The growing grass roots resistance against the Federal government covers a wide range of topics including gun control, Obama Care, Common Core, warrantless spying on citizens, and other topics important to the American people. The resistance ranges from individual citizens to state legislations and really raises a basic question: what happens to the country if Washington issues a decree or law and the rest of the country simply ignores it or aggressively resists it? Will the center hold?
This is our third update to this topic this week. The latest resistance efforts start below:
1) This week and in previous installments in this series we have shown how the new Federal government school lunch guidelines, driven by Michelle Obama, have been an utter failure. Unappetizing and insufficient food offerings have resulted in kids not eating anything, teachers noticing that learning is suffering from inadequate eating, and school budgets getting killed by falling lunch revenues.
This last point was recently driven home when the School Nutrition Association (SNA) reported that the new, stricter school lunch standards and regulations have caused lunch program costs to explode, tripling in some cases, as compared to last year’s costs:
“The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimates that the new school meal standards will force local school districts and states to absorb $1.22 billion in new food, labor and administrative costs in Fiscal Year 2015 alone, up from $362 million in additional costs in FY 2014,” the association notes.
To put this number in perspective, the additional school budget costs from the food requirements could have resulted in hiring an additional 23,000 high school teachers, a scenario that would have certainly improved our dismal public education results. The increased costs is driven by a combination of more expensive food supplies, fewer students buying lunches, and increased waste from unwanted fruits and vegetables being thrown away.
These increased costs are adding about 10 cents to every lunch, and nearly 27 cents for breakfasts. Unfortunately, school districts are only being reimbursed about 6 cents per meal by the Federal lunch program.
The SNA is not only pushing back against this Washington decree and calling for Congress to take action, they are also offering a few common sense ideas to relieve the crisis but also make school lunches more nutritious:
* Maintain the 2012 requirement that half of grains offered be whole grain rich, instead of requiring that all grains be whole grain rich.
* Maintain Target 1 sodium levels, and suspend further reductions until scientific research supports them.
* To avoid food waste, offer, but do not require students to take a fruit or vegetable.
* Allow healthy items permitted on the meal line to be sold a la carte as well.
Another failed Federal program in the real world outside of the Beltway. Kids are eating less, food is being wasted more, and the costs for this non-progress is staggering.
2) But citizens are not just fighting back against Federal politicians' insanity but are also fighting back against local and state politicians’ insanity. The clearest and most inane situation of this type is taking place in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Recently, in that city, 90 year old Arnold Abbott was arrested for the heinous crime of….feeding the homeless. He ran afoul of a recent Fort Lauderdale town ordinance which requires people or organizations to obtain permission from the city in order to feed others. If the city agrees to the request, those preparing the food would have to provide a portable toilet, hand washing stations and meet local food safety requirements.
Such requirements, while possibly well intentioned, inhibit good people like Mr. Abbott from serving those in the community that are struggling just to get a meal. If enforced, people would go hungry as a result of politicians' actions, something that should be contrary to any government’s intentions. Mr. Abbott and others like him that just want to do good by their fellow human beings, face fines and up to 60 days in jail for simply feeding the hungry and homeless.
However, local people are fighting back. The Libertarian Party of Palm Beach county have stepped up and are joining Mr. Abbott in his crusade to help those that are less fortunate than most of us. They will be joining him in feeding the poor in defiance of the ordinance and seeing what the local political class will do about it. Doing the right thing does not always mean doing the legal, government ordered thing.
The local government does have an obligation to protect its citizens. But sending police officers out to publicly arrest a 90 year old good Samaritan and depriving hungry people of a well prepared and good meal is government overreach and stupidity of the first degree. Local politicians should have found a peaceful, negotiated way that would have leveraged Mr. Abbott’s kind heart and giving attitude for the betterment of all, not the arrest and hunger of some.
3) Gun control is one of the many major areas that local and state governments are pushing back on the Federal government’s overreach on gun control. The state of Texas moved to the front of that push back with the recent introduction of legislation that would prevent the enforcement of virtually all federal gun control measures within the state’s borders: “With this bill, Texas could help lead the country forward,” said Scott Landreth, campaign lead for ShallNot.org, a project of the Tenth Amendment Center that advocates for states to protect their citizens from federal overreach. “Passage would have serious impact on the federal government’s ability to carry out its unconstitutional gun control measures already on the books.”
Texas State Representative Tim Kleinschmidt introduced Texas House Bill 176 which declares all Federal restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms to be “invalid” and “not enforceable” within the state of Texas: A federal law, including a statute, an executive, administrative, or court order, or a rule, that infringes on a law-abiding citizen’s right to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution or Section 23, Article I, Texas Constitution, is invalid and not enforceable in this state.
If passed into law, what would it look like in the real world? Basically, all Texas government agencies and employees within Texas would be banned from enforcing any Federal law in violation of the act. The prohibition on enforcement specifically includes any Federal legislation that:
(1) imposes a tax, fee, or stamp on a firearm, firearm accessory, or firearm ammunition that is not common to all other goods and services and may be reasonably expected to create a chilling effect on the purchase or ownership of those items by a law-abiding citizen;
(2) requires the registration or tracking of a firearm, firearm accessory, or firearm ammunition or the owners of those items that may be reasonably expected to create a chilling effect on the purchase or ownership of those items by a law-abiding citizen;
(3) prohibits the possession, ownership, use, or transfer of a firearm, firearm accessory, or firearm ammunition by a law-abiding citizen;
(4) orders the confiscation of a firearm, firearm accessory, or firearm ammunition from a law-abiding citizen.
State employees who knowingly violate the act would risk a suit for damages for assisting the Federal government violate an individual’s right to keep and bear arms in Texas.
Such civil disobedience was recognized and condoned by Founding Father James Madison who, writing in Federalist #46, proclaimed that state “legislative devices” and a “refusal to cooperate with officers of the Union” as a valid and moral strategy to push back against Federal government overreaching, unConstitutional actions, or merely unpopular federal acts. More recent Supreme Court rulings put this type of state action on solid Constitutional grounds.
Which gets us back again to our core question in this matter: if a large number of majority of states follow the this Texas example, assuming the proposed legislation becomes law, what would the Federal government do? Arrest state government officials? Invade states to force their will upon citizens who voted for the legislation to resist the federal government? Interesting times.
4) The state of Alabama moved forward with similar actions in the recent elections, according to the Washington Post. By an overwhelming majority of 72% to 28%, the citizens of Alabama strengthened their already defiant state constitution wording against the Federal government’s intent to impose more and more gun control bonds on citizens. The new wording goes as follows:
(a) Every citizen has a fundamental right to bear arms in defense of himself or herself and the state. Any restriction on this right shall be subject to strict scrutiny.
(b) No citizen shall be compelled by any international treaty or international law to take an action that prohibits, limits, or otherwise interferes with his or her fundamental right to keep and bear arms in defense of himself or herself and the state, if such treaty or law, or its adoption, violates the United States Constitution.
The original, weaker wording read as follows: “that every citizen has a right to bear arms in defense of himself and the state.” More push back on gun control, protecting the Second Amendment in the process.
That will do it for today. Pushing back against Washington politicians is getting more and more widespread on more and more topics and issues. From protecting the Second Amendment in Texas and Alabama to common sense vs. Washington sense on school lunches, people are getting tired of what to do, how to do it, and getting no benefit as a result of bossy politicians.
Which gets us back to our basic question of what happens if the Federal government, or government at any level (see Fort Lauderdale screw up above), passes a law or ordinance and the rest of the country simply says no thanks and ignores what the political class has wrought? Will the center hold? One more post tomorrow to sum up the rebellion against an overreaching Federal government and American political class.
Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:
www.loathemygovernment.com
It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.
Please visit the following sites for freedom:
Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w
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