10 things to celebrate. Why I'm an anti-anti-American

America is under attack as never before -- not only from terrorists but also from people who provide a justification for terrorism. Islamic fundamentalists declare America the Great Satan. Europeans rail against American capitalism and American culture. South American activists denounce the United States for "neocolonialism" and oppression.

Anti-Americanism from abroad would not be such a problem if Americans were united in standing up for their own country. But in this country itself, there are those who blame America for most of the evils in the world. On the political left, many fault the United States for a history of slavery, and for continuing inequality and racism. Even on the right, traditionally the home of patriotism, we hear influential figures say that America has become so decadent that we are "slouching towards Gomorrah."

The United States is the world's oldest surviving nation: it is the first constitutionally founded nation, and the birthplace of modern civilization. Many key chapters in the book of history have opened here, and most of those that opened elsewhere have already closed. The world now dances to an American beat, a beat that is oldest here where it began. America is the first of the modern representative republics, and the birthplace of federal regionalization. It is the pioneer of the assembly line, the age of electricity, the skyscraper, the age of the airplane and helicopter, the nuclear age, the television age, the computer age, and the networking age, all of which are key components of the global status quo. The United States is the most important nation in the history of the planet, but it is weary and battered, from burning brightly, but more, from suffering the slings and arrows of those it has frightened and of those who have sought to domesticate it. The western world is in a downward spiral of demoralization and irrationality that will quite possibly end in the spastic, catastrophic collapse of western civilization, into a new dark age akin to that which followed the disintegration of the Roman empire. If the domineering habits of the corporate United States and the authoritarian and collectivistic trends throughout the western world do not abate, this will certainly transpire. The United States (or some portion thereof) can, however, be among the first nations to start anew, better, stronger, wiser.

In the meantime, America is no longer a functioning republic (constitutional representative democracy), and its failure is due not to a natural decay of its citizens, but to the manipulations of the establishment. They are transforming America, and the world, into a giant steel trap that springs when, where, and how they desire. Moreover, American society in particular has been transformed into a small collection of massive cults - plus myriad smaller ones - through a complex campaign of marginalization.

This social fragmentation is uncanny. Prominent examples of American cults are the environmentalist extremists, the animal rights extremists, the New Agers, the pro-life extremists (no abortions for anyone) and pro-choice extremists (state-subsidized abortions for everyone), the centralist-statist-authoritarians (which includes the near entirety of the government bureaucracy, and much of the law enforcement and military communities), the entitlement cult (addictees of food stamps, welfare payments, tort awards, favoritism through so-called affirmative action, the ``reparations'' movement, etc. - lawyers are prominent in this cult), the fundamentalist American protestant Christians (e.g. the Christian Coalition), the GOP, Farrakhan's Nation of Islam, the nationalist socialist populists (e.g. Pat Buchanan and Lenora Fulani), the Scientologists, the Moonies, the Mormons, the radical feminists, the Randites, national union labor, the white power / white separatist movement, the Clintonites, the DNC, the market cowboy cult (Wall Street et al.), the soccer mom cult (closely related to the New Age and centralist-statist-authoritarian cults), the metacult (e.g. Subgenii), and on and on so that most of the population is consumed. What these and the rest of the nation's cults have in common is that they are founded on false premises (indeed, are constructed within a Hegelian epistemology, and in most cases, exhibit a Hegelian power structure), and left to their own devices certainly fail in time (as any competent system dynamicist can explain).

America possesses, or possessed, a potent combination:

a constitution explicitly recognizing, for each individual citizen not convicted of a crime: freedom of speech, of assembly, and of armament, the right to fair and impartial treatment before the law, sovereign private property rights, and exemption from involuntary servitude

a constitution forbidding subordination of the nation's government, or any part thereof, to any foreign power (i.e. international court, parliament, etc.)

a vast military and economic might

a citizenry that is habitually inventive, to an economically disruptive degree

Thus America was, and to a great degree is to the present day, uniquely problematic for the establishment. (1), (2), and (4) are simply contrary to their perceived interests, as will be explained in much greater detail below, and (3) makes control of America of paramount importance to them simply in order to safeguard their hegemony. America is thus a distinguished target in their machinations.

The national character of the United States is to neither dominate nor be dominated (with the obvious exception of slavery before emancipation). This character has been eroded by urban and suburban culture, by the welfare state, by corporatization, and by the national security establishment, but it nonetheless survives recognizably. For other nations, notably those in Europe, the idea of a nation militarily and economically capable of imperial domination and the exacting of tribute, but refraining from doing so, is alien. People in these nations (and most others, of course) therefore at once distrust, fear, and admire the United States, not quite understanding, but believing it to have identified a formula for relatively unaccountable domination while maintaining prosperity and political stability. Sadly there is a grain of truth in this point of view: the US establishment certainly seeks to dominate the international stage, and to a large degree, does so. They hide behind the curtain of the nation's largely subverted electoral institutions, and they are empowered by the wealth of inventive freedom-loving Americans.

The Elephants in the Room

``The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government. But the constitution which at any time exists, 'till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole People, is sacredly obligatory upon all.''
-George Washington, in his farewell address

Here at the outset, I should briefly detail some obvious and important examples of constitutional abrogation. The state (in combination with the private banks) issues fiat currency, whereas in Article 1 Section 8 it is only authorized to ``borrow money'' and ``coin money''. The several states use this fiat currency exclusively, whereas Article 1 Section 10 commands that ``No state shall [...] make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts [...]'' (I'd be surprised if any state would actually accept coined bullion at all as payment for a permit or state income tax).

The first amendment includes this language: ``Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof''.
The income tax Congress enacted (within title 26 of the US code) exempts religious entities (corporations) from the taxes that all other individuals and corporations must pay (except eligible educational and charity corporations). From one point of view, Congress was required to provide this immunity to religions, to steer clear of the ``free exercise'' clause. However, by taxing nearly everything and everyone except religions, in reality they made an end run around the first amendment, subsidizing the creation, maintenance, and prosperity of religions (directly violating the ``establishment'' clause), and violating the ``free exercise'' clause by making religion an activity with Congressionally subsidized profits.

The provision of Article 1 Section 8 that ``The Congress shall have power [...] To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries'' is invoked to justify federal statutes that allow so-called ``intellectual property'' (books, movies, music, software, etc.) to be bought and sold like so many sacks of wheat, whereas a sound literal reading of the provision permits no such transfer of exclusive rights. The preeminent exclusive right contemplated by the framers is the exclusive right of the creator to decide who will produce, disseminate, or practice the creation, and on what terms. Copyrights and patents, to be constitutional, must remain under the control of the actual original creators. Any construal of the provision that ostensibly permits a denial to the creator of that right, or of any other exclusive right held to derive from the provision, is void. Moreover, any interpretation of the provision that is inconsistent with Amendment 1 (``Congress shall make no law [...] abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press [...]'') is void. Constitutional rights and immunities are directly applicable in unabridged and undiluted form in the criminal law context, so the constitution is brazenly flouted in the copyright and patent regimes.

The Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) makes various forms of plainly constitutionally protected expression, or acts prerequisite to them, federal felonies carrying fines up to $500,000 and imprisonment up to 5 years (or both) for the first offense and up to $1,000,000 and 10 years imprisonment thereafter. The law empowers the state to decide, unilaterally and without more specific provisions in law, whether a particular technology ``is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected''. A general purpose computer (an ordinary personal computer, for example) is extraordinarily effective in circumventing such measures, so that the state could criminalize them all (theoretically) simply by finding that that is their primary purpose. In fact, the law commands that ``No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof'' that facilitates circumvention, and since nearly all actual circumvention systems are computer programs that run on general purpose computers, the law in fact inevitably criminalizes general purpose computers. Because DMCA is ambiguous on the question, however, Fritz Hollings is threatening to introduce the Security Systems Standards and Certification Act (SSSCA) making these draconian restrictions explicit.

The commandment of Article 1 Section 9 that ``No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.'' is daily abrogated in court through the tort system. As a result, the guarantee that ``No person shall [...] be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law [...]'' (Amendment 5) and that ``No state shall [...] deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law [...]'' (Amendment 14) are routinely violated with respect to property.

In the introduction to The Constitution of the USA - Analysis and Interpretation (1996 GPO printing, published by the US Senate and the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress), Killian and Costello write that ``The demise of substantive due process, apparent in the 1950s, is a fact today insofar as the validity of economic legislation is concerned [...]''. The source and the conclusion are sterling.

The guarantee that ``No state shall [...] deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.'' (Amendment 14) is annihilated by regimes of so-called affirmative action (coercive state-enforced race, ethnic, and gender favoritism). Such regimes created by Congress and enforced by the corporate United States are abrogations of Amendment 10 (``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.'')

As a result of arms regulation and prohibition regimes enacted by Congress (chiefly those of 1934, 1968, 1986, 1993, and 1994), and innumerable such regimes (some effectively constituting unabashed and undiluted bans on all firearms) enacted at more local levels, the guarantee that ``the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.'' (Amendment 2, safeguarding the ability of the common citizenry to defend itself) is in shambles. In fact, the second amendment recognizes a much stronger right than even the first amendment, since it restrains all infringement on the right to have and carry weapons, by any public law or private contract, not simply infringement by act of Congress.

The guarantee that ``Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.'' (Amendment 13, ratified 1865-Dec-6) was effectively repealed in large part by Amendment 16 (ratified 1913-Apr-8), which reads ``The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census of enumeration.'' Moreover, the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that Amendment 16 does not create any new federal authority, and that income taxes were consistent with the Constitution with or without the income tax amendment (i.e., has not conceded the significance of Amendment 13). (c.f. Stanton v. Baltic Mining Co., 240 U.S. 103, 112 (1916), Bowers v. Kerbaugh-Empire Co., 271 U.S. 170, 173-174 (1926), 26 USC §1, 26 USC §61, and 26 USC §63.) The return filing requirement (26 USC §6011) obviously infringes the constitutional right under the Amendment 5 not to ``be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself'': a filing is obviously testimony, and someone who refuses to pay taxes must either reveal the violation or commit perjury. The Supreme Court of the United States has never conceded this, even though it has conceded a nearly identical point regarding compliance with the provisions of the National Firearms Act.

The clause of Article 1 Section 8 authorizing Congress ``To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions'' was effectively repealed by Amendment 13, yet the military draft has been activated many times since 1865.

As a centerpiece of the War on Drugs, the guarantee that ``Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.'' (Amendment 8) is routinely abrogated. The guarantees of due process of Amendments 5 and 14 are routinely abrogated, both in the War on Drugs, and even more brazenly, whenever an accusation of terrorism or illegal immigration is levelled. The War on Drugs itself centers on federal statutes and regulations that have no legitimate constitutional underpinning, and so are utterly illegitimate.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, is a rogue agency. Their primary business is the systematic abrogation of Amendment 2. Regarding alcohol and tobacco, their business is the abrogation of Amendments 4, 5, 9 (``The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.''), and 10. They also abrogate Amendments 4, 5, 9, and 10, with respect to firearms, of course.
The Internal Revenue Service is also a rogue agency, whose primary business is the abrogation of Amendments 4, 5, 8, and 13.

The Drug Enforcement Administration is also a rogue agency, whose mission is justified speciously with the ``provide for the [...] general welfare'' clause of Article 1 Section 8, a clause which so liberally interpreted permits the corporate United States to do anything not explicitly forbidden - clearly not the true intent or meaning of the clause, a distortion which in any case is clearly superseded by Amendments 9 and 10. The DEA is in roughly the same business as the ATF and IRS, abrogating Amendments 4, 5, 8, 9, and 10. Finally, as any informed, rational, honest observer can attest, the War on Drugs actually harms the general welfare.

The vital pillars of the current establishment regime are:

the tort law system (non-contract civil suits)
the compulsory citizen jury and the jury-culling racket
the military draft in time of war
the national income tax and the withholding system
state and local sales and property taxes
Federal Reserve style central banking (fiat currency, central authority on loan policies) and fractional reserve banking (by inferior banks)
state borrowing and bond issues
non-employee stockholders
mergers and acquisitions of companies that compete with each other
single entities holding stock in companies that compete with each other
transferable copyrights
transferable patents
state-operated primary schooling free to attendees
state-licensed, state-regulated broadcast and cablecast corporate empires that monopolize the mass media
the winner-take-all, gerrymanderable electoral system
constant community patrolling and policing by state agents

The entrenched establishment of the US will resist, at any cost, changes that threatens these pillars. They expect to parlay them - each of which, without exception, is a dangerous corruption - into global economic and political hegemony.

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