- The 14th is also the one they used to apply the Bill Of Rights in the States, where it was never intended to apply anywhere but to the National Government.
Also look at section 4 of the 14th Amendment and Consider all the debt we have on the basis of emergency and war, and then look at the precedent this sets, to be the first time an Amendment was telling the people what they can and cannot do by it's directive language. That alone is usurpation of the Constitution, particularly also in light of the legislatures who ratified it, people who were not even elected by the people of the states of the South. It's just terrible. Sure it technically met the process but was due to wartime activity to cause its passage. I would loathe Lincoln for it if not for Britain having forced our hand by outlawing the slave trade in 1831 and creating a turmoil based on our nation's claims to freedom at the international level.
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- The Case for a Federalism Amendment
How the Tea Partiers can make Washington pay attention.
By RANDY E. BARNETT
In response to an unprecedented expansion of federal power, citizens have held hundreds of "tea party" rallies around the country, and various states are considering "sovereignty resolutions" invoking the Constitution's Ninth and Tenth Amendments. For example, Michigan's proposal urges "the federal government to halt its practice of imposing mandates upon the states for purposes not enumerated by the Constitution of the United States."
Corbis
Suffragettes celebrate the 19th Amendment, 1920.
While well-intentioned, such symbolic resolutions are not likely to have the slightest impact on the federal courts, which long ago adopted a virtually unlimited construction of Congressional power. But state legislatures have a real power under the Constitution by which to resist the growth of federal power: They can petition Congress for a convention to propose amendments to the Constitution.
Article V provides that, "on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states," Congress "shall call a convention for proposing amendments." Before becoming law, any amendments produced by such a convention would then need to be ratified by three-quarters of the states.
An amendments convention is feared because its scope cannot be limited in advance. The convention convened by Congress to propose amendments to the Articles of Confederation produced instead the entirely different Constitution under which we now live. Yet it is precisely the fear of a runaway convention that states can exploit to bring Congress to heel.
Here's how: State legislatures can petition Congress for a convention to propose a specific amendment. Congress can then avert a convention by proposing this amendment to the states, before the number of petitions reaches two-thirds. It was the looming threat of state petitions calling for a convention to provide for the direct election of U.S. senators that induced a reluctant Congress to propose the 17th Amendment, which did just that.
What sort of language would restore a healthy balance between federal and state power while protecting the liberties of the people?
One simple proposal would be to repeal the 16th Amendment enacted in 1913 that authorized a federal income tax. This single change would strike at the heart of unlimited federal power and end the costly and intrusive tax code. Congress could then replace the income tax with a "uniform" national sales or "excise" tax (as stated in Article I, section 8) that would be paid by everyone residing in the country as they consumed, and would automatically render savings and capital appreciation free of tax. There is precedent for repealing an amendment. In 1933, the 21st Amendment repealed the 18th Amendment that had empowered Congress to prohibit the sale of alcohol.
Alternatively, to restore balance between federal and state power and better protect individual liberty, the repeal of the income tax amendment could be folded into a new "Federalism Amendment" like this:
Section 1: Congress shall have power to regulate or prohibit any activity between one state and another, or with foreign nations, provided that no regulation or prohibition shall infringe any enumerated or unenumerated right, privilege or immunity recognized by this Constitution.
Section 2: Nothing in this article, or the eighth section of article I, shall be construed to authorize Congress to regulate or prohibit any activity that takes place wholly within a single state, regardless of its effects outside the state or whether it employs instrumentalities therefrom; but Congress may define and punish offenses constituting acts of war or violent insurrection against the United States.
Section 3: The power of Congress to appropriate any funds shall be limited to carrying into execution the powers enumerated by this Constitution and vested in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof; or to satisfy any current obligation of the United States to any person living at the time of the ratification of this article.
Section 4: The 16th article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed, effective five years from the date of the ratification of this article.
Section 5: The judicial power of the United States to enforce this article includes but is not limited to the power to nullify any prohibition or unreasonable regulation of a rightful exercise of liberty. The words of this article, and any other provision of this Constitution, shall be interpreted according to their public meaning at the time of their enactment.
Except for its expansion of Congressional power in Section 1, this proposed amendment is entirely consistent with the original meaning of the Constitution. It merely clarifies the boundary between federal and state powers, and reaffirms the power of courts to police this boundary and protect individual liberty.
Section 1 of the Federalism Amendment expands the power of Congress to include any interstate activity not contained in the original meaning of the Commerce Clause. Interstate pollution, for example, is not "commerce . . . among the several states," but is exactly the type of interstate problem that the Framers sought to specify in their list of delegated powers. This section also makes explicit that any restriction of an enumerated or unenumerated liberty of the people must be justified.
Section 2 then allows state policy experimentation by prohibiting Congress from regulating any activity that takes place wholly within a state. States, of course, retain their police power to regulate or prohibit such activity subject to the constraints imposed on them, for example, by Article I or the 14th Amendment. And a state is free to enter into compacts with other states to coordinate regulation and enforcement, subject to approval by Congress as required by Article I.
Section 3 adopts James Madison's reading of the taxing and borrowing powers of Article I to limit federal spending to that which is incident to an enumerated power. It explicitly allows Congress to honor its outstanding financial commitments to living persons, such its promise to make Social Security payments. Section 4 eliminates the federal income tax, after five years, in favor of a national sales or excise tax.
Finally, Section 5 authorizes judges to keep Congress within its limits by examining laws restricting the rightful exercise of liberty to ensure that they are a necessary and proper means to implement an enumerated power. This section also requires that the Constitution be interpreted according to its original meaning at the time of its enactment. But by expanding the powers of Congress to include regulating all interstate activity, the Amendment greatly relieves the political pressure on courts to adopt a strained reading of Congress's enumerated powers.
Could such a Federalism Amendment actually be adopted? Stranger things have happened -- including the adoption of each of the existing amendments. States have nothing to lose and everything to gain by making this Federalism Amendment the focus of their resistance to the shrinking of their reserved powers and infringements upon the rights retained by the people. And this Federalism Amendment would provide tea-party enthusiasts and other concerned Americans with a concrete and practical proposal by which we can restore our lost Constitution.
Mr. Barnett is a professor of constitutional law at Georgetown University and the author of "Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty" (Princeton, 2005).
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- Calls for a US Constitutional Convention (Con-Con) and the lawful bounds of loose talk on that subject
OK. Confusion need not reign.
Back to the source, Y'all. Here is a true copy:
"Article V" with the text that
A) creates the ONLY lawful authority to call a Constitutional Convention (a Con-Con) , and
B) creates the ONLY lawful authority to define a Constitutional Convention (a Con-Con) in the following quote of Article V and given bold & italics font style.
"The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or,
on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments,
which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes,
as part of this Constitution,
when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states,
or by conventions in three fourths thereof,
as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate."
ALL attempts to otherwise call or define the bounds of a US federal Con-Con is unlawful.
Such attempts by persons 5USC3331 sworn to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”
are no less than felony attempted statutory fraud.
While such speech by Congressmen WHILE PHYSICALLY IN CONGRESS is protected from examination outside of Congress, VOTES to implement such unconstitutional actions (described in that speech) effects statutory felony fraud lawfully requiring presentation to a grand jury and indictment.
The same consequence is required for the attempt to statutory felony by speech outside of Congress.
All attempts to talk such oath bound persons into perpetrating such statutory felony is also statutory felony – where the speaker may or may not have a competent criminal intent.
All witness of such felony by those competent to recognize the felony are bound to oppose the felony with particular acts else they become accessory to that felony at least in the ways defined by statutory “Misprision of Felony” and perhaps “Misprision of Treason”.
Lock, I will not perpetrate felony just because you find it convenient or have the conceit to call felony your right just because others do- those others are not my business at this moment. My witness of your NOW completely given notice of the law is such after this moment should I witness your dissemblance and equivocation crossing the bounds of wire fraud that lands within my jurisdiction I will take all such actions against your felony that the law requires of me. Lock, You will receive no second warning from me with respect to your knowing and willing trespasses against the law regarding your communications of the US Con-Con issue. My next communication on that will be an ‘information’ for a grand jury, competent to raise an indictment against you. You are not the fish I want hooked on my hook, Lock. But that want does not diminish my statutory duty with regard to you. What is so difficult or onerous about embracing the evidenced & confirmed truth and amending your behavior to match?
Take note that shifting the location of ", or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states" to immediately after "whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary" can be a defined criminal trespass.
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- Cyberspace is not a separate world from the sovereignty of nations and states, as far as our participation in it goes we are bound by the rights and responsibilities of our country's laws and by the laws in which our action of wire communication has a leg.
Your discussion does not exist outside of the law to the best of my understanding.
I did not make a threat I made a warning of the facts delineating our law and some particular contents of this discussion.
That was a delineation of the facts of our laws and how certain writings over wire are felony, and what statutory duty exists upon the witness of that felony knowingly and willingly perpetrated.
If you are threatening me with being banned from this web site for my witness of Lock's federal felony of questionable but perhaps evidenced as probable criminal intent
then perhaps you must receive take notice that of US Code TITLE 1 CHAPTER 73—OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE §18USC 1513(e). Retaliating against a witness, victim, or an informant " . . . "(e) Whoever knowingly, with the intent to retaliate, takes any action harmful to any person, including interference with the lawful employment or livelihood of any person, for providing to a law enforcement officer any truthful information relating to the commission or possible commission of any Federal offense, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both." any action you & TPP take against me from here on out requires my proper complaint and subsequent indictment.
Lock knew what he was provoking. He thinks it is smart. Lock has done this once before at Song-of-Truth -he had me banned for speaking the truth as our laws obligate. This time I have saved all the evidence of this conversation and am prepared to perform my statutory duty bringing criminal charges on those whom our law defines as criminal.
James Daniel Russell, The most practical thing you can do is close this discussion.
You TPP community what be served by not deleting this conversation so the law's thornier parts need not be revealed again, but in a context where some may play the fool in their passion and so bring themselves and perhaps TPP under indictment.
I would be willing to bet some progressive US attorney would just love to bring TPP under indictment. Given Lock's persistence it is plausible that he is paid for that purpose.
What do you bet that Lock Piat is not a real person?
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- The Treason is not Lock's unless he is an officer of the court where Va18.2-481(5) statutory treason of resisting "the execution of the laws under the color of its authority"
With Lock the matter would more likely consist of Title 18 CHAPTER 63—MAIL FRAUD AND OTHER FRAUD OFFENSES unless he has covert official capacity.
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- The matter cannot reasonably be thought to include mail fraud - wire fraud establishes the jurisdiction of USC Title 18 Chapter 63.
It appears that there are 3 or 4 counts in this discussion alone.
It will take be a while to present them as a pro forma indictment covering all the elements of the law required for conviction.
It is a bit of work but I need to do it for other reasons as well.
If in fact Lock is a real person and/or has never oathed his notice of our Constitution it is unlikely that criminal intent could be establish beyond a reasonable doubt – but probable cause appears to exist all the same, so the ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ evidence may exist outside this discussion.
In the mean time, having taken notice of Title 18 of the US Code Chapter 73—OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE please do not bring yourself into harms way for no good purpose by destroy the evidence of crime as was done in the discussion where a W.Va lawyer gave congress powers that it did not have.
Apparently the Va Attorney General took notice of my duty bound but dismissive 18USC4 presentation on that “PLENIARY POWER” conceit (back peddled by equivocation after the evidence was destroyed)– The A.G. incorporated the logic into a speech and that point received thunderous applause.
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- You posted something for input, edification, and opportunity of us here.
If some must find a means to assert superiority and supremacy over others through belittling, demeaning, and other acts that are in direct violation of what they claim is the rule and law, it would seem they are here for other reasons pursuant to such hypocrisy.
Surely words will fly, as fists once did when we were in closer proximity to each other, but to go well beyond capability to be constructive to the purposes of the discussion is disruption, and demonstrates a less than noble intention.
As all is opine, but there is certainty to the lack of the law governing every act and deed of every person here unless usurpation of the Constitution has taken place and it is turned on its head, and/or this is now a Communist Country, it would seem closure of the discussion to demonstrate the certainty these are not true is in order even though this also shows the detractors that they can get a thread closed by their numerous attempts to hi-jack it by all means necessary, insult being another means of hi-jacking, more nuclear and likely in hopes an admin closes it.
To be frank we're not sorry our discussion has been fruitful amongst we who believe in Our Written Constitution and wish to make sure it is here holding government to its limits 1000 years from now and amended rarely, and we're also not sorry that the lack of being the uneducated that you assumed of us has not proven true except always according to the legends in your own mind.
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- To all,
I am closing this discussion and asking that Mark take a look at it at his convenience. I have received complaints regrading legal threats being levied here. This is a forum and as such I would question anyone taking legal action for anything stated here in the form of an opinion. But since what has been shared is well above my level of legal understanding, I feel the best course it to close the discussion until further notice.
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Thomas Jefferson
Inboxx 
liberty.quotes@centre.telemanage.caApr 20 (1 day ago)
to me"I am not among those who fear the people.They, and not the rich, are our dependence for continued freedom.And to preserve their independence,We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.We must make our election between economy and libertyor profusion and servitude.
If we run into such debt, as that we must be taxed in our meat andin our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors andour amusements, for our calling and our creedsas the people of England are, our people, like them,must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four,give the earnings of fifteen of theseto the government for their debts and daily expenses;and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread,we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes;have no time to think,no means of calling our miss-managers to accountbut be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselvesto rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers.
Our land-holders, too, like theirs,retaining indeed the title and stewardship of estates called theirsbut held really in trust for the treasury,must wander, like theirs, in foreign countries,and be contented with penury, obscurity, exile,and the glory of the nation.
This example reads to us the salutary lesson,that private fortunes are destroyed by publicas well as by private extravagances.
And this is the tendency of all human governments.A departure from principle in one instancebecomes a precedent for the second;that second for a third; and so on, till the bulk of society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery,to have no sensibilities left but for sinning and suffering.
Then begins, indeed, the bellum omnium in omnia,which some philosophers observing to be so general in this world,have mistaken for the natural, instead of the abusive state of man.
And the fore-horse of this frightful team is public debt.Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression."-- Thomas Jefferson(1743-1826), US Founding Father, drafted the Declaration of Independence, 3rd US PresidentSource: Letter to Samuel Kercheval, Monticello, July 12, 1816http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Thomas.Jefferson.Quote.73F8
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