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Alexander Hamilton: Centralist and Nationalist | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on September 22, 2020

Similarly, Hamilton’s twisting of the General Welfare Clause has been the excuse for much of the federal activity we see today. His version of it has been continuously expanded, and since the 1930s it has been a blank slate for the federal government to tax and spend on anything it wants. It’s cited so much that many people today actually believe that the General Welfare Clause permits government action “so long as it provides for the general welfare.”

https://mises.org/wire/alexander-hamilton-centralist-and-nationalist?utm_source=Mises+Institute+Subscriptions&utm_campaign=ef8e3eb42d-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_9_21_2018_9_59_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8b52b2e1c0-ef8e3eb42d-228343965

Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article.

The September 11, 2001, terror attacks shocked the world, leaving ramifications still felt nineteen years later. Few are familiar with the Republic’s first 9/11 tragedy, September 11, 1789, the day Alexander Hamilton was appointed secretary of the Treasury.

Hamilton is glorified as a hero in popular culture, even the subject of a hit Broadway musical bearing his name. He’s the darling of both mainstream progressives and conservatives—usually a telltale sign that someone is one of the worst of the worst. Part of the adoration for Hamilton comes from his rags-to-riches story. Born fatherless in the Caribbean and soon orphaned, it can’t be denied that getting an education in New York, serving as General Washington’s chief aide, and becoming a leading political figure is an impressive turn of events. Progressives love pointing to Hamilton for their “nation of immigrants” narrative, which doesn’t make sense since Hamilton was born in the British Empire. Hamilton, the übernationalist, is also cited by the neocons as their missing link from the founding to their “one nation” and “America as a propositional nation” mythologies. Getting beyond the romanticization, Hamilton’s agenda set the table to give the federal government the tools to erode liberty over the next 230 years.

Hamilton has, perhaps, done more damage to the United States than any other American figure, even Woodrow Wilson and Abraham Lincoln, two more beloved icons of the mainstream. Hamilton was an opportunist, liar, and duplicitous. His vision paved the way to create a nearly unlimited central authority with no checks on its power, contrary to the principles of limited and self-government that many believed they had put in place for the new republic in 1788.

The Bait and Switch

Hamilton knew how to play the crowd. When it was time to ratify the Constitution, the republican Antifederalists feared a strong, central authority. He assured them only the powers expressly delegated to the federal government would be the ones it would have. The second the Constitution was in effect, Hamilton flipped the script.

One such example is in Federalist essay no. 21, Hamilton said that tariffs were better for the economy than direct taxes. Just three years later, he changed his tune and advocated for a laundry list of direct taxes, which played a part in leading to insurrections such as the Whiskey Rebellion.

In Federalist 33, Hamilton said that the Necessary and Proper Clause was harmless and wouldn’t confer any powers to the federal government not expressly delegated to it. He once again flipped the script in office, citing the exact same clause to take federal action not delegated, such as establishing the First National Bank.

When it came to the General Welfare Clause, Richard Henry Lee was concerned that it would be used for “every possible object of human legislation.” Hamilton retorted that Lee’s fears were “absurd.” In office, Hamilton again pulled the bait and switch, relying on this clause as an excuse to do anything and everything, saying the clause allowed for “a vast variety of particulars neither of specification nor definition.”

Hamilton also claimed the Supreme Court would be the weakest part of the government, unable to do anything against the other two branches. Later on, he helped organize the judiciary to become superior to both the Congress and the states.

Hamilton’s Contributions: Taxes, Central Banking, and Cronyism

As first secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton had President Washington’s ear, using this influence to set his nationalist agenda. His list of “accomplishments”—or should I say “abominations”—includes: centralizing power, high taxes, and crony capitalism, just to name a few.

Hamilton’s pet project was establishing the First National Bank in 1791, a central banking system that was a precursor to the Federal Reserve the US now has, which is responsible for so much economic instability. The federal government didn’t have the money for the bank; Hamilton suggested the bank just borrow from itself. He even went as far as to say the public debt “was a public blessing.”

He had proposed the idea of a central bank in 1787, but it was immediately shot down in Philadelphia. With the idea being this unpopular, it was quite a surprise to many of that generation that one was established just a few years later. James Madison saw no constitutional authority for it, Attorney General Edmund Randolph opposed it, and Thomas Jefferson said the Necessary and Proper clause didn’t permit it. Hamilton’s response was that “necessary” meant “no more than needful, requisite, useful, and conducive to.”

Hamilton also got his way when it came to war debts. The question of how states would pay these came up, Hamilton proposed an assumption scheme where the federal government would take on all the states’ debts. This drew red flags for two reasons. First, taking on these debts would expand the power and scope of what was supposed to be a very limited federal government. Second, Southern states had paid off most of their debt—Virginia had altogether. New England states still had most of their debt unpaid. This policy would have the Southern states foot the bill for the Northern states through increased taxes. Madison and Jefferson opposed this unfair plan at first but eventually conceded in the Compromise of 1790, which put the US capitol in the South in exchange for Hamiltion’s assumption scheme.

Hamilton knew that high taxes would be essential for a central government to do all the meddling he wanted. His list of taxes included the “whiskey tax” which unduly burdened farmers in the west who struggled transporting cumbersome grain over the Appalachian mountains. His crony plan gave unfair tax breaks to large distillers in the east. Those on the western frontier refused to pay. Many of them were veterans of the Revolution who thought the tax went against the very principles they had just fought for. Hamilton kept prodding Washington, who wanted to be a moderate on the issue, to use force to crush the insurrection. Eventually Hamilton got his way and in 1794 thousands of federal troops were sent in to squash the rebellion and show off the might of the federal government.

Hamilton’s Legacy

Hamilton turned the Constitution on its head in office to get away with anything he wanted. This set the precedent for legal scholars and judges alike to read anything into the Constitution that served their political agenda.

Hamilton’s ally John Marshall became the fourth chief justice of the Supreme Court and used Hamilton’s influence to forever change our constitutional order when the ink on the document was barely dry. Marshall’s decision in Marbury v. Madison gave the Supreme Court power of judicial review, allowing it to interpret the Constitution however it wants. He also ruled in McCulloch v. Maryland that federal law was above state law—a complete abomination to the federal system the founders had set in place. These decisions ensured that Hamiltion got his way—a centralized system with an authority that has no checks on it.

Hamilton’s bait and switch on the Necessary and Proper Clause has been used to give the federal government complete control over currency. It has also been used with the Commerce Clause to allow the federal government to regulate anything it wants. This started to take root with New Deal legislation, a prime example being Wickard v. Filburn, in which it was held that the federal government can regulate commerce even when purely intrastate.

Similarly, Hamilton’s twisting of the General Welfare Clause has been the excuse for much of the federal activity we see today. His version of it has been continuously expanded, and since the 1930s it has been a blank slate for the federal government to tax and spend on anything it wants. It’s cited so much that many people today actually believe that the General Welfare Clause permits government action “so long as it provides for the general welfare.”

While Hamilton is glorified by power hungry nationalists, remember that his appointment to the federal government was America’s first 9/11 tragedy. If you like high taxes, crony capitalism, central banking, the states relegated to mere corporations, a central authority that can regulate everything you do, and a judiciary that can do anything it wants, thank Alexander Hamilton.

Author:

Daren A. Wiseley

Daren Wiseley has a J.D. from Indiana University. More of his work can be found at choosewiseley.org.

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If the Election Produces No Clear Winner, the Military Is Definitely Not the Answer | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on September 19, 2020

Last month, retired generals John Nagl and Paul Yingling wrote an open letter to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Milley claiming that the military ought to be ready to intervene to remove Donald Trump from the presidency if he loses.

But there’s a problem here…

It’s not an accident that the authors of the US Constitution went to great pains to ensure that the military powers remained subject to the will of the civilian government. Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Americans regarded a standing army as a threat to their freedoms. Federal military personnel were treated accordingly.

https://mises.org/wire/if-election-produces-no-clear-winner-military-definitely-not-answer?utm_source=Mises+Institute+Subscriptions&utm_campaign=b2059dbdb7-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_09_18_06_41&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8b52b2e1c0-b2059dbdb7-228343965

Last month, retired generals John Nagl and Paul Yingling wrote an open letter to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Milley claiming that the military ought to be ready to intervene to remove Donald Trump from the presidency if he loses.

But there’s a problem here. If Biden is clearly the winner, the odds are close to zero that Donald Trump is going to refuse to leave the White House quietly. Thus, in the scenario imagined by Nagl and Yingling, outside intervention—military or otherwise—is unlikely to be necessary at all. Moreover, in his article “The Generals Won’t Save American Democracy,” Fred Kaplan at Slate states what should be obvious: if Biden is the clear winner, virtually all of the Washington bureaucracy—both civilian and military—will hand over power to Biden.

The real problem arises when the outcome is more murky, and that’s precisely when we definitely don’t want the military involved. This isn’t merely a matter of hypothetical thought experiments, either. America experienced a disputed and unclear outcome for its presidential race in 1876. But in that case, the civilian government was careful to work out a compromise rather than use military power to impose a solution. Would the same thing happen today? That is not at all guaranteed.

What If the Outcome Is Unclear?

Consider a hypothetical situation: election night comes and goes, but it is unclear who the winner is. Several states report fraud, “irregularities,” or other problems that cast doubt on the presidential vote in several states. A multitude of lawsuits ensue.

Conceivably, all the legal decisions may not even be resolved by late January. Or maybe all the courts have ruled but a sizable portion of the public refuses to accept the outcome.

What then?

Shall the military then essentially “pick the winner” by siding with one candidate or the other? This would be a dangerous precedent to say the least, and it would invert the order envisioned by the Constitution itself: military officers would themselves pick their civilian commander-in-chief.

In a crisis situation such as this, it is clear the authors of the Constitution—and the Americans of the nineteenth century as well—wisely preferred a civilian-guided outcome of some kind. Historically, in times when general elections do not produce an obvious winner—as in 1800 and 1824—the House of Representatives would intervene to choose the president.

The Contentious 1876 Election

But in one case the election didn’t follow this script, and American politicians were forced to create an “unwritten deal” as in the case of the “Compromise of 1877.” This compromise was an agreement in which the Democrats pledged to recognize Hayes as the winner in exchange for the end of Reconstruction in the Southern states.

The compromise became necessary because Rutherford B. Hayes likely won the electoral college in a very close election, but Democrat Samuel Tilden won the popular vote by a considerably larger margin. There was real fear that many Democrats would refuse to accept Rutherford B. Hayes as a legitimate president. Some suggested forming militias to march on the White House. Indeed, as described by historian Gregory Downs, Samuel Tilden “asserted a state’s right to forcefully resist a usurper’s inauguration.” This was followed by the pro-Tilden governor of New York “promising state resistance to the ‘revolutionary’ overthrow of ‘the time‐consecrated methods of constitutional government.’”

For two months—between the election and the meeting of the group that would create the compromise—an orderly transition of power remained in doubt. Downs continues:

Fear shattered the unitary vision of the nation and produced a series of fantastic but not wholly unrealistic doubled images, visions of dual presidents, dual capitals, and dual armies. One of the most provocative rumors was that Tilden planned to stage a counter‐inauguration in New York City. Backed by a line of Democratic state militias from Connecticut to Virginia, he would seize the federal Treasury Building in New York, fund his government through customs collections in the harbor, and force Hayes from the capital to his own shadow republic in the Midwest.

None of this came to pass because the civilian government reached a compromise that required no troops to restore or impose order. Political disintegration was avoided. And while political separation is theoretically possible without violence, in late nineteenth-century America, it’s just as likely that a national breakup would have been accompanied by localized rioting and intrastate conflict. 

Why Not Use the Military to Resolve the Dispute?

But wouldn’t it have just been easier to have the military intervene? The Republicans were in power, so it would have been fairly simple to use the military to ensure the party retained control of the White House, especially since Hayes appeared to have won the electoral college vote. (Moreover, in those days before civil service reform, the federal bureaucracy would have been dominated by Republican loyalists.)

It’s what comes after that which is the problem. The military can intervene and coerce compliance rather easily in the short term. But once this happens, the legitimacy of the state begins to evaporate rather quickly. This is a recipe for division and violence, and military rule becomes the de facto reality.

Why the Constitution Strictly Limits the Role of the Military

It’s not an accident that the authors of the US Constitution went to great pains to ensure that the military powers remained subject to the will of the civilian government. Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Americans regarded a standing army as a threat to their freedoms. Federal military personnel were treated accordingly.

Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution states that Congress shall have the power “to raise and support Armies” and “to provide and maintain a Navy.” Article II, Section 2 states, “The President shall be the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States when called into the actual Service of the United States.” The authors of the Constitution were careful to divide up civilian power of the military, and one thing was clear: the military was to have no autonomy in policymaking or in choosing winning candidates.

The people who wrote these words did so in part because they were quite familiar with what to them was the relatively recent history of the English Civil War. This was a period when England came dangerously close to becoming a military dictatorship. During Cromwell’s time as “lord protector,” the line between military rule and civilian rule had become quite blurry. After 1655, the country even came under the de facto rule of eleven “major-generals.” This led to enduring hostility among many Englishmen to military rule. And it likely influenced the thinking of eighteenth-century Americans.

Will that idea endure into 2020?

The US is possibly heading toward the most contentious election since 1876. If it ends up being a “tie” in the manner of 1876, there will indeed be calls for the military to step in and “resolve” the conflict. Yingling and Nagl are simply the first ones to suggest the idea. Expect more to do so.

Author:

Contact Ryan McMaken

Ryan McMaken (@ryanmcmaken) is a senior editor at the Mises Institute. Send him your article submissions for the Mises Wire and The Austrian, but read article guidelines first. Ryan has degrees in economics and political science from the University of Colorado and was a housing economist for the State of Colorado. He is the author of Commie Cowboys: The Bourgeoisie and the Nation-State in the Western Genre.

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Progressives, the President, Privatization, and the Post Office – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on September 1, 2020

But just because post offices are authorized doesn’t mean that they are mandated. And nowhere in the Constitution does it say that the Post Office should have a monopoly on first-class mail like it currently has.

Privatizing the Post Office would merely shift the postal monopoly from the government to a government-privileged firm. Mail service should be freed, not privatized. As long as we have a Post Service, it should adjust its prices so that they have some relation to a valid business model that seeks to turn a profit. But regardless, the postal monopoly should be ended.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/09/laurence-m-vance/progressives-the-president-privatization-and-the-post-office/

By

The latest spat between progressives and President Trump is over the Post Office.

The New York Times is all but accusing the president of withholding funds from the Post Office so as to undercut voting by mail, which he sees as being riddled with fraud. A spokesman for the Biden campaign put it this way:

The president of the United States is sabotaging a basic service that hundreds of millions of people rely upon, cutting a critical lifeline for rural economies and for delivery of medicines, because he wants to deprive Americans of their fundamental right to vote safely during the most catastrophic public health crisis in over 100 years.

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was even more adamant: “I am not exaggerating when I say this is a life-and-death situation. The Post Office is delivering medicine to millions of Americans during a pandemic. It delivers Social Security checks to seniors who rely on those benefits to survive.” This, of course is nonsense, as is most of what Sanders says. Over 99 percent of Social Security payments are sent via direct deposit. And mail prescriptions only make up only 5.8 percent of the prescription drug market.

The Post Office has a problem, but the problem has existed since long before Trump was elected. The United States Postal Service (USPS) lost almost $9 billion last year. It has lost $83.1 billion since 2006. Its unfunded pension and health-care liabilities exceed $120 billion.

The Post Office has a pricing problem. Revenue from first-class mail—the biggest source of the USPS’s revenue—continues to decline even as labor costs continue to increase. Of the 142.6 billion pieces of mail that the Post Office handled in 2019, “53 percent was advertising material, a.k.a. junk mail, up from 48 percent in 2010.” And “companies pay a special rate, 19 cents apiece, to send these items (in bulk), as opposed to the 55 cents for a first-class stamp.”

But even if the Post Office raised its prices on all of its services other than first-class mail, it would still have a problem.

The Post Office is one of the federal government’s few departments that is clearly authorized by the Constitution. In Article I, Section 8, Paragraph 7, Congress is given the power “to establish Post Offices and post Roads.”

But just because post offices are authorized doesn’t mean that they are mandated. And nowhere in the Constitution does it say that the Post Office should have a monopoly on first-class mail like it currently has. As James Bovard has well said:

The Postal Service has gotten away with scorning its customers because it is effectively a federal crime to provide better mail service than the government. The Postal Service has a monopoly over letter delivery (with a limited exemption for urgent, courier-delivered letters costing more than $3).

According to U.S. Code, Title 39, Chapter I, Subchapter E, Part 310, Section 310.2, “Unlawful carriage of letters,”

(a) It is generally unlawful under the Private Express Statutes for any person other than the Postal Service in any manner to send or carry a letter on a post route or in any manner to cause or assist such activity. Violation may result in injunction, fine or imprisonment or both and payment of postage lost as a result of the illegal activity.

In the nineteenth century, private mail carriers in the United States were shut down by the federal government.

Monopolies are contrary to principles of economic freedom, competition, free markets, and free enterprise. But don’t take my word for it. The federal government has an Antitrust division in the Department of Justice (DOJ) charged with promoting “economic competition through enforcing and providing guidance on antitrust laws and principles.” According to the DOJ:

The goal of the antitrust laws is to protect economic freedom and opportunity by promoting free and fair competition in the marketplace.

Competition in a free market benefits American consumers through lower prices, better quality and greater choice. Competition provides businesses the opportunity to compete on price and quality, in an open market and on a level playing field, unhampered by anticompetitive restraints. Competition also tests and hardens American companies at home, the better to succeed abroad.

Federal antitrust laws apply to virtually all industries and to every level of business, including manufacturing, transportation, distribution, and marketing. They prohibit a variety of practices that restrain trade, such as price-fixing conspiracies, corporate mergers likely to reduce the competitive vigor of particular markets, and predatory acts designed to achieve or maintain monopoly power.

So where is the DOJ? The postal monopoly is now almost two centuries old.

Privatizing the Post Office would merely shift the postal monopoly from the government to a government-privileged firm. Mail service should be freed, not privatized. As long as we have a Post Service, it should adjust its prices so that they have some relation to a valid business model that seeks to turn a profit. But regardless, the postal monopoly should be ended.

The Best of Laurence M. Vance

Laurence M. Vance [send him mail] writes from central Florida. He is the author of The War on Drugs Is a War on Freedom; War, Christianity, and the State: Essays on the Follies of Christian Militarism; War, Empire, and the Military: Essays on the Follies of War and U.S. Foreign Policy; King James, His Bible, and Its Translators, and many other books. His newest books are Free Trade or Protectionism? and The Free Society.
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The Constitution Is Not Your Friend | The Libertarian Institute

Posted by M. C. on August 22, 2020

By strictly limiting the authority of the general government, the founding generation hoped it would never possess enough the power to intrude on our rights.

But there isn’t any provision in the Constitution that actually empowers the federal government to protect our liberty. In fact, the founding generation would have almost certainly considered that too much power for a general government to wield.

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/the-constitution-is-not-your-friend/

by

One of the biggest misconceptions I hear about the Constitution is that it was written to “protect our liberty.”

It wasn’t. At least not in a direct sense.

The confusion likely arises from the words of the Declaration of Independence:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

It’s true that the Constitution was written during a time when protecting unalienable rights was widely viewed as the primary role of government. But the Constitution is not a philosophical document. It is a legal document that formed a political union and created a central government.

That’s all it does. Asking it to “protect your rights” is really asking too much. That wasn’t why it was written or ratified.

Now the Constitution does reflect the philosophy espoused in the Declaration in that it established a general government of limited, enumerated powers. The decentralized nature of the political system it created was intended to encourage liberty.

By strictly limiting the authority of the general government, the founding generation hoped it would never possess enough the power to intrude on our rights.

But there isn’t any provision in the Constitution that actually empowers the federal government to protect our liberty. In fact, the founding generation would have almost certainly considered that too much power for a general government to wield.

In practice, this means the federal government really doesn’t have any responsibility to “protect your rights” beyond staying within its constitutionally delegated powers. Its obligation isn’t to act in order to protect liberty, it is to not act outside of its legitimate authority.

In the same way, the Bill of Rights was never intended to empower the federal government to protect your rights. As the preamble to the Bill of Rights makes clear, it was intended to add “further declaratory and restrictive clauses” to the Constitution “in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers.” I have often said it would be better named “The Bill of Restrictions.”

A lot of people want the Constitution to deliver something it never promised. They want the government to serve as a liberty enforcement squad. This is a dangerous proposition. In order to protect your liberty, the government must define your liberty. The best thing the government can do is stay out of the way. The Constitution created a limited federal government for that purpose.

But it’s ultimately up to us to hold it within its limits. Unfortunately, by insisting that the government “protect their rights” they are doing the exact opposite.

This article was originally featured at the Tenth Amendment Center

About Michael Maharrey

Michael Maharrey [send him email] is the communications director for the Tenth Amendment Center. He also runs GodArchy.org, a site exploring the intersection of Christianity and politics. Michael is the author of the book, Constitution Owner’s Manual: The Real Constitution the Politicians Don’t Want You to Know About. You can visit his personal website at MichaelMaharrey.com, like him on Facebook HERE and follow him on Twitter @MMaharrey10th.
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Spying on Journalists – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on August 6, 2020

For starters, it is far easier to spy unlawfully than it is to obtain a search warrant. As well, the feds have established a vast network of domestic spies — the 60,000-person strong National Security Agency. It captures all electronic data, voice and text, communicated within the United States — without warrants and with few complaints.

All this directly assaults the right to privacy, but the feds do it anyway. The spying is so normal that a deputy DHS secretary ordered it in Portland without seeking approval up his chain of command.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/08/andrew-p-napolitano/spying-on-journalists/

By

Last week, this column argued that the only constitutional role for armed federal forces in Portland, Oregon, was to assist U.S. marshals in protecting federal property and personnel there — in this case, the federal courthouse and those who come to it. The column also argued that under the U.S. Constitution, the feds have no lawful role in policing streets unless requested to do so by the governor or legislature of any state.

In Portland’s case, the governor of Oregon and the mayor of Portland both asked acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf to bring his forces home. He agreed to do so when Oregon’s governor offered to beef up security at the federal courthouse.

Yet, the federal forces were doing more than just protecting federal property. They were agitating the peaceful demonstrators in Portland’s streets by firing an internationally banned variant of tear gas repeatedly and indiscriminately into crowds for hours at a time every night. The feds were also spying on journalists who were in the crowds of protestors reporting on what they observed.

Here is the backstory.

The Supreme Court has held, for many generations, that the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution protects the “right to be let alone.” Today, we call this privacy.

Those who wrote the Constitution were acutely aware of the proclivities of government to monitor the communications and behavior of folks it hates and fears. King George III sent British troops and government agents into the homes of colonists under various pretexts, the most notorious of which was to examine letters, papers and pamphlets to ascertain if the king’s tax on them had been paid.

This Stamp Act tax cost more to enforce than it generated in revenue. Was the king dumb or dumb like a fox? Probably the latter; the true purpose of the tax was not to raise money but to remind the colonists that the king could cross the thresholds of their homes — a right he did not have in Great Britain — through the use of his soldiers and agents. And, while inside the home, his agents could discover who was agitating for secession.

With memories of these royal abuses fresh in their minds, the members of the first Congress — led by James Madison — approved and passed the Fourth Amendment. The states ratified it as part of the Bill of Rights. Madison also drafted the Ninth Amendment, which reflects the existence in all people of natural human rights — knowable by the exercise of reason and insulated from government intrusion. Among those rights is privacy.

May the government lawfully invade the right to privacy? Under the Fourth Amendment, it may do so only pursuant to search warrants issued by a judge, and the judge may only issue a search warrant after taking testimony under oath demonstrating that it is more likely than not that the place to be searched will yield evidence of criminal behavior. Plus, the warrant must specify the place to be searched or the person or thing to be seized.

The language and requirements in the Fourth Amendment are the most specific in the Constitution. Madison insisted upon this so it would be both an obstacle to the new American government doing to its citizens what the king and his agents had done to the colonists, and an inducement to the government to focus law enforcement on probable causes of crime rather than spying on political enemies.

Now, back to the feds in Portland.

We know from their admissions that the feds compiled dossiers on numerous journalists covering their activities in Portland. We also know that some data in those dossiers came from public sources and some did not. The governmental acquisition of data from nonpublic, nongovernment sources without search warrants constitutes spying.

The government spies routinely on Americans today — so much so that the revelation of it ceases to shock.

Why would the feds do this?

For starters, it is far easier to spy unlawfully than it is to obtain a search warrant. As well, the feds have established a vast network of domestic spies — the 60,000-person strong National Security Agency. It captures all electronic data, voice and text, communicated within the United States — without warrants and with few complaints.

All this directly assaults the right to privacy, but the feds do it anyway. The spying is so normal that a deputy DHS secretary ordered it in Portland without seeking approval up his chain of command.

The government also spies to intimidate — and this brings us back to Portland. When the government discovers personal information that it has no right to acquire without a warrant — information devoid of criminal evidence, information that the Fourth Amendment bars the government from obtaining without a warrant — and then tells you it has this information, it chills your freedom.

Chilling can make you pause before exposing or criticizing the government. The Supreme Court has characterized this as a violation of both the Fourth Amendment and the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment.

To Wolf’s credit, he either fired or transferred (it is unclear which) the deputy secretary who ordered DHS agents to spy on journalists in Portland. Yet, when ordered, they readily complied with the order. That’s how commonplace federal spying has become — and how easy.

The folks who did this should all lose their jobs. Why? Because it is unlawful to obey an unlawful order.

Or have our constitutional rights been so emasculated that the government doesn’t know the difference?

Andrew P. Napolitano [send him mail], a former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, is the senior judicial analyst at Fox News Channel. Judge Napolitano has written nine books on the U.S. Constitution. The most recent is Suicide Pact: The Radical Expansion of Presidential Powers and the Lethal Threat to American Liberty. To find out more about Judge Napolitano and to read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit creators.com.

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Thomas Massie vs. the Other 434 – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on August 3, 2020

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/08/laurence-m-vance/thomas-massie-vs-the-other-434/

By

There are 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives. Only one would get my vote (if I voted).

Thomas Massie is a Republican who has represented Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District, which stretches across Northern Kentucky and 280 miles of the Ohio River, since 2012. With a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and a master’s degree in mechanical engineering, both from MIT, Massie is a smart guy. But more importantly, he is a friend of the Constitution, liberty, property, and peace; that is, he doesn’t just recite the conservative mantra: his votes in Congress speak for themselves.

The New American magazine publishes four times each term of Congress “The Freedom Index: A Congressional Scorecard Based on the U.S. Constitution.” The Freedom Index “rates congressmen based on their adherence to constitutional principles of limited government, fiscal responsibility, national sovereignty, and a traditional foreign policy of avoiding foreign entanglements.”

The new edition of the Freedom Index (in the issue dated July 20) is the second for the 116th Congress, and looks at ten key measures. Scores are derived by dividing a congressman’s constitutional votes by the total number of votes cast and multiplying by 100. So, the higher the score the better.

This edition of the Freedom Index tracks congressional votes in the House on appropriations, impeachment, the United States-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement (USMCA), the Equal Rights Amendment, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the Iran War Powers Resolution, and coronavirus aid packages.

For the second time in a row for the 116th Congress, Rep. Massie scored a perfect 100 percent. Most of the Democrats received a failing score. But the other Republicans in the House didn’t do so well either. Seven of them earned a score from 30-39 percent. Sixty-four of them earned a score from 40-49 percent. Forty-five of them earned a score from 50-59 percent. Forty-three of them earned a score from 60-69 percent. Twenty-four of them earned a score from 70-79 percent. Six of them earned a score from 80-89 percent. And only one of them earned a score from 90-99 percent.

This means that over half of the Republicans in the House received a failing grade when it comes to their “conservatism.” With Republicans like these, who needs Democrats? Indeed, outspoken Democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez earned a score of 60 percent. This means that she scored higher than the majority of the Republicans in the House. Let that sink in for a minute:

AOC is more conservative than the majority of Republican House members.

Any yet we are told ad nauseam by conservative talk show hosts and pastors of evangelical churches that we should vote Republican to keep those evil Democrats out of office.

What makes things even worse is that the Republican Party is the opposition party in the House right now. Republicans always score lower when they are the party in power.

How many times must I say it: The only limited government that Republicans seek is a government limited to control by Republicans. Thomas Massie is apparently the only exception in the House. Like former House member Ron Paul, Massie often casts the lone “no” vote on legislation. God bless him.

Laurence M. Vance [send him mail] writes from central Florida. He is the author of The War on Drugs Is a War on Freedom; War, Christianity, and the State: Essays on the Follies of Christian Militarism; War, Empire, and the Military: Essays on the Follies of War and U.S. Foreign Policy; King James, His Bible, and Its Translators, and many other books. His newest books are Free Trade or Protectionism? and The Free Society.

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How Lincoln Destroyed the United States – PaulCraigRoberts.org

Posted by M. C. on July 23, 2020

General Thomas Ewing cleared 3,000 square miles of Missouri from habitation and forced 20,000 civilians from their homes, leaving them homeless, bare-footed and bare-headed with all of their possessions stolen by Union “soldiers.” Ewing bragged of his feat to a Washington reporter, telling him that his action was approved by President Lincoln.

Lincoln’s friend, General Grenville Dodge, announced his policy of starving the entire population of the state of Tennessee. “These people are proud, arrogant rebels,” and will be made to understant that “all they they possess belongs to the US Government.”

https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2020/07/21/how-lincoln-destroyed-the-united-states/

Paul Craig Roberts

The title of Thomas J. DiLorenzo new book, The Problem with Lincoln, is an understatement.  Lincoln was far more than a problem.  He was the worst disaster ever to befall the United States.

Lincoln destroyed the federal republic established by the founding fathers, and he destroyed the Constitution that protected it. He violated every provision of, and every Amendment to, the Constitution.  He then rewrote, in effect, the Constitution and left the 10th Amendment out.

The Lincoln regime was a dictatorship.  Lincoln disregarded US law, the US Constitution, every right of the people, the power and authority of judges, and even exiled a US Representative.  DiLorenzo writes that “freedom of speech was virtually nonexistent in the Northern states for the duration of the Lincoln administration.” Lincoln ordered the arrest and imprisonment of everyone who disapproved of his invasion of the South or made the slightest criticism of him.  There were mass arrests of citizens and news paper editors of northern states.  A minimum of 38,000 citizens of northern states were imprisoned without due process.

Lincoln committed treason against the Constitution when he suspended Habeas Corpus.  No such power resides in the presidency.  Only Congress can suspend Habeas Corpus even in the case of rebellion and invasion.

US Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney ruled Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus was unconstitutional. New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley wrote that it may be necessary to teach Taney a lesson. Lincoln had an arrest warrent written for Taney’s arrest, but did not serve it, apparently instead relying on Taney’s awareness of the warrant to bring him into line.

Other judges both state and federal who attempted to uphold laws were beat bloody and dragged off to prision or placed under house arrest and prevented from performing their judicial duties.  Judge Richard Bennett Carmichael in Maryland attempted to enforce due process. Lincoln’s Secretary of State William Seward sent armed federal soldiers. They pistol-whipped the judge in his chambers, “beat him bloody and unconscious, and dragged him off to Fort McHenry.”   US circuit court judge William Merrick issued a writ of habeas corpus for an underaged youth and was put “under house arrest by force of arms without due process.”  Under Lincoln, there was not only no separation of powers, there was no other power.

Lincoln used army troops to break up meetings of the Democratic Party.  US Senator Thomas A. Hendricks, for example, was prevented from speaking by Union troops with fixed bayonets who threatened “to make a summary disposal of him.”

In other words, life under Lincoln in the North was like life in the Soviet Union during the darkest days of Stalin’s rule.  Life under Lincoln in the South was like Stalin’s destruction of the kulaks.

The white liberal “Lincoln scholars” admit much of this.  And they justify it. For example, Cornell University professor Clinton Rossiter wrote a book, curiously titled Constitutional Dictatorship, a contradiction in terms. Rossiter declares Lincoln to be “a great dictator” whose “amazing disregard for the Constitution was considered by nobody as legal.”  Rossiter celebrates this fact.  Being a “great dictator” is what made Lincoln a “true democrat.”  Another “Lincoln scholar,” Dean Sprague, wrote a book detailing hundreds of acts of tyranny by Lincoln, “and then somehow managed to conclude that Lincoln ‘had no taste for tyranny’ and was a ‘great humanitarian.’”

“This,” DiLorenzo writes, “is what makes someone a Lincoln ‘scholar’—dictatorship is democracy, tyranny is freedom, destroying the Constitution is constitutional, imprisoning political dissenters is benevolent, dictatorship in the right hands is good and noble—and on it goes.”

The most important chapter in DiLorenzo’s book is the fourth one.  In this chapter the war crimes of Lincoln and his generals and army are the subject.  Lincoln has the disgrace of being the first ruler in modern times to unleash indiscriminate war on civilian populations.  From Lincoln came all of Washington’s subsequent violations of the rules of war and the Geneva protocols and conventions—the firebombing of Japanese and German civilian cities, the nuking of two Japanese civilian cities, the atrocities in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, the murder of 500,000 Iraqi children justified by US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in true Lincoln fashion as “worth it,” the massive deaths from Washington’s and Washington-sponsored illegal invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Washington’s bombings of Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, the persecution and torture of journalist Julian Assange, the torture horrors of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. If the South had won the war, Lincoln, the entirety of the Union high command and the bulk of the Union army could have been legally and justly hung as war criminals.  Indeed, the war crimes of Lincoln, Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, and the Union army “paved the way for all the genocidal horrors of the monstrous 20th century.”

Lincoln’s war plan was designed to destroy the South, not just its army. Arson, looting, rape and murder of civilians, destruction of their homes, barns, livestock, and towns by the Union thugs in uniform were the means.  In Missouri vast areas of the state became uninhabited. Union General James H. Lane said: “We believe in a war of extermination. I want to see every foot of ground in Jackson, Cass and Bates Counties burned over—everything laid waste.” Read the rest of this entry »

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Dispatches from the War: Dershowitz con, Florida covid hustle « Jon Rappoport’s Blog

Posted by M. C. on July 22, 2020

The Gates and Fauci position, whether they admit to you or not.

This piece is about Alan Dershowitz, who famously said:

“Let me put it very clearly: you have no constitutional right to
endanger the public and spread the disease, even if you disagree. You
have no right not to be vaccinated…And if you refuse to be vaccinated,
the state has the power to literally take you to a doctor’s office and
plunge a needle into your arm.”

If that were true, every declared State of Emergency would be equal.

https://blog.nomorefakenews.com/2020/07/21/dispatches-from-the-war-dershowitz-florida-hustle/

by Jon Rappoport

ONE: ALAN DERSHOWITZ

This is about what the State is permitted to do to citizens under a State of Emergency. For example, the Lockdown Emergency which has driven the national economy over a cliff. The economic ruination Trump refuses to face up to; refuses to talk directly to the American people about; refuses to address with a specific plan for recovery. If a president has any vital function at all, it is to lead in a time of crisis. As in: THIS IS WHAT IS GOING ON IN THE COUNTRY RIGHT NOW, AND THIS IS WHAT I’M GOING TO DO ABOUT IT. Striding down a hallway wearing a black mask for a photo op doesn’t cut it. Standing with corporate hot shots who are ready to go into production of breathing ventilators isn’t a recovery plan. Empowering the military to give COVID vaccinations isn’t a recovery plan. But I digress. This piece is about Alan Dershowitz, who famously said:

“Let me put it very clearly: you have no constitutional right to endanger the public and spread the disease, even if you disagree. You have no right not to be vaccinated…And if you refuse to be vaccinated, the state has the power to literally take you to a doctor’s office and plunge a needle into your arm.”

If that were true, every declared State of Emergency would be equal.

A president could say, “My favorite pagan goddess from Spokane came to me in a dream last night and told me to order every citizen to cut off a pinky finger to avert the danger of infection…”

Nothing in the Constitution forbids a court from judging a particular State of Emergency on its merits. In fact, the Constitution would demand such judgement. Otherwise, the entire basis of limited federal government would be undermined.

And once you open THAT door and argue a State of Emergency on the merits, evidence about vaccines can be presented. Are vaccines truly safe and effective? Are severe adverse effects rare or widespread?

What are the unvarnished facts?

Dershowitz blithely assumes he understands vaccination. He doesn’t. He’s clueless. He simply thinks vaccinations are a standard public safety measure, on the level of hand-washing.

Would he argue that orders to wear masks during a declared State of Emergency are constitutionally impossible to challenge? If non-government experts assert masks are useless?

The “merits of the case,” Mr. Dershowitz. That is the key.

Suppose a government task force reports that 1 out of every 1.5 Americans is developing cancer during his/her life? And then, a moronic president declares a national State of Emergency and orders universal prophylactic chemotherapy for all citizens?

That would be mandatory? That would be constitutionally ironclad?

No court could consider that order on its merits? No one could stand before a judge and argue that the devastating treatment is toxic in the extreme, or that the so-called War on Cancer has been a failure?

If the COVID-19 vaccine turns out to be based on new DNA technology, meaning every vaccine recipient’s genetic makeup would be permanently altered, a legal objection would be ruled out of bounds, because the vaccine is coming on board during a State of Emergency? Really?

To use a highly technical legal term, insisting a State of Emergency overrules the protection of life and the meaning of liberty is bullshit.

The blood and sacrifice of centuries, which led to the writing and ratification of the Constitution, were not made so lawyers or judges could undermine its entire spirit by defending States of Emergency, as if they came from higher and wiser heads protecting the Public Good.

In this case, a mandated vaccine would be a protection RACKET, launched by a remorseless pharmaceutical mafia.

Case closed, Mr. Dershowitz. Meaning the door is wide open to debate the facts and the principles and the truth.

You followed up your famous statement by remarking that you and your family could refuse a COVID vaccine through an act of civil disobedience; but then you would have to accept the penalty.

I wonder how you’d react if that penalty meant your family would be sent to a moldy room in a fleabag hotel in a dangerous neighborhood, to serve out your period of isolation; after which officials would approach you again to take the vaccine.

I think you might reformulate your constitutional opinion about States of Emergency. You might suddenly see a new legal option. You might decide that freedom and liberty are incontrovertible.

You might decide that arguing from past case precedents, when those cases distort the Constitution, is an academic exercise unworthy of an honest lawyer’s time and energy.

You might decide that whatever personal bias actually motivated you to issue your famous statement in the first place was irrelevant.

When trouble visits your own door, when your public pronouncements come around to bite you, you might find a reason to change your tune.

What is legally obvious on the mountain top is not always obvious in the foothills.

In the foothills, people are eating fruit of the poisonous tree, long ago planted in the middle of the Constitution. If you were down there, you would be put on that diet. I think you would then miraculously spot a new legal angle on States of Emergency.

TWO: FLORIDA HUSTLE

Breitbart, July 14: “A FOX 35 investigation released on Monday discovered an inflation of coronavirus cases by the Florida Department of Health. The Sunshine State’s health authorities misreported the number of persons testing positive for coronavirus in its aggregation and publication of test results from laboratories.”

“Twenty-two labs reported 100-percent positivity rates. Two labs reported 91.18-percent positivity rates.”

So…it was a massive coincidence that all 22 labs happened to make the same mistake at the same time.

—On the level of, say, two dozen planes landing five runways to the left of their designated lanes at two dozen different airports on the same day.

Sure.

Toss a coin. Heads, all the tests kits were rigged to read positive for COVID. Tails, all the labs lied.

In either event, the fake COVID monster is fed. It needs case numbers. Desperately. In order to present a false picture of danger.

Thus, justifying the lockdowns, the masks, the distancing, the economic destruction.

Dear Florida Health Department—you’ve done it. I thought real estate cons were the state’s most valuable product. But now I don’t know. You might have jumped to the top of the charts. Read the rest of this entry »

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The Joys of Diversity and Multicullturalism Have Come Home to Roost – PaulCraigRoberts.org

Posted by M. C. on June 16, 2020

Perhaps you don’t think Americans are stupid,  but Democrats certainly think they are. The Democrats think voters are going to blame Trump, not the Democrats who are encouraging more looting and burning, and that voters will elect the Democrats, who have stood down in the face of massive looting and property destruction, to run the country.  If voters elect Democrats, it will prove the Democrats are correct that Americans are stupid.

Consider the female Democrat that the smart, white, high-tech people in Seattle elected as their mayor.  She enabled peaceful protests to burn down businesses.

https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2020/06/15/the-joys-of-diversity-and-multicullturalism-have-come-home-to-roost/

Paul Craig Roberts

Hi Dumbshit American.  Have you had enough of diversity and multiculturalism?  If not, vote a Democrat president, and the second wave of peaceful protests will loot and burn down your homes and neighborhoods.  Be sure you understand that diversity means no more white statues and white history, because they are racist.  Multiculturalism means no more white civilization, which is racist. You may have to give up your language as well, because English is racist.

I have been telling you for years that you are living The Camp of the Saints.  Having failed to become aware, you have no idea what is happening. When it finally dawns on you, it will be too late.

The anti-white, white presstitute national media have not told you what is going on. The official line is that a few peaceful protests have been marred by white supremacists sneaking in among the peaceful protesters and causing violence in order to discredit blacks.  Some of the more deranged white liberals say that the burning and looting in cities and states run by Democrats is Trump’s plot to discredit Democrats as the party that will not protect property, thereby assuring Trump’s reelecton.  The terrorist threat scare doesn’t work any more, so the white liberals claim that Trump has replaced it with the black scare.  The Democrat mayor of Minneapolis is really a Trump Agent and allowed 500 Minneapolis businesses to be destroyed in order to ensure Trump’s election.  If you don’t believe it, just ask a white liberal.  https://www.startribune.com/twin-cities-rebuilding-begins-with-donations-pressure-on-government/571075592/

Perhaps you don’t think Americans are stupid,  but Democrats certainly think they are. The Democrats think voters are going to blame Trump, not the Democrats who are encouraging more looting and burning, and that voters will elect the Democrats, who have stood down in the face of massive looting and property destruction, to run the country.  If voters elect Democrats, it will prove the Democrats are correct that Americans are stupid.

Consider the female Democrat that the smart, white, high-tech people in Seattle elected as their mayor.  She enabled peaceful protests to burn down businesses.  Some of the peaceful protesters have set up a foreign country within Seattle’s city limits called the Capital Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ), which is already receiving foreign aid from the citizens of Seattle courtesy of the mayor.  Can World Bank and IMF loans and a seat at the UN be far behind?

So far Seattle’s foreign aid has not been enough. One of the rulers in the Autonomous Zone has told the white citizens of the new country that they have to give their non-white counterparts money or face retribution. “White people, I see you. I see every one of you, and I remember your faces. You find an African American person and you give them $10. Do It!”  If white people find giving up their money difficult, the Leader said, how “are you going to give up power and land and capital?”  https://www.theblaze.com/news/leader-in-seattles-chaz-demands-white-occupiers-fork-over-money-to-black-counterparts?utm_source=theblaze-dailyAM&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily-Newsletter__AM%202020-06-14&utm_term=TheBlaze%20Daily%20AM%20-%20last%20270%20days

Change is so rapid that not even the Leader can keep up and mistakenly calls an African CHAZ  citizen an African American.

The black female police chief in Seattle, Carmen Best, said that “rapes, robberies, and all sorts of violent acts have been occurring in CHAZ  (the new country inside Seattle) that we’re not able to get to.” https://www.theblaze.com/news/seattle-police-chief-violence-chaz  The Seattle Democrat mayor, Jenny Durkan, says it is all just “a summer of love,” and nothing is going on but “free speech and self-expression.”  Be sure you get that, White America.  Looting, burning, rape, and extorting money are just free speech and self-expression, so don’t dare protest when free speech and self-expression come to your neighborhoods.

Before the embers went cold Atlanta is alight again. On Saturday June 13  peaceful protesters burned down a Wendy’s. A black man who resisted arrest, disarmed a police officer of his or her Taser and aimed it at police was shot in front of Wendy’s.  Obviously, it was Wendy’s fault, and Wendy’s paid by being burned down. http://www.stationgossip.com/2020/06/rioting-protesters-torch-atlanta-wendys.html

Atlanta’s white female police chief was so devastated, not, of course by the fate of Wendy’s, but by the non-sympathetic response of police to a man aiming a weapon at them, that she was despondent and resigned, leaving the black protesters without a white uncle Tom to cover for them. http://www.stationgossip.com/2020/06/rioting-protesters-torch-atlanta-wendys.html  Racist of her, don’t you think?

In Chicago the black female Democrat mayor confronted by one of the city’s Democrat aldermen concerned that the looting was approaching neighborhoods told him he was full of shit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VrLvJBxAKw

Efforts are underway to get peaceful protests going in Ashville, Portland, and Chattanooga. Having wrecked large cities like Minneapolis, New York, Chicago, and Atlanta, smaller cities are being targeted.

The Tennessee governor, Bill Lee, made it clear that there will be no toleration of violent protests or autonomous zones in Tennessee. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2020/06/12/tennessee-governor-warns-protesters-against-creating-nashville-autonomous-zone/#27f7ec9b6c19  As the US is in an advanced stage of collapse, exactly like France in The Camp of the Saints, don’t be surprised if Pentagon Chief Mark Epsy and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley take a page from The Camp of the Saints and send the US Air Force to bomb the Tennessee State Police and National Guard who demonstrate white racism by protecting Tennessee’s cities.

To comprehend the collapse of white confidence consider the number of top US military leaders who have declared President Trump, not looters and rioters, to be the real menace. Espy and Milley have already undercut President Trump’s effort to protect life and property by falsely alleging that it would be unconstitutional to use the US military to stop America’s cities from burning.  These two enemies of white Americans and their property are joined by former Pentagon chief James Mattis, former Special Operations Commander William McRaven, former Joint Chiefs Chairman and Secretary of State Colin Powell, former commander of US forces in Afghanistan John Allen, former commander of the US Southern Command Barry McCaffrey, former Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen.  These top military commanders have called for Trump’s removal from office. https://justthenews.com/government/security/retired-generals-who-denounced-trump-could-be-recalled-active-duty-and

McRaven said that President Trump was working to destroy America.

Powell said that Trump lies all the time—an example of the pot calling the kettle black—and is a menace who has drifted away from the US Constitution.

Allen says the Constitution is under threat from the President of the United States.

McCaffrey denounced Trump as a threat to national security.

Mattis said that Trump made a mockery of the Constitution.

Let’s see now.  It was George W. Bush who made a mockery of the Constitution when he asserted the power to detain Americans indefinitely without due process of law.  It was Obama who asserted—and exercised—the right to execute American citizens on suspicion alone without due process of law.  It was Congress which repearedly renews the unconstitutional PATRIOT Act which pisses all over the US Constitution and destroys the constitutional protection of privacy.

The big shot generals all lived through these horors without opening their mouths.  But OhMyGod the racist Trump is going to frustrate blacks by protecting private property!  He has to go.

This is precisely how France collapses in Jean Raspail’s famous novel The Camp of the Saints. In the United States we are living the novel, as is most likely all of Europe.

Good will between races and genders has been destroyed by Identity Politics, and without good will there is only violence. The age of violence is upon us.  Our leaders have no awareness and encourage the violence.   A thug with a long criminal record who was resisting arrest died either from illegal substances he was consuming or from Israeli training of Minnesota police, but it has been declared by the White Establishment to be Murder by Racism, with the consequence that American businesses are looted and famous cities are burned in what the white liberals say is “just retribution.”

The 21st century is the century that White Civilization will vanish along with its monuments and history books.  You can read your certain future by reading  The Camp of the Saints.

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Do Conservatives Really Believe Than Unconstitutional Law Is No Law? – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on June 2, 2020

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/06/laurence-m-vance/do-conservatives-really-believe-that-an-unconstitutional-law-is-no-law/

By

I see that all manner of conservatives are saying in response to the draconian lockdowns across the country that an unconstitutional law is no law. They are praising district attorneys, sheriffs, and local police for saying that they won’t enforce the decrees of state governors. Some conservatives are advocating rebellion and civil disobedience. Their focus, of course, is mainly on states with Democratic governors. But it is typical of conservatives not to criticize Republicans too much.

But do conservatives really believe that an unconstitutional law is no law? Do they really believe that district attorneys, sheriffs, and local police should not enforce unconstitutional laws?

Of course they don’t.

Now, I am glad to see that conservatives are actually talking about civil liberties. But the greatest violation of civil liberties, private property, individual liberty, personal freedom, and free enterprise is the federal government’s war on drugs.

Under federal law—

Possession of marijuana is punishable by up to one year in jail and a minimum fine of $1,000 for a first conviction. For a second conviction, the penalties increase to a 15-day mandatory minimum sentence with a maximum of two years in prison and a fine of up to $2,500. Subsequent convictions carry a 90-day mandatory minimum sentence and a maximum of up to three years in prison and a fine of up to $5,000.

And that is just possession.

Manufacture or distribution carries tougher penalties. The sale of paraphernalia is punishable by up to three years in prison. And “the sentence of death can be carried out on a defendant who has been found guilty of manufacturing, importing or distributing a controlled substance if the act was committed as part of a continuing criminal enterprise.”

And that is just marijuana.

Woe unto the American who possesses, manufactures, or distributes cocaine, heroin, meth, or fentanyl.

Drug laws are certainly unconstitutional laws.

Does the Constitution authorize the national government to regulate, criminalize, or prohibit the manufacture, sale, or use of any drug?

Does the Constitution authorize the federal government to intrude itself into the personal eating, drinking, or smoking habits of Americans?

Does the Constitution authorize the federal government to restrict or monitor any harmful or mood-altering substances that any American wants to consume?

Does the Constitution authorize the federal government to have a drug war?

Does the Constitution authorize the federal government to concern itself with the nature and quantity of any substance Americans inhale or otherwise take into their body?

Does the Constitution authorize the federal government regulate, monitor, or restrict the consumption, medical, or recreational habits of Americans?

Does the Constitution authorize the federal government to have an Office of National Drug Control Policy?

Does the Constitution authorize the federal government to have a Drug Enforcement Administration?

Does the Constitution authorize the federal government to have a drug czar?

Does the Constitution authorize the federal government a Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration?

Does the Constitution authorize the federal government to have a Controlled Substances Act?

Does the Constitution authorize the federal government to have a Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act?

Does the Constitution authorize the federal government to have a National Survey on Drug Use and Health?

Does the Constitution authorize the federal government to have a Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act?

Does the Constitution authorize the federal government to have any federal crimes other than treason, piracy, and counterfeiting?

Does the Constitution authorize the federal government to have a National Drug Control Strategy?

Does the Constitution authorize the federal government to institute drug prohibition without a constitutional amendment?

Does the Constitution authorize the federal government to have a Domestic Cannabis Eradication/Suppression Program?

Does the Constitution authorize the federal government to wage war on a plant?

Does the Constitution authorize the federal government to ban anything?

Of course it doesn’t.

Since an unconstitutional law is no law, shouldn’t conservatives be opposed root and branch to the federal government’s war on drugs instead of being its biggest supporters?

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