NULLIFY NOW!

In the face of the growing behemoth known as the American federal government, states and individual citizens are rediscovering the Tenth Amendment as a defense against tyrannical and unconstitutional measures taken by the fed. Recalling the power assigned to the states by the Founding Fathers, the term “state nullification” has begun to creep back into the American vocabulary as a defense mechanism against this growing Leviathan, even featured as a topic of discussion on Judge Napolitano’s new show Freedom Watch, which aired on August 7 on the Fox Business Network.

In an effort to promote the concept of state nullification, the Tenth Amendment Center and WeRefuse.com have launched Nullify Now!, a speaking tour that has been dubbed “your ticket to freedom.”

Set to take place on September 4 in Ft. Worth, Texas, October 10 in Orlando, Florida, October 23 in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and concluding on January 29, 2011 in Phoenix, Arizona, the speaking tour will feature a variety of knowledgeable speakers, including New York Times best-selling author Thomas E. Woods, author of Nullification: How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21 Century, Jim Babka of DownsizeDC, and Jack Hunter, radio personality and columnist. Joe Wolverton II, a Constitutional lawyer and professor of American government who writes for The New American, will be speaking at the "Nullify Now" event in Chattanooga on October 23.

Sponsors of the speaking tour include Campaign for Liberty, Young Americans for Liberty, and The John Birch Society. Additionally, organizations like Don't Tread on Me: Rise of the Republic, Liberty Pulse, and The New American magazine are national supporters of Nullify Now!

According to its website, “Nullify Now! Is a multi-city event tour focused on education and activism on a state level to say NO to unconstitutional federal ‘laws’-which, in reality, are not laws at all.”

Focusing on the Founding principles of the United States Constitution, the tour will educate viewers about the Tenth Amendment, the powers of the state including that of nullification, and a variety of issues that can be resolved by state nullification.

On February 18, The New American’s Patrick Krey wrote this of nullification:

State nullification is actually an elaborate term for a simple concept that is taught to young children. When a child has a problem with another child who is verbally teasing him or her, they are often told ‘ignore them and they’ll go away’. State nullification basically follows this same directive. If the feds pass a law that a state deems to be outside the boundaries of its proper constitutional authority, the state will simple ignore the law and refuse to comply with it. This might sound revolutionary to some, but it shouldn’t. It’s already happened.

Krey goes on to cite well-documented examples of the states resorting to nullification, including with regards to the Firearms Freedom Act and the Real ID Act.

Similarly, William Jasper’s August 6 TNA article addressed nullification as a viable option to combat Obamacare, and explained the importance of nullification:

One of the most important and encouraging developments in recent times is the reassertion by the states of their sovereign powers against federal usurpation. The Framers of our Constitution well understood the tendencies of government toward encroachment and did not intend that the states should be helpless before an inexorable, centralizing national government. The states have the right (and duty) to resist unconstitutional arrogations by Washington of powers constitutionally reserved to the states. A principle form of resistance in this regard is for the state government simply to declare the offending federal law, regulation, or edict null and void and to refuse to enforce or implement it.

Proponents of state nullification, including those presenting the speaking tour, see it as an applicable option to cap and trade, Obamacare, and “other unconstitutional expansions of federal power through nullification.”

Speaker Thomas E. Woods is a reputable authority on state nullification and should prove to be a captivating guest at the speaking tour. In his appearance on the August 7 episode of Freedom Watch, Woods championed the lawsuits filed by the states against Obamacare as an example of states reclaiming their authority: “[States] weren’t intended to be doormats and litter boxes.”

However, Woods adds that the states should not turn to the courts when they believe there is unconstitutional overreach. “If the federal government can just monopolize the determination of what its powers are, it’s going to keep acquiring new powers. The states have to have some counterbalance in check and federal courts, ultimately, for whatever victories you might win once in awhile, cannot perform this role because they are an interested party. They are one of the parties in dispute between the states and the government. You don’t refer disputes between you and your neighbor to your wife.”

Overall, Woods defends nullification as the best option available to the states because of how far removed we are from the system founded by our Founding Fathers. “The system is rigged. The system is broken. The system is the opposite of what the Framers tried to give us. Thomas Jefferson imagined that the states would act as the sentinels of the liberty of the people. They would protect the people from the unconstitutional overreaches and those powers have by and large been stripped from the states over the years and they need to be reclaimed.”

Judge Napolitano said it best when he concluded his interview with Thomas Woods. “These are exciting times we live in. Who would have thought in 2010 we would be talking about the principles that were so dear to Thomas Jefferson? Your book Nullifcation has brought this to the floor.”

One has to remember the structure of government follows the delegation of authority from the People. The federal government does not have jurisdiction over the states. It cannot force the state to implement a federal law. The federal government has jurisdiction over individuals. Likewise, the state government and local governments have jurisdiction over individuals. That jurisdiction is further limited by the metes and bounds of geography. Finaly, that jurisdiction is further parsed by jurisdiction over subject matter. The federal jurisdiction in that regard is enumerated and is supposed to be specific. The state jurisdiction is general - however the state’s police powers of regulation over the individual are supposed to be constrained to the prohibition of actions that pose a substantial injury to general public health and safety.

The federal government “buys” power beyond that enumerated through the so-called spending power. It bribes the states into participating in a federal program like health care, over which it has no enumerated power. It becomes a parasite off state jurisdiction and authority.

The state, in turn, has expanded its police powers to use regulation to advance or promote a collective public benefit. It is just as much a violator of individual rights as the federal government is of state’s rights.

He makes it sound osoooo easy. If they pass a law you don't like, ignore it. He fails to point out that that can spell the end to $Million$ in fed $$ for roads, etc.

It's a start. The next step is to realize they have no business bribing our states with our money to pass laws we don't want. I got off on a tangent one time and posted this:

Posts on a number of threads at FR have correctly pointed out the damage done by many types of federal grants, dispensed with strings attached to states, and I’d been meaning to jot down some thoughts on the topic and respond. Of course, now I can’t find any of those threads, so I’ll just start one of my own. In reality, this is an issue of such importance it probably deserves its own thread.
The offer of “federal funds” in exchange for the state taking some action desired by the feds is an implicit admission that it’s an issue on which the feds have no Constitutional authority. If a cop tells you to do something, he doesn’t slip you a sawbuck if you do it. Your boss has no pre-existing legal right to demand that you show up for work, so in exchange for you doing so, he gives you a paycheck. If the funds are being paid to influence some issue outside the Constitutional grant of powers to the federal government, that leads to questions about the money itself: Where did the money come from? Either they had money in excess of the amount needed to care for their delegated responsibilities or they’re using money that should be used in that way for things they’re not supposed to be involved in. Then either they’ve overtaxed us and not refunded the overcharge, or they’re diverting funds needed to carry out their proper responsibilities to other ends. Or…(the actual explanation) they’re borrowing money, obligating us and our children for a debt of money used for things they admit they have no authority for.
When used to influence legislation, these grants will be used disproportionately in favor of bills that would be politically unpopular with the state’s voters. Otherwise wouldn’t whatever’s being paid for already be the law? So the feds use our own money to influence our legislatures to pass laws we don’t want, on issues the feds admit they have no Constitutional authority to meddle in. Sounds like a program ripe for termination (and corresponding reduction in taxes or borrowing), right? But there’s still a problem if we just stop doing this today.
The horse is already out of the barn. There's a lot of inertia to legislatures and the public. If the grants were stopped today, five years from now you'd probably find all the laws they paid for (speed limits, helmet laws, seatbelt laws, 0.08 BAL DUI, etc) still in force. The laws have been in place long enough they’ve become the baseline for many. Many people probably even think they’re good and necessary, that their repeal would wreak havoc on the roads and highways, just like people who hate gun rights are always prophesying blood in the streets every time someone proposes rolling back some infringement on our gun rights. If it took 20 years to get people acclimated to the idea that the federal government is allowed to have a say in what they wear on the road, it may take 20 years to educate them and the next generation, that that is not in fact the case.
I get an engineering trade magazine, and there was an article a while back sympathizing with guys who like to work on their own cars, but who’ll now be unable to rotate their own tires because it would confuse the car’s computer about which signal was coming from which tire air pressure sensor. The author seemed to feel that while the loss of autonomy was an unfortunate side effect, it was unavoidable because the alternative would be that we would all have to drive around without automated tire pressure monitoring. Onoz! What does the guy think we’ve been doing for a century now? Just because someone invented this thing, which may or may not solve a problem that doesn’t even appear to exist, I’m expected to be willing to give up the option to do something if it would mean interfering with this system, which I never asked for in the first place. See what I mean? People are idiots! And this guy’s an engineer!
So if we stop handing out highway funds today, the laws the feds bribed states to enact against their own people, with their own money, would probably stay in force, for free!
Perhaps the solution is to keep the funds giveaway rolling for a finite time in reverse. If you want federal highway funds for 2010 and subsequent years, you have to return your DUI BAL, seatbelt laws, helmet laws, speed limits, whatever, to whatever they were BEFORE the federal bribes went into effect. Then keep the new "liberty grants" in force for at least as long as the old anti-rights ones were, to undo the acclimatization damage they did. By stating only that a state must return the law to what it was pre-grant, then if there is a state populated by such government-sucking sheeple that they actually wanted harsh repressive laws absent federal involvement, and passed them without being bribed by the feds, they can keep them. The whole point here is to AVOID butting into the way voters govern their own states. Or, another approach might be to say that if the law didn't change post-grant, then the grants did no harm in that state on that topic, and grants to that state on that particular issue are terminated immediately.

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