• About
  • Books
  • Contact
  • Education Resources

PERRIN LOVETT

~ Deo Vindice

PERRIN LOVETT

Tag Archives: King George

Right of Rebellion

25 Sunday Jan 2015

Posted by perrinlovett in Legal/Political Columns

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

America, anarchy, arms, Constitution, Declaration of Independence, freedom, Hew Hampshire, King George, law, Natural Law, Plato, revolution, Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Second Amendment, The People, tyranny

I have an affection for New Hampshire.  The air is clean.  The people are friendly.  They have mountains and beaches relatively close together.  There’s no income tax.  It’s close to Boston.  It’s far enough away from Boston.  The Granite State is just a beautiful place and bears a beautiful motto – Live Free or Die.

The State Constitution is also unique among written political charters.  While generally resembling other such State documents as well as that of the United States this New England version has a stark difference.  It’s something I am not aware of, in writing, anywhere else in the world.  It contains a “Right of Revolution,” which I, here, call a Right of Rebellion (semantics).

“Government being instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security, of the whole community, and not for the private interest or emolument of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, whenever the ends of government are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the people may, and of right ought to reform the old, or establish a new government. The doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power, and oppression, is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind.”  N. H. Const., Sect. I, Art 10 (entirety, as amended, 2007).

old_man

(The Old Man of the Mountain [NH natural wonder], Google Images)

Re-read the above and let the meaning sink in.  The free people not only have a natural right but a duty to reform a corrupted government.  When all other usual and peaceful methods of redress fail, the people are authorized to resist evil.  Otherwise the people become subjects – slaves.  That’s what “slavish” means: “of or characteristic of a slave; especially : basely or abjectly servile…”  Webster’s English Dictionary, http://www.merriam-webster.com.

Further, such acquiescence is “absurd,” being illogical and futile.  This is the literary embodiment of that spirit which lead early Americans to cast off the yoke of King George III.

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”  U.S. Declaration of Independence, Para. 1, July 4, 1776.

The Declaration proceeds with a long list of oppressive grievances committed by the King. A recount of usual redress follows: “We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”

Then, the Declaration: “That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved…”

Mind you, this is the spirit of the former America.  Today such sentiment is almost sacrosanct.  Look into the heart of nearly any purported American and one finds either a zealous appreciation for total government or, at the least, a complete resolve to do nothing conducive to the ends of liberty.  Worse than the loss of freedom in Columbia is the veneration of the forces which have brought forth the doom of tyranny.  There exists in America today a cult of statism.

The New Hampshire Constitution provides an outline for the heretics who would still be free.  The entire document is worth reviewing – please click here and read.

Article one artfully defines the sole legitimate reason for government: “All men are born equally free and independent; therefore, all government of right originates from the people, is founded in consent, and instituted for the general good.”

Article two evokes the Natural Law: “All men have certain natural, essential, and inherent rights – among which are, the enjoying and defending life and liberty; acquiring, possessing, and protecting, property; and, in a word, of seeking and obtaining happiness. ”  Made-man law is or is supposed to be an expression of the natural law. David Miller, et al., eds, The Blackwell Encyclopedia of political Thought (Oxford 1987).

Plato asserted that freedom from and doubt of human law is the “indispensable” beginning of the search for natural law.  Strauss, Natural Right and History, pg. 84, U. Chicago Press, 1953.

St. Thomas Aquinas and Saint Augustine posit that any law “which is not just seems to be no law at all.  Hence a law has as much force as it has justice.”  St. Thomas, Treatise on Law, R.J. Henle, S.J., editor, pg. 287, U. Notre Dame Press, 1993.  St. Thomas goes on to say that a civil or earthly law with conflicts with natural law is a perversion rather than a law.  Again, once an entire government loses its claim to justice the people have a duty to reform or disband said non-government.

Article two-a, mimics the Second Amendment and puts teeth behind the other declarations: “All persons have the right to keep and bear arms in defense of themselves, their families, their property and the state.”  New Hampshire, with some of the least restrictive gun laws in the nation, has an on-again, off-again habit of allowing carry even inside the State Capital building.  N.H. lawmakers allow concealed weapons in House chambers, Boston Globe, Jan. 7, 2015.  Note that NH consistently ranks as one of the safest, crime free states in the Union.  101 Reasons to Move to New Hampshire, Free State Project.

Those aiming to reform government or create anew must be able and willing to forcefully defend their cause.

The question arises as to when, exactly, does new for such cause becomes necessary and proper.  People acting out individually whenever they are personally slighted does not seem just cause.  Such action would inevitably lead to anarchy in the lowest sense of the word.

Article three notes, to this end: “When men enter into a state of society, they surrender up some of their natural rights to that society, in order to ensure the protection of others; and, without such an equivalent, the surrender is void.”  However, Article four affirms that “Among the natural rights, some are, in their very nature unalienable, because no equivalent can be given or received for them.”

So, while individuals may not personally rebel without great need, they must retain the means to do so should collective need present itself.

How do or how will we know when this time comes?  I do not pretend to be an expert nor arbiter of this process.  For now I offer only mental food for thought.  I do, however, reserve the right to expand on this theme in the future.

PS: the forgoing is not a paid endorsement of New Hampshire.

Swabbing The Fourth Amendment

04 Tuesday Jun 2013

Posted by perrinlovett in Legal/Political Columns

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Alito, Amerika, Antonin Scalia, Breyer, Constitution, crime, DNA, evidence, Fifith Amendment, Founders, Fourth Amendment, Ginsburg, government, Hagan, innocence, justice, Kennedy, King George, law, Liberty, Maryland, police state, Roberts, searches, slippery slope, Sotomayor, Supreme Court, The People, Thomas, Virginia Declaration of Rights

Yesterday, June 3, 2013, the Supreme Court neatly planted new, green sod over the grave of the late Fourth Amendment.  In Maryland v. King, 569 U.S. ___, Slip Op. No. 12-207 (June 3, 2013), the Court held, 5 – 4, obtaining DNA samples from criminal suspects via oral swabbing in permissible under the Fourth Amendment.  The high priests of the Temple of “Justice” divined the procedure analogous to fingerprinting and photographing.

The growth of government power knows no bounds; the ruling itself was not a surprise.  The nature of the close vote was, itself, of slight interest.  The opinion was penned by Justice Anthony “Swing Man” Kennedy.  Joining him were the arch-“conservative” trio of Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Alito, and Justice Thomas.  “Liberal” milk toast Justice Breyer joined in for grins and giggles.

Standing firm for the Constitution and Liberty were the Court’s three Divas, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan.  The ladies backed the dissent of Antonin Scalia, the originalists’ originalist and the only Justice usually worth reading or quoting.  Scalia read his dissent aloud in Court.  I’ll examine that dissent in a second.

antonin_scalia-photograph1

(Putting the “justice” in Justice.  Google.)

First, in all fairness, let me paraphrase the majority opinion for you: The government can (as always) do whatever the hell it wants.  Good enough?  Good.

Scalia began: “The Fourth Amendment forbids searching a person for evidence of a crime when there is no basis for believing the person is guilty of the crime or is in possession of incriminating evidence.”  Maryland v. King, supra, at Slip. Op. Scalia Dissent 1.  Citing the Virgina Declaration of Rights, § 10 (1776), Scalia recalled the Founder’s distrust and hatred for “general warrants” whereby persons were searched by the King’s agents without regard to evidence or suspicion.  These warrants were, rightly, considered “grievous and oppressive…”  Id, at Scalia 2.

Like most of the Bill or Rights, the Fourth Amendment has been under continual assault from an ever-growing list of “exceptions.”  Scalia notes these, including suspicionless searches in public prisons…er…schools, but notes that they all (purportedly) derive from some extra-law enforcement need of society.  He goes on to detail how the DNA swabs are intended only for general law enforcement purposes – for the gathering of evidence of criminal wrongdoing.  Id, at 3 -4.

As usual Scalia blasts the majority with its own lame arguments: “The Court hastens to clarify that it does not mean to approve invasive surgery on arrestees or warrantless searches of their homes.  [Internal Cite].  That the Court feels the need to disclaim these consequences is as damning a criticism of its suspicionless-search regime as any I can muster.” Id, at 4.  “Sensing (correctly) that it needs more, the Court elaborates at length the ways that the search here served the special purpose of ‘identifying’ King.  But that seems to me quite wrong – unless what one means by ‘identifying’ someone is ‘searching for evidence that he has committed crimes unrelated to the crime of his arrest.'”  Id, at 5.

The process of “identifying” Mr. King by his DNA took many, many months.  During that time King moved through many stages of the court process on his original charges.  Maryland knew, without a doubt, who they were dealing with.  The DNA was unnecessary for identification; rather, it was critical for a fishing expedition aimed at discovering other potential crimes also committed by King.  This is an affront to both the Fourth and the Fifth Amendments.  By the way, for viewing purposes, the Fifth is buried conveniently next to the Fourth at Constitutional Memorial Gardens.

“King was not identified by his association with the sample; rather, the sample was identified by its association with King. The Court effectively destroys its own ‘identification’ theory when it acknowledges that the object of this search was ‘to see what [was] already known about [King].'”  Id, at 9.  Both the Governor and the Attorney General of Maryland are on record praising DNA collection, not as a suspect identification, but as one designed to fight unsolved crimes.

Scalia knocked the assertion that DNA swabbing is no different, Fourth Amendment wise, than fingerprinting: “The Court asserts that the taking of fingerprints was constitutional for generations prior to the introduction’ of the FBI’s rapid computer-matching system.  This bold assertion is bereft of citation to authority because there is none for it.  The great expansion in fingerprinting came before the modern era of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, and so we were never asked to decide the legitimacy of the practice.”  Id, at 15.   

I love the following quote: “Solving unsolved crimes is a noble objective, but it occupies a lower place in the American pantheon of noble objectives than the protection of our people from suspicionless law-enforcement searches. The Fourth Amendment must prevail.”  Id, at 17.  Sadly, it did not prevail.

The following is also memorable and, in Scalia’s estimate, “most regrettable”: “All parties concede that it would have been entirely permissible, as far as the Fourth Amendment is concerned, for Maryland to take a sample of King’s DNA as a consequence of his conviction for second-degree assault. So the ironic result of the Court’s error is this: The only arrestees to whom the outcome here will ever make a difference are those who have been acquitted (so that their DNA could not have been taken upon conviction).  In other words, this Act manages to burden uniquely the sole group for whom the Fourth Amendment’s protections ought to be most jealously guarded: people who are innocent of the State’s accusations.”  Id, at 18. 

Classic Scalia: “I doubt that the proud men who wrote the charter of our liberties would have been so eager to open their mouths for royal inspection.  I therefore dissent…”  Id, at 18.

DNA%20swab%20for%20web

(Say Ahhhhhh…for the children and such.  Google.)

This ruling pushes us all a bit further down the slippery slope of the modern Amerikan police state.  Scalia noted as much: “Searching every lawfully stopped car, for example, might turn up information about unsolved crimes the driver had committed…”  Id, at 5.  The King case concerned (nominally) serious cases, felonies.  However, the next time you’re stopped for speeding or blowing through a stop sign, don’t be surprised if the officer demands you open your mouth for a good old swabbing.  “If one believes that DNA will ‘identify’ someone arrested for assault, he must believe that it will ‘identify’ someone arrested for a traffic offense.”  Id, at 17.  It’s all for the children or something, you know…

Slavery in America, Part II of III

05 Tuesday Mar 2013

Posted by perrinlovett in Legal/Political Columns

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

"war" on drugs, 1965, America, Atlanta, banks, Baphomet, borrower, BS, China, Constitution, corporations, criminal justice, debt, Democrat, Dennis Kucinich, Detroit, Django, dollars, emancipation, Federal government, Federal Reserve, felonies, fiat money, food stamps, George Carlin, government, groups, gun control, House, III, immigration, inflation, Just-Us, justice, King George, lender, Liberty, Masters, Medicare, non-crimes, Obama, politicians, President, prison, programs, Proverbs, Republican, rights, Ron Paul, schemes, Senate, servitude, slavery, slaves, Social Security, Star Parker, States, subsidies, taxes, the Big Club, The People, the poor, the rich, ticks, truth, Uncle Sam, Uncle Sam's Plantation, victims, voting, welfare

Continuing  from Part One…  In 2003, the beautiful, talented, and aptly named Star Parker wrote a book called Uncle Sam’s Plantation, http://www.amazon.com/Uncle-Sams-Plantation-Government-Enslaves/dp/1595552235 (revised 2010).  In this work she relates her previous experiences in and working her way out of “welfare.”  I call it “welfare” because her subject matter is what most people think of when they think of welfare – giving money, food, ect. to poor people (deserving or otherwise). 

Her book is excellent and serves as a good starting point.  However, most welfare in America is not directed towards the poor, rather it consists of monies given to all segments of society through mandatory “entitlement” spending programs like Social Security and Medicare as well as massive subsidies and favors to various corporate interests.  These illegal programs eat up the vast majority of the federal budget and, likely, the budgets of the States as well.  None are found in or allowed by the Constitution.  Remember the Constitution?

I will comment on these corporate welfare programs a little later.  All you really need to know was said by the late, great George Carlin: “It’s a big club.  You ain’t in it.  You and I are not in the big club.  By the way, it’s the same big club they use to beat you over the head…”  See the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5dBZDSSky0, (comic genius)(warning: some strong language and even stronger truths).

Ms. Parker has addressed some of this “big club” in her book.  She wrote a column explaining how the banks are now on the plantation, http://townhall.com/columnists/starparker/2009/02/09/back_on_uncle_sams_plantation/page/full/.  However, she misses the point that Carlin nailed.  It’s the club members – the big banks (The Federal Reserve “Creature”), the big corporations, the super rich, and the ticks – that run the plantation.  Really, the biggies own it and Uncle Sam is more of an overseer. 

rockerfeller

(This says it all.  Google Images.)

This may sound offensive to some of you – I sincerely hope so.  It is one of the most offensive things facing modern Americans today.  Sadly, many or most of our citizens either take the system for granted or take advantage of it.  Heck, we are all involved like it or not.  I detest the concept of fiat money, for example, yet I usually keep one or two of those Federal Reserve Notes in my wallet at any given time.  The Big Club has rigged the system so you have to acquiesce, or else you can’t be a member of modern society.

Back to “the poor” slaves Ms. Parker wrote about.  Millions of Americans are hopelessly dependent on government welfare payments to live and eat these days.  At the end of 2012, more than 47 million of our citizens were on food stamps, up from 36 million in 2009.  http://reason.com/blog/2012/11/21/why-are-a-record-number-of-americans-on.  Before the last recession, which never really ended, the number was around 17 million (in 2000).  http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/show-this-to-anyone-that-believes-that-things-are-getting-better-in-america.

Many of these programs have racist origins, just like our gun control laws.  However, in keeping with never-ending government expansion, today they can entrap and enslave anyone and everyone.  In the old days, the theory worked like this: black people will someday inevitably be granted full civil rights in society.  Therefore, let’s us Big Club members subjugate as many of them as we possibly can now so that when they do arise, most won’t be able to take advantage of their opportunities.  Black schools were frequently sub-standard by white standards.  Welfare programs infringed on the benefits of gainful employment and lead to the destruction of the black family unit.

Young black men, poorly educated and without any hope of finding meaningful work, turned to alternative careers – like selling drugs.  The Club, in its Baphometian wisdom, instituted the “war” on drugs to put as many of these poor men as possible in chains and behind bars.  The result has been an explosion in the drug trade and drug addiction, increases in related crimes, a further evisceration of the black community, and a ridiculous number of people in jail for non-crimes.  The U.S. now has the highest prison population in the world, by percentage of the population and by raw numbers.  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/world/americas/23iht-23prison.12253738.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0.

Why do we have more criminals than China, which has three times our population?  Are we all a bunch of scofflaw degenerates?  I work in the criminal Just-Us system and I have seen poor person after poor person locked up for nothing.  When I worked as a prosecutor I stayed in a state of permanent depression.  It was my job to railroad people into guilty pleas (too easy to obtain) or convict them (too easy too) for no wrong-doing.  I finally had to quit one day.  Quitting was better than being a party to injustice.  In my area of the country I estimate 90% or more of all criminal charges stem from non-crimes which have no victims.  Each case, federal or state, comes with a statement of “victim impact.”  Usually, the statement reads, “no victim.”  Without victims how the hell can you say a crime has occurred?  I bet the situation is similar wherever you live.  The real victims are the falsely prosecuted persons; they are turned into slaves.

This all means that 90+% of our criminal “justice” resources are wasted.  That leaves the other 10%, or less devoted to stopping or punishing actual crime.  Why are the survivors of real crimes and their families always so frustrated with the laxity of the system?  It’s because the system is designed to put away as many people as possible, guilty of not.  There is little incentive to actively investigate and pursue murders, rapes, and other dangerous felonies.  An elected prosecutor looks better to the idiot electorate by keeping a high conviction rate – which the current system guarantees. 

As I said, this BS was originally aimed at black people.  However, three key changes have occurred over the past decades which have altered the scheme for the universal worse.  First, after the passage of the civil rights act in the 1960’s and the end of legal segregation, many black ticks were elected to office and power all across America.  Atlanta has a black mayor.  Detroit has a black mayor.  Blacks are elected to the House and Senate.  In 2008 a black man was elected President.  Oddly, the system has not changed and hope seems ever fleeting.  This is because black ticks, like all others, are more than willing to oppress anyone in order to keep their beloved power.

The second big change was the change in American demographics after the 1965 immigration reform law was passed.  Whereas America was about 90% white and 10% black in 1960, today the country is a true melting pot of all races and cultures.  All of the added people of various origins have provided additional opportunities for the ticks to run wild on our freedom.

The third change has been due to the nature of government programs themselves.  Once instituted, a program or scheme never goes away.  It grows by leaps and bounds, sucking in as many victims as it can find.  The Club members know this and have tailored their machinations accordingly.  At some point they figured out they would have more control over us if they included all of us in their slavery operations.  Conversely, they do everything in the considerable power to keep people divided into classes – the whites, the blacks, the poor, the old, the gays, the Southerns, etc.  It’s easier to control multiple groups if you pit them against each other over trivial nonsense.  Each group spends its time preoccupied with suspicion of the other groups and forgets about who is ultimately whipping them mercilessly.  The group members are slaves.

Their plot goes far beyond “welfare” programs, poor education, and institutionalized criminality.  It touches on just about every facet of the lives on people who are not ultra-wealthy and well-connected.  If you bother to vote, you’re pre-sorted into groups, usually Republican versus Democrat.  Off the bat, your choices are limited to those of the party’s choice – the partys have a hierarchy to make sure rouges like Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich are minimized.  They can’t risk anyone telling the truth or actually representing the People.  You are a slave to those choices.

If you are lucky enough to have a job these days, you are taxed on what you earn.  You pay those income taxes in addition to sales taxes, property taxes, “sin” taxes and multiple other taxes.  You also indirectly pay the taxes of corporations who pass their financial burdens on to you.  You pay for government debt spending.  You are pay the hidden tax of inflation, caused by the incestuous relationship between the government and the illegal, monopolistic Federal Reserve.  You’re real tax rate isn’t 10% or 25%, it’s more like 50 – 60%, as a percentage of your income.  By comparison, under King George in the 1700’s, the average colonist paid an effective rate of about 1% of their income (again, factoring in all forms of taxation and set against income).  Maybe old George wasn’t the bad guy we made him out to be?  He never openly advocated the slavery of his royal subjects.

Today, if you want a house, a car, or an education, the banks will happily strap you with 5 to 30+ years of debt servitude. “The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is the servant of the lender.” Proverbs 22:7. That means you are a slave.

DjangoUnchainedWallpaper-1c733

(I haven’t seen Django, but I understand it involves slaves revolting as they should.  Google Images.)

In Part Three I will further discuss the constituent members of the Big Club and their control over you and me.  I will also discuss ways to possibly emancipate ourselves from these monsters.  Stay tuned and stay angry!

The Second Amendment

04 Monday Mar 2013

Posted by perrinlovett in Legal/Political Columns

≈ 17 Comments

Tags

10th Amendment, 14th Amendment, 19th Century, 1st Amendment, Alexander Hamilton, America, Anti-Federalists, arms, Articles of Confederation, attorneys, Bill of Rights, blasphemy, British Empire, Brutus, CLE, collecting, collective rights theory, Congress, Constitution, Constitutional Convention, Constitutional Law, D.C., D.C. Court of Appeals, D.C. v. Heller, D.C. v. Parker, Declaration of Independence, District of Corruption, Dred Scott v. Sandford, duty, English common law, federal, Federalist Papers, forty-fifth Congress, Founders, free state, freedom, God, government, governor, gun control, Gun Control Act, Harvard, history, hunting, incorporation, King George, Laurence Silberman, Laurence Tribe, law, law school, legal profession, libertarians, Liberty, Lord Bacon, MacDonald v. Chicago, Mariens, militia, Miller, National Firearms Act, National Guardindividuals, Natural Law, organized, Pennsylvania Minority, politicians, Posse Comitatus, powers, professional military, rebellion, rifles, rights, Robert Yates, Roman Republic, Second Amendment, self-defense, shotgun, slavery, sports, States, Supreme Court, Tacitus, The People, Thomas Jefferson, ticks, trojan horse, Tudors, tyranny, unorganized, Vietnam, Virginia Convention, Washington, William Kimmel, worship

This is a follow-up to some of my recent columns, Posse Comitatus, A Short History of Gun Control in America, and others.  The Second Amendment and its subject matter have been in the news recently as part of the never-ending “debate” over gun control.  The Amendment has also received special attention from the U.S. Supreme Court twice in the past five years. 

My purpose here is to explain what the Amendment means and what most commentators (even pro-firearms authors) miss in their reading and application.  Even if you do not own guns or have an interest in them, this issue affects you and your Liberty.  Somewhere in the writing process I realized I should have divided this into several segments.  My apologies for the heft of the article.  Sadly, I didn’t even get to add in half of what I should – maybe a book is in order?  certainly a follow-up’s follow-up.

“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”  Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (1791)(entirety). 

minutemen-revolutionary-war-11

(Minutemen staring down British Regulars.  Google Images.)

The Second Amendment has absolutely NOTHING to do with hunting, sport shooting, and weapon collecting.  Those activities are important and are rights which derive from Natural Law.  However, they are ancillary to the purpose of the 2nd Amendment.  Ancillary also are the issues of self-defense and defense of others and of property from attacks by common criminals.  They to are the absolute rights of the People (absolute, under appropriate circumstances).  However, none of these things, which are commonly attributed to the true nature of the 2nd Amendment and gun ownership, fall under the actual purpose of the Amendment.

There are two primary reasons why the 2nd Amendment was included in the Bill of Rights.  First, the Founders wanted a heavily armed population so that the nation and the constituent States might be well defended from foreign or outside aggression and invasion.  Second, and most important, the Founders wanted the People heavily armed in order to overthrow or repel the State governments or the federal, national government in the event said government ever became tyrannical in nature and operation.  The true purpose of an armed people is to resist tyranny.  This is not only the right of the People, it is also their solemn duty.

Politicians do not like being reminded of this fact these days.  Perhaps their guilty consciences get the better of them given the nature of modern government – as close to tyrannical as just about any in history.  For reasons given herein and, those which I plan to elaborate on in a future column about arms, the ticks have little to fear.  As I have written elsewhere, most humans like to be controlled.  In the absence of fair masters, they will take any master that comes along.  I hope you, by your nature or by reading this article, are a member of the few who prefer freedom to slavery.  Your existence makes the tyrants sweat.

For the longest time the Second Amendment was largely written off by the legal “profession.”  When I was in law school I was told the Amendment (and a few others) didn’t really exist.  I found this strange.  The Amendment was there in the text of the Constitution and its plain language made perfect sense (the 10th Amendment was the same way).  Try as I could, I could never locate the provision which allowed for the murder of babies.  The law school community regards this right, in blasphemy, as if it had been written by God himself. 

Then again, law school has little to do with the law.  The one thing that was not required reading in my Constitutional law classes was the Constitution.  No mention was made of the natural underpinnings of the Constitution.  It’s no wonder most attorneys emerge from this environment without the slightest knowledge of whence our laws are derived.  I was different, I always am.  I read the old documents and inquired as to why certain things were included and excluded textually.  I read a lot.  At the time, the only legal textbook in print which even mentioned the 2nd Amendment was the one compiled by Laurence H. Tribe of Harvard law fame.  His mention was very brief, but at least he had the curtsey to include it at all. 

Most Consitutional law education focuses on two things: 1) the supreme power of the government and; 2) a few pet rights with plenty of case law material for professors to quote (the 1st Amendment, for instance).  I also have columns underway to explain both the Constitution (briefly) and the convoluted subject of Constitutional law.  You’ll have to wait for those.

As I said, the 2nd Amendment received little official attention for many years.  Early in our history and it that of our English forebears, the concept of a well armed population was well enshrined.  It was taken as a given that men would be armed.  The Founders went the brave extra step and set the armed people as defenders of their own Liberty against the heinous forces of organized government. 

Thomas Jefferson was rightly fearful of the problems posed by a standing government army.  The Declaration of Independence was full of accounts of the crimes committed by King George through his armies.  The mandate for a militia rather than a professional army found its way into the Articles of Confederation, Article 4.  While armies are allowed under the Constitution, they are supposed to be limited to a two-year duration, they were meant as an emergency measure.  U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 8.

In the debates leading to the Constitutional Convention, both the Federalists (in favor of the Constitution) and the Anti-Federalists (fearful of a strong central government) denounced the practice of standing armies as grave threats to liberty. 

Writing for the Federalists Alexander Hamilton, himself not the greatest proponent of decentralized liberty, reiterated the common saying of the time that standing armies “ought not be kept up, in time of peace.”  Federalist, No. 26.  In No. 28 Hamilton asked mockingly, against the fact of armed State militias, when could the federal government ever amass a sufficiently threatening army?  As Monday morning’s historical quarterback, I suppose the answer was “in about 200 years.”  Hamilton also thought the two-year budgetary limitation placed on the army would render it ineffective for tyrannical purposes.  Federalist, No. 24.  Out of the pocket again, we now have a standing army fighting numerous “wars” despite the absence of a federal budget for four years.

The Anti-Federalists were equally fearful of a central army.  In his Tenth Letter, January 24, 1788, “Brutus” (most likely New York judge Robert Yates) warned of two dangers presented by a standing army.  First, it could be used by leaders against the people in order to usurp power.  Second, the armies themselves could “subvert the forms of government, under whose authority they were raised…”  As examples he cited the once free and constitutional Roman Republic and British Empire. 

Interestingly, the Second Amendment could have contained anti-army language.  The Virginia Convention proposed a Bill of Rights (June 27, 1788), which would have had the second amendment as seventeenth.  It would have read: “That the people have a right to keep and bear arms; that a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state; that standing armies, in times of peace, are dangerous to liberty, and therefore ought to be avoided, as far as circumstances and protection of the community will admit, and that, in all cases, the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.”  I rather like that.  The Pennsylvania Minority had put forth a similar proposal on December 18, 1787. 

During the forty-fifth Congress, Rep. William Kimmel of Maryland, author of the Posse Comitatus Act, echoed the sentiments of the Founders as he quoted Tacitus, “Is there any escape from a standing army but a well-disciplined militia?”  7 Cong. Rec. 3579.  He also quoted Lord Bacon, who remarked of the Tudor years of English history, a “mercenary army is fittest to invade a country but a militia to defend it.”  Id.  Many were the quotes from members of the House and Senate on similar points.

The issue faded as the 19th Century progressed because it was still taken for granted that free people should be armed.  As I noted in Gun Control, the States and the federal government from this period to the present, began to enact various illegal, and progressively worse restrictions on gun ownership.  The 2nd Amendment did make appearances in law and court cases though during this period of general dormancy.  I will discuss two such cases here.

In Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857), the Supreme Court ignobly affirmed black slaves were property as opposed to people.  However, the Court’s reasoning touched on the 2nd Amendment.  If slaves were considered human beings, then they would be entitled to human rights – such as the right to bear arms.  This case gave silent acknowledgment to the 2nd Amendment, which law professors somehow overlooked or wrote off.  It also slaps their Supreme Court worship in the face.  The fallibility of their god also seems lost on them. 

In United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939), the Supreme Court held the 2nd Amendment only protected firearms with militia “value.”  Mr. Miller was arrested for illegal possession of a short-barreled shotgun, one of the weapons regulated under the UnConstitutional 1934 National Firearms Act.  I always thought this case made some sense.  If the only guns protected are those of use to the militia or the military, then it would seem the people have a right to own those types of weapons.  And, if they are entitled to own those, why not allow them all lesser guns (like short-barreled shotguns).  Subsequently, shotguns of reduced length came in useful to the army GIs and Marines in Vietnam and other tight, uncomfortable places. 

The delusional legal community took Miller  to mean something else, something only a law professor could belive – that the 2nd Amendment protects a government’s “right” to keep arms.  The deliberate misinterpretation of Miller during the last half of the 20th Century gave rise to the idiotic “collective rights” theory, an impossibility in and of itself.  The theory lead to the belief of leftists and statists alike that the 2nd Amendment gave the government the “right” to organize a body such as the National Guard.  This was ludicrous.  Only individual persons have rights.  Individuals with rights can join together in the exercise of those rights, but the rights themselves never acquire group status.  The status certainly never transcends from the people, individually speaking, to the government.  Governments have powers, not rights. 

The point was finally clarified (as if such a plainly worded sentence needs clarification…) by the U.S. Supreme Court in two cases early in our current Century.  In District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008) the high Court overturned D.C.’s illegal law restricting handgun ownership.  The Court also held the Second Amendment did in fact confer upon the people a fundamental right to keep and bear arms.  The collectivists were crushed.  The Court actually noted the Natural Law right of self-defense.  The law professors were confused.  The opinion limited its reach to federal laws and enclaves (like D.C.) and appended certain language regarding “traditional” uses of firearms.  The Court also made notable mention of the proper relationship between the people and the militia, but they did not reach my ultimate conclusion from Miller. 

In my humble but professional opinion (I are a Constitutional and firearms law litigator person, after all), the legal opinion rendered by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in its earlier hearing and decision of Heller, D.C. v. Parker, 478 F.3d 370 (2007)(Parker was then a co-plaintiff with Heller and several others), was a far better recitation of the 2nd Amendment, its meaning and origins.  Judge Laurence Silberman went to great lengths to explain the original meaning of the “militia” and its prerequisite condition of an armed people.  I will comment on this subject a little later, in my own words.

I met Judge Silberman at a legal education luncheon (CLE) in 2008, while Heller was pending the Supreme Court.  I thanked him for his contribution.  However, as is so often my way, I was disgruntled that afternoon and made my usual sarcastic comments to kick off the meeting.  CLE’s do that to me.  Imagine paying a good sum of money for a decent lunch which you can’t enjoy because some dude or dudette is babbling on about the law.  Anyway, I recall referring to D.C. as “the District of Corruption.”  I did this before a small gathering of government attorneys and government-dependent attorneys.  Judge Silberman gave me a nervous chuckle, the rest of the crowd was aghast at my … honesty.

Anyway, the 2008 opinion was good enough of a start.  Two years later the Court added to the new body of 2nd Amendment law.

In MacDonald v. Chicago, 561 U.S. 3025 (2010) the Court, in striking down an illegal Chicago law, “incorporated” the effect of the Second Amendment to the States, via the 14th Amendment.  Many libertarian scholars are dubious of the theory of incorporation but I will not touch on that here other than to say the 2nd Amendment must be respected by the States.  This makes sense, as far as it goes, as no entity may legitimately violate fundamental human rights.  The Court also included some dangerous language in the decision, particularly regarding the possibility laws may place “reasonable restrictions” on firearms ownership.  The reference may prove a trojan horse for gun owners, especially in light of those restrictions already in place (NFA and GCA) which are now taken for granted.  I do not take them so and I have no faith in government to keep any additional restrictions “reasonable.”

Other, newer cases are working their way through the courts, generally with good success.  I think the Amendment is finally getting some of the respect it deserves.  I also don’t think Congress will act to rashly regarding new restrictions, yet, even in the face of the ridiculous hysteria raised of late. 

I began by stating the Second Amendment is about the people resisting government tyranny.  I do not advocate herein the violent overthrow of the government.  Such action, even if warranted, would likely end in disaster.  Besides, given the suicidal tendencies of the federal and most state governments, such action would seem pointless.  I said “even if warranted” because once any government exceeds its scope and purpose to the point it becomes a threat to, rather than a defender of, the Liberties of the People (the only real reason for the existence of government), then again, it is the right and duty of the people to shrug off such tyranny.  When such action is taken legitimately, it is not an act of rebellion.  In fact, at such point, it is the government which is in rebellion and deserving of correction.  This may be subject matter for another future column.

The Founders, being highly suspicious of standing armies in the service of a central government, determined to set up a militia as a proper alternative.  A “militia” is merely the organization to some degree of all the armed men in a jurisdiction.  Every State in the Union still maintains a militia, completely separate from the National Guard.  The militia of a given state is generally divided into two classes – the “organized” militia and the unorganized.  The organized consists of members of the State defense force, whatever it may be termed.  These are voluntary citizen forces under control of the Governor.  They are generally neutered these days but retain the ability to become a combat ready force.  The unorganized force consists of all able-bodied males (and certain females) between certain ages (adults, generally).  I am a proud member of the unorganized Georgia militia!

These militias are primarily at the disposal of the States and can only be utilized by the federal government in certain cases.  The main point of this system is that the weapons are supposed to be in the hands of the people, not the government.  This is specifically true regarding infantry weapons.  A militia member should, today, be able to report for duty with any weapons available to a modern infantryman.  This would include fully automatic rifles (including SAWs) and shoulder launcher systems (Stingers, etc.).

We currently are restricted from such weapons, illegally, by the NFA and the GCA and amendments.  Also, as a counter to my central premise of militia dominance, the federal government has done a terrible job regulating the militias.  The States have all but abdicated their independence and authority to Washington.  Washington has also taken advantage of this situation by raising and maintaining huge standing, professional military forces in perpetuity.  This is all contrary to the intent and the language of the Constitution.  The American people have also undergone a dramatic transformation.  Regarding these instant issues, the populace tends to regard militias as dangerous bands of domestic terrorists while literally worshipping the federal Imperial military.  How many yellow ribbon decals have you seen promoting the militia?

This leads me to my final point, the concept that so many people miss regarding the Second Amendment.  Most historical analysis has focused on the “militia” preface and the “right of the people” action clause, or both together (see Judge Silberman).  What everyone seems to miss is the “security of a free state.”  A state, according to the Founders and their wisdom could only be preserved by an armed people serving as the militia.  The key word here is – “FREE.”  Given the decline of liberty, seemingly demanded by the people, can we be said to live in a free state anymore?  If we do not, is anything else important?  I would, of course, answer affirmatively.  I’m not so sure about my fellow countrymen.  This may provide material for a future column.  Your thoughts?

A Short History of Gun Control In America

02 Saturday Mar 2013

Posted by perrinlovett in Legal/Political Columns

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

14th Amendment, 16th Amendment, 17th Amendment, 1913, 1986, 19th Century, 20th Century, Adolph Hitler, America, ATF, bigots, blacks, British, Browning, citizens, Civil Rights Act, Class III, colonial, Constitution, crime, Europeans, Federal Reserve, firearms, Founders, government, gun control, guns, history, indians, jews, King George, KKK, LBJ, Liberty, machine guns, military, militia, murder, National Firearms Act, National Gun Control Act, Natural Law, Nazi Gun Law, New York City, news, plantation, police, poor, Posse Comitatus, racists, Revolutionary War, Ronald Reagan, Second Amendment, self-defense, slaves, standing army, Tammany Hall, tax slaves, taxes, theives, Thomas Jefferson, tyrants

Guns have been in the news again and again lately.  The guns I am writing about are the privately owned guns of our citizens.  Sadly, these patriotic men and women have not glorified for the millions of lives they save every year, usually without firing a shot.  Rather, the entire institution of gun-ownership has been demonized by the media and the lowlifes of the political class based on a tiny number of sensationalized murder cases.  This phenomenon happens from time to time and is always accompanied by a call for more gun control.

Before I get to control and its history, I want to address the most dangerous guns in America and elsewhere – publically owned or government guns.  These weapons pose a true threat to the health and security of our citizens and potentially pose a dire threat to our civil liberties and freedom.  Governments throughout history have proven themselves to be the least trustworthy possessors of weaponry.  In the 20th century alone governments murdered more than 200 million innocent victims with their military weapons.  I cannot speak for the rest of the world, but in America we need to seriously confront this lethal problem.

The Founder’s were naturally distrustful of an armed government, particularly a standing government army.  That is why they placed stringent restrictions on the army and, at the same time, embedded the right of the people to possess arms as a check against government tyranny.  I am  working on a series of columns along these lines which will compliment my previous article Posse Comitatus, https://perrinlovett.wordpress.com/2013/02/20/posse-comitatus/. 

Ultimately, I will reach the conclusions that we need to abolish all control laws which are directed against private citizens, we need to return to the militia model of defense, we should abolish our standing armies (this is a rather unpopular idea, for all the wrong reasons), and we need to disband or disarm the most of the police forces in America.  Those remaining law enforcement officers which might survive should return to their Natural Law function – protecting the rights of the people, as opposed to carrying out the edicts of the state.  For now, I will concern myself with giving you a brief education about gun control in the United States.

Where did the idea of gun control come from?  I’m not sure when and where it first originated, though I have an idea the concept has been around longer than firearms themselves.  A few gun control advocates are earnestly interested in stopping crime and helping people.  Most are not. Essentially, the majority of gun controllers are the same breed of would-be tyrants who have plagued mankind for eons.  First I imagine they demanded rock control, then sword control and now, gun control.  It is really all a scheme to deprive people of their natural rights of self-defense and self-preservation.  Tyrants do not like armed people.  Armed people are dangerous to tyrants.  Personally, I like the idea of endangered tyrants.  Perhaps we could, in the near future, save a couple and place them on display at zoos.  To hell with the rest.  “When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.”  – Thomas Jefferson.

Gun control was present during the colonial period of American history.  White Europeans attempted to limit the availability of firearms to groups like slaves and native American indians.  Just before and during the Revolutionary War, the British attempted to disarm the entire rebellious population.  Their theory was that unarmed people would have a much harder time ousting the red-coat armies. 

Independent American gun control first began after the nation was freed of King George.  In early America gun control was first initiated in against blacks, both slaves and free men.  Racist tyrannical whites did not want the downtrodden slaves or free blacks to defend themselves.  Armed slaves might just free themselves, after all.  This process derived from various State laws which outright forbid blacks from owning guns.  The KKK was an early gun-control advocacy organization (a fomer-day Brady campaign, if you will).  The injustice was nominally cured by the Federal Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (1868).  I say nominally, because the States found clever ways to circumvent the new Acts.  The favored trick was to tax gun sales so as to price the poor (which usually included blacks) out of the gun market.  As I will demonstrate shortly, rather than stamp out this hideous policy, the feds later adopted it.

So far in our history gun control has only affected “undesirable” populations – slaves, blacks, and the poor.  In the late 19th Century New York City enacted a ban on the concealed carry of firearms by just about everyone.  This new law was designed to protect pick-pockets and thieves, key constituents of Tammany Hall and the Democrats of the city (birds of a feather…).  It seems Boss Tweed’s cronies got too many complaints from their thieving electorate about people with concealed weapons thwarting robberies.  As far as I know, this was the first color-blind ban on concealed weapons.  New York has ever been a nest of nobility.

In the early 20th Century most Americans (except blacks and the poor here and there) were free to own whatever type of weapons they both desired and could afford to purchase.  I have read the true statement that any child who wanted one and had the money to pay for it, could mail-order a Browning .50-caliber machine gun and have it delivered to their home.  Yet, mysteriously, there was little crime in this far away “wild west” America.  Crime seemed to come along later with heavy federal regulation of firearms.  Numerous studies have definitively linked the two. 

As I noted earlier, the federal government enacted legislation which imposed a tax and registration on the ownership of certain types of firearms.  This first occurred with the National Firearms Act (NFA) of 1934, 26 U.S.C. 53.  This law was part of the overall scheme to deprive Americans of fundamental civil liberties.  I have previously noted the dread year of 1913, with the creation of the Federal Reserve and the ratification of the 16th and 17th Amendments.  Like plantation slaves, tax slaves with weapons pose a risk to their masters.  Americans may have seen a rise in violent crime through the 20th Century because their “leaders” emulated the gun laws of well-known criminals. 

“The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms.”  – Adolph Hitler.

adolf-hitler

(Adolph Hitler, gun control proponent.  Google Images.)

On November 11, 1938 Hitler and his government enacted sweeping gun-control legislation, the Weapons Act of 1938.  This Act was aimed at a particular subject “race” – jews.  “Jews … are prohibited from acquiring, possessing, and carrying firearms and ammunition, as well as truncheons or stabbing weapons. Those now possessing weapons and ammunition are at once to turn them over to the local police authority.”  1938 Nazi Act, Section One.  The rest of the Act made possession of weapons by jews criminal, with proscribed punishments. 

On October 22, 1968 President Lyndon “Bane of Freedom” Johnson signed into law the National Gun Control Act (GCA) of 1968, 18 U.S.C. 44.  This Act imposed additional infringements on the ownership of guns.  It was allegedly imposed as a crime-fighting measure however, it was obviously intended to further limit the availability of weapons to the law-abiding members of society.  Crime exploded in tis aftermath.  Many scholars have properly analogized the GCA to the Nazi Act of 1938, with “Jews” being removed.  The GCA was also pushed into law by racists who wanted to further discriminate against blacks.  By this time, the bigots knew better than to simply switch the word “black” in place of “jew.”  The result was the same – more disarmed Americans.

Both the NFA and the GCA are policed by the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (the AFT).  Both are blatant violations of the Second Amendment.  Every year, when not supplying military weapons to the Mexican drug cartels, the ATF wasted millions or billions of taxpayer dollars setting up sting operations in order to oppress otherwise innocent Americans through enforcement of these illegal laws.  I have represented several of these poor persons in court.

Of course, gun control has grown by leaps and bounds in and out of the federal government in the ensuing decades.  There has been a great deal of push-back against these laws, but the main pillars of disarmament still stand.  Things keep getting worse.  In 1986, arch-“conservative” Ronald Reagan signed into law a tax reform bill which, among other things, capped the supply of “class III” firearms.  Class III weapons are those such as fully automatic guns and destructive devises (military-grade weapons).  This, again, has had the effect of pricing these weapons beyond the means of most people.  It also deprives us access to modern weaponry.  It is virtually impossible to obtain a post-1986 weapon without spending hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars (one must become a dealer or a manufacturer to do so). 

Thus, Americans are denied access to the very weapons we need the most, those which can be effectively used to thwart government aggression, including mis-use of the standing army.  The Founders were on to something.

m4

(The Second Amendment is not about duck hunting.  Google Images.)

I could run on for another 1500 words or more with this subject.  Instead I will stop here and provide more information in my upcoming columns on the Second Amendment and related articles. In the meantime, do not heed the siren’s call for more gun controll, we need a good deal less.  Guns Up!

Interposition, Nullification, and Secession

25 Monday Feb 2013

Posted by perrinlovett in Uncategorized

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

10th Amendment, 16th Amendment, 17th Amendment, 1984, 19th Century, Act, America, collapse, Congress, Constitution, Constitutional Convention, Constitutional Law, Courts, D.C., Declaration of Independence, Farenheit 451, Free Vermont Republic, George W. Bush, Georgia, government, history, interposition, judicial review, Kentucky Resolution, King George, law, Liberty, Lincoln, Marbury v. Madison, McCain-Feingold, military, Mittens, Montana, morons, murder, Nazi germany, nullification, ObamaCare. Supreme Court, politics, Republicans, Romney, secession, Soviet Union, States, stupidity, tax, The People, Thomas Woods, tyranny, U.S.A., Union, Virginia Resolution, voting, War

Last year I started this humble blog with a short column on the unGodly ObamaCare decision from the Supreme Court, https://perrinlovett.wordpress.com/2012/06/28/the-shared-responsibility-tax-obamacare-a-hit-with-the-supremes-4/.  ObamaCare is not about healthcare for anyone.  It is merely an Insurance Company welfare scheme with taxes that no-one knew were taxes (not even Obama) and bankruptcy-inducing mandates. 

At the end of that early missive I promised to cover possible solutions to the mounting problem of federal tyranny.  Specifically, I named interposition, nullification, and secession as possibilities.  Let’s talk about those now, briefly.

Well, first let’s see how the Republicans did with reversing the law as they boasted they would.  I recall some GOPer saying they would overturn the nightmarish law before the Supremes even got to rule on it.  Didn’t happen.  After the ruling they said they would eliminate the massive tax act before their chosen man, Mittens Romney, the founder of the ObamaCare School of Medicine, won the election.  None of that happened either.  With the nation staring down the barrel of a potentially economy-wrecking gun, they said they would stop the law before it took effect on January 1st of this year.  Having proven themselves to be lying, delusional idiots, we can write off the buffoons of the Elaphantitis party.

Back to my proposals – I’ll take them in the order I first set forth, as that seems to be the hierarchy from least to most extreme.

Interposition

Interposition is a process whereby a State of the American Union declares an Act of Congress or some other federal action to be UnConstitutional and positions itself as a shield between the feds and the citizens of the State.  Wikipedia says that the federal courts have held this an illegitimate theory and that only they have the power of Constitutional review – “Judicial Review.”  See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interposition.  Wiki doesn’t mention it by name, but the theory of Judicial Review originated, federally speaking, in the case of Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803).   Maybe you’ve heard of this landmark case, students of “Constitutional Law” are taught to revere it.  I was never impressed. 

First, this was one of a shady series of early Supreme Court cases concerning personal profits unfit for court review at all.  Second, if this case did deserve formal investigation and resolution, then such should have been undertaken by the political branches whom the matter concerned anyway.  Third, and most importantly, judicial review by the federal courts is a legal fiction.  Nowhere in the Constitution is the right granted the courts to rule so authoritatively on our laws.  Had the Framers intended such power, they would have written it in; several State Constitutions do grant this power to State Courts (Georgia, for example).

I do not withhold the ability of any court to say a law is UnConstitutional.  Courts should point such out when discovered.  In fact, any branch may make that determination.  President Bush, the Dimmer, said that the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance law was UnConstitutional, then signed it anyway.  Before that, obviously, Congress had deliberated on the law and must have sensed its illegality.  Bush remarked that the Supreme Court would have to make the ultimate determination.  They did.  Ironically, the Court essentially said (and rightly) the law concerned only the political branches and since both had approved the measure, they would too out of deference.  I had an outrageously humorous “discussion” about this fiasco with a political celebrity in 2004; I’ll relate that in a future post.  This was a case of government gone wild.  Of the three branches, law-making is the art of Congress; correcting bad laws is also.

Anyone who can read and think can declare a law within or without the bounds of the Constitution.  I do it all the time.  However, my power of enforcement is rather weak to say the least.  The theory of interposition, and that of nullification, comes from the ability of the States to so declare a law.  Their power is greater than mine and their authority is a bit more grounded than that of the Courts.  “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.”  U.S. Const., Amendment 10.  UnConstitutional laws are those based in authority which is not among those very few expressly Constitutionally delegated powers of the national government ,and thus, are within the purview of the States to affect.  The Tenth Amendment’s reference to “the people” is as fuzzy a concept as anything else in man’s law.  Ultimately, under our form of republican government, the people have the final say on authority as exercised by their voting.  The people prove time and again to be useless guardians of their own liberties.

Interposition was made famous long ago by the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions (1798), which declared the States’ ability to invalidate federal law.  The practice was used to various effect in the 1800’s.  Times have changed dramatically (for the worse) since that Century, with the States giving away a great deal of their former power.  There was also the matter of the war between the States which decided by force and murder, rather than by law, some of these issues. 

Nullification

Nullification is essentially Interposition but with an added declaration by a State or States they will not enforce a federal law or allow enforcement within their territory.  This theory was set forth also by the afore-noted Resolutions.  It has been erroneously dismissed by the courts.  And, it would seem to reside in a previous time.  The theory has raised its head recently though, as it does from time to time.  A few States have begun to void federal laws in principle at least.  Montana, for example, has decided that certain federal firearms laws do not apply within the Montana state lines.  It remains to be seen whether Montana or other modern States will actually take any action necessary to give life to their declarations.

In the old days, States did just that.  The 19th Century was repeat with State and local agents boldly denying the federal government on certain matters.  When a federal agent or officer appeared to enforce a particular objectionable action, the locals would run the fellow out of town on a rail, literally sometimes.  A great read on the subject is Thomas Woods’s Nullification (2010), http://www.amazon.com/Nullification-Resist-Federal-Tyranny-Century/dp/1596981490. 

Again, with the demise of State power and authority in general (see the 16th and 17th Amendments, etc.) the plausibility of nullification seems a dim prospect. 

Secession

Dimmer still, is the ultimate practice of State dissent.  The original 13 colonies of England, once they had declared their independence from the King, became 13 independent nations.  They joined together to fight the Revolutionary War and then entered into a Federation for mutual benefit.  A federation is a group of sovereign entities which come together for some purpose; they remain sovereign.  The Constitution changed none of this.  No language therein makes the federal union permanent and eternally binding upon the member States.

Should a State find itself at unacceptable odds with the central government, it has the power to dissolve its connections and become a completely separate nation again.  Several State assemblies expressly said so when they ratified the Constitution.  This is in complete keeping with the spirit of the Declaration of Independence, just substitute U.S.A. for King George, III. 

Again, and again and again, the States have not only given up power to Washington over the years, they have also become somewhat dependent on D.C. and tend to exhibit a slavish loyalty thereto.  This all renders the prospect of a State succeeding in the 21st Century remote.  There are secessionist movements in some States, like the Free Vermont Republic.  The FVR even has its own flag, but little chance of success. 

There is also the specter of Mr. Lincoln’s illegal war.  The war decided nothing formally or legally.  Wars are not rational undertaking, just pure contests of military power.  Since 1865 the several States have all but abandoned their military power while Washington has assembled the most awesome and dreaded arsenal in the history of mankind.  While secession remains a perfectly legal option, the odds of success do not favor the States.

Where We Are

In today’s political climate none of these three solutions are likely to receive formal discussion by the several States, let alone action.  Deprived of legal and political solutions, what then are we to do? 

Some people with means are beginning to leave the United States for smaller, freer countries.  I do not begrudge them their decisions.  However, I do not like the idea of being run out of my homeland and into a foreign country where, as history dictates, anything can and will happen.  In a way, I would rather stay and face the devil I know here.

There is always the ability of the States or of Congress to call for a new Constitutional Amendment or even a Convention wherein objectionable laws might be remedied.  Amendments are hard to pass these days.  It’s hard to get Congress or the legislature of any State to act productively or intelligently.  Honestly, the idea of a new Constitutional Convention scares me.  While one could hypothetically end with great advances in Liberty, such as returning to the Articles of Confederation or just eliminating the national government completely, I fear, given the weakness of the people and their representatives, we could end up with something far worse.  Imagine 1984, Farenheit 451, Nazi Germany and the old Soviet Union all rolled into one!

Every two years or so the citizens of the States have the opportunity to turn out at least a third of the federal government’s elected morons.  The power to change the government lies with the people by their dismissing representatives who do not do their bidding.  The people must not be aware of this authority or else, they must approve of their government as is.  Options grow thin.

Time will eventually change everything.  5,000 years from now most people living won’t remember the United States.  Given the self-destructive tendencies of our government, it is likely we need not wait that long.  Either way, awaiting the inevitable collapse of leviathan, like expectations of the end of days, is tedious at best.

I’ll see if I can come up with something else more actionable.  You work on it too.

Posse Comitatus

20 Wednesday Feb 2013

Posted by perrinlovett in Uncategorized

≈ 25 Comments

Tags

"Civil" War, 107th Congress, 18 USC 1385, 19th Century, 20th Century, 45th Congress, A Well regulated Militia, Abram S. Hewitt, abuse, air force, Alexander Hamilton, America, army, Articles of Confederation, Attorney General, Barrack Obama, beltway snipers, Ben Hill, Caesar, capital felony, civil power, communism, Congress, Congressional Record, Constitution, criminals, Declaration of Independence, district attorneys, drones, Drug "War", due process, Empire, Federalist Papers, freedom, Gallic War, Gauis Curio, George W. Bush, Georgia, governors, happiness, history, Homeland Security, Japan, Jimmy Carter, John B. Anderson, judicial review, Kentucky, King George, Latin, law, legislature, Loeb Classics, Marx, Maryland, Michigan, military, National Guard, Natural Law, NDAA, New York, north, Patriot Act, Posse Comitatus, President, public hanging, Reconstruction, republic, Rome, Ronald Reagan, scholars, sheriffs, slavery, south, States, Supreme Court, taxs, The Founders, The Time Given, Thomas Jefferson, treason, tyranny, Waco, Washington, William Kimmel, wisdom, Wounded Knee

I love follow-up stories.  The other day I did a piece about military drones killing Americans and mentioned the Posse Comitatus Act as a possible solution.  I said I’d have more to say about the Act soon.  Here it is:

On June 18th of this year we will all celebrate the 135th birthday of the Posse Comitatus Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1385.  Happy Birthday, Pos-Com!!!  Maybe you do not share my zeal?  Perhaps you have never heard of this great Act or maybe you don’t know what it means.  Allow me to educate you.  The Posse Comitatus Act means absolutely nothing.  Those who will celebrate the creation of this dead letter are those who should be prosecuted under it – namely those members of the various executive branches of the Federal and state governments. 

“18 U.S.C. § 1385” is a legal citation to the United States Code, referring to Section 1385 of Title 18.  Title 18 is the federal criminal code thus, Posse Comitatus creates a criminal offense.  Like 99.99% of federal criminal laws it only sets forth a felony offense and punishment.  Unlike most federal crimes though, the Act carries a lower than usual maximum sentence and it HAS NEVER BEEN PROSECUTED!

In law school I wrote a lengthy research paper on the Act – Posse Comitatus – written for my advanced Constitutional Decision-Making seminar taught by the very Honorable Professor John B. Anderson.  Anderson represented the people of Illinois’s 16th Congressional District for twenty years.  You may recall his 1980 independent run for President against Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.  You may also recall his book The American Economy We Need from 1984.

I consider Professor (as I always call him) Anderson a good friend.  Once he and his wife, Keke, graciously received my wife and I at their beautiful home on a visit to Washington.  However, back when I initially presented my paper proposal to him he seemed a bit skeptical.  I suspect that, at the time, even he had not heard of the Act.  As the semester progressed though our Nation’s Capital came under the terror of the Beltway snipers.  Anderson called me one day and said he had just heard a news report on the radio about the snipers, the hunt therefore, and … the Posse Comitatus Act.  He was hooked and I received an “A” for my efforts. 

Over the ensuing decade I have ripped the paper apart, added to it, and conducted additional research on the Act and many related matters.  In the not to distant future (later in 2013 perhaps) I look forward to publishing a book based in part on my original thesis.  The book is tentatively called A Well Regulated Militia (Amazon/CreateSpace/Kindle) and will relate to all things Second Amendment, Militia, and tyranny prevention (and reversal).  This would include, for reasons cited herein, below, the Pose Comitatus Act.  This work will be far more substantial than The Time Given (soon, I promise), though that treatise is no less important to the scope of human happiness than anything else I write.

I hope the book-buying public also gives my work an “A” and I experience mass market financial success.  Remember, you need not actually read a book; what counts is buying it (multiple copies if possible).  I have limited the many notes and many of the citations which accompanied my old paper and which will inevitably appear in the book.  For the book I intend to clean them up, eliminate them if possible, or relegate them to the seldom viewed “Notes” section at the back. I hear notes, like charts and graphs, drive down sales.  Pictures have been known to help though:

Minutemen-1776

(Our Posse.  Source: Google images).

The history of the Act is a great part of the history of the 19th century in America.  As you may recall in the middle of that century we had a rather unpleasant incident which resulted in the deaths of about 600,000 men.  I refuse to call it The Civil War because it wasn’t.  A “civil war” is where two or more factions fight for control of a central government.  In our case, the Southerners wanted to be free of Washington, not in control of it.  It also wasn’t a declared war (I’ve had debates with other attorneys about what that meant). My northern friends often ask me my opinions about the war.  I can sum the up easily: it was as deadly as it was unnecessary. 

I am in the minority of honest legal historians who believe that the southern states had every authority to seceed from the union.  I think any state today has that same authority.  Nothing in the Constitution compels eternal membership and several states expressly reserved the ability to withdraw at any time.  They asserted a Natural Law position which, being universal, would seem to apply to even those states which joined without such reservation. 

Back in the Nineteenth Century, America was plagued with major problems – debt, financial scams, economic warfare, lying politicians, and, of course, slavery.  Come to think of it, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

You may recall from history that once the “war” was over and the Union reunited, a probationary period was imposed on the southern states.  This period was known as Reconstruction.  It was rank with abuse.  In numerous cases the legislatures of southern states and other institutions were invaded or harassed by regular army troops.  The Posse Comitatus Act was passed partly in  response to these alarming events. 

“Posse Comitatus” is a Latin phrase roughly meaning “power of the county.”  “Posse” in latin is a verb which means to “be able” or to “have power”.  “Comitatus” means “company” or “retinue.”  In other words, it refers to the local militia – those men available for service in times of crisis.   An aside, suited for a future article: “militia” does not correlate with the “National Guard.” 

The concept of the militia predates and was well established at the time of our nation’s founding.  Congress still acknowledges the militia separately from the Guard; the Guard and the militia are differentiated under Titles 10 and 32 of the U.S. Code.  Every State maintains a militia (at least in the law books) separate from the Guard.  In Georgia, the State militia is officially the Georgia State Defense Force.  See: O.C.G.A. § 38-2-23, et seq. 

The Guard was instituted in the early twentieth century and is essentially a back-up force for the regular national army – it is sometimes on loan to the several States.  Enough on that for now.

The Pose Comitatus Act reads, in its entirety: “Whoever, except in cases and circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.”   18 U.S.C. § 1385.   

The Act (let’s call it the “PCA” from here out) originally started out as an amendment to the Army Appropriations Bill (H.R. 4867) for the fiscal year ending in 1879.  This would be during the forty-fifth congress, second session, in 1878.  The initial mention of the concept of the PCA as an amendment came from Rep. William Kimmel of Maryland on May 20, 1878.  Kimmel was cut off in mid speech by time constraints; however, he successfully laid the framework for the PCA amendment.  See: 7 Cong. Rec. 3586. 

H.R. 4867, PCA and all, eventually became law on June 18, 1878, hence the pending birthday celebration.  See: 7 Cong. Rec. 4686.  Some scholars have speculated the PCA was enacted only to end the use of he army in supervising southern elections and legislative sessions.  Earlier I said the PCA was partly enacted for the reasons said scholars state.  I, however, dug deep into Congressional history (boy, what fun) and found a more complicated picture. 

The roots behind the theory of Posse Comitatus go much deeper and further back in history than the American Republic.  The concept was present at the end of the Roman Republic, more than twenty centuries ago.  Gauis Curio attempted to disarm Caesar’s returning army in order to preserve domestic tranquility.  See: Caesar, The Gallic War, Loeb Classical Library, 587 (Harvard U. Press, 2000).  As you know, Caesar “crossed the Rubicon” and the Empire shortly thereafter commenced.

In early America the fear of armed military forces present in everyday life was of grave concern to our Founding Fathers.  Beginning the Declaration of Independence with a nod to Natural Law, Thomas Jefferson listed the first grievance against King George that “He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature. … He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power.”  Dec. Independence, para. 13 – 14 (1776).  Jefferson listed various other similar complaints against the King.

Jefferson was not alone in his fear of standing armies, provisions against which found their way into both the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution (remember the Constitution?).  In The Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton, himself not the greatest proponent of freedom, railed against the standing army as “unsupported by any precise or intelligible designations of reasons.”  The Federalist, No. 27 (Hamilton).   

The Forty-Fifth Congress considered several issues in developing the PCA: a standing army versus a militia; limited central government; and, the proper (if any) uses for an army within the confines of the territory of the Republic.  A sub-issue of concern at the end of the 19th Century was the potential rise of communism, which Congress greatly and rightly feared.  Karl Marx was still alive at the time of the PCA debate, his works on “economics” relatively fresh off the presses.  Rep. Abram S. Hewitt of New York commented on the subject: “If you want to fan communism, increase your standing army and you will have enough of it.”  7 Cong. Rec. H. 3538 (1878). 

Rep. Kimmel stated the then current use of the army in domestic affairs was a direct “violation of the Constitution.”  He cited numerous examples of federal troops aiding tax agents, governors, sheriffs, and district attorneys in Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, and New York.  7 Cong. Rec. 3580 – 3582.  Again, it is popularly said that the PCA was the result of Southern states fed up with the misuse of federal soldiers during elections. Most of Kimmel’s examples were responses to tax collections and labor disputes.  In 1878, as today, New York and Michigan are generally regarded as northern states.  Other Representatives related similar troubles all across the country.  The problem was national in scope.

In the Senate the debate continued.  Senator Benjamin Hill of Georgia remarked, “A posse comitatus is a wholly different thing from an army; it is different in every respect from an army…”  7 Cong. Rec. 4246.  He continued, “it never was lawful, it never shall be lawful, to employ the army as a posse comitatus until you destroy the distinction between civil power and the military power in this country.”  Id. 

As the PCA is a criminal law and given the federal Empire’s love of prosecuting any and everything, one would expect numerous cases under the PCA over the past century or so.  One would be mistaken.  There has never been one single case brought against anyone under the PCA.  This may be due to the fact that the most likely suspects are government officials.  They don’t like to go after their own.  Honor among thieves you know.

The closest semblance of judicial review of the PCA has been in the form of indirect rulings in cases involving other crimes.  Defendants have asserted, as a defense, an alleged violation of the PCA by government officials executing some duty (such as drug enforcement).  This defense universally fails.  I will not bore my audience with any particular cases, though they date from at least 1975 and continue into this Century.

Oddly, I, the great authority on this matter, was once threatened with the potential of facing a PCA violation!  Yes, yours truly, Perrin Lovett.  It all stemmed from one of those lovely anti-family law cases of which I have previously expounded: https://perrinlovett.wordpress.com/2013/02/09/anti-family-law/.  I believe it was a custody dispute. 

Anyway, the defendant was a member of the U.S. Army stationed at Camp Zama in Japan.  Thus, I was tasked with the trouble of perfecting International legal service of process which is not necessarily the easiest thing to do.  I decided to circumvent technicalities by having the defendant simply acknowledge he had received my petition.  Not having an exact address for him, I contacted several offices at the Camp in an attempt to solicit their help in the matter.  The Provost Marshall’s office quickly told me they could not assist with serving a civil lawsuit without running afoul of the PCA.  They actually said that; you know, from the history given here, this type of situation was not within the original intention of Congress.  I pointed out that I was not asking for such, just for friendly information.  As luck would have it, I located the defendant on my own and the case went forward.  As usual, no-one was happy.  Correction: I am happy to have avoided being the only PCA prosecution in history.

Back to reality.  There have been cases innumerable of the military becoming involved in civil law enforcement – from the “war” on drugs to the massacre at Waco, to the Wounded Knee massacre, to the hunt for the D.C. snipers, etcetera, ad nauseum.  Why then, have there been no criminal cases arising from the incidents?

The answer lies in the actions of both the Executive branch and, especially, with Congress.  Exception after exception to the PCA have been enacted over the long years.  Congress has all but rendered the PCA a dead letter to the point the Act is useless for its intended purpose.  

It is somewhat interesting that, having taken the teeth away, Congress has not fully repealed the PCA.  This may be because federal laws never die, they linger forever, used or not.  Amazingly, as recently as 2005, the 107th Congress reaffirmed the spirit of the PCA, literally, but not meaningfully.  “The Congress reaffirms the continued importance of …[the PCA] … and it is the sense of Congress that nothing in this Act [H.R. 5005 – creating the Department of Homeland Security] should be construed to alter the applicability of such section to any use of the Armed Forces as a posse comitatus to execute the laws.”  H.R. 5005 § 780(a) – (b). 

The Homeland Security debacle … Act … followed the Patriot Act and decades of “war” on drugs, crime, and your freedom.  Various National Defense Authorization Acts have followed.  The result has been the complete decimation of the PCA.  President Bush (No. 43) and his successor, Barack Obama, have made clear their intention to use the military whenever necessary, wherever needed, to keep us safe, of course.  Obama even claims he can use military weapons to kill without Due Process.  The protests against his claim are less than deafening.  I protest!

I have some suggestions for changes and improvements to restore the vitality of the PCA.  This is one of the few instances where you will ever hear me call for a new or continued statute.  In the name of freedom, Congress should amend the PCA first to kill all of the previous exemptions.  Second, they should specify that the law only applies to those members of the federal, state, or local governments who would dare to use federal military force to accomplish civil law enforcement of any kind; they could define a violation as an act of government employee-specific treason. 

The punishment could be expanded accordingly.  Perhaps the original punishment might be appropriate in minor cases.  Others, such as those which involve the mass killing of American citizens could be made capital felonies.  Congress has the Constitutional authority to also limit the review of any conviction from any court – including the Supreme Court; thus, when a high official (an attorney general for example) orders Army tanks to drive into a church and burn the worshippers within alive, that official could be convicted under the PCA and immediately hanged in public.  This might serve as a warning to future would-be tyrants. 

Again, this is only a suggestion.  I do not relish the idea of killing even to avenge killing.  I reconsider, reluctantly, when the dread act(s) have the potential of continuing against all of the free people.

This leads me back to my article on drones picking off the voting, tax-suffering public, https://perrinlovett.wordpress.com/2013/02/15/droning-on-and-on/.  A President, already forbidden to use military drones against domestic targets (his already unConstitutional Orders overridden by my proposed law) might think twice about defying the law if he knew the gallows awaited his defiance.

The issues raised herein may likely lead to other related articles.  All of which concern you and those you hold dear.  It is your freedom, security, and happiness that drives me to raise the alarm – the same alarm raised by the Founders and the forgotten members of the forty-fifth Congress.  Bless their wisdom and fore-sighted concern.

Natural Law

15 Friday Feb 2013

Posted by perrinlovett in Legal/Political Columns

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Alexis de Tocqueville, American, Anglo-American, Artcles of Confederation, Atistotle, Benjamin Franklin, Bill of Rights, Blackstone, California, Catholic Church, Christian, Christians, Cicero, civil disobedience, Constitution, Creator, David Miller, Declaration of Independence, Dr. Martin Luther King, due process, Dwight Eisenhower, Edmund Randolf, freedom, George Washington, Georgia, God, Gospel of John, government, graft, greedy banksters, Hobbs, Jesus, justice, Juvenal, King George, law, law school, Leo Strauss, libertarians, Locke, Natural Law, Natural Rights, oppression, Patrick Henry, Plato, Pope Leo XIII, rights, Robinson Crusoe, Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas Aquinas, schemes, secession, Socrates, Solon, sovereignty, Summa Theologica, theft, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Treastis on Law, tyranny, Voltaire, Walden

Ninety-Nine percent of lawyers in the United States graduate from law school and practice their profession without much if any consideration of the ultimate underpinnings of the laws, regulations, and processes with which they work.  I mean something deeper and more eternal that a mere constitution or the tradition of Anglo-American law.  This lack of knowledge is not necessarily their fault.  Law schools rarely teach or even mention said underpinnings.  Legislatures, executive officers, and courts now operate without the slightest acknowledgment of that from whence they derive their just authority.  Most citizens seemed confused about the nature and base concepts of law, rights, and justice generally.  This is all forgivable to a fault (especially for the lay audience).  Let me tell you briefly about where “law” comes from.

Long ago, policy makers and attorneys such as Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and Patrick Henry did understand and acknowledge the source of their governmental efforts and the results thereof.  This deeper sense of purpose was never limited to American statesmen.  Pre-Americans and even pre-Christians such as William Blackstone, Cicero, Aristotle, and Solon also were aware of the greater power behind their actions.

That power and influence is called “Natural Law,” sometimes referred to as “Natural Rights” and similar names.  These are fundamental concepts which are imbued into each human spirit by their Creator.  Made-man law is or is supposed to be an expression of the natural law.  David Miller, et al., eds, The Blackwell Encyclopedia of political Thought (Oxford 1987).  Some argue that the individual rights associated with natural law must be or may be curtailed to a degree in a complex society.  Miller, et al, supra.  I, like many libertarians, disagree with this notion insofar as one person’s rights do not become an infringement on the rights of another.

So, where did natural law come from?  To answer that question let us journey back in time – way back, to the beginning of time, if fact.  Natural law along with all principles of science, measure, and understanding were created by God, the Almighty, as a product of His grand universal creation.

The concepts of natural law are, thus, as eternal and fixed as the laws or rules of physics or mathematics.  Regarding those rules of “hard” science, humans are on a continuing mission to explore, understand, master, and apply the same.  So it is with natural law.  Being imperfect and tainted by original sin, it is unlikely that we shall ever have complete mastery of any of these ideas.  Therein lies another agony resulting from the original disobedience and the ensuing free will dominated “knowledge” with which mortals outside the garden must grapple.  As natural law relates to human behavior and society – “soft” sciences, academically speaking, it is much more difficult to grasp, let alone use than some other universal truths.  Four plus four equals eight and gravity almost always attracts separate bodies together.  Whether people should have a king or a board of selectmen is a wholly different and subjective problem.

As a note, one need not be a Christian or a believer in any specific faith in order to respect natural law.  For those so inclined, just consider it another facet or force of the universe we happen to inhabit.  As alluded to above, many, many philosophers and legal scholars and practitioners observed natural law millenia before the founding of the United States and centuries before Christ.

In describing the “visible world” the Catechism of the Catholic Church (“CCC”) (No. 341) describes man’s progressive discovery of the laws of nature as he observes the interaction and beauty of the universe.  “The natural law is written and engraved in the soul of each and every man, because it is human reason ordaining him to do good and forbidding him to sin…”  Pope Leo XIII, Libertas, 597; CCC, 1954.

God originally, long after the expulsion from paradise, gave us ten simple Commandments by which to live – they are a direct and further exemplification of natural law.  Jesus gave us the most simple explanation possible of natural law with his Law of the Gospel, “new commandment:” “love one another.”  John 13:34; CCC, 1970.  People, it seems, are unwilling or simply unable to follow clear, simple admonishment.  The history of the past twenty centuries bears this out.

As a result of our collective incompetence, we are now subject to laws, regulations, and rules both innumerable and incomprehensible (and mostly unnecessary).  However, at their core, if these human statutes are valid, they are based on some interpretation of natural law.

“The natural law is immutable, permanent throughout history.  The rules that express it remain substantially valid.  It is a necessary foundation for the erection of moral rules and civil law.” CCC, 1979 (entirety).  The question for us, is how to interpret and apply these immutable principles as we create civil law.  Rest assured that nothing we do will ever be perfect.  The best we can strive for is an approximation.  Harken though and remember that this whole body of law is contained in our souls; we only need to tap into it when necessary.  This never-ending task has been the study of great men throughout history.

In Natural Right and History, Leo Strauss explored the origins and ideas of natural law.  He noted  Plato’s theory that freedom from and doubt of human law is the “indispensable” beginning of the search for natural law.  Strauss, Natural Right and History, pg. 84, U. Chicago Press, 1953.  This means “thinking outside the box” about law, rather than civil disobedience – although that may come later.  Strauss goes on to differentiate between the “classical” view of the law as espoused by Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Saint Thomas Aquinas and the “modern” (17th century and on) views held by Locke, Hobbs, and more contemporary thinkers.

Some of these differences are obviously products of their time and the accumulation and interpretation of previous work.  Others are matters of opinion, albeit well-reasoned opinion.  St. Thomas’s observations along with those of other Christian theologians are influenced by Biblical and Church teachings; however, this concept would not be wholly lost on ancient Greek or Roman philosophers.  In their time, those ancients usually attributed the law to nature itself, with perhaps a whimsical nod to Olympus.  As Juvenal quipped: “The wrath of the gods may be great, but it certainly is slow.”  Satirae, XIII, 100.

I will go no further, directly, with Strauss’s differentiation.  This is the interpretation of Perrin Lovett and is mostly concentrated towards a modern, American view of the law and how it applies to our societal relations.

Before we get back to our America we still need a bit more history.  An exhaustive examination of natural law was one of the central themes of St. Thomas Aquinas’s great Treatise on Law, part of his larger Summa Theologica.  Expanding upon Plato and Aristotle’s “outside the box” approach, Thomas concludes, with reference assistance of Saint Augustine that law “which is not just seems to be no law at all.  Hence a law has as much force as it has justice.”  St. Thomas, Treatise on Law, R.J. Henle, S.J., editor, pg. 287, U. Notre Dame Press, 1993.  St. Thomas goes on to say that a civil or earthly law with conflicts with natural law is a perversion rather than a law.  Thus, did Walden and others, claim a basis for civil disobedience to repugnant laws.

Saint Thomas notes that natural law may be divined directly from principle (i.e. a law against murder would be based on God’s commandment not to kill or the principle that each human has a right to live).  The other more subjective method is through examination of generalities.  Enter, here,  the fuzziness of the human brain.  A natural law-compliant statute which prohibits murder may also prescribe punishment for murder; what the punishment should be and how it is applied is a matter of determination based on assessment of the factors of the case, with natural law as a field guide.  See: St. Thomas, Treatise, supra, pg 288.

Seemingly, most of the core laws of our nation and our states derive (or did derive)from Biblical or other ancient sources.  Most are straightforward in definition.  Murder is prohibited in Georgia the same as it is in California (and just about every jurisdiction worldwide).  The procedure governing a murder case and punishment following a conviction are also dictated by law.  In keeping with natural law, a criminal defendant should be accorded all protections of Due Process, else his conviction, if any, is tainted with perversion.  In name and theory at least, American laws and courts have erected elaborate barriers to protect an accused citizen from state malfeasance.  Consideration of possible punishments, as well as any type of considerable sub-crime (manslaughter, for example) have been designed (again in theory) to assess the factors and circumstances of each particular case.

Often voices arise in a society, particularly regarding emotionally charged cases, crying for “justice” at all costs.  These voices essentially call for lynchings based on such novel theories as: “Everyone knows so and so is guilty!” and “Some people just need killing!”  On our quest for natural law, we must put aside emotion and observe the larger picture.  That picture encompasses the possibility that even a seemingly guilty criminal may still be innocent; our procedures of justice are the mechanisms for definitive (though imperfect [humans again]) adjudication.  “It is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.”  Sir. William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, 1783 (this sentiment has been echoed by Benjamin Franklin and Voltaire to name a few).

Blackstone commented that nothing is more essential to the “common good” than the protection of individual liberties.  Blackstone, Commentaries, supra.  This reasoning was shared by Thomas Jefferson and John Locke, etc.

Jefferson, of course penned the Declaration of Independence.  In its first paragraph our great severing/founding document based the authority of the American people on the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.”  The second paragraph is (was) well known: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…”  (italicized emphasis added).  Those rights are the natural rights enjoyed by every human, which need not be necessarily acknowledged by any document and can never be legitimately infringed upon by any government.  The rest of the Declaration was dedicated to addressing King George’s abuse of those rights and the implementation of the natural law recourse – secession.

Those were core values on display to the whole world in perhaps the most stunning social experiment in human history.  Natural law gave life to the Articles of Confederation, an entity devoted to mutual aid and protection for the betterment of all member states and their respective citizens.  Shortly thereafter, the Constitution came into being.  Again, some attempted to forge a stronger union with the steel of natural law.  Certain of nature’s rights were expressly set forth in the Bill of Rights.  This was a case of core values mingling with the fire of powerful government – a dangerous combination.  As the two plus centuries have made clear, one government is as capable as another is usurping power for its own ends while concurrently infringing on the rights of its people.

It is when we consider statutes and rules outside of the “core” of our natural human experience that real problems are confronted.  Imagine, if you will, a man alone on an island.  He is his own society and, if he wishes, his own government.  His natural rights are as intact in the middle of the uncharted Pacific as they would be in mid-town Manhattan.  He has, for instance, that right to live or for self-preservation.  Absent some new addition to his little society, a rule against murder would prove difficult to adhere to; murder is the unlawful, unreasonable, and voluntary killing of a human being by another human being.  Absent another person our Islander need not fear murder.  He might find himself facing suicide or starvation though and then his rights to his own person would become his chief concern.

This simple Robinson Crusoe example should translate form a desert isle to any more complex society.  However, some laws deal with issues not conducive to reason in any circumstance.  A bill or statute proposing farm aid to certain large corporations based on their stated financial needs, the aid to come from either taking directly from the rest of society or by decreasing the value of that society’s currency (if the currency be fiat in nature) is a completely different, non-core matter.  However, politics, financial tricks, and smoke and mirrors aside, such a dilemma may still be decided along natural lines.  Governments today generally do not have legitimate money to give away nor are they capable of productively earning such monies.  A giveaway scheme necessarily involves taking from someone else.  Is this not theft?  Is theft not forbidden by the Creator’s Law?  Heaven aside, the earthly consideration here is one of justice.

“All virtue is summed up in dealing justly.”  Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 325 B.C.  Justice would seem to forbid stealing from one group to pay off another, no matter how well-connected the recieving class might be.  You, the reader, must know that our government has long since abandoned this rational debate.  As a result we have those laws innumerable.  Sadly, this has been a long-standing problem.  “The more laws, the less justice.”  Cicero, De Officies, 44 B.C.

As mentioned earlier, the wisdom of the ancients was once of common knowledge and practice in our Western world.  George Washington wrote, “The administration of justice is the firmest pillar of Government.”  Geo. Washington, Letter to Edmond Randolph, 1789.  After his visit to America, Alexis Comte de Tocqueville stated: “When I refuse to obey an unjust law, I do not contest the right of the majority to command, but I simply appeal from the sovereignty of the people to the sovereignty of mankind.”  de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1835.

Common sense even protruded into the Twentieth Century.  One who knew best, Dwight Eisenhower said, “Peace and justice are two sides of the same coin.”  Eisenhower, radio address, 1957.  Universally speaking: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from the Birmingham, AL Jail, 1963.

Unfortunately for us, the voices of justice and reason have been growing steadily fewer and father between.  Today our American government bears almost no resemblance to that which was established long ago while memories of tyranny were still fresh.  Rather than engage in justice, let alone its quest, our politicians constantly engage in vote-buying schemes of unimaginable proportions.  Solon’s observation has never been truer: “Laws are like spider’s webs which, if anything small falls into them they ensnare it, but large things break through and escape.”  Quoted by Diogenes Laertius, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, 3rd Cent. A.D.

For a final example, this analogy to a spider web is demonstrated time and again in the new Amerika.  When greedy bankers make horrible, criminal (but foreseeable) mistakes and risk the financial ruin of the world, they are bailed out and pass freely through our laws.  The poor, middle class, and average citizens are caught, seemingly forever, in a legal cesspool of debt and oppression.

treewater

(Natural law is as common as the beauty of Nature itself)

I will not end on a sour note.  Rather, I offer a humble solution.  If we are to be free as God’s children are supposed to be, we must cast off the burdensome trappings of our current governments.  For that process to begin our citizens must each commence their individual quests throughout their spirits for natural law and justice.  In particular, our lawyers and law students need to demand formal classical education, or else, they must take it upon themselves to learn what has been lost.  While all of you have great deal of research and reflection to do and I may follow-up with more reasoning and explanations, I hope this article starts the process.

Perrin Lovett

FREE Ebook!

The Substitute – my first novel

NOTE! Much better, revised edition coming ASAP!

The Happy Little Cigar Book

Buy From Amazon! The perfect coffee table book!

Perrin On Politics

FREE E-book! Download now~

Right-Minded Social Media For Normal People

Freedom Roasters Coffee AND Apparel

Ritin’ @ Reckonin’

Archives

  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • June 2012

Prepper Post News Podcast by Freedom Prepper (sadly concluded, but still archived!)

Have a Cup!

Perrin’s Articles and Videos at FREEDOM PREPPER (*2016-2022)

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • PERRIN LOVETT
    • Join 39 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • PERRIN LOVETT
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

You must be logged in to post a comment.