[kpp_kpp]

I'll prime the pump for brainstorming: pick a date by which everyone who is a registered Republican and truly cares about this issue goes and changes their party affiliation. It doesn't matter which way you lean, there is an alternate party out there for you (Libertarian, Constitution, etc.). If not, or if you don't have the ability to choose the party you really like, just change your registration to Independent.

You can still vote for your RINOs if you want (they all are over this issue of the Constitution), but if the GOP all of a sudden (whatever the time period) lost a noticable percentage of its base they might perk up their ears.

Another piece of this idea is that it would work with those want to coordinate with Dems on getting their voices heard (by them leaving their party too)... if our two party system got the rug pulled out from under it in the next little while some true progress on "government by the people" could be made.

(Maybe that idea is as unlikely as trying to get a justice impeached but it is at least something an individual can do.) FWIW, I am not an (R)

[Blood of Tyrants]

Have you actually CALLED your Congresscritters?

[rwfromkansas]

Just tell Congress to grow some balls and ignore the decisions.

It is starting to look like we may not get any retirements.

If nobody announces by tomorrow, it looks like yet ANOTHER year will pass with no retirements.

[Nat Turner]

http://www.archives.gov/national_archives_experience/charters/declaration_zoom_2.html ....
We need to read this and get back to fundementals:
The Declaration of Independence: A Transcription

---

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

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, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

---

The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:

Column 1
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton

Column 2
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton

Column 3
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton

Column 4
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean

Column 5
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark

Column 6
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton

[pfony1]

IMHO, the "Supremes" have given the GOP two excellent reasons to support GWB's selection of conservatives to the Supreme Court:

"A vote for Lieberman is a vote to let the government seize your home and give it to someone who is "better connected"...

"A vote for Reid is a vote to prohibit religious expression from all public life and, in due course, from private life as well..."

[Theodore R.]

Yea, good idea, but it won't work like most good ideas. Why? Republican primary voters for years have just routinely ratified the choices recommended to them by the top leadership. Many of our voters, I suspect, are so grossly informed that they barely recognize familiar names and go with those. Nothing arouses the "grass roots" any more, if indeed there are any "grass roots" left.

[ellery]

Don't forget your state and local representatives. I've called or written my state senators and representatives, my city councilperson, my future mayor, and the local reporter who covers the eminent domain issue. I got a response back from my state senator -- he will be proposing legislation to limit eminent domain to bona fide public use. My local reporter also wrote back and said he would keep the heat on the issue.

[NECAWA]

There are many fronts on which this battle can and should be waged. For one, I’d like to see the Republican Party senators and senatorial candidates emphasize the imminent threat this decision posses to property rights of minorities in poor communities. Coupled with a pledge to confirm judges who will preserve constitutional protections, this might serve the dual purpose of winning minority support for republican candidates and gaining support for the president’s future nominees.

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

"As revolutionary instruments (when nothing but revolution will cure the evils of the State) [secret societies] are necessary and indispensable, and the right to use them is inalienable by the people." --Thomas Jefferson to William Duane, FE 8 1803.

Where are you when circumstance demands that a new revolution is justified to save the purpose of the original nation?

[stinkerpot65]

Get the Orkin man on the the Supreme Court.

[southernnorthcarolina]

I hate to quote a Dem on this issue, but Tip O'Neill's maxim, "All politics is local," comes to mind.

On the eminent domain issue (which, to me, is vastly more important than the Ten Commandments issue, and will resonate much more profoundly with the public, because their homes are potentially involved, as opposed to the Courthouse lawn they almost never see), sure, write your Senators and your Congress Member -- but also your State Senator, your State Representative, your Mayor, your City Councilors, your County Commissioners, as well as candidates for those positions.

Pin them down. Ask then if they would oppose eminent domain for private development in their jurisdiction. Don't let them evade answering the question on the grounds that state or local laws forbid the practice. State and local laws can be changed. "Will you, Commissioner Smith, pledge to oppose eminent domain for private development in the event that such a practice is now permitted in your jurisdiction, or becomes permissible in the future?"

Such an approach is, I think, more productive than asking a Senator to pledge not to vote to approve a Judge who is a private property rights opponent. Get the issue down to the local level, and the rest will take care of itself.

[R.W.Ratikal]

Yes I have called my Representatives and my Senators to protest the lessening of private property rights by the Supreme Court's latest march against freedom.

What can be done is for each of us to urge our representatives to execute the checks and balances placed in the Constitution by our founding fathers.

It's far past the time for the Legislative Branch to curb the excesses of the Judicial Branch. A Bill should be introduced in Congress to reinstate private property rights recently struck down by the SCOTUS.

[Republic If You Can Keep It]

My answer: hope & pray that Alberto Gonzales is not the next Supreme Court pick.

We need a reliable conservative.

[Republic If You Can Keep It]

My answer: hope & pray that Alberto Gonzales is not the next Supreme Court pick.

We need a reliable conservative.

[Dead Dog]

Find out where the Fantastic 5 hold property, and push for other "Public Uses" that said Justices would have enjoyed.