Posted on 03/28/2010 11:46:52 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Washington is out of control. It does as it likes, without restraint. It spends American money and American lives to fight remote wars for which it cannot provide a plausible reason. It determines what our children will be taught, who we can hire and fire, to whom we can sell our houses, whether we can defend ourselves, even what names we can call each other. The feds read our email and track the web sites we visit, make us hop around barefoot in airports at the command of surly unaccountable rentacops. They search us at random in train stations without even a pretense of probable cause. We have no influence over them, no way of resisting.
Except, perhaps, to ignore them.
Washington has learned to insulate itself from interference by the population. Huge impenetrable bureaucracies beyond public control make regulations that amount to laws, spending God knows how much money to do God knows what for the benefit of the interest groups that run the government. These bureaucrats cannot be fired and usually cannot be named. Congress, like the bureaucracies, serves not the United States but the big lobbies. The looters of Wall Street wreck the lives of millions, and get millions in bonuses for doing it instead of the end of a rope.
Further, the federal government simply doesn’t work. It is clogged up, constipated, gridlocked, using antiquated technology to do badly things it ought to do and things it oughtn’t. In large part this is because federal hiring rests on the desires of racist and feminist lobbies instead of suitability for the work to be done. Whole departments—HUD, Education—do much harm and little good. IRS is ruthless, incompetent, and unaccountable, the tax laws burdensome and crafted for the benefit of special interests and of Washington. I can change my address with my bank online in five minutes and know that it has been done; IRS requires a paper form and six to eight weeks to effect the change, and you don’t know whether it has been done. The goons of TSA leer at our daughters with their porno=scanners. The VA can easily take six months to provide a veteran’s records, when it could be done online in five seconds. The Pentagon spends a trillion a year, precious little of which has anything to do with defending America, but can’t defeat a small group of badly outnumbered men armed with rifles and RPGs; the intelligence agencies were unable to warn them of the prospect.
The government doesn’t work. It is broken. It can’t be fixed. It can’t be fixed because only those within it could, and their interest lies in not fixing it.
The only remedy short of armed rebellion is civil disobedience at the level of the states. Clear constitutional justification for refusal to obey Washington lies in the Tenth Amendment:
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
A great many states now begin to do a great many things counter to Washington’s wishes. I think it wise to keep resistance within the framework of the Constitution, but the entire question comes down to a blunt truth: No law extends beyond the lawmaker’s power to enforce it. Congress can pass a law against gravitation, but can’t prevent things from falling when released from a height. The federal government made alcohol illegal but, in the face of massive public disregard, couldn’t make it stick.
What happens if, as may happen, California legalizes marijuana—not just for contrived medical purposes, but legalizes it, period? I search in vain for the Marijuana Clause in the Constitution. The feds do not have the manpower to enforce federal laws within California without the help of the police of California. What happens if a state passes a law saying that its citizens cannot be forced to buy health insurance? What can Washington do? It can persecute individuals, but a state, or thirty states, are another thing. The FBI can arrest any one person, but it cannot arrest Wyoming.
Much depends on how sick people really are of the ever-growing thicket of laws, regulation, imposed political correctness, surveillance, and having to live according to the dictates of remote elites with whom they have nothing in common.
At bottom, Washington’s power is economic. The feds rely for control on taxing money from the states and giving some of it back in exchange for obedience. They cannot arrest Wyoming, but they can deny it federal highway funds. This technique provides de facto control over everything from kindergarten to MIT.
Now, if Idaho passes a law (I’m making this up) saying that no restrictions on the ownership of guns will be enforced within the state, Washington might choose discretion over valor and ignore it. Legalizing marijuana, however, or refusing to accept compulsory medical care, would be a direct if not necessarily intentional challenge to the power of the central government. The feds could not afford to let either of these things slide. The danger of the precedent to the grip of the governing classes would be too great. A deadly serious confrontation would ensue.
What could, or would, the federal government do in response to defiance? Send the Marines to occupy Sacramento? Or the FBI to arrest Arnold and the legislature of California?
Or cut off California’s financial water? No bailout for the state’s tottering economy, no more fat subsidies to the universities, and so on?
The question is how ugly might things get. Washington may be able to make the states back down. It may not. The peril for the feds is that it might occur to the states that, while they get their money from Washington, Washington gets its money from the states. The central government depends absolutely on the states, whereas the states would get along swimmingly without the current central government.
How tired are Americans of a dysfunctional, oppressive Washington, unconcerned for its citizens, unaccountable and tending fast toward the totalitarian, that sprawls across the continent like an armed leech of malign intent? That is the question. The first time a populous states says “No,” if such a state ever does, we will get the answer. The United States has been free, prosperous, and reasonably well governed for a long time. It no longer is. Things go downward, within and without.
Nothing lasts, change comes, and things break. We shall see. Give it five years.
I have a STRONG suspicion this is exactly the idea behind Obama’s Civilian Defense Army Corps...in effect a Federal Military answering mostly to the Executive Branch and able to be “deployed” into any rebelling state to bring Federal muscle to bear.
“Give it five years.”
I’m thinking one or less.
What Good Can a Handgun Do Against an Army.....?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/backroom/2312894/posts?page=242
When there are almost no checks and balances with a Far Leftist creep president, that is never going to bring anything good.
The Far Left hates the America we love. That is what Obama’s “Change” is all about. Now we have seen it, we lived it.
The campaign slogan against Obama should be “Change it back.”
Should be REQUIRED reading for everyone on this board!
Or keep it a simple “Change Back”.
Please ~ping~ me to articles relating to the 10th Amendment/States Rights so I can engage the pinger.
I've stopped monitoring threads and unilaterally adding names to the ping list, so if you want on or off the list just say so.
Tenth Amendment Chronicles Thread
Tenth Amendment Center
The Right Side of Life/State Initiatives
Sovereign States
Firearms Freedom Act
Health Care Nullification
| CLICK HERE TO FIND YOUR STATE REPRESENTATIVES |
Well, as the guy observed, the money originates within the boundaries of the various states anyway, so it’s not really an issue.
I'm probably missing your point(not hard for me to do). The income tax essentially gave the federales carte blanche to dip their grimy hands into our pockets to tax and spend to their heart's content. It comes out of our pay checks, so unless we can repeal or modify the 16th we're pretty much stuck with the present system. The States could potentially withhold certain point of sale taxes earmarked for the federales to make a statement, and depending on the number of States involved could put a significant hole in the feral budget. At least temporarily. The most significant impact of course would be the reality of the States actually doing it.
The may be other ways the States could financially impact the federales, I'm just not informed enough about the issue to know what they might be.
Well, so long as we keep sending it in anyway. I see no reason the states can't decide that the feds are in breach of their agreement with the states and cut off the spigot.
Again, I'm following. Are you suggesting the States pass a law or better, a State constitutional amendment, to circumvent feral withholding??? Maybe I just need more coffee. It's been sortof a long day...
My basic point is that money going to the feds originates in the states, sent in by citizens of that state, and in many cases written on institutions chartered by the state. There are many whose cooperation is required for withholding to work smoothly and they're all residents of one state or another.
I don't find it to be beyond belief that a large percentage of those in some state, with the assent and backing of the state government, might at some point cease to send in those withheld funds.
I have no idea what form the legal mechanics might take. Perhaps it would simply be civil disobedience writ large. It obviously won't work if an individual does it, whatever it is would have to be pandemic to render the fed helpless in the face of it. I'm just elaborating slightly on the theme the guy brought out in his article, and one I've touched on before myself.
The people of each state governs the state.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor
prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively,
or to the people.
The people and the state are the same thing,
but the representives have an obligation to the majority as long as it is not unconstitutional, thats why we need to keep after our reps and make sure they do what we want them to do.
If we are not the majority, then there are some things we may have to live with unless it is prohibited by the bill of rights.
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