, Quadhafi, Nebuchadnezzar II, Nero or even Vlad the Impaler are everywhere and always among us. They are nobody special by themselves.
Here in the USA, we can conveniently, painlessly choose how we are to live. Deny it or not, we have exactly what the majority of us have freely chosen. We may say we want change, but we vote for mostly elites and incumbents. We may say we don’t like the corruption and money in politics, but less than 10% of us ever vote for anything else. Many dictators of the past century, including Benito Mussolini, were elected by people just like us.
So consider what we’ve chosen. We’ve not had even a year’s peace since the War to End All Wars. The Home of The Brave has sacrificed freedom for empty promises of security. The Land of The Free has the world’s highest percentage of citizens in prison. We really do tax people out of their homes to pay for homelessness programs; and we tax, regulate and litigate away businesses to stimulate the economy. We guard borders everywhere in the world except at home. For the first time ever, we’re working longer hours, taking fewer vacations, spending less time with our kids, and living more poorly than the previous generation. The rules we must live by are unknowable and ever-changing – law has now become little more than incantations, as high priests of law in grand courts decree, apparently on whim, how things are to be.
Are you happy with this? Is this how you want to live?
Humans can learn. When we want something, we know all about our choices of color, flavor, engine size, craftsmanship, price or caliber. We spend crazy amounts of time on sports, or romance novels. I know people who can tell you the vertical jump height of their favorite basketball stars, or can detail Oprah’s diet ups and downs.
But by what I’ve personally seen in tens of thousands of average voters, We The People apparently don’t care about the injustice and madness we’ve chosen to make of our lives. We know less about those we’ve chosen to lord over us than we know about movie stars. We certainly don’t know anything about our state and federal constitutions.
Despite what we may say, our votes say that we want unaccountable people of status and money to tell us what to do. Our behavior in the voting booth is beckoning a dictator. I believe we’re going to get one soon.
May I make a request? I’d like for you to read your state and federal constitutions and see what we’ve thrown away…and could have back anytime we choose. They are still law, though we act otherwise. They would still work better than anything else ever tried, if we’d only try them.
If you’ve taken the hour or so it takes to read the federal constitution, you already know that federal government should be invisible to almost all of us almost all the time. The Indiana constitution is the contract most relevant to Hoosier life. It’s a longer read, but still not terribly long or complicated. Both comprise rules of life that are few enough to know, simple enough to understand, and important enough that everybody should obey them without exception, all the time. The free life these contracts describe is simpler, safer, and in every way better than the politicized lives we’re living now.
You can read these constitutions (with my annotations)here:
http://wedeclare.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/the-united-states-constitution.pdf
http://wedeclare.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/indiana-constitution-book.pdf
Please ask other people to read them too. If you know somebody who wants to read them, and has no internet access, and you’re too cheap to print them out yourself, then contact me at thefreedomfarm@gmail.com, and I’ll get you copies.
Yes; it’s that important to me. I have to live here too…
We never asked…
I intend to deliver the following to the Governor’s Office with a press conference at noon on July 4 on the east steps of the statehouse.
I believe this is the the most appropriate date (and a date upon which I’d staged yearly protests until 2008). I think it’s the most appropriate place to start for this Step One (a polite request to the correct officer).
I hope a good number of people, including you, can show up to join me:
Dear Governor Daniels,
We have read our state and federal constitutions. We understand their purpose and legal authority. And now we both understand, and suffer, the breadth and depth of our society’s transgressions against these fundamental laws.
These transgressions have occurred by public choice, and progressively over many generations, so we did not see the damage we were doing. But we do see that damage now.
It would be both tedious and unnecessary to detail the errors and resultant harm done, or to list our many reasons for wanting the illegality to end.
We will supply at least a partial list of serious grievances and injuries if that would help you remedy the breach of social contract that caused them. But our requested remedy is both simple and proven to work better for liberty, security, prosperity and justice than anything else yet tried in the history of human governance:
We ask only that you execute Rule of Law under existing Indiana and federal constitutions, exactly as these laws are written.
Governor Daniels, we want these laws to be enforced without exception, all the time, as soon as possible. They are few enough that everyone can know them; simple enough that everyone can understand them; and important enough that everyone, particularly agents and officers of government, should obey them all without exception, proviso or privileged classes, all of the time.
The laws leave no room for selective enforcement, or preferential treatment by corporate abstraction, class or process. All citizens are to be equal under the laws, and no person is above the laws. No legitimate political authority exists outside of that granted by the plain sense of our constitutions. All governing agencies, actions and rules that exist outside constitutional limitations are, by the clear words and purpose of the constitutions, null and void.
If any part of a constitution is so unclear as to prohibit enforcement, there is a constitutional process for clarifying it in print. But we herewith submit annotated copies of each constitution on the expectation that you will see little that is vague or open-ended in either contract. These annotated constitutions are also freely available online at:
http://wedeclare.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/the-united-states-constitution.pdf
http://wedeclare.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/indiana-constitution-book.pdf
We understand that as seriously as we have failed over the generations, it will take some time to restore legitimate authority to our civil government, and peel back the false accountabilities and destructive dependencies accumulated over generations. We propose that five years is more than sufficient to phase out all illegal political entities, processes, rules, precedents, actions and taxes; and to enact amendments and phase-out plans necessary to ensure full constitutional obedience.
Yet current budget and social conditions demand all possible speed, and history demonstrates an invariable and harsh penalty for delay. Please do immediately employ the legal and political authority that is yours, to restore what is, by law, ours.
Thank you
Here are a few specific conclusions drawn from a simple reading of the constitutions, and requiring immediate action:
- Precedents, in courts or in policy, are not law; nor are “Executive Orders” law. Only the legislative branch can write laws, and then only in the domain authorized. Courts may not write laws, bureaucracies may not write laws, and executives may not write laws. Therefore, all such illegal “laws,” regulations, orders, rules and mandates are null and void. They must be declared so, and denied enforcement, as quickly as possible.
- Baseless currency is illegal. Mandated, monopoly currency issued by unconstitutional transnational private banks, is illegal. Therefore, we ask for a restoration of specie payments and gold and silver-based currency as quickly as possible.
- It makes no sense, nor is it constitutionally permissible, to tax private property owners for our Common Schools. We certainly don’t need taxation to facilitate the current wide and deep discrepancies between rich and poor, and it is illegal. We ask for the restoration of a constitutional Common School fund as quickly as possible.
- There can be no serious doubt about what a Common School system actually is. No other education system is in the authorized domain of state or federal government. We ask for the end of any political involvement in education outside of what’s authorized as a legitimate Common School system; or at least amend the constitution to describe new limits.
The following are additional thoughts for our consideration only:
Note: In case you’re wondering why I don’t address our Governor as “The Honorable;” titles like “The Honorable” or “Esquire” are specifically unconstitutional…and for good reason.
Note: some media folk (particularly the Indianapolis Star) will do their level best to cubbyhole you to something easily dismissed. Resist their attempts to brand us “Tea Party,” “anti-government,” “anti-union” or anything else in the news. Stay on subject. Do not allow them to draw you into another subject that they’ll quickly apply to all of us.
Please: Anything you say outside of Rule of Law under existing constitutions, as written, will ruinously derail our message. DO NOT BRING UP ANYTHING ELSE. No gay marriage, war, tax…anything but ROL under existing constitutions, as written.
Please: Dress nicely, and come neatly groomed. Be as pleasant and yet firm, as possible. This would not be a good time for joking around or bringing/wearing props. This is serious; we must be serious, solid citizens.
DO NOT FORGET: We are the pro government people. We want to govern our government, restore legality to our lawmakers and justice to our judiciary. We are the ones who are legitimate, correct, and on the legal side of the law.
PLEASE NOTE: This is more of a mea culpa than a protest. We The People have what We The People have chosen repeatedly through the past hundred years. We must admit the error of our ways, and choose better. We have no cause for anger…not yet.
Extra Special Double-Note: I repeat: we have gotten into our mess because nearly everybody has chosen it, progressively, and over generations. Most people still cannot imagine what kind of trouble we’re in. If they could, they would not believe that they’re to blame. Remember, we’re not asking so much of our politicians as we are of We The People. We’re asking voters/citizens to change themselves. It is a big enough task to get people of extraordinary political understanding to join us… let us try to show patient understanding to those who still just don’t get it.
PS: I wrote that last note largely to me.
Here’s the key thing:
Tell everyone you know to check out the letter to our Governor, send it to their state legislators, and ask them to add their in-person support to our little endeavor.
Liberty or Bust!
Andy Horning
Freedom, IN
Andy’s Annotated US Constitution
With all the disinformation and historical revisionism buzzing like flies on politics (even with the “Tea Party” as much as anywhere else), I just had to present what I believe to be the facts.
So here’s an annotated USA constitution again: http://wedeclare.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/the-united-states-constitution.pdf
Thanksgiving, by The Book
A shorter version of this went out through Indiana Policy Review this past week…
Given its place in American history, it’s embarrassing how we’ve perverted our Thanksgiving Day. Most Americans nurture a vague fiction involving buckled shoes and blunderbusses, in which Pilgrims and Native Americans joined in a sort of agricultural group-hug. Others, with just enough facts to be dangerous and a hard Democratic Party bias, claim that The Mayflower Compact created a successful government that we’d now call “communist.”
More correct, but still oversimplified into the GOP counterargument, is that this communism was so disastrous that the few survivors were forced into free market economics, which became The American Way (i.e., all that is just and wholesome).
William Bradford’s own words have been used to support this. In his first-hand account, “Of Plymouth Plantation,” Bradford detailed their commune’s declining initiative, morality and crop yield, then summed up the failure of communism as:
“…the vanity of that conceit of Plato’s and other ancients applauded by some of later times; and that the taking away of property and bringing in community into a commonwealth would make them happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God.” (emphasis added for reason that follows)
It’s fine to say that what we now call “communism,” or its authoritarian cousin, “socialism,” is both ancient, and proven unworkable. But Thanksgiving was never about sound economics, filled bellies or kumbaya fellowship. The Thanksgiving of 1621 was neither America’s first; nor the beginning of our national November holiday.
Our national Thanksgiving Day holiday was established in the midst of our civil war as a penitent prayer and statement of political deference…to God. Lincoln’s proclamation, written by Secretary of State William Seward, acknowledged the surprising strength of the nation in the midst of war, and the unexpected foreign neutrality at the depths of our weakness, and said, “They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.”
Seward wrote the proclamation because just a few days before, Lincoln himself was not a Christian. “But when I went to Gettysburg and saw the graves of thousands of our soldiers, I then and there consecrated myself to Christ.”
Congress made the holiday permanent in the hot midst of WWII; perhaps the last US assembly with anything like, in the words of Seward, “…humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience.”
Where are the politicians today who’d acknowledge their sin and turn praise away from their works and toward the Almighty? These days, even Christians erect a wall between their faith and their government; though the Bible deals very harshly with that Golden Calf we call politics.
Despite the modern, shallow interpretation of, “Then give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s,” the whole Bible says that everything belongs to God, including Caesar. That’s what made Christ’s reply to the Pharisees so piercing.
Psalm 33:12′s, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD,” has an unfortunate corollary – Cursed is the nation whose god is politics.
Christians should have learned this already; if not from our Bibles, then from American history. And if not from our history, then from current events.
Have we forgotten that faith in the Republican’s “Contract with America” was followed by more unfounded faith in the Democrat’s “Hope and Change?” Now we’ve switched tribes and shamans again for the “Pledge to America;” but nothing has changed. We certainly don’t Pledge our Allegiance to God… Our national religion is still all about robbing Peter to pay Paul, where we pray to lawyers, lobbyists and politicians in a never-ending hope to be Paul, while somebody else, for at least a while, must be Peter.
This Thanksgiving why not choose a way of life that is simple, Biblical, constitutional and proven to work? Such a way exists, it’s already the law, and it could be yours for the asking…if you know Who to ask.
After all, politics is a junkyard dog, not an angel. “In God We Trust” means that In Politics We Must Never Trust. And Thanksgiving Day means, in the words of Seward, to “…fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation.”
Amen to that.
Deckchairs on the Titanic
In years past I’ve had personal reasons to dislike what happens on Election Day. But today my name wasn’t on any ballot and I’m more disgusted than ever. Why?
Well, because, in spite of all the blustery “Tea Party” rhetoric, we did it again. We swapped betwixt McCoy and Hatfield without changing a single thing of consequence.
The bankster/moneychangers who control both entrenched parties are still in charge. The impending constitutional amendment proves that we still have no idea what constitutions are for or what they say. Party leaders are still safely ensconced, and the ungoverned monster we call “government” is still all about robbing Peter to pay Paul; where lawyers, lobbyists, politicians and soldiers determine who must be Peter, and who, for a while anyway, gets to be Paul.
If I see a bright spot in our march into parched oblivion, it comes down to one question that, more often than ever, I’ve been asked in earnest: “What is a Libertarian?”
To me that’s easy. There are just two principles:
1. Only you are payable for your own actions. Nobody else gets credit, money or blame for your work, your plans, your mistakes, or your crimes.
2. Nonviolence. The only tolerable use of force is against force initiated directly against you.
Following these two principles to their natural conclusions would lead to all sorts of wonderful things. But so what?
All the preceding about political parties and labels amounts to allegiance to abstractions, or more accurately, idolatry.
It’s harmless to treat the San Francisco/New York Giants as some living thing that spans new owners, new players and new home states. It’s just a game. But where liberty and justice versus oppression, slavery, genocide and war is concerned, we should be wary and sober.
Despite the horse race rhetoric, politics is no game, and there are no winners. The end of nations is as certain as the end of our mortal lives. And the end almost always comes by making government an idol. Political party loyalty is, to my eyes, a body-painted tribal war dance around this idol. Some do enjoy the spectacle, the strategies and the apparent glamour; but it’s ultimately a major cause of large scale violence, needless suffering, theft and death.
It’s not harmless sport that we tax people out of homes to pay for homeless programs, destroy businesses to “stimulate the economy,” or wage endless, innumerable wars for peace.
I cannot believe we humans don’t share a vision for a better life than the taxation, litigation, regulation and war that always creates enemies and unjust winners. I can only conclude that we don’t promote or even talk about this shared vision because we don’t believe it’s possible to achieve. Perhaps the numbing realities we’ve created for ourselves make us believe that there’s no point in dreaming of better…even when we could simply vote for it.
Perhaps nobody alive has any memory of how American life worked when only churches and voluntary associations like Kiwanis and Scouts comprised the departments of health, education and welfare. Maybe we can’t imagine the actual process of looking out for our neighbors or caring for our own elderly because that involves something other than money. Perhaps some of us concentrate on foreign charities because that seems easier and safer than dealing with what you can see on your way to work. Maybe we so muddle the benefits of modern technology with the handicap of modern politics that we think that resurrecting constitutional Rule of Law means the surrender of flushing toilets.
Whatever the case, I wish we’d put down the tribal flags, cross the chasm between politics and reality, and talk plainly with each other about how we want to live our too-short lives.
Instead of “Tea Party” saber rattling, how about we calmly stroll toward la dolce vita, “the sweet life;” in which peace, prosperity, liberty and justice for all doesn’t mean ganging up on poor Peter?
IPR SERIES | A Tea Party Primer for July 4
If you’re in Indiana, please ask your local paper to print this…
IPR SERIES | A Tea Party Primer for July 4
via IPR SERIES | A Tea Party Primer for July 4.
Of course, if you’re not in Indiana, you should tell your local paper to at least read it. The Rule of Law is Law everywhere in the USA, and we seem to have forgotten this to our dismay.
And the Immigration column is appropriate all across the country; particularly in Arizona and Texas right now…
Summer 2010 Indiana Policy Review
Here’s the latest Indiana Policy Review summer 2010 journal - “A Tea Party Primer.” Please pass it on to everybody you know. Tell them to pass it on to everybody they know.
Etc.
It’s now or never, my friends…
Here’s one last column before I take down this site:
I have never believed in the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, or that creepy Tooth Fairy thing.
But that doesn’t mean that I haven’t nurtured other baseless, nutty beliefs until some painful paroxysm jolted me awake.
Many years ago, under horrible personal circumstances, I endured the same spiritual upheaval you’re feeling right now. Just as with you, my religion turned out to be a big lie. My false god turned against me, just as it’s turning against you now. So like you, I can no longer believe in the charity, peace and love of …politicians.
While initially painful, there is relief in this truth that sets you free.
But there’s another problem. Nobody alive remembers how liberty works. We cannot imagine how schools, roads jobs, healthcare, or food ever existed without a political genesis, subsequent bailouts, lawsuits and bipartisan bickering. Only if you’re over 100 years old did you even exist when there was such a thing as a free market; with all the innovation, competition and rapid advancement that entails.
So as we endure the agony of Change that’s not working, we must thoughtfully prepare a better way forward. I suggest we first retrieve what we’ve lost from the past.
All federal authority is still clearly written into the Constitution for the United States of America (Article I, Section 8; Article II, Sections 2-4; Article III), which you could read in just a few minutes. All other powers are still very clearly denied by one short sentence (Amendment 10). Similarly, all Indiana government powers are spelled out in the Indiana Constitution, while every other conceivable power is still denied by a single sentence (Article I, Section 25).
No state or federal constitution was ever amended, altered or suspended to authorize most of what governments now do to citizens. Nullification of anything unconstitutional is already law at every level of government in the republic. So we have the right, the power, and the duty, to tell politicians to back off; all the way back to the constitutions.
Here’s a summary of what that means:
- Citizens can do whatever they want to as long as they don’t harm anybody else, or take what’s not theirs.
- We’d have no more government than necessary to maintain #1
- We invite others around the world to emulate our success, but otherwise leave them the heck alone.
- Your major civic duty is to disobey, invalidate and otherwise eliminate all unconstitutional taxes, mandates, organizations and agents. Yes, civil disobedience is a duty.
So caveat emptor would replace the FDA, FTC, FDIC, FCC and a zillion other F’agencies. Common sense, family ties, competition, voluntary associations, charity and free market options galore would replace union/corporate monstrosities, Medicare, Social Security, lobbyists, regulations, litigation and price controls. And because of the preceding, you get to keep what you earn, buy what you like (smoke it if you’re fool enough – and as long as you don’t blow it in my face), and live however and with whomever you want…as long as you leave others, and their stuff, alone.
No federal tooth fairies, no President coming down the chimney with presents, no more bogus political promises; just a reality proven to work better than anything else ever tried.
That may not be a Square Deal or a New Deal. But it’s a fair deal, which makes it the best deal in all of human history.
Can you live with that?
People used to call that “freedom.”
And they liked it.
