Posted on 06/11/2011 9:55:30 AM PDT by marktwain
Montanans protecting their state's Firearms Freedom Act have filed a brief with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals asking whether the judges there will choose a "tyrannical" Washington or a federal government restrained by the Constitution.
Quoting Alexander Hamilton's statement that the federalism system was intended to suppress "attempts of the government to establish tyranny," the brief filed by the Montana Shooting Sports Association, the Second Amendment Foundation and MSSA President Gary Marbut of Missoula states:
"The government may argue that it is not, in its current incarnation, tyrannical. The national government usually abides by the law, typically protects its citizens' rights, and always celebrates in its peaceful transfers of power. Whatever fear appellants or anyone else may have of its becoming tyrannical, the government may argue, is no more than disingenuous alarmism," the brief explains.
"Such an argument would be wrong."
The brief explains the federal government already has proven that it is tyrannical.
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
More like the last 146 years.
MOre government = Less Freedom
It really IS that simple.
Anyone that thinks we are free are beyond repair as an American.
So with the Left(Mussolini was a socialist, as was his shoe-maker father), more gov = more freedom. Ask the Rats.
May God boost these efforts dramatically.
The founding fathers created a masterful document with the constitution, and recognized that only groups of people with conflicting interests can and will act on a regular basis to keep other, competing groups from amassing too much power.
Typically this is thought of as the balance of federal power, between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government. However, there are many other such balances, one of the most important being the balance of power between the federal government, the State governments, and the people.
With the passage of the 17th Amendment to the US constitution, the direct election of senators, done in a spirit of greater democracy, instead resulted in a horrific imbalance of power. The States, no longer able to appoint senators, were stripped of their ability to restrain overreaching federal power. And likewise, the people were denuded of State protection from federal involvement in their individual lives.
Repeal of the 17th Amendment is impossible, because senators revel in no longer having to respect or act in the name of, and with responsibility to, their elective State. In fact, many senate seats are just blatantly purchased by wealthy men for that very reason, so that they only need to pay any attention at all to their State except for a brief time prior to reelection.
But there is an alternative, in effect recreating the senate, but as a new, independent body that is a function of, and responsible to, the individual States, acting to not only restrain federal power, but to reduce federal power to its constitutional boundaries.
It is a Second Court of the United States. Subordinate to the US Supreme Court, the Second Court is *not* a federal court, yet it is superior to the federal District Courts.
Like the senate, it is composed of two State judges, appointed by their respective State legislatures, to six year terms concurrent with their two senators. Unlike federal courts, whose purpose is to determine the constitutionality of laws, their purpose is to determine the *jurisdiction* of cases brought before the federal bench.
That is, once the lower federal courts have examined the law, up through the federal District Courts, as do some 8,000 cases every year, instead of going to the SCOTUS, they would first go to the Second Court.
While any federal judge can seize on a local or State civil or criminal case, and in effect, “federalize” it, for once there would be a court that after hearing the cases constitutional merits, could choose to decide that it is *not* a federal issue, so the case should be returned to the State of origin for determination as a State, not a federal issue.
A prime example of this is the State death penalty. Federal judges will often intervene in such cases solely because they do not *like* the death penalty, under any circumstance. So much so that it takes decades before a convicted murderer can be executed, if then.
But the Second Court, representing the States, could intervene, and tell the lower federal judge that this case is *not* a federal case, so it will be remanded to the State, which may then carry out the execution with no further delay.
Yet doing so will just prevent future growth of federal intervention by activist judges. How will the Second Court actually reduce the size of the federal government?
With its one original jurisdiction. That any lawsuits between the States and the federal government must *first* be held in front of the Second Court. This, in effect, gives the States a solid ability to nullify onerous federal law, no matter if it has been around 50 years.
Importantly, as a check to the Second Court, so that it does not have too much power, cases heard before it can still be appealed to the SCOTUS. But then, as now, the SCOTUS can only hear a few dozen of those 8,000 cases appealed to it each year. But if the SCOTUS refuses to hear those cases, instead of being returned to the federal District Courts, they will be returned to the Second Court, and if it has decided that the case is a State issue, that is the end of it.
As a permanent body of 100 judges, the Second Court will thenceforth act as a permanent pruning mechanism, to keep the federal government limited to its constitutional authority, and nothing more.
This is a dramatic statement but is not in fact true.
When the government borrows money from itself as it has done recently it is in fact an illegal tax.
QE1 and QE2 were both examples of the FED creating money by selling itself debt. This creation of money dilutes the money supply eventually devaluing the dollars held by the public.
By devaluing the money held by the people in the US and foreign holders of US currency it shifts wealth from the private holders to the central government in effect imposing a tax on all privately held wealth.
So in reality the present generation is not in reality imposing debt on the future generations but is in fact imposing an illegal and unconstitutional tax on the world because the entire world hold US currency.
Ping
Not that it would make much difference in the long run but it might have been nice to see a Firearms Freedom Act case in a more "fair and balanced" court instead of the most often overturned 9th Circus. BUT, it is what it is.
Join the debates as they happen this summer. Journal of the Federal Convention
I quite agree. But this perversion of the interstate commerce clause has been with us since “Ol’ Frank”; and the perversion of the general welfare clause since LBJ.
That they are wrong is a given. But how to correct them, when none of the federal branches is willing to do so, is the problem.
This is why I propose a Second Court of the United States. It would again perform the role that the US senate was supposed to perform, before the 17th Amendment. But even more, it recognizes that the federal government now *mostly* performs activities that it is not authorized to by the constitution.
And it is a means to slowly and gradually correct those errors, reducing the government in size and authority: of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, as well as the bureaucracy.
Right now, the Republicans in congress are preparing to introduce a constitutional amendment that with a concurrent resolution from 2/3rds of the States, a federal law, regulation or other edict could be overturned.
But it is a futile gesture. Even on the off chance that 34 legislatures, 2/3rds of the 7382 State legislators, agree on a single resolution, it will still only overturn a *single* federal law. It would take a millennium to reduce the federal government in that time.
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