It may now, and must now be said that after 234 years, our Supreme Court has finally, at long last, made it unequivocal and explicit that our right to keep and bear arms for personal defense is a fundamental, unalienable right protected by the 2nd Amendment and applicable to the States through the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment.

The ruling in McDonald v. Chicago is an enormous victory for liberty and security, although a slightly qualified one. Justice Alito, writing for the Court, says:

“In Heller, we held that the Second Amendment protects the right to possess a handgun in the home for the purpose of self-defense. Unless considerations of stare decisis counsel otherwise, a provision of the Bill of Rights that protects a right that is fundamental from an American perspective applies equally to the Federal Government and the States. We therefore hold that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Second Amendment right recognized in Heller.”

This is an unparalleled victory for gun rights! Beyond the immediate effect, because the RKBA is now firmly a fundamental right, ALL REGULATIONS that infringe upon that right are subject to the “strict scrutiny” standard of review, rather than a lesser “rational basis” review. What this means in the practical sense is that many thousands of gun laws may now be challenged to see if they meet this test:

Can the government demonstrate that it has a compelling need to impose the regulation?

Is the regulation narrowly tailored to achieve only the legitimate governmental objective?

Does the regulation represent the least possible intrusion on the fundamental right implicated?

Many gun laws will meet this standard, including keeping guns out of the hands of criminals and insane persons, but many more will not meet this high bar, and that will change the complexion of gun ownership completely in many states, particularly in the East and Midwest, and of course California.

But, a caveat: The Court explicitly recognized that reasonable restrictions are both possible, and in a couple of cases, such as keeping guns out of schools, implicitly desirable. Furthermore, according to the hysterical pronouncements of Mayors Daley and Bloomberg, we can expect repeated attempts to burden gun ownership such as those put in place by the District of Columbia after the Heller decision. Daley is talking about all manner of obstructive bureaucracy and huge insurance policies, among other plots to suborn the will of the People and the dictates of the Court.

But again, the good news is that whatever he tries can now be challenged under federal civil rights laws, and most importantly, actions by state agents that interfere with the RKBA are now CIVIL RIGHTS VIOLATIONS that may be prosecuted under 42 USC 1983. This is an enormous boost to gun owners against overzealous cops and legislators.

Hooray for the Constitution! Today is a day to be remembered in our history books!

Madison writes in Federalist No. 43, “But as new-fangled and artificial treasons have been the great engines by which violent factions, the natural offspring of free government, have usually wreaked their alternate malignity on each other, the convention have, with great judgment, opposed a barrier to this peculiar danger, by inserting a constitutional definition of the crime, fixing the proof necessary for conviction of it, and restraining the Congress, even in punishing it, from extending the consequences of guilt beyond the person of its author.”

One of the grave concerns of the Founders addressed in the Constitution and by Madison was the long history of abuse by monarchs everywhere of the power to declare and punish treason. Treason has long been a very mutable concept that roughly corresponds to a violation or betrayal of a bond of trust. This bond may be between a husband and wife, making the murder of a spouse a treason, or it may be the bond between a citizen and his or her monarch, ruler or government.

The implicit duty of every citizen to show loyalty to the nation and obedience to its rulers is an essential part of any civilized society. As the Founders said, governments are instituted among men to secure the fruits of liberty, and without a bond of trust between citizens and the government, without a mutual obligation of obedience, citizen-to-government and government-to-citizen, civilization quickly devolves into anarchy and ruination.

But in many monarchies, where the duty of the citizenry was to the King, a despotic monarch was free to define that duty in any way he pleased, without necessarily acknowledging or upholding the reciprocal duty of the King to provide for his subjects. No small number of Kings and Emperors have been deposed by their own subjects for assuming god-like powers but failing to use them to protect the people.

The Roman Praetorian Guard, the historical personal bodyguards of the Roman Emperors were a potent political force in Rome for 300 years, and on numerous occasions assassinated various emperors to install new ones, which while treasonous, was a check and balance on despotism. Shakespeare is full of palace intrigues to overthrow bloody tyrants and despots through intrigues and treason.

Declarations of treason were a common way for a King to rid himself of enemies by claiming that the trust bond had been violated, and who could gainsay the King if he said he didn’t trust you any more? Worse, such a charge could condemn entire families to death through “corruption of the blood.”

The Founders themselves faced such charges of treason for even discussing rebellion, and resolved in the Constitution to inhibit that power substantially by providing a firm definition of the crime and a high standard of evidence, thus carefully controlling one of the most abused powers of any government in oppressing the citizenry while leaving the crime available for egregious violations of trust.

Also in the Federalist No. 43, Madison expounds on the necessity for a federal military power to suppress internal rebellion and insurrection under the concept of guaranteeing a republican form of government to the states and providing for their protection from internal rebellion.

The danger of a small, well-armed and well-organized force of insurrectionists seizing control of a state is quite real, as we have seen in many banana-republic tyrannies like Venezuela today, where a supposedly “democratic” election of a petite tyrant like Hugo Chavez results in a Communist tyranny in short order.

“Nothing can be more chimerical than to imagine that in a trial of actual force, victory may be calculated by the rules which prevail in a census of the inhabitants, or which determine the event of an election!” says Madison. In other words, violent revolutionary overthrow of a government does not require a majority action, and can be fomented and achieved by a relatively small proportion of the citizenry if they have sufficient arms and tactical ability, and therefore the federal government requires not only the power to raise armies to suppress internal insurrection, but the Constitution must guarantee to the People that the Union will act as one to put down such rebellion, if the nation is to endure.

The Founders were fully aware of the effects of insurgency and the dangers of internal overthrow, and made the Union responsible for ensuring that this could not, and would not happen in the United States.

No small number of internal rebellions were fomented within the United States in the past, including the Whiskey Rebellion of 1791. When Alexander Hamilton imposed a 25 percent tax on western corn products, the primary component of whiskey, which was one of the largest mediums of trade, riots erupted in Pittsburgh and David Bradford and James Marshall organized an open rebellion throughout Kentucky, the Carolinas and even Maryland. Washington believed that this was a critical juncture for the federal government, and that if the rebellion was not crushed, “We can bid adieu to all government in this country except mob and club government,” he said, adding, “If the laws are to be trampled upon with impunity, then there is an end put, with one stroke, to republican government.”

On a smaller scale, the Whiskey Rebellion vindicates Madison’s exegesis on the necessity of a Constitutional guarantee to the states for protection of a republican government and protection against domestic violence.

The bitter sacrifice of more than 600,000 Americans to put down insurrection and rebellion, and to extirpate the egregious evil of slavery in the Civil War proves beyond question the value of the duty of defense imposed upon the federal government to preserve the Union, for, as Lincoln said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

© 2010 Altnews

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Musings on the Constitution – Federalist No. 40

By Seth Richardson

The rule of legislative interpretation stating that every word of a law has meaning and should given effect, that no words are surplusage, is an ancient legal maxim that applies even today, and Madison’s “the means should be sacrificed to the ends” is as well, and is no more than the common legal maxim that where the plain language of a statute (or in this case a charter to the Constitutional Convention) is ambiguous, it is necessary to resort to the legislative record, and to other statutes on the same matter, to determine what the legislative intent of the authors of the document was, and effectuate it.

It is these legal maxims that are the defense against Progressive tyranny and complete destruction of the Constitution. This is precisely where the Federalist papers, and the Antifederalist papers as well are invaluable as sources of legislative intent of the Founders. And this is why it is so utterly critical that we, the People, retain our familiarity with the contemporary writings of the Founders, so that we can challenge the distortions and revisionism of Progressivism when it claims a new meaning for the Constitution.

By example, it is scholarly research into the Founder’s intent that lead the Supreme Court to finally state with certainty that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right, not a collective one, in the recent Heller decision in D.C. One might think that the meaning of the 2nd Amendment is unambiguous, but for more than 200 years it has been eroded and chipped-away at for political purposes, including most egregiously the Supreme Court decisions denying blacks the right to be armed during the Reconstruction after the Civil War.

Madison’s most compelling common sense argument however is his simple statement that absent the consent of the governed, all that the Constitutional Convention accomplished was to put words to paper, and that the authority to bind the nation to a new Constitution lies with the People alone.

In large part, everything else he says is so much surplusage, for all just powers are derived from the consent of the governed, no matter how brazen or unauthorized the drafting of a document for their consideration might be. That right to constitute whatever form of government is necessary to the security and happiness of the People is absolute and plenary. And we need to remember this, because that authority, when exercised to suborn and destroy our present form of government, may be just as valid as the exercise of the Founders to create it.

While we may revel in the best form of government yet created by man, many do not believe it is any such thing, and as repugnant as it may be to lovers of liberty to think about, the enemies of the Constitution have as much moral justification for dispensing with it and recreating society in their own Socialist/Progressive mode as the Founders had to dispense with King George and build our Republic, if we permit them to do so. It is ours to defend, or to lose.

© 2010 Altnews

We need to resurrect the dedication of Senator Joe McCarthy to rooting out Communism in the federal government today.

By Seth Richardson

Everything you think you know about Senator Joseph McCarthy is wrong.

M. Stanton Evans proves it in his 2007 book “Blacklisted By History – The untold story of Senator Joe McCarthy,” available at better bookstores.  The recent declassification of government documents, including massive numbers of FBI files and transcripts of Soviet communications that were reviewed in detail by Evans and are carefully documented in his book prove beyond any doubt whatsoever that everything McCarthy charged was absolutely true.

“There was a massive penetration of government [by Communists] that was covered up, and he threatened the cover-up, and that’s why he was isolated, demonized and destroyed,” said Evans on the Glenn Beck program on Thursday, June 24, “It’s a truth so big that people can’t believe it.” Evans began researching McCarthy in order to prove his grandmother wrong because she had told Evans that McCarthy was right. When Beck asked him what he was surprised to find as he investigated McCarthy, Evans replied, “I have something I like to call Evans’ Law of Inadequate Paranoia; No matter how bad you think something is when you begin to look into it, it’s always worse.”

Communists began infiltrating the U.S. Government long before McCarthy came along. The House Unamerican Activities Committee was created as a standing committee in 1938, chaired by Democrat Martin Dies, and it endured until 1975.

During WWII, when the Soviet Union was an ally Evans said, “They flooded the government with Communists. They had a kind of affirmative action program for Communists… [and] at the end of the war they dumped all of these people into the State Department.”

It’s important to note that McCarthy was a Senator, and his charges of communist infiltration were brought before several Senate committees, including the notorious whitewash by Senator Millard Tydings and his  Subcommittee on the Investigation of Loyalty of State Department Employees, held in 1950. Rather than fulfilling his charge to root out Communists holding positions of power, influence and access in the federal government, Tydings instead turned the hearings into a pillorying of McCarthy and a blatant suppression of the evidence McCarthy provided of the depth and nature of the Communist influence in the State Department.

The conventional wisdom holds that McCarthy went off on a rampage of accusing innocent people of being Communists in the 1950s, and that he was almost solely responsible for the wave of anti-communism known as the “Second Red Scare.” Left-leaning historians, and book authors who have been all too willing to swallow and then regurgitate the stock slanders against McCarthy, and even Hollywood leftists like George Clooney, director of the Communist-apologist 2005 movie “Good Night, and Good Luck,” which purports to document the ever-so-brave struggle of journalist Edward R. Murrow against the ever-so-evil Red Hunter, “Tailgunner Joe” McCarthy. Murrow, along with other journalists, popularized the epithet “McCarthyism,” which was coined by Washington Post political cartoonist Herbert Block.

The true definition of “McCarthyism” however, is not what McCarthy is said to have done to others, but what was done to McCarthy by his peers, the press, and Communist infiltrators in our government. The term has entered the lexicon as a condemnation of “the political action of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence,” as the dubiously-factual Wikipedia entry puts it.

Problem is, everything McCarthy claimed about those he investigated turns out to be true. Contrary to the equally dubiously-factual official findings of the Tydings Committee, which exonerated literally every person with documented Communist affiliations without so much as investigating (and in many cases simply refusing to hear) the evidence McCarthy carefully collected. Recently-declassified documents, including transcripts and records from the various executive committee sessions and FBI records, which have been hidden away for more than 50 years, as well as recently-declassified decryptions of Soviet communications with Moscow known as the “Venona decrypts,” prove beyond any reasonable doubt that not only was McCarthy a careful, thorough investigator who never made accusations lightly, but that the federal government, particularly the State Department, was stuffed to the gills with Soviet spies, collaborators, sympathizers and fellow-travelers, all of whom were real and legitimate risks to national security during the Cold War.

What’s more, power-mongering, cover-ups, and protecting reputations and egos took precedence over detecting and removing Communist infiltrators and spies from positions of authority, access and power, and this butt-covering incompetence and deliberate, willful ignorance of the extent of the threat by everyone from Presidents Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower right down to McCarthy’s fellow members of Congress, resulted in the loss of vital military secrets, subornation of the Constitution, damage to our national dignity and reputation, and, very directly, the loss of more than 50 million lives under Chairman Mao and the Communist Chinese, which was the direct result of pro-Communist propaganda and treasonous actions within the State Department by Communist agent and sympathizer John Stewart Service and his cohorts.

The need today to resurrect the spirit of Joe McCarthy and return to ferreting out and removing from public office the burgeoning mass of Communists, Progressives, and Socialists who now infest it is arguably greater than it was during the Cold War, because through our own complacency and ignorance of history, we have unwittingly allowed outright, self-avowed, radical Communist revolutionaries whose purpose it is to “fundamentally transform” the United States into a utopian vision of the Soviet Union to actually occupy the White House, and indeed the very seat of power. We are in grave danger of losing the Republic to the forces of Socialism, Progressivism, and yes, Communism, and we need to do once again what “Tailgunner Joe” McCarthy tried so desperately and honorably to do in the 1950s.

© 2010 Altnews

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The Naturalistic Basis of Unalienable Rights

By Seth Richardson

June 21, 2010

The genius of the Founders is in their deep philosophical and political thinking and debate about the fundamental principles of government and society, and their discovery of principles of liberty and constrained government that resulted in the creation of the most successful political and social model in the history of the world. We don’t see that kind of careful political thinking on original principles much today, and that’s why, at least for me, the Founding Fathers are revered, not as supremely intelligent, but as unusually skilled in deep political and ethical thinking, far beyond most of what we see today. They were not more intelligent, they were simply more wise and careful thinkers.

For those who do not believe in deity, who are non-theistic in their beliefs, I believe that there is an objective, scientific and philosophical basis for what the Founders attributed to deity. For non-theists, the practical effect of referring to a Creator, and the assertion that our rights are granted by God, not man, is to ensure that the rights that we enjoy are not derived from the ever-changing political philosophies of man, but are an inherent part of our nature as living beings and thinking humans. It is the inherent nature of our rights that makes them unalienable, and non-theists must have an objective, intellectual basis for finding those rights to be inherent if we are to avoid having our rights characterized as state-granted and subject to the whims and caprices of the public will.

The Founders took as a principle that a Creator exists, and they wisely decided that because subjective rights, those that are subject to the whims and caprices of the ruling class, were not effective in protecting individuals against the tyranny of despots and their fellow men. So, they moved rights beyond the power of either man or government to grant or deny, into the philosophical realm of “natural rights” precisely in order to prevent what they rightly saw as the dangers of despotism and majoritarian tyranny that inevitably occurs when one man, or one group of men, are permitted to determine what rights another man, or group of men, may enjoy.

The Founders resorted to deity and religion because such beliefs were ubiquitous in their time and they did not see any need for any other rational basis for such rights. But it is true today that there are many Americans who are not theistic by nature, and it is likewise true that they ought to enjoy the same rights as any other person, and that therefore we should seek an objective, rational basis for our unalienable rights.

In the context of Creator versus Nature, whether a Creator exists or not is not terribly relevant to the philosophical construct of natural rights. Rights, in that non-theistic sense, accrue simply by virtue of our existence as human beings and the necessities of nature for social constructs to regulate behavior in communities. Rights are clearly a product of our intellect, but this does not mean that their origin cannot be derived from observations of our natural world and natural behavior. Natural rights are founded in natural principles, which is what gives them their intellectual strength when applied to human behavior outside the theistic realm.

For that reason I have for some time been trying to construct a logical and rational argument that derives our inherent rights as a function of natural processes, which I see as a companion to theistic belief, not in opposition to it. I call these derivations the Organic Rights, which are derived from organic laws of nature and natural behavior.

Every organism needs life, autonomy, the resources to survive, and the ability to reproduce in order to exist both as an individual and as a species. The Organic Rights are expressions of these fundamental organic needs as applied to human society, and it is my claim that human society cannot survive unless it respects those fundamental organic needs of all human beings any more than a species itself cannot survive if it does not fulfill the underlying organic needs. Thus, I express those fundamental organic needs as the Organic Rights, because without societal recognition and protection of those rights, individuals cannot survive and society cannot exist.

Every organism on earth seeks to preserve it’s own life. This instinct is seen everywhere in the natural world as a function of evolution. Every individual organism seeks autonomous life in that it will defend itself and its life when attacked by another organism. Therefore, the First Organic Law is that all living creatures pursue autonomous survival and will engage in self-defense to prolong life. From the First Organic Law I derive the following Organic Rights:

The First Organic Right is the right to life, for without the right to life, there is no purpose for any philosophical construct, and death is the result.

The Second Organic Right, the right to individual liberty, emerges because all living creatures strive for organic autonomy and individual liberty.

The Third Organic Right is the right to self-defense, because all living creatures naturally defend their lives when attacked, to one degree or another.

Next, we observe in nature that all living creatures will seek to find and obtain that which is necessary for their survival. Fundamentally this is energy, which comes in many forms. In addition, higher creatures will seek out shelter against the elements as well, as a part of the necessities of survival. From this natural behavior I derive the Second Organic Law; all creatures seek to obtain and secure to their own use the resources necessary for survival.

From this Second Organic Law I derive the Fourth Organic Right; the right to seek out, obtain and reserve to one’s exclusive use the resources necessary for survival, which is more simply stated as the right to the exclusive ownership and use of private property.

The Third Organic Law is that all creatures seek to reproduce and pass on their genetic material as a function of evolution.

From this I derive the Fifth Organic Right, which is the right to reproduce, more complexly stated as the right to form a relationship with a mate, engage in reproductive behavior, create a family and raise one’s children to adulthood.

Thus, I derive natural rights directly from natural behavior, without resort to deity or a Creator, but rather simply by reference to our nature as living beings. Those rights are inherent, and superior, and unalienable, and not derived from any social construct of mankind because they are necessary components of our very existence and being, without which no man, and no living creature, can survive and flourish.

This places at least these five Organic Rights above any inferior human social construct, and therefore places them beyond the power of others to disparage or deny as a matter of general social policy. Society may not morally deprive an individual of his Organic Rights absent some misbehavior on the part of the individual that makes it necessary to do so.

This construct does not disparage the concept of a Creator, or of God, but rather it simply describes the basis of superior unalienable rights from a non-theistic direction, for the benefit of those who choose to exercise their religious freedom non-theistically. It also serves to resolve the objections of non-theists to idea that our rights are divinely inspired, but without disparaging the beliefs of those who adhere to the firmly religious historical context of the Founders.

Jeremy writes: “Seth, I agree with your arguments, with the exception of one point (respectfully). This nation was specifically founded as a Christian nation and none other.”

Jeremy, I’m afraid I must disagree. Thomas Jefferson explicitly debunked this assertion in saying, “Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting “Jesus Christ,” so that it would read “A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;” the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.”

There existed at the time of the Constitutional Convention the adherents of many different religions within the bounds of the nation, and it was the express desire of the Founders to extend to each and every person the right to worship as their conscience called them to do so, subject only to such worship being peaceable and tolerant of the like right of others to worship differently.

This is what I mean when I say this is a religiously pluralistic society. Of course the predominant religion of the nation was Christianity, but within that context there were endless denominations and congregations who had differences in their beliefs and practices. That this nation was founded BY Christians (predominantly) does not mean that it was founded exclusively FOR Christians, much less that our system of law and government is intended to favor Christianity over any other religion. The First Amendment makes that perfectly clear.

You are correct in saying that religion and government have their separate spheres and each citizen has a duty to each distinct from his or her duty to the other, but the Founders were perfectly clear that while they personally attributed the opportunity to found a new nation, based on new principles, to the grace of God and his divine inspiration (and I will not dispute this point), and they expressed this gratitude and opportunity firmly to God, they were determined not to recreate precisely the sort of theocratic tyranny they had just expended the precious blood and treasure of the inhabitants of America to escape.

So, it is true enough to say that the Founders themselves worked to create the Constitution based in part upon their beliefs and obedience to God, who they believed had called them to this task, but it is not true to say that the nation, and the Constitution that flowed from that inspiration, be it divine or worldly, makes the nation an exclusively “Christian Nation.” The express declarations of the Constitution and the many statements of the Founders themselves belie this construction.

Certainly Christianity is the predominant religion, but in our Constitution, it takes its place in equality beside all other peaceable religious beliefs.

© 2010 Altnews

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By Seth Richardson

The Founders knew well the dangers and evils of “direct democracy.” They were very clear about not creating a system where the citizenry voted on all matters, recognizing that the whims and caprices, and shifting political winds of popular opinion are very dangers to individual liberty.

The purpose of creating a representative system was to place substantial roadblocks in the way of popular opinion precisely because they tyranny of the majority is a great evil where it is allowed power. Thus, the very idea of a (con)federated republic was intended to set federal regulation at a distance from the people by placing the decision making process in the hands of elected representatives in two distinct houses of Congress.

The purpose of the Senate, and it’s election by the state legislatures, was to further insulate the federal Congress from the tyranny of the majority by putting another layer of representation between the people and the Senate in the form of the state legislatures. The Founders presumed, and rightfully so, that the interests of the citizens of a state on matters of state interest would be best represented in Congress by persons elected by the elected representatives of the states.

In other words, the state legislatures have the duty to safeguard the sovereignty of the states as against other states and as against the federal government, and the Founders rightly believed that setting up a house of Congress, the Senate, to look after those broader state-based interests was rational and necessary, and that the representatives who were to safeguard the sovereign interests of the states at the national level ought justifiably be appointed by the elected representatives in the legislatures of the states, so that the Senators would be responsible and accountable to the state legislatures themselves, who would be able to exert political pressure on their Senators to look after the interests of the individual state, while at the same time it was understood that the Senators duty was also to look after the interests of the citizens of the state.

Substantial instances of corruption in the election of Senators, and the vagarities of how Senators were elected in each state lead to direction by Congress on the process in 1866, and efforts for reform and direct election began as early as 1826.

But it wasn’t until the Progressive era began, in 1900 or so, that the effort to go to direct election of Senators took off, and the 17th Amendment was ratified in 1912.

It’s arguable whether direct election has done anything to stem the corruption inherent in Congress, but certainly the more “direct democracy” inherent in direct election has, as we have seen, reduced the influence of the state legislatures in Congress to nearly nothing, and lead to Senatorial pandering for popular votes, which is part of the “demogoguery” leading to the election of unqualified or corrupt candidates that the original process was intended to prevent.

© 2010 Altnews

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By Seth Richardson

Hollis: I’m sorry, but you do not have a right to be free “from” religion. The Constitution is very explicit in stating that. You have a right to expect your federal government not to establish a preferred national religion, under the original meaning of the Establishment Clause, but even at the time, several of the original 13 stated did have an established state religion. The argument that religion and government were to be kept apart was aimed only at the federal government, not the state governments.

The restrictions on government inherent in the Establishment Clause were not technically made applicable to the states until the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868, and it was not until 1947 that the Supreme Court began interpreting the Establishment Clause as applicable to state laws regarding religion. As for the current trend of trying to remove all reference to religion in the public sphere, that didn’t start until well into the 1980s.

And those efforts are incorrect, and are caused largely by misreadings of the First Amendment.

The United States is not an atheist nation, nor is it a Christian nation, nor an Islamic nation. It is a nation of ALL religions, a place of religious pluralism where the Free Exercise Clause demands of every citizen tolerance of the peaceable exercise of religion by every other citizen, regardless of the form or beliefs involved. While it is true that you can be “god-free” in your own life, your preference for living without reference to or involvement with God does not impose upon anyone else a burden to hide their faith or protect you from exposure to their expressions of religion. To argue that the Establishment Clause gives you the power of the dissenter’s veto, allowing you to suppress the free expression of religion by others defies the purpose of the Free Exercise Clause, which expressly protects the right to place one’s religion on display in the public square.

The stricture of the Establishment Clause is limited to government agents, who, according to the Supreme Court case “Lemon v. Kurtzman” are required to maintain strict religious NEUTRALITY, not religious hostility. Indeed, the Free Exercise clause places an affirmative duty on all levels of government to defend the exercise of religion against suppression by anyone, including government.

Thus, the requirement of the Constitution is that we must all tolerate the peaceable acts of others, and may not misuse the law to suppress the expression of religion by others, who have an individual right to use and enjoy their public lands and property, within reasonable limits, while doing so.

While you do indeed have a right to be an atheist, you do not have a right to use that atheism to suppress the religious beliefs or practices of others.

An excellent example of this constitutional requirement for tolerance by all is Devil’s Tower, Wyoming. Several Indian tribes venerate and worship this geological formation, which they call Bear Butte, as a place of religious power, and have done so for many hundreds, if not thousands of years.

But Devil’s Tower is a national monument and therefore belongs to all the people of the United States, who have an equal right to use and enjoy it in a reasonable and peaceable manner according to their own desires, consistent with the laws intended to conserve the area.

The feature is a popular spot for rock climbing, and many hundreds of climbers scale the butte every year. Indians object to this activity because they consider the butte to be sacred, and this is particularly true in June, when the tribes hold religious observances around the butte.

This is a classic example of the collision of secular activities and religious activities in the public sphere. Many atheists feel that religious observances should not be allowed, since approving them and issuing permits constitutes “establishing” religion by lending government support to religious activities on public lands. But this is not the case, as the Supreme Court lays out in “Lemon v. Kurtzman” where it set forth a three-pronged test to determine whether a particular government act violates the Establishment Clause.

The test consists of three questions:

First, the government’s action must have a legitimate secular purpose.
Second, the government’s action must neither advance nor inhibit religion.
Third, the government’s action must not “excessively entangle” the government in religion.

If any one or more of the prongs is violated, the government’s action violates the Establishment Clause.

So, may the government prohibit the free exercise of religion by the Indian tribes in venerating and worshiping Bear Butte at particular times by denying them a permit? No, because that would violate the second prong of the test by inhibiting their right to free exercise of religion.

Can the government issue them a permit for such activity? Yes, it can, because issuing a permit for a religious meeting is a ministerial duty that has a secular purpose of protecting the resource which neither advances nor inhibits religion, since permits are required for all group activities at the monument.

Can government prohibit climbers from climbing on Devil’s Tower to protect the sacredness of the butte, either generally or during the June religious observances by Indians? No, because that would advance the religious rights of the Indian tribes over the secular rights of the climbers to use and enjoy their public lands, which violates the second prong of the test.

Thus, while the Indian tribes must be permitted to worship, they must tolerate the climbers, and likewise the climbers must tolerate the religious expression of the Indians, even though both activities make use of the same public land.

© 2010 Altnews

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Comments on the Federalist No. 38

By Seth Richardson

June 20, 2010

Craig: Welcome to the debate.

Your point about the immutability of the Constitution is well taken, and I doubt anyone here thinks that way, and certainly the Founders did not, as you state.

Rather, as I have discussed, what we object to is the changing of the foundational precepts of our nation without following the appointed process. The manner in which the People are permitted, and indeed required to make such changes is the amendment process. But what has been happening is a gradual, progressive “mission creep” in which the Constitution is not amended, in the open, after full and fair debate, but rather where it is “interpreted” away, a little bit at a time, through the gradual arrogation of power by our elected representatives. Notice that I do not say “leaders.” This is because they are not supposed to be out leaders, they are supposed to be our representatives. There is a difference.

Insofar as the “mutability” of the Constitution, it has been the agenda of the Progressives, since about 1912, to attack the fundamental concepts of limited government and separation of powers espoused by the Constitution gradually, utilizing wars and crises as the expedient for eroding essential liberty in the name of temporary safety (where have we heard that phrase before?), which is actually not safety at all, but rather enslavement to the State. It’s all been done with the best of intentions, as Progressives are True Believers, and actually believe that they are smarter than the rest of us and that we need to be ruled with a firm hand for our own good. But the evil they perpetrate is no less evil for having good intentions. We all know the destination of the Road of Good Intentions.

What Progressivism denies is immutable founding principles. As stated by Woodrow Wilson, Progressivism rejects any notion that government should be bound by any overarching, enduring, and unalienable principles. Progressivism believes that political society is “perfectible” and that there is an ultimate and “best” form of political rule, and democracy is not it. Nor is adherence to founding principles. Rather it is the expedient needs of the age that must apply.

Progressivism emerged during the Darwinian revolution, when political thinkers and intellectuals of all stripes became so enamored of the principles and processes of evolution that they fell into the trap of moral relativism in thinking that political society is akin to DNA, and that there must be some ultimate perfectability of form, something Darwin himself never, ever proposed.

A Constitutional Republic, however, is founded on the idea that there are immutable and necessary principles upon which all just societies must be based. The Founders knew that there are certain unalienable rights which we are endowed with as a function of our humanity that never change, and that must always be the touchstone and foundation for our society if it is to be just and if it is to endure.

This concept of “endowed rights” that devolve from a “Creator” is an essential component of our system because it places those unalienable rights above the actions or authority of government, of necessity and quite deliberately. The Founders knew full well that rights derived from political society are the subject of political society.

Socialism, or more broadly collectivism is the antithesis of our system of individualism. Collectivism holds that there is no such thing as rights (although it may use the word for expedience of propaganda) but rather all freedoms of action are privileges granted by the political society. The notion is that since the collective is the source of all protection and goods, that the collective is justifiably the arbiter of how those protections and goods may be distributed.

That is most certainly not what the Founders intended. The purpose of proclaiming inherent, unalienable, divinely-granted rights was to forever and immutably remove from the authority of government any power to infringe upon that which the Founders thought essential to the satisfactory existence of free men.

As to your allegation that the Founders were “deists,” I’ll leave it to the experts to debunk this particular canard. Suffice it to say that the Progressive recasting of history has persuaded many people that the Founders were not Godly men, but absolutely nothing could be further from the truth.

What I will say, as a Tolerist, is that this nation is not a secular or atheist nation created by deists or atheists, it’s a nation founded on the idea that there is a Creator, but that we, as a nation, choose to permit everyone to decide for themselves what form that Creator takes for them, and how, or if, every individual chooses to acknowledge that Creator.

This is not a secular or atheist nation, it is a nation founded on the concept of religious PLURALISM, where ALL forms of religious practice are firmly protected by the First Amendment against infringement. The tension of the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses is carefully balanced not to deny, suppress or interfere with religion, but to enhance, support and protect it.

The unique construction of the First Amendment is that it imposes significant constraints on government, it tells Congress, and through the 14th Amendment every level of government from the dog catcher to the President what they SHALL NOT DO by way of interfering with religion. No public servant may either advance OR INHIBIT the free exercise of religion in any way.

The “or inhibit” part is extremely important, because while the Establishment Clause purports to erect a wall between government acts and religion, the Free Exercise Clause imposes an affirmative duty on the part of Government to preserve, protect and defend religion and religious freedom in this nation. This aspect of the First Amendment is commonly elided by atheists and has been largely forgotten by the people themselves.

When I say this is a nation of religious pluralism, I mean to say that it is a nation that is firmly founded in religious belief, not atheism. The genius of the Founders is that they knew the evil of founding a political society in any ONE religion, so instead they founded it in every possible form of peaceable exercise of religion that exists, or may come to exist.

Thomas Jefferson said, “Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting “Jesus Christ,” so that it would read “A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;” the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination. ”

The most basic principle of our nation is that without the right to freely (but peaceably) exercise one’s most fundamental internal beliefs about one’s nature, purpose and reason for existence, which is the very definition of religion (as distinguished from theism), man is not free. Whenever such core beliefs are infringed upon or worship of one set of beliefs and practices over another is mandated by the collective, by society, or by a monarch, the individual is enslaved to the beliefs of others. Without the freedom of conscience, belief, and practice, man is little more than a chattel of his rulers. This the Founders knew all too well, and they were determined to create a new form of society that mandated obedience to the principle of “live and let live” in the matter of personal beliefs and practices.

As Jefferson said, “But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” He also said, “I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent.” In this he was expressing his liberty to tell posterity that his religious beliefs are none of their business.

Thus, to say that there is a “wall of separation” between church and state is to misstate the truth. In truth, government is set as the guardian of all faiths, and the protector of religious liberty. While it must maintain strict neutrality when it comes to advancing any religion, it must also act to vigorously protect the right to free exercise of religion on behalf of every citizen, because it is the citizens who are sovereign, and it is their liberties that government exists to secure, not it’s own power and control.

As to your assertion that the Founders would like to “re-think this 2nd Amendment thing,” a close examination of the writings of the Founders, and some understanding of the nature of society of the time, and history, will easily debunk this notion.

The right to keep and bear arms is so fundamental to individual liberty and a free society that the Founders would be aghast at the degree of regulation that currently exists.

I will not bother to cite the relevant quotes, space forbids, but there are dozens on precisely this subject, and if you read them it will become clear that the Founders were well aware of the dangers of arms, but they were equally aware of the dangers of an unarmed citizenry, which are far greater than the harms that occur when no man is debarred the use of arms.

This is not the place for a gun control debate, but the Founders were unequivocal in their support for an armed society, because they had just wrenched us free from a long history of societies were the common man was disarmed, and thereby enslaved.

And nothing in history subsequent indicates that the course of tyranny has changed in the slightest when the people are disarmed. The 100 million dead at the hands of Communism ought to be enough proof for anyone of the evils of an unarmed citizenry.

And our great experiment with lawful concealed carry is over, and the results are conclusive. Wherever it is lawful, violent crime rates drop, substantially, and there is no concomitant rise in gun-related deaths, as so often hysterically predicted by hoplophobes. Therefor, there is no possible justification for disarming law-abiding citizens.

Craig, thank you for your input, and I hope I have been able to give you some more information to think about. Please continue to join us on our journey towards knowledge and understanding.

Join the debate at Constituting America

Comments on the Federalist No. 38

By Seth Richardson

June 18, 2010

The battle for what was at the time an entirely unauthorized excursion into the making of a constitution was a fierce, but civil one. The remarkable thing about the process by which the Articles of Confederation were replaced by the Constitution was its bloodlessness. Weary of strife, Americans resolved to do that which customarily was necessitated by civil strife and tyranny in a war of words instead.

This is the genesis of the great tradition of open and vigorous debate rather than regime change through violence and demagoguery is one of our greatest gifts to humanity. One need only watch “reality TV” to see the many examples of fistfights and riots in the legislatures of the world, and any student of history ought to be aware of the perils of radical regime change.

In spite of their sometimes polar opposition, the Founders, and those who commented on the process understood that for all the disagreements they might have, the only rational course of action was to present the arguments to the People and let them decide.

Hamilton’s excoriation of the antifederalists was a necessary and indeed desirable component of the ratification process, and he was quite right in pointing out that the antifederalists were ignoring the plank for the mote. On the other hand, the antifederalists had equally valid points regarding Hamilton’s preference for nationalism and a strong central government. Without this counterbalancing of opinion, the Constitution would be far inferior to what we were given to protect and cherish.

The bipartisan bickering by the Founders is precisely what gives our government such strength. When it works properly, none are shouted down and all are heard, and decisions are reached openly, in public, where those making the decisions may be held accountable for their words and deeds.

Sadly, today we suffer under leadership that fears open debate and disdains the will of the people even more. The Progressives, who now hold power, fully understand the traditions and principles of our system, and they flatly reject them in favor of back-room deal making, party politics and plausible deniability. They eschew the public fora for committee rooms where the debates are not recorded and their words not taken down, to be used for, or against them by the People in holding them accountable for their actions. They collude and conspire with private interests and do not even draft the laws they vote upon and refuse to read. They march in lockstep with the Progressive agenda of submission to the Imperial Executive, and they surrender their authority, and our rights, to those who are not only not elected representatives, but are not, in many cases, even citizens of this nation.

We now labor under the tyranny of a Progressive demagogue who seeks to impose his vision upon us all by “fundamentally transforming” our Republic, just as Hamilton says is the common practice, and threat, of history. This must not stand.

Join the debate at Constituting America

Comments on the Federalist No. 37

By Seth Richardson

June 17, 2010

Hamilton’s appeal to rational debate is one often heard today, albeit rather fruitlessly on many occasions, and his explication of the dichotomous and mutually opposed necessities of “energy in government” (meaning the ability of government to respond and act on matters affecting the public necessity) and “stability” (meaning a government not subject to the whims and caprices of public opinion, but rather focused on long-term goals of liberty) are an example of the difficulty faced by any government; How to construct a system that permits effective governance while simultaneously avoiding the evil of oppressive governance.

Given the corrupting nature of political power, this is, as Hamilton recognized, a formidable task.

“A frequent change of men will result from a frequent return of elections; and a frequent change of measures from a frequent change of men: whilst energy in government requires not only a certain duration of power, but the execution of it by a single hand.”

It is the Progressive zeal for energy in government through the execution of power by a single hand, in the form of a Wilsonian “strong leader” in tune with the “unified public will” effectuated through the expedient of an unelected, permanent, “professional” and “scientific” bureaucracy (the Civil Service) guided by the President and immune from interference by the Legislature, which Wilson saw as little more than a political debating club that would advise, but have no power over the President, that we face as our principle danger to liberty and the Republic today.

“The genius of republican liberty seems to demand on one side, not only that all power should be derived from the people, but that those intrusted with it should be kept in independence on the people, by a short duration of their appointments; and that even during this short period the trust should be placed not in a few, but a number of hands,” said Hamilton.

Progressivism seeks to overturn not only this check and balance on tyranny, but it seeks to place the power of government in an Imperial Presidency that, according to Wilson, would be a better reflection of the will of the People than their election of factious Representatives to Congress.

Wilson, in seeking the “perfection” of the political state, believed that the political state was an evolving organism, with no touchstone or foundational principles, and that all things, including laws and the Constitution itself, were mutable and must perforce submit to the evolutionary forces of expanding “scientific” thought about political governance and the needs of the particular society.

But this is precisely the “irregular and mutable legislation” that Hamilton warned of, although his concern at the time was with the fractious nature of the States themselves and their propensity to snipe at one another through legislation that was causing the Confederation to fail in it’s attempts to create a unified nation.

© 2010 Altnews

Join the debate at Constituting America

Comments on the Federalist No. 35

By Seth Richardson

June 12, 2010

Hamilton writes, “There is no part of the administration of government that requires extensive information and a thorough knowledge of the principles of political economy, so much as the business of taxation. The man who understands those principles best will be least likely to resort to oppressive expedients, or sacrifice any particular class of citizens to the procurement of revenue. It might be demonstrated that the most productive system of finance will always be the least burdensome.”

Dr. Postell writes, “Most importantly, we can only pursue the common good by abandoning the idea of separating ourselves into classes. Dividing ourselves into separate classes overlooks the natural human equality that is the basis of our rights, and it overlooks the common interests and affections that bind us together as Americans.”

Both statements are true, but they only work to effect individual liberty and stable society when the ideology of the nation comports with the Founder’s intent.

The difficulty we face today is the deliberate creation of faction, something the Founders went to great lengths to prevent and minimize. The Progressive and Socialist influences in our government require faction, require the creation, or at least the identification of class as a necessary component of the Marxist process of pitting one group against another. Without faction, with a unity of resolve as to the proper place of government and the proper duty of the citizen, there is no place for revolution.

What we have seen since Woodrow Wilson is an increase in faction, not a decrease. This is not accidental, it’s very deliberate and calculated. The Progressives need to create a dependent class that outnumbers the productive class in order to aggregate and maintain power.

Hamilton’s statement, “The man who understands those principles best will be least likely to resort to oppressive expedients, or sacrifice any particular class of citizens to the procurement of revenue” only remains true when the intent of the man making the decisions is not to oppress and sacrifice a particular class of citizens to the procurement of revenue.

Socialism and Progressivism hold as their fundamental precept the sacrifice of the “wealthy” class to the procurement of the revenue, and therein lies the fault in Hamilton’s rather optimistic view of human nature and the representative process. Living in a time when the resistance and objection to the excesses of monarchy were nearly universal, and when the revolutionary zeal to secure the liberty so lately won by blood is likely the source of Hamilton’s error.

Today, we face the specter of Marxism and Marxism-lite (Democratic Socialism) in the guise of a dependent class that has been raised up for nearly four generations in the Progressive propaganda of “social justice” and welfarism, who believe it is just and righteous to appropriate by force the labor and property of “the wealthy” in order achieve equality of outcome for themselves.

© 2010 Altnews

Discussions on the Constitution at Janine Turner’s Constituting American are instructive

By Seth Richardson

Having only lately been informed of the sterling educational website Constituting America, created by actress Janine Turner (of Northern Exposure fame), I came late to the ongoing educational effort to reclaim lost knowledge on the founding documents of our nation, and what our Founders had to say about the Constitution. But I’m glad I heard about it on the Glenn Beck show last week. I commend the site to everyone and encourage you to join the debates. For your edification, I will be reposting my contributions here as well. To gain the context, please visit the site, where debate on each section is opened by a guest expert, and links to the documents themselves may be found.

Comments on the Federalist Papers No. 33

By Seth Richardson, June 11, 2010

Professor Knipprath writes, “Hamilton argues that only federal laws that themselves are constitutional can be the supreme law of the land. There is nothing to fear from that clause, as long as Congress does not exceed its powers under the other clauses. As discussed above, in that last point lies the rub.”

Indeed, there is the rub. Hamilton’s trust in the ultimate supremacy of the People to exercise control over an out-of-control government becomes misplaced when the Supreme Court colludes to expand the reach of Congress rather than seeking always to constrain it in the interests of liberty. Hamilton says, “If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature it is, must appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution as the exigency may suggest and prudence justify.”

All well and good under a system where it is the People themselves who, through the representative process or through the power of Amendment, or at gravest need by resort to force, can restrain the excesses of a tyrannical government. But in a nation of 300 million, few of whom are prepared to take up arms against their own government, and most of whom believe to one degree or another in the rule of law and have an abiding respect for the Supreme Court, the check and balance Hamilton places so much trust in becomes attenuated to the point of dysfunction.

Once the Supreme Court arrogated to itself the ultimate authority to dictate by the Rule of Nine what the Constitution means in the Progressive mode, the elastic “Necessary and Proper” clause becomes the fetter that the federal government may affix to both the States and the People for so long as the People are unwilling to dissolve or revoke the plenary authority they have granted to Congress.

The root of this particular evil is not in in the Necessary and Proper Clause, but rather in the interpretations of the Commerce Clause, which, viewed expansively by the Supreme Court, as it has been, vastly expands the power of Congress to meddle in state and local affairs merely because some aspect of commerce might somehow “affect” interstate commerce.

But this near-plenary power to regulate even the amount of wheat or corn a farmer can grow on his own property for his own use that never enters commerce at all, much less interstate commerce, provides Congress with much more power and reach than ever contemplated by Hamilton or any of the Founders.

Federal supremacy is of course necessary for any Republic to function, but the constraints Hamilton speaks of to the enumerated powers of Congress have functionally ceased to exist through the complicity of the Supreme Court in viewing the powers of Congress under the Commerce Clause expansively, rather than restrictively, as the Founders intended.

Prior to the Progressive era, beginning roughly in 1900, the Supreme Court largely took the position that the Commerce Clause was (as the Founders intended) a federal authority to deal with disputes “among” the several states regarding interstate commerce. Prior to the formation of the nation, colonies tended to levy imposts and duties on goods from other colonies that passed into or through them. The intent of the Founders was to create a nation where commerce could flow freely among the several states without undue interference from the states themselves through attempts to tax or restrict trade.

The Supreme Court, prior to the Progressive era, stood pretty firmly against the proposition that Congress could in any way regulate commerce that took place entirely within a single state, as that was the province of the States under the Separation of Powers Doctrine.

Beginning with Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, both Progressives, and radically expanded under FDR’s New Deal, the Court began deferring to Congress when it came to regulating interstate commerce, taking the position that such regulation was a political, not a judicial matter, which has lead directly to Congress overreaching itself to arrogate power and control over the national economy through the Commerce Clause.

Blame it all on the Progressives, because it’s certainly their fault, and the Court has been colluding with them for nearly a hundred years.

The solution is a Constitutional Amendment that restricts Congress to regulating ONLY the acts of the several States affecting ONLY commerce that actually, physically passes between two or more states. That Amendment alone would strip the federal government of most of it’s unlawfully assumed power and return it to the states, where it belongs.

© 2010 Altnews

Invasion of Arizona by heavily armed Mexicans justifies state military action

By Seth Richardson

Fox news reported Tuesday that the U.S. Fish and Widlife Service had closed the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge southwest of Tucson, Arizona to all use by Americans because of the danger posed by infiltration of heavily armed paramilitary forces from Mexico. Evidently Fox News didn’t check it’s sources.

In a statement issued by F&WS Wednesday, Public Affairs officer Jose Viramontes says the Fox News report is a “misleading story” that originated from a “freelance blogger.” Viramontes said that “no Service employee was contacted by the freelance writer nor Fox News regarding the closed area.”

The Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge, a 118,000 acre area extending some 25 miles deep into Arizona southwest of Tucson, has been a major infiltration route for illegal aliens for many years, that much is true. According to documents available on the government’s website for the refuge, in October, 2006, the F&WS closed a small portion of the refuge right along the Mexican border to public use, saying that, “The situation in this zone has reached a point where continued public use of the area is not prudent.”

In an email response, refuge spokesperson Bonnie Swarbrick wrote, “This southernmost 3/4-mile wide portion of the refuge has been closed to the public since 2006 so that Border Patrol can be unimpeded in their patrols. It also helps ensure public safety to not be in that area right along the border, just in case. There is less immigrant traffic along the southern boundary of the refuge now as a result of the 12-foot fence. There is some drug traffic in the mountains to the east of the refuge.  But we are seeing fewer impacts from immigrant traffic than before the fence. The remainder (99.8%) of the refuge’s 118,000 acres is open to the public . . . . hiking, camping, bird-watching, hunting . . . as usual. The refuge is definitely open and no additional closures have been instituted since 2006.”  Swarbrick continues, “Refuge staff are not seeing ‘heavily armed paramilitary forces’ on the refuge. I am not a law enforcement officer, so details of such sightings would need to be directed to Jose [Viramontes] or to one of our officers. No FWS employees and no visitors have been attacked, injured, or killed.  The exceptions are thefts of refuge vehicle (sic) and residence break-ins, which stopped after the construction in 2006 of the 12-foot border fence. The only restrictions on public use is access to the southern 3/4 mile of the refuge south of Garcia Road.  That area now sees little illegal activity because of Border Patrol work and the 12-foot fence.”

But Sheriff Paul Babeu of Pinal County, Arizona, told Fox News on Tuesday that the infiltration of armed “squad sized elements that are working deep in our country” has extended more than eighty miles into the United States, to areas south, west and north of Tucson. “We’re talking three counties deep into the heart of Arizona, where the answer from our government is to put up signs warning our citizens in our sovereign nation to beware of foreigners who are there who are heavily armed. We have squad sized elements that are working deep in our country that are escorting drugs and human illegals.” he said.

The threat of violence in the area is quite real. Reporter Brady McCombs of the Arizona Daily Star writes, “A Pinal sheriff’s deputy wounded in a desert gunbattle with suspected drug smugglers said the April incident began when a man with an AK-47 came out of the bushes and fired at him, according to an interview transcript released Wednesday. The Arizona Department of Public Safety crime scene report, also released this week, shows investigators found more than two dozen bullet casings at the scene, about three miles south of Interstate 8 west of Casa Grande.”

But the reporting by Fox News was indeed misleading, giving the impression that the refuge extends 80 miles north, and that it is the center for smuggling-related armed incursions. Babeu evidently was referring to large swaths of land, some of which is under the control of the federal Bureau of Land Management, far outside the refuge boundaries. Swarbrick said, “In general, the Fox News report was misleading. The public warning signs and commentary [shown in the report] were pertinent to BLM land to the north.  The 3500-acre closure of the refuge is nothing new.  We do not have immediate plans to re-open that area.  It was never an area of major public use.”

But Babeu is less confident of the safety of citizens in the area southwest of Tucson, near the border. He told Fox News, “Quite frankly I’m telling you as a sheriff that I don’t control that part of the county. My county is larger than the state of Connecticut and we need support from the federal government. It’s their job to secure the border and they haven’t done it. In fact, President Obama suspended the construction of the fence. It’s just simply outrageous. It’s shameful that we as the most powerful nation on earth can win wars and liberate countries throughout our history and yet we can’t even secure our own border and protect our own families, and this is why crime in Arizona literally is among, and has been the highest in the nation. We need help.”

If what Sheriff Babeu says is true, and it appears it is, they should get it. And since President Obama, who was trotting out the military metaphors and saber-rattling against Big Oil and BP last night is shirking his constitutional duty to defend the nation and is not willing to send federal troops to Arizona, well, that’s what the National Guard and State Militia is for.

Article 1, Section 10, Clause 3 of the Constitution of the United States says, in pertinent part, “No State shall, without the Consent of Congress… engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.” Arizona has been invaded by armed forces from Mexico, that much is clear, and even the federal government knows it. This is all the authorization Governor Brewer needs to take decisive military action.

Arizona Revised Statutes 26-121 defines those subject to militia duty as, “all able bodied citizens of the state between the ages of eighteen and forty-five years and all residents of the state between such ages who have declared their intention to become citizens of the United States.”

The Governor, as the Commander in Chief of the Arizona National Guard, the Arizona State Guard, and the Arizona Unorganized Militia has full authority under both Arizona and U.S. law to call out the military forces of Arizona, with or without the approval of President Obama, to repel an armed invasion of Arizona from Mexico using all necessary military force to achieve the objective.

It is intolerable that any state should suffer armed invasion by anyone and be denied the assistance of federal military forces to repel such an invasion, and it is intolerable that the People of the United States should be denied the full use and enjoyment of their sovereign lands by armed invaders.

Enough is enough. Governor Brewer must call out the military forces of Arizona to defend her state and the nation. She should do so immediately.

President Obama should be impeached and removed from office for refusing to perform his duty as Commander in Chief to protect this nation against armed invasion.

© 2010 Altnews

Awakening to the perils of Progressivism, Americans flock to Glenn Beck’s book list

By Seth Richardson

If you’re the author of an obscure book about American history or our Founding Fathers, the best thing that can happen to you is to get Glenn Beck’s attention. A self-proclaimed insomniac and voracious reader, Beck devours books like children devour candy. I always considered myself an avid reader, capable of finishing the latest Tom Clancy or W.E.B. Griffin thriller at a single marathon sitting, but I bow to the master. Beck appears to be able to bull his way through American history and political analysis books that only a scholar could love like a Coast Guard icebreaker bashing its way through the ice. In this, Beck is clearing a path for the rest of America, if we are only willing to follow him down the path of enlightenment.

What’s  more remarkable is that his audience is adding it’s weight to the armored prow of Beck’s assault on the icy disdain and revisionism that Progressivism has foisted off on America as a substitute for factual knowledge and understanding of our history and politics.

Every time Beck recommends a book, it shoots to the top of Amazon.com and other bookseller’s best seller lists literally overnight. When Beck recommended F.A. Hayek’s “The Road to Serfdom” on his show on Wednesday, I immediately tried to reserve a copy at a Barnes & Noble somewhere on the Front Range. Less than an hour later, I drove 35 miles to Park Meadows, the closest outlet that had a remaining copy in stock, to pick up my copy, but my reservation hadn’t made it through, and no more copies were available. I managed to find the sole remaining copy I could locate in the Denver/Colorado Springs area at the Park Meadows Borders.

The same run on Beck-recommended books has been true every time I’ve sought out one of his recommendations. And it’s not just his recommended books. Just today, when he recommended actress Janine Turner’s new website, Constituting America, a site dedicated to educating America’s children about the Constitution and it’s true meaning and history, within minutes the website was overloaded and gaining access was delayed for more than an hour. When he mentioned that the manifesto of STORM, self-professed Communist and Obama sycophant Van Jones’ violent, radical Marxist group from the late 90s, was available on his website for download, his announcement crashed his own servers in minutes, and Beck has some really powerful servers precisely because every time he provides a resource, America races to their computers to access it.

Why is this?

Because Americans are desperate for truth, and they are hungering for the real story of America, not the Socialist/Progressive redacted and twisted version that is being taught in our schools and pandered by radicals and revolutionaries in every corner of our nation. Americans know that something is wrong with our country, but they’ve been lulled into complacency by our leaders and by our educators, many of whom are firmly in the Marxist/Socialist camp, particularly at our institutions of higher education, where our young people are most vulnerable to the propaganda and historical revisionism of Marxism and Progressivism. Academia is dominated by Leftist thinkers and outright radical Socialist professors like Weather Underground 60s bomb-thrower William Ayers, who is busily infecting public education with his Marxist radicalism from his position in the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

But Beck is lancing the suppurating wound of Progressivism that has been infecting our nation for nearly a hundred years, and the light of truth is beginning to kill the infection and heal the wound. And that drives the Progressives insane with fury, so ideological hacks like Ariana Huffington and her ilk at the Huffington Post roll out the Saul Alinsky smears and ridicule to try to marginalize Beck and paint him has a hyperbolic conspiracy theorist. It’s all they can do, because they can’t refute his arguments. Not once has Beck’s red phone to the White House rung. Not once has Obama or any of his minions ever tried to rebut his well-researched arguments. Not once. That’s because Beck speaks the truth, and the liars, thieves and traitors in the White House have no way to rebut the truth.

Beck’s passion is so strong that it can lead to skepticism, and even I felt that way at first. When Beck called Woodrow Wilson one of the most evil people he knows of, and perhaps the worst President in our history, I was skeptical. I thought it was hyperbole, and that his impassioned plea to America to learn its history was hyperbole. But just to be sure, I picked up Ronald J. Pestritto’s “Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism” and forced myself to read it, and was horrified. Horrified almost beyond words.

Beck was right. Wilson was a racist of the first order, a eugenicist, and an all around arrogant intellectual SOB whose disdain for the Constitution, the Separation of Powers Doctrine, and the idea of checks and balances on government excess, are unrivaled anywhere outside of the writings of Stalin or Lenin. It was Wilson who set this nation on the path to Progressive destruction, and no matter how difficult it is to wade through all the flowery rhetoric Wilson spews about the “unified will of the people” to the truths of Wilson’s megalomaniacal desire to create an Imperial Presidency and take personal control of the entire government, you should expend the effort, because it will open your eyes to the realities of what Progressivism, and Barack Obama, have in store for America.

And then there is “A Patriot’s History of the United States,” by Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen. A weighty tome that rips asunder the Progressive propaganda about our history as a nation, and sets the fire of truth to the lies of contemporary historical revisionism. I learned more in my two weeks of study of this book than I did in my entire schooling, from primary education to college. I was astonished at how little I really knew about my own country and it’s founding, and at how much misinformation I had been spoon-fed by the Progressives.

And Beck’s own book “Arguing with Idiots” is full of information the radical left doesn’t want you to know about.

In every case, Beck’s recommendations are spot-on and constitute a reading list for true Americans who want to know and understand what is happening to our country, how we got were we are today, and what we once were, and must become again.

Keeping up with Beck isn’t easy, but then again liberty doesn’t come cheap, and freedom is never free. I’ve sacrificed my escapist preference for science fiction and military thrillers for night after night of digesting the hard truths that have been hidden from me, and from all of us, by those who would destroy our Republic and our way of life. I made a commitment to myself, and to my fellow Americans, to do as Glenn Beck asks, to educate myself and learn the truth, no matter how difficult it is, because that is the only path to freedom left to us short of armed rebellion. And I don’t want to have to go there.

If we fail to do the hard work of educating ourselves, of returning to the practice of seeking out the truth the hard way rather than simply swallowing and regurgitating whatever some leftist college professor or TV pundit tells us, if we refuse to engage one another with the truth in vigorous and fearless debate, if we decline to put forth the effort that is required to be well-informed citizens who are willing to demand that our children be taught the truth, not Progressive and Marxist elision and revisionism, then we deserve to lose our nation to the forces of tyranny and despotism, and we deserve to be bound in the chains of our own ignorance.

But whatever we may choose for ourselves, our children don’t deserve that fate, and it is our duty watchdog our own liberty, and that of our children.

Go to GlennBeck.com and buy every book on his list. Do it today. Then begin your reeducation out of the Marxist/Progressive propaganda that has been foisted off on all of us for the last 100 years. Nobody’s going to do it for you, and nobody says it’s easy, but the alternative is slavery and servitude for your children, and their children’s children.

© 2010 Altnews

Initiative to enshrine the “Public Trust Doctrine” in the Colorado Constitution threatens water rights and private property

By Seth Richardson

Little attention has been paid to a draconian attempt to utterly destroy the water economy of Colorado being proposed for the 2011-12 ballot.

Titled “Use of Colorado Water Streams,” the initiative is another in a series of attempts by activists Richard Hamilton of Fairplay, and Phil Doe of Littleton, to overturn Colorado’s historic system of water appropriation and ownership upon which our entire economy depends. Hamilton and Doe have been trying for some years now to force Colorado to accept a system of environmental enforcement that would make virtually all public land and resource ownership and management subject to an overriding and constitutionally-mandated “public trust doctrine” that would tie the hands of the General Assembly and subject the state to endless, expensive litigation over every niggling conservation decision it might make from any citizen who decides to take issue with a legislative decision, no matter how minor or petty, if the citizen thinks that the decision violates the ambiguous and vague “public trust.”

In 2007, Hamilton and Doe attempted to create a new state Department of Environmental Conservation with sweeping powers to control all use of public lands. The essential component of the initiative was revealed by this provision: “Conflict between economic interest and conservation stewardship responsibilities to, and for, the public’s resources and resource conservation values shall be resolved in favor of public ownerships and public values.” In other words, in any case where the state might find it reasonable or prudent to dispose of or manage public property, or allow its use in ways that any citizen disagreed with from a conservation standpoint, the initiative would have forced the courts to come down on the side of conservation in every single instance.

Fortunately, the ballot issue was thrown out by the Colorado Supreme Court because it violated the single-subject requirements of the Constitution by both attempting to impose a public trust doctrine and create a new state agency at the same time.

Well, Hamilton and Doe are back at it again, and this time they have targeted Colorado’s constitutional water law system and its fundamental premise that once water is diverted from a natural river or stream and put to beneficial use through our system of prior appropriation, the water becomes the private property of the appropriator. This system, which differs substantially from the systems of water law used in water-rich states, evolved by necessity due to the topographic and hydrological conditions of the state, and it’s arid nature. Long before Colorado became a state, it’s Territorial Supreme Court recognized that traditional “riparian doctrine” legal concepts used throughout history in water-rich nations and states was simply inapplicable and unworkable in Colorado.

Colorado’s Constitution, Article XVI, Section 5, says, “The water of every natural stream, not heretofore appropriated, within the state of Colorado, is hereby declared to be the property of the public, and the same is dedicated to the use of the people of the state, subject to appropriation as hereinafter provided.”

The critical language here are the final six words of the constitutional provision, which quite intentionally and substantially limit the nature of the rights enjoyed by the public in Colorado’s waters, and is in fact an express repudiation of the common-law public trust doctrine. Both the courts and the legislature have interpreted this language to mean that appropriation and diversion of Colorado’s waters to beneficial use is the meaning, intent and purpose of the Constitution, not public recreational use or even wildlife conservation. This ability to appropriate and divert water, and to make of it private, not public property, is the basis of our agricultural heritage and economy, and it is also the legal basis upon which our cities and towns have appropriated water for industrial and residential use. Hamilton and Doe want to destroy that complex and long-established system of water rights.

The proposed initiative intends to turn the system of water law that Colorado has used on its head, and make all water use in Colorado subject to what amounts to a dissenter’s veto by allowing any citizen to file a lawsuit challenging any act of the legislature or state policy that does not comport with that citizen’s idea of what proper stewardship of the public waters for the benefit of the people is, and it mandates that conflicts involving the “public’s resources and resource conservation values shall be resolved in favor of public ownerships and public values.”

And the proponents state that the Public Trust Doctrine “judicially fashions a public right to deal with inadequate legislation for the protection of important public values, including, but not limited to, federal land reservations, national recreational areas, wildlife preserves, forests and parks… Therefore, it may be concluded that the extent and range of the Public Trust Doctrine extends to may public “uses” and values, including, but not limited to, the protection of the natural environment, recreational uses of the elements of the public reservation, and the preservation of the public natural resources for the enjoyment and benefit of wild places and of wildlife.”  Note the resort to judicial activism over the legislative process inherent in this plan. Their whole nefarious plot is to bypass the legislative process and throw every “conservation” decision into the courts.

In other words, this invocation of the public trust doctrine elevates protection of the natural environment and other similar values above even the necessity to provide water to cities for industrial and residential use. In short, this proposal would make every existing water decree, every reservoir, every city water system, every home faucet, and every person in Colorado subject to the whims and caprices of any person who is more interested in protecting the natural environment than in making rational decisions in balancing the environment and the needs of human beings with the limited water resources Colorado has. The State would be instantly buried in lawsuits challenging every water right and diversion project in existence, which would cost taxpayers untold billions of dollars in legal fees. This initiative would cause an economic disaster of unparalleled proportions for the state, and must be stopped.

Oh, and just “coincidentally” it also allows Hamilton and Doe, and their other fly-fishing and kayaking buddies to elevate their personal recreational use of Colorado’s waters over the needs of the rest of the population. Hamilton is an aquatic biologist, a registered lobbyist, and an avid flyfisher.

And that is the real purpose of this proposed amendment to our state Constitution; to secure to fishermen and recreational boaters not only an unlimited right to fish and boat wherever they like, but the ability to bury any water project or diversion of water in mountains of lawsuits and thereby not just prevent future water diversions, but, as they point out in their comments on the proposal, destroy the rights that have been long established. Their public trust doctrine invocation, if enshrined in our Constitution, would quite simply overturn every established water right in Colorado and make it subject to challenge by anyone who wishes to claim that it’s more important to preserve fishing and boating than it is to grow crops or provide water to thirsty human beings.

You see, Hamilton and Doe, along with fishermen and boaters statewide, object to the way Colorado has been interpreting its Constitution because it denies them the right to wade, float-fish, kayak, canoe or raft on every single foot of every single river, stream, creek or intermittent dry wash in Colorado whenever it pleases them to do so. They have all been trying for decades to overcome the rulings of the Colorado Supreme Court, which has consistently ruled against recreational access to private property on rivers and streams, beginning as far back as 1905, when the Court overturned a state law giving fishermen permission to trespass on the beds and banks of streams flowing through private property that had been stocked with fish at public expense. Colorado, and it’s courts, have long acknowledged the fact that Colorado’s rivers are not of the same size, class or character of the great river highways of this nation like the Ohio or the Mississippi, and that our rivers are entirely non-navigable. Colorado doesn’t have any rivers that qualify as navigable under federal tests for navigability, and this incenses boaters and fishermen, who are used to being able to go wherever they like in pursuit of recreation.

They continue to try to push through constitutional amendments and legislation to open up private property to public recreation, and are quite frustrated at the failure of H.B. 1188 in the last session, which was supposed to be a slam-dunk for the commercial recreational rafting industry giving them permission to float through private property whenever they liked. That issue was scuttled and sent to the Colorado Water Congress for consideration and for a report to be provided to the General Assembly sometime in October on possible resolutions between the interests of recreational boaters and private property owners.

But compromise is not in the lexicon of water recreationists, including boaters and fishermen like Hamilton and Doe, they want it all, and nothing less than utterly unfettered access to every stream and creek in Colorado will satisfy them, in utter disrespect not only of 134 years of state history and legal interpretation, but in derogation of the fundamental U.S. Constitution-protected property and privacy rights of private property owners through whose lands water flows. They, unlike the United States Supreme Court, make no distinction between “navigable” waterways like the Allegheny or Susquehanna rivers and Fountain creek. They believe every waterway in the nation is a “public highway” and ought to be open for public recreation, no matter how unsuited the stream actually is for such purposes. They are recreational extremists who care nothing for private property rights, but care only for their selfish pursuit of pleasure.

The danger here to our entire state’s economy is very real, and it’s not too soon to begin the efforts to oppose this initiative. One suggestion is that a counter-initiative be filed for the same ballot that expressly repudiates the common-law “public trust doctrine” as applied to Colorado’s waters and which explicitly recognizes our historic Prior Appropriations Doctrine, and the Colorado Supreme Court cases interpreting it, as the supreme law of the land. A suggested draft is below. Anyone who wants to take up the banner of common sense and private property is free to use it:

“Supremacy of the Colorado Doctrine of Prior Appropriation

The Colorado Constitution Doctrine of Prior Appropriation of the waters of the State, which is essential to the economy and life of our state, which Doctrine was understood and accepted by the United States Congress and the President as a condition of Statehood, and which has been recognized, legislated and adjudicated for more than 134 years, as adjudicated and affirmed by the Colorado Supreme Court in the cases Hartman v. Tresize, 84 P. 685 (1905); Stockman v. Leddy, 129 P. 220 (1912); In Re German Ditch & Reservoir Co., 139 P. 2 (1913); and People v. Emmert, 597 P.2d 1025 (1979), is the supreme law of the land and all water doctrines, common law or otherwise that are in conflict are hereby repudiated and repealed.”

© 2010 Altnews

Iranian-born Canadian arrested with cache of illegal arms may have been plotting an attack

By Seth Richardson

The blogosphere is buzzing with reports that an Iranian illegal alien was caught trying to smuggle a “huge cache of arms” across the U.S.-Canadian border into the United States late last month, which is absolutely false, and the complaint is being loudly stated by the blogosphere that the mainstream press has been ignoring the incident, which is absolutely true.

Problem is, it’s worse than even the blogosphere thinks it is. Part of the problem is the blogosphere itself, which evidently didn’t bother to carefully read the original story from the Yamhill Valley News Register in McMinnville, Oregon. On May 28, 2010, Reporter Paul Daquilante wrote an article “Arms cache tied to Mac” about one Hamid Malekpour, AKA Oliver King, a Canadian resident, who was arrested by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Ferndale, Washington, just inside the U.S. border, in possession of a large cache of military-style weapons and ammunition, on May 26th.

Pursuant to a federal warrant, agents searched a storage facility where they had arrested Malekpour/King, and found, according to Daquilante, “… a .50-caliber sniper rifle, two .308-caliber sniper rifles, three .300-caliber sniper rifles, eight law enforcement style .223-caliber rifles, three Glock semi-automatic handguns, 100 .223-caliber magazines, 3,800 rounds of .223-caliber ammunition, various high-powered scopes and other equipment.”

Malekpour, who may have held a Canadian gun dealer’s license at one time, had been under surveillance by ICE after he lied to border agents while trying to cross into the U.S. at the Blaine, Washington border station near Vancouver, Canada on May 25th. A search discovered a passport with his AKA of Oliver King that Malekpour claimed had been destroyed in the washing machine that bore two entry visas to Iran, one of which was still valid. The passport he presented to border officials, also bearing the name Oliver King, had been issued that day. ICE agents became suspicious and tailed him. When he did not pick up his wife at a Target store near Bellingham, as he claimed was his business in the U.S., they followed him to a gun store in McMinnville, Oregon. Lying to federal border officials about the purpose of one’s visit to the U.S. is a felony, which made his entry illegal.

This gun store, open only by appointment, is in a building owned by one Amir Zarandi.  Daquilante writes, “Much of the weaponry was packed into boxes bearing shipping labels addressed to McMinnville Hunting & Police Supplies Inc., the [federal search warrant] affidavit states. The obscure business, located in a shuttered, unsigned office at 1900 N.E. Highway 99W, is owned by Amir Zarandi.” He goes on to write, “Yamhill County Sheriff’s Capt. Ken Summers said he’d never heard of the business, and knew of no one in the department who had… According to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, a federal firearms license has been issued to someone at the address of the McMinnville gun shop, presumably Zarandi.”

ICE agents watched Malekpour load the weapons in his car, and then they followed him back to the storage unit in Ferndale, Wa., where they arrested him for two felonies; lying to federal officers (about his purpose for traveling to the U.S.) and being in possession of firearms as an illegal alien.

Good for ICE, they did their job and cracked what may be an Islamic terrorists munitions supply network.

Contrary to Blogowisdom, it’s not likely that Malekpour/King was smuggling guns out of Canada into the United States, because every firearm seized by ICE is illegal in Canada, but not in the U.S.

What is much more likely is that Malekpour/King is part of a covert terrorists supply network acquiring arms in the U.S. for terrorist acts within the U.S. It’s much easier to buy such weapons inside the U.S. by opening a false-front gun store using a shill to obtain a federal firearms license than it is to try to smuggle weapons across the border.

The “sniper rifles” and other military-style semi-automatic weapons, including a .50 caliber BMG rifle of some sort, can then be moved from the gun store into hiding, for eventual use by terrorists infiltrated across the border. This would be the preferred method of obtaining arms, because they would be ostensibly “legally” obtained by a licensed FFL dealer such as “Amir Zarandi,” who is likely to be a legal U.S. citizen and sympathizer willing to lend his identity to the necessary federal paperwork to obtain the firearms dealer license. So long as the weapons remained in the inventory of the dealer, even an inspection by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives would not reveal the plot, because as long as the paperwork was correct, there’s nothing illegal about stockpiling weapons like this, nor should there be, unless one is doing it with criminal intent.

But the movement of the arms by Malekpour/King from the shop to a storage facility indicates that a plot for an attack of some kind is likely underway, because once moved from the “legal” inventory of the dealer without a proper transfer, which couldn’t be made to Malekpour/King because he is not a legal resident alien, the arms became contraband. This means that the false-front gun store had served its purpose and could be abandoned, because if the BATFE came to inspect the records (which is highly unlikely, as the BATFE does not have the manpower to inspect all gun dealers regularly) the missing firearms would immediately raise questions. It’s likely that whomever the FFL was issued to is long gone to Iran or has gone underground.

All this points to a plot in motion to distribute the arms to Islamic terrorists and use them in an attack sometime in the near future.

So, far from an attempt at smuggling arms from Canada into the U.S., what ICE may well have interrupted is a plot to arm Islamic terrorists for an attack somewhere in the United States, which is a far more serious matter than simply smuggling guns.

Our northern border, in point of fact, poses a much higher risk of actual terrorist infiltration than our southern, as this incident demonstrates. While the southern border is porous, the immigration policies of Canada are so liberal that it’s relatively easy for Muslim terrorists to legally become Canadian citizens, and therefore be issued valid Canadian passports, which facilitates their entry into the US, as Malekpour/King demonstrates.

It’s worth remembering that back in 2000, only through the actions of a supremely-observant Customs Inspector, Diana Dean, at the then-highly vulnerable ferry terminal at Port Angeles, Washington, was the “Millenium Terrorist” Ahmed Ressam, stopped from perpetrating a huge catastrophe. Ressam, who tried to smuggle a bomb through customs in the trunk of his car in order to set it off at Los Angeles International Airport during the Millennium, and one of his conspirators Mohktar Haouarim are serving 22 and 25 year prison sentences for their crimes.

Here’s hoping that the Department of Homeland Security, ICE, the BATFE and other federal agencies are vigorously interrogating Malepour and Zarandi right this very minute, so they can roll up the entire terrorist network.

Good work ICE!

© 2010 Altnews