- Given that states, counties, cities, and citizens are rising up against an overreaching and oppressive Federal government, “will the center hold” when the Fed tries to impose their will on other levels of government and individuals, given all of the push back activities that are under way already?
- What would happen if Washington passed a law and the rest of the country simply ignored it?
We will take a few days to update where many of those efforts are currently and where they might be heading.
1) Let’s start off with a general summary that was recently posted on the Capitalism Institute website. The summary pointed out how all of these push backs against Federal authority are permissible under Article V of the U.S. Constitution, they are not unlawful or radical efforts to create civil war. They are allowed under a Constitutional mechanism that the founding fathers saw fit to include as a safety valve against Federal government overreach and tyranny.
According to the Institute’s research:
- There are at least nine states that have taken steps to nullify Obama Care. They are doing this via a four step process:
- Step 1 - Ban state enforcement, participation, and material support.
- Step 2 - Reject Medicaid expansion.
- Step 3 - Protect residents from mandates.
- Step 4 - Challenge the IRS’s illegal Obama Care taxes.
- The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees that the people’s right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Unfortunately, over time, the Federal government has enforced numerous laws, statutes and regulations that do, in reality, infringe upon that basic, fundamental and inherent right of people to arm themselves.
Some states have taken steps to roll back gun control, both at the Federal, state, and local level, by overriding local ordinances, expanding gun rights, and passing legislation that nullifies federal laws within their borders, like the Second Amendment Preservation Act:
The Second Amendment Preservation Act reasserts the right of a state to determine what is best for its own citizens when it comes to gun laws. The Act declares that any and all federal laws that are viewed as unconstitutional or an infringement of the Second Amendment will be null and void within the state, and no agent or officer of the state may enforce, or cooperate with Federal enforcement of, these gun control measures. Some states have even added criminal penalties to this act.
Some of the states that have passed or are considering legislation similar to the Second Amendment Preservation Act include Arizona, Idaho, Kentucky, Missouri and Tennessee, among others.
- A third way that states and citizens are fighting back an encroaching Federal government is via the Convention of the States movement. According to the Capitalism Institute’s website posting, another way that states can fight back against the Federal monstrosity is through an Article V Convention of the States.
A Convention of States is based upon a provision within Article V of the Constitution, which deals with the amendment process. If 2/3 of states submit special applications, they can call for a convention that will propose new amendments to the Constitution through state delegates. If 3/4 of the state legislatures agree on the proposed amendments, they will become part of the Constitution, bypassing both Congress and the President.
A number of states are working through this process and are at various stages of their consideration and application process for the Convention.
The Institute sums up the reasons for these push backs quite nicely:
Unfortunately, the federal government has mostly slipped the bounds that were set upon it by the Constitution, and has become unmoored from it’s foundation. It is time for the states and people to reassert their rights and authority over the federal government, which is supposed to work for us.
Well said and well overdue.
2) The Federal government is supposed to protect all of this country’s sovereign borders from illegal entry of others. Given that best estimates put the number of illegal immigrants in this country at over 10 million people, it is not a stretch to say the federal government and Washington political class has failed miserably in this area of responsibility.
Which leads to a new arena for telling the Federal government to get out of the way and let a state do the job right. The state of Texas recently got so fed up with federal incompetence in securing our border that it decided to do the job itself. During a recent three week period, Texas law enforcement resources essentially shut down the border to illegal crossings in the Rio Grande border area with Mexico.
Texas Lt. Governor David Dewhurst recently explained what went down in the face of Federal border security ineptness:
“In the Rio Grande Valley sector, nearly nothing moved in those three weeks. We shut it down. We had teams of Texas law enforcement in the brush, high altitude aircraft, gun boats, and more, Our intel revealed that the Gulf cartel was growing frustrated with our three-week effort.”
“The border issue is just about dollars and cents. This proves Texas can do the job the Federal government has refused to do — to invest in the border and shut it down from illegal activities that are hurting Texans and other Americans. Texas will protect our own citizens and other Americans from the criminal gangs that are destabilizing our state and our nation.”
He went on to explain that after the state’s initial investment for equipment and aircraft, for a relatively nominal sum of $5 million a month, Texas shut down the illegal immigrant and illegal drug cartel drug running for three weeks. The state plans to put a full time effort into continuing the shutdown, appropriating $60 million annually for the effort.
The importance of such security, according to the lieutenant governor is not just for poor Mexicans trying to get a better economic future in the U.S. but to also disrupt the collusion of Mexican drug cartels with domestic organized crime gangs. He asserts that the cartels are actively already present in all major Texas downs and that seven of the eight cartels use Texas as a staging area to ship their drugs to the rest of the country.
He concluded his statements that while he was in favor of legal immigration and legal immigration controls, he and his state were not going to wait any longer to secure their state border with Mexico, that until the President and the Washington political class start to get serious about border security and the crime that comes with non-border security, then Texas will take care of it themselves.
That’s a good start for today. We will go into more details in other areas over the next few days. But people around the country are taking action, whether it is signing up to help with the convention of the states or supporting the local efforts, like in Texas, to do what the Federal government should be doing or to stop the Federal government from doing what it should not be doing.
FYI, the following website is a good first step to get involved in the Convention of States movement:
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.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w
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