Shaking the muck out of DC

In light of all the madness in DC today, I’d like to make a counter offer:

1)      Rule of Law Reboot: A resolution reaffirming that the US Constitution is a civil law contract, to be obeyed as written.  What’s not clear must be clarified by written amendment.  What needs to change needs to be changed by written amendment.  Details are here: https://wedeclare.wordpress.com/2013/10/13/rule-of-law-reboot/, and here: https://wedeclare.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/annotated-usa-constitution.pdf.  And, remember, the constitution is the authority; it’s not just a “serving suggestion,” or starting point for an endless stream of prohibitions, mandates, handouts and theft.

2)     Monetary/Banking reform: Our petrodollar scheme was a dangerous gambit, and it has led to needless (and undeclared/unconstitutional) war, massive debt, and impending monetary system collapse.  We must fix this.  We must audit “The Fed” (counterfeiting crime ring), if for no other reason than to restructure and repudiate debts, and create an entirely new, genuinely private central bank, and insist upon constitutional money, under the direct control of Congress and the Treasury.   I’d strongly support something similar to the “Free Competition in Currency Act,” which was reintroduced in this Congress by Rep. Paul Broun (H.R. 77)

3)     Stand down our global military-industrial empire.  I want a very strong military…but one dedicated and focused on only defense of our actual nation as delimited by our federal and state constitutions.   No nation building.  No nannying or bullying.  No global policing.  And it’s time we overhaul our military development and acquisition processes.  They’re embarrassing.  I propose we cut as many nations as possible loose from both our purse strings and browbeating.  Re-institute the constitutional design (quite like the military systems of Switzerland and Israel) Peace, commerce and friendly skepticism with all nations, entangling alliances with none.  In other words, stand down our global military-industrial empire.

4)      Of course nullify PPACA/ “Obamacare.”  But I want politicians out of our healthcare system entirely.  More details here: https://wedeclare.wordpress.com/2013/10/15/can-politicians-even-define-health-care/.

5)      A resolution reinforcing that, in the constitution as actually written and amended, there are only seven federal crimes that apply to citizens outside of Washington, DC (1. counterfeiting, 2. piracy, 3. high seas felony, 4. offense against the Law of Nations, and, 5. treason.  Tax and postal crimes are implied, but unfortunately, unspecified).  Other federal crimes must either be the result of a trans-state-border dispute (murders, other State crimes crossing state lines, for example), or are not federal crimes at all, and the wrongly convicted would be freed.

6)     Pork (“earmark” or localized spending added to bills) is unconstitutional, and it’s time we call it the crime it is.  Farm subsidies, corporate welfare, federal block grants that should originate and end within the states…they all must stop.  I will squeal whenever I see pork.  That alone will keep me busy.

7)     TERM LIMITS!!!  I used to think that this is voters’ job.  And of course it is.  But voters aren’t doing it, and there are too many reasons why it’s easy for voters to screw this up.  First of all, there are $everal tremendou$ advantage$ to incumbency in money, power and time that make it difficult for anybody to compete fairly.  Second, the media is all about the status quo – it’s their major source of income.  Third, there’s a cultural expectation that the job “belongs” to the incumbent, and everybody else is a “challenger.”  Sigh…  So, we need term limits on everybody – including Supreme Court Justices.  They’ve granted themselves faaar too much power and sanctity.

8)      I know that the federal constitution isn’t perfect.  But I really hesitate to even mention amending the constitution, given who’d be sitting next to me in congress.  But since I’ve been asked about this, here’re some amendments I’d propose if I thought they could be ratified intact:

a)      Sunset Amendment: a 10-year expiration date for all non-constitutionally specified agencies, laws, powers and programs to gracefully remove, or at least review for reinstatement, everything that’s not specifically written into the constitution.  Our laws must be simple enough to understand, few enough to know, and important enough to enforce without classes or exceptions.  So a regular “spring cleaning” is required.

b)      To more specifically forbid central banking and “monopoly money” in both senses of the term (money backed by nothing, enforced by government monopoly on currency).

c)      To nullify the 16^th Amendment, which essentially pays for only central banking anyway.

d)      To very specifically limit the authority grant of Article I, Section 8:3 (the “Commerce Clause”) to only disputes/issues between states, and not within states.

e)      To clarify or even nullify the misinterpreted and increasingly dangerous “Law of Nations”, or jus gentium (Article I, Section 10).

f)       To modernize references to the Navy (Article I, Section 8:13-14; Article II, Section 2:1, the 5^th Amendment) and “high Seas” (Article I, Section 8:10) to delimit authority and armament in the air and space as well.

Read It…Now.

It may be oddly written, and I’ve learned that it’s not the best office-party icebreaker.  But every Hoosier should read, understand and memorize Article I, Section 25 of the Indiana Constitution.  It is short, unambiguous, and very, very important right now.

“No law shall be passed, the taking effect of which shall be made to depend upon any authority, except as provided in this Constitution.”

What could these words mean, but that even legislation does not create authority; laws depend upon authority.

It’s not only the Indiana Constitution that expresses this.  All throughout our constitutional republic, all political authority comes from our constitutions.

In other words, here in Indiana, as elsewhere under the Rule of Law established by our state and federal constitutions, politicians are not allowed to authorize themselves.  All of their power is written into constitutions, or that power is denied.

Just as you mustn’t allow a bad dog to hold his own leash, we mustn’t allow politicians to “interpret” the constitutions that restrain them.  “Legal precedent” and “case law” do not exist in our constitutions and have no legitimate power over constitutions.  Therefore, for example, no federal official can interpret away any first amendment rights because federal authority over religion, speech, press, assembly and petition is very plainly prohibited (see the First Amendment to the US Constitution).  All of our constitutions say this many times and in many ways; and constitutions were agreed upon and signed as solemn contracts (see the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1799).

Yet most politicians are routinely violating all of the laws that protect us from their historically demonstrated tendencies.  They have thus abrogated their legal authority, and rule by force alone.  Dick Cheney’s “nation of men, and not laws” is not just scary, it’s literally criminal.  This affects you more than you’ve been told.

Perhaps the most every-daily-relevant example is in your wallet.  State and federal constitutions mandate the use of gold and silver coin as money; and they’re clear that only our legislative assemblies have authority over this money.

But that’s not how your money works now.  And the way your money works today, is to rob you right into your grave.

With all our record-breaking taxation, regulation and litigation, there is only one private enterprise in America that has never been regulated, audited, taxed or brought to justice.  It is the so-called “Federal Reserve” Bank that’s been printing Monopoly money and charging you plenty for it since 1913.  It’s not federal, there’s no reserve, and it’s most definitely unconstitutional!

Frustratingly, many of even my political friends and allies tell me that “we’re too far from the constitutions now; we can’t demand compliance.”  But that’s like saying that once a criminal has done his deed, we, as a culture have failed, and that the criminal must therefore go free.

That is not sane.  That is self-flagellating madness.

Others claim that this is a democracy (why minorities want majority rule is beyond me), and voters can choose anything – even self-destruction.

I concede that this is pretty much what is happening.  But that’s both unconstitutional, and suicidal.

In each of my political races, and through all the years since 1995, I’ve proposed various plans to sunset all unconstitutional laws, agencies, powers and practices, and make the armed thug we call government go legit.  That is the law, it is morally right, it is proven to work…

…and our current path has proven to fail every time.

The Russian Revolution dreamed of liberty, justice and equality for all, but produced Stalinist nightmares and social collapse.  The French Revolution wielded the rhetoric but not the laws of our founders, so it was more about beheadings than freedom.  Even our own nation’s not-so-distant history illustrates oppression, slavery, genocide and war.  How can we think that now, with our government more powerful, secretive and intrusive than ever, we have put our ugly past behind us?

If you were to get curious and take the couple of hours necessary to read both the state and federal constitutions (yes, you really can read them without a federal judge telling you what they mean), you’d see that all of our biggest problems are unconstitutional.

Most taxation and government spending is unconstitutional.  All military engagements since WWII have been unconstitutional.  Pork, corruption, spiraling healthcare and education costs and tumbling dollars are all unconstitutional.

And every American constitution, both state and federal, codifies our right to alter or reform our government.  The Texas constitution couldn’t be more clear that should the federal government break its side of the constitutional contract, then Texas is specifically free and sovereign.  And that’s in the document’s very first paragraph.

You ought to read it!

Say what you will about our constitutions.  Call them outdated, call them “agrarian.”  But then read them.  We have nothing better, and we’re headed toward a truly ancient and horrible default state without them.