Open Letter to Rick Santorum

Mr. Santorum, you are correct; Judeo-Christian values were central in the founding of the United States. From the Declaration of Independence, to the individual writings of the founding fathers, this is abundantly clear. In his writings, Tocqueville noted that while the formal separation of church was a vital aspect of the new republic, Christian faith and liberty  "were intimately united" and "reigned in common over the same country." He believed that in the United States, "the safeguard of morality is religion, and morality is the best security of laws, as well as the surest pledge of freedom." And those familiar with American History are aware that the crusade to abolition slavery and expand civil rights were primarily driven by people of faith.

But, for various reasons, I am concerned about your highly religious rhetoric. Nowhere in the writings of the founding fathers do we encounter sentiments that politicians and the state must propagate faith and virtue. They must form and flourish in the womb of civil society, in families, churches and charities. Those who seek to nourish religious sentiments and institutions through the state, will foster the corruption and the dependency of the church. Regarding your focus on contentious social issues; the 10th Amendment dictates that issues like gay marriage and abortion are not the concern of the federal government, rather they are under the jurisdiction of states and communities. Thus, you are fostering the centralization of power that most conservatives criticize President Obama for.

Let your faith continue to guide your private and public decisions, because the constitution grants us freedom of, not freedom from religion. But, be aware that the surest defense of religious liberty is not a strong central government that intervenes in social life, but the system of limited government and federalism established by our constitution. And we ask that you have faith that America's rich Judeo-Christian traditions will continue to flourish without the help of the state and without your campaign rhetoric. G-d and good sense be with you.

True Respect For Diversity

Back in my university days, a friend of mine once proposed a drinking game in which we would read the student handbook and take a shot of liquor every time it mentioned "diversity." We ultimately rejected his proposal on the grounds that after the first few pages we would succumb to alcohol poisoning. The point of this anecdote is that "respecting" or "celebrating diversity," has become a basic mantra of most progressives. If we are unable to achieve "relativistic enlightenment" and understand that all cultures and traditions as equal, we must at the very least  accept the right of individuals and communities to express their culture and celebrate their traditions.

After much thought I become convinced that the greatest individual differences are found within rather than between groups. The aggregate statistical differences between (let's say) African-Americans and European-Americans are dwarfed by the diversity within each community. And at least within the United States, once we control for class and education, the greatest cultural differences are not found between different ethnic groups, but between different regions. For example, there is a greater probability that I (as a white) would have more in common with a secular, educated, middle class Hispanic-American of my native Chicago than I would with a deeply religious, working class white of rural Alabama. This leads me to determine that Southern Christians are as a"distinct piece" of the "gorgeous cultural mosaic" that makes up the United States as Asian-Americans, Jewish-Americans or any other group. 

For these reasons it strikes me as contradictory, if not hypocritical, when progressives voice contempt for devout, southern Christians, whom they refer to as "red necks," for it would be beyond the pale for them to criticize observant Muslims, Jews, etc. This demonstrates that they neither respect the cultural diversity found within their group nor the marked cultural differences that flourish between regions of the United States. This had led to instances in which school districts encouraged Muslim and Jewish students to set up displays of Crescents and Menorahs, while barring Christian students from presenting similar displays. In a recent case, the Supreme Court had to intervene to defend the right of a Christian student group from meeting after school. In this case, I do not believe that the administrations were motivated by a concern for the separation of church and state, but rather by their inability to include Traditional Christians in their "celebration of diversity."

In the political arena this is seen when activists and politicians seek to oppose uniform policies across the land, indifferent to the sentiments and desires of diverse states and regions. During the push for health care reform, the federal government largely ignored the Tenth Amendment by seeking to impose a single plan, rather than allow each state to pursue policies that reflect the cultural and philosophical inclinations of their residents. Implicit in the strong sense of Federalism present in the constitution is a respect for the principles of self governance and an affirmation of and respect for the pronounced regional diversity that already existed.. To allow a strong central government to impose uniform policies across the land, beyond the carefully enumerated powers granted by the constitution, would be a recipe for conflict. Individuals who objected to the laws that governed their state or community could seek to alter them through the democratic process or move to other localities that better reflected their political and cultural visions. Of course this is not to say that states rights are without limits; slavery and other egregious abuses of individual rights warrant federal intervention.  But, beyond that, we should respect the rights of diverse peoples and regions to enjoy their cultural and political traditions, even when we find them distasteful. That makes for a freer, stronger and more interesting nation. 

The Constitution: It's not just for Conservatives

Josh Eboch wrote a wonderful essay that should be more titled: "Federalism & States' Rights: Are Also For Progressves." Although the majority of groups and individuals who champion

states' rights and seek to limit the power of the federal government are conservatives, these values and causes should be of equal importance to progressives. The authors emanently reasonable points should resonate with intelligent progressives and conservatives alike, such as:

"America was built on individualism and freedom of choice, and what’s right for one person or one state is not necessarily right for them all."

"There is no way to make everyone happy with every law, but abandoning the futile and divisive quest for a “one size fits all” centralized government, and returning the states to their rightful role as competing laboratories of democracy is a good start."

"Before America can rediscover the promise of her founding, people on both sides of the aisle must come to grips with the fact that the federal government does not exist to impose on the nation either the Right’s or the Left’s vision of freedom, morality, or social justice."

To view the author's concise audio clip, click here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDAwQaL22K8

The Constitution: It’s not just for Conservatives

by Josh Eboch

Anyone who desires a constitutionally limited federal government should remember and celebrate that its limitations would necessarily cut both ways. Because if federal policy actually adhered to the letter of the Constitution, no single ideological camp could wield sufficient power to impose a set of beliefs on the entire country.

Which was exactly the point of our federalist system, and of the 10th Amendment. Beyond specific, enumerated federal powers, an infinite number of issues were intentionally left to the authority of the people through their state governments. And it is to the states that liberals, conservatives, and even libertarians must address all questions extending beyond the constitutional purview of federal authority.

Questions involving but not limited to:

Health Care: If the framers had intended the federal government to establish and manage hospitals and Alms Houses within the states, they would no doubt have given it the explicit authority to do so. To misconstrue the general Welfare Clause in such a way as to conjure that authority out of thin air is to commit a blatant act of intellectual dishonesty.

In fact, regarding those words, “general welfare,” James Madison himself said: “To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators.”

This also includes Medicare and Social Security, both of which are preparing to default on a massive scale thanks to the sort of bureaucratic mismanagement and fiscal shell games at which governments excel.

Of course, nowhere does the Constitution say that states cannot establish and bankrupt their own socialized medicine or retirement schemes. See: Massachusetts and California.

Drugs: George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were hemp farmers, and drugs themselves have existed in various forms for thousands of years. They were certainly not unknown to the framers of our national government. Yet, excepting the (repealed) 18th Amendment, there is no mention of drugs or prohibition in the Constitution.

It is thanks to an expansive and unlimited interpretation of the Commerce Clause that the federal government now claims the power to ban certain substances. But in 1787, the Commerce Clause was worded to make trade regular between the states by preventing protectionist tariffs, not to give Congress the power to impose national standards of morality on the marketplace.

In recent years, some states have tried to reassert their authority on this issue, but a senselessly violent war continues to be waged by the federal government against the personal purchasing decisions of people in every state.

Marriage: The positive impact of creating social and financial bonds between consenting adults was likely as obvious in the eighteenth century as it is now. But the framers had a much healthier distrust of the federal government than we do today. They gave it no power to define marriage because the framers did not feel compelled to ask or grant the blessing of the federal government in forming private religious unions.

Neither do we need it today to legitimize private unions, religious or otherwise. But as long as both parties seek to engineer social policy through the federal income tax code, the issue of marriage will needlessly divide our country, and state governments will remain unable to fully implement their citizens’ will.

The list goes on and on, but the point remains the same: America was built on individualism and freedom of choice, and what’s right for one person or one state is not necessarily right for them all.

There is no way to make everyone happy with every law, but abandoning the futile and divisive quest for a “one size fits all” centralized government, and returning the states to their rightful role as competing laboratories of democracy is a good start.

Before America can rediscover the promise of her founding, people on both sides of the aisle must come to grips with the fact that the federal government does not exist to impose on the nation either the Right’s or the Left’s vision of freedom, morality, or social justice.

Josh is a freelance writer and journalist originally from the Washington D.C. area. He is a cynically optimistic and unrepentant news junkie. His work has been published locally and in Charleston, SC. Email Josh.

http://www.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2009/10/01/the-constitution-its-not-just-for-conservatives/

Nullification: Interview with a Zombie

A must see interview with the great writer Thomas Woods, discussing his book "Nullification: How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrcM5exDxcc

Staying Away From the Federal Courthouse

Mr. Wilton Strickland puts forth a compelling argument why conservatives (and by extension liberals) should, as much as possible, avoid federal courthouses as a means of addressing state and local laws that they view unfavorably. He believes that by using the federal government to "win a battle," we are "losing the war" against the rapid expansion of federal power at the expense of state and local self governance. While I am not in complete agreement with Mr. Strickland, he does provide some important points that are worth considering.

Staying Away From The Federal Courthouse


Tue, Jun 22, 2010

Featured Articles, Political Philosophy, State Sovereignty, Wilton Strickland

by Wilton Strickland

In a previous article, I offered suggestions for the states to achieve independence by weaning themselves from the federal government and the quasi-religious sentiment now surrounding it. One ingredient I neglected to mention is rather important because it lies squarely within our power as private citizens; at the same time, it is difficult to swallow because it challenges firmly held notions about the Bill of Rights.

Specifically, we must stop running to the federal courthouse whenever a state or local law displeases us. “Making a federal case” out of every nuisance has become a national pastime rivaling baseball, and no corner of America will achieve independence or liberty until we learn to solve our problems within our communities rather than seek federal intervention from without.

My proposition may sound ludicrous because almost everyone now considers it the role of the federal courts to enforce the Bill of Rights against any local, state, or federal antagonist who would dare violate it. On the left side of the spectrum, we find litigants eager to disrupt any attempt by state or local authorities to uphold community standards of decorum; to prevent abortion; to acknowledge God in the public sphere; or to preserve our ability to hire, fire, sell, lease, or otherwise associate as we choose.

On the right side of the spectrum, we also find litigants who make avid use of federal courts, but for different reasons. This sort of litigation is geared toward disrupting attempts by state or local authorities to license professions; to regulate economic affairs; to take or burden private property; to remove religious symbols from public life; or to impose restrictions on gun ownership.

State and local authorities thus find themselves buffeted on all sides by litigation that gives federal courts an obscene amount of power to decide each community’s destiny, which goes a long way toward explaining why “community spirit” has become a quaint notion indeed. In the process, the courts have pummeled the Bill of Rights into an unrecognizable carcass.

A history lesson is in order here. Rightly suspecting that the newly hatched federal government would roam beyond its enumerated powers, the “anti-federalists” insisted on adding the Bill of Rights as a redundant safety device to emphasize certain areas where the federal government could never tread. This was an “exclamation point” to drive home the concept of limited federal power — it was not meant to restrain the states, who were not the object of everyone’s anxiety, and who retained vast power to govern as they saw fit.

Even the acclaimed John Marshall recognized this when ruling in Barron v. Baltimore that the Bill of Rights restrains only the federal government. The Constitution imposes only a handful of restrictions on the states. For example, they cannot exercise the narrow powers delegated to the federal government; impose ex post facto punishment; enact bills of attainder; or impair contracts.

Accordingly, states acted in a manner unthinkable today, such as by supporting churches and restricting broad areas of speech. Any state that abused this power would harm only itself, since the people could vote with their feet and diminish the tax base. Interstate competition thus served as a far better check against governmental abuse than a monolithic, all-powerful central government possibly could.

Today the Bill of Rights functions in exactly the opposite manner as intended: to restrain the states and empower the federal government. This began during the twentieth century (of course), when the Supreme Court “incorporated” the Bill of Rights against the states even though their broad powers do not accommodate it. Since the Bill of Rights is a mirror image of enumerated federal power, applying such rights to the states resembles pounding a square peg into a round hole.

As the Supreme Court kept pounding, the contours of the Bill of Rights grew fuzzy, generating “exceptions” and “penumbras” that appear nowhere in the Constitution’s text. States steadily found themselves able to do less while the federal government reaped the benefit of these exceptions and began doing more.

To illustrate, consider the First Amendment’s charge that “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech[.]” Nothing could be clearer than this. The federal government may not curtail any speech. The state governments, on the other hand, may restrain speech if their citizens choose to, and the federal courts have no proper say in the matter. This simple, workable distinction has been eradicated.

Instead, the First Amendment now supposedly handcuffs the states from regulating everything from schoolhouses, flag burning, “exotic dancing,” and even the states’ own courts of law. To allow some police powers to survive, the federal courts poked holes in the First Amendment for regulating defamation, “fighting words,” and a few other areas that the courts in their infinite wisdom find appropriate. Apart from the indignity of having federal courts ration powers that belong to the states, these unwritten exceptions to the First Amendment are now available to the federal government, which regulates speech in violation of its founding charter.

How did the federal courts get away with this? The answer lies in the Fourteenth Amendment, which was (debatably) enacted after the Civil War and says in pertinent part as follows:

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Unlike the few other prohibitions that the Constitution imposes on the states, this one is vague, which has allowed federal courts to claim the titanic ability to strike down virtually any state law with which they disagree. But it did not have to be this way. In the 1872 Slaughterhouse Cases, the Supreme Court had its first chance to abolish an unpopular state law under the Fourteenth Amendment but rightly refused to do so.

The court explained that the Amendment had a narrow goal: to protect the ex-slaves — African-Americans — and ensure they were not deprived of their civil rights. The Amendment was not designed for every Tom, Dick, and Harry disgruntled about his state’s legislation. Since the dispute before the court involved a mere licensing law rather than an attack on ex-slaves, the court exercised a restraint now extinct and made a prescient warning:

Was it the purpose of the fourteenth amendment . . . to transfer the security and protection of all the civil rights which we have mentioned, from the States to the Federal government? . . . [S]uch a construction . . . would constitute this court a perpetual censor upon all legislation of the States, on the civil rights of their own citizens, with authority to nullify such as it did not approve as consistent with those rights, as they existed at the time of the adoption of this amendment. . . . [T]hese consequences are so serious, so far-reaching and pervading, so great a departure from the structure and spirit of our institutions; . . . the effect is to fetter and degrade the State governments by subjecting them to the control of Congress, in the exercise of powers heretofore universally conceded to them of the most ordinary and fundamental character.
This warning was deadly accurate, as the modern court relishes its role as “perpetual censor” and has inverted the constitutional order. Under the Constitution of the Founders, the states decided which powers the federal government would have; today, it is the federal government that decides which powers the state governments will have.

“Conservatives” and “libertarians” who run to federal court and beg for this treatment are their own worst enemies. Their quest for a federal veto on local matters such as gun control or property takings does just as much harm as the American Civil Liberties Union’s quest to eradicate religion from public view or to establish abortion as a secular sacrament.

Liberty cannot survive without independence, and a temporary victory in federal court today blazes a path to a thousand defeats tomorrow. As the Founders understood, any power that might be abused will be abused, so it must be avoided. Although the states abuse their power as well, such abuses have limited geographic scope and allow us to escape as a last resort. There is no escape from federal power, unless one wishes to expatriate or renounce citizenship (which the federal government is making more difficult every day).

If you confront an unjust law in your state, advocate its repeal. If that doesn’t work, vote for candidates who will one day repeal it. Failing that, bring a challenge in state court based on the state constitution – the U.S. Supreme Court cannot interfere unless the case involves the U.S. Constitution or federal law. And as mentioned before, leave the state if you are ultimately unsatisfied with it; do not spoil it for the others who wish to remain there.

http://libertydefenseleague.com/2010/06/22/staying-away-from-the-federal-courthouse/

A State of Awakening?

One of Obama's accomplishments may be to re-awaken the state's sovereignty movement.

In the mind of most "progressives" this holds negative connotations, because it was the banner that some southern states used to wrongly oppress the civil rights of its citizens. But, this time the proponents of state's rights are expressing legitimate constitutional as well as fiscal concerns. They are correct that the federal government has overstepped constitutional boundaries and is pushing our national closer to insolvency. And if anything, the greatest threat to civil rights now comes from the federal government via wiretapping and an overzealous department of homeland security.

States rebel against Washington



The pushback against federal power began under Bush, but may now be accelerating.

By Patrik Jonsson Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
from the March 27, 2009 edition

Atlanta - There's an old joke in South Carolina: Confederate President Jefferson Davis may have surrendered at the Burt-Stark mansion in Abbeville, S.C., in 1865, but the people of state Rep. Michael Pitts's district never did.

With revolutionary die-hards behind him, Mr. Pitts has fired a warning shot across the bow of the Washington establishment. As the writer of one of 28 state "sovereignty bills" – one even calls for outright dissolution of the Union if Washington doesn't rein itself in – Pitts is at the forefront of a states' rights revival, reasserting their say on everything from stem cell research to the Second Amendment.

"Washington can be a bully, but there's evidence right now that there are people willing to resist our bully," said Pitts, by phone from the state capitol of Columbia.

Just as California under President Bush asserted itself on issues ranging from gun control to medical marijuana, a motley cohort of states – from South Carolina to New Hampshire, from Washington State to Oklahoma – are presenting a foil for President Obama's national ambitions. And they're laying the groundwork for a political standoff over the 10th Amendment, which cedes all power not granted to Washington to the people.

The movement's success will largely depend on whether Washington sees these legislative insurgents as serious – or, as Pitts puts it, as just "a bunch of rednecks."

"There's a lot of frustration when someone quite distant from you forces you to do something you don't want to do," says Steve Smith, director of the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government and Public Policy at Washington University in D.C. "That's the root cause, and it ends up being rationalized in constitutional terms."

Resurgent states

The reversal of the federal stem cell research ban, a stimulus package widely seen as a backdoor grasp for more federal power, and fears about gun control have accelerated a state sovereignty movement that began taking shape under the Bush administration. In the past, both liberals and conservatives have used states' rights arguments for political expedience. That may be the case now as ousted conservatives try to force issues out of Washington and into states, where they have a better chance of winning them.

"Where power resides and who gets to do what – there's been an ongoing interpretation of that through our history," says Idaho State Rep. George Sayler of Coeur d'Alene, who voted against a states' rights bill that passed recently in the Gem State. "Sometimes the federal government asserts a stronger role, and it looks now like we might be getting into a period where the states" push for more power.

Some examples:

•The Idaho House began considering Wednesday a law against introducing "vicious animals" into the state – a direct rebuttal of the federal wolf reintroduction program.

•Montana and Tennessee have introduced proposals to expand gun rights. Tennessee State Sen. Doug Jackson says his bill to ban proposed federal "microstamping" of ammunition could spark a movement. "The trampling on our rights to possess firearms is symbolic of a power grab by the federal government on a much larger scale," said Senator Jackson, by phone from Nashville.

•Oklahoma and Georgia are both considering limits on stem cell research in response to Mr. Obama's reversal of the federal stem cell ban.

It's the flip side of the Bush era when several Northeastern states allowed such research despite the federal ban.

The status of "state sovereignty" resolutions are largely up in the air, with a few passed, some moving through committee, and some voted down. New Hampshire's resolution, the only one with a "nullification" of the Union clause, was voted down largely along partisan lines.

A response to federal expansion

Although the idea of states' rights took hold in the run-up to the Civil War in order for the South to preserve, among other things, the institution of slavery, today's debates are really about whether there's any power left for the states to carve out of the Constitution.

"If you set up the principle where the federal government can do everything, then, yes, eventually they will do everything. If not, where's the line they can't cross?" says Michael Boldin, president of the Tenth Amendment Center in Los Angeles. "That's the Constitution, I believe."
The courts mainly stood by as federal power expanded by great leaps in the 1930s and the 1960s. There's been another burst of federal expansion in the 2000s, including Mr. Bush's USA Patriot Act and Obama's proposed overhaul of banking regulations.

The fact is, "there's no longer any effective limitations on federal power," says Randy Barnett, a Georgetown law professor who argued for California's medical marijuana law in front of the Supreme Court.

Yet the state sovereignty movement is by no means frivolous and could have significant political firepower. The medical marijuana case in California, for instance, showed that Washington can be forced to scale back its ambitions in the face of populist sentiment.

And although Pitts hails from Abbeville, the place where the South's first secession votes were cast, he insists that today's efforts to check federal power aren't limited to regional pockets or even political affiliation. "The mainstream media would portray some of us as rednecks, whether we're from Pennsylvania, Oregon, or South Carolina," says Pitts. "But this is a wake-up call. And if Washington doesn't heed that wake-up call, revolution is on the horizon."

http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0327/p02s01-usgn.html

Go Texas Go!

Click on the link to view Texas Governor Rick Perry's press conference:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LHrIxc-QyE

AUSTIN – Gov. Rick Perry today joined state Rep. Brandon Creighton and sponsors of House Concurrent Resolution (HCR) 50 in support of states’ rights under the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

“I believe that our federal government has become oppressive in its size, its intrusion into the lives of our citizens, and its interference with the affairs of our state,” Gov. Perry said. “That is why I am here today to express my unwavering support for efforts all across our country to reaffirm the states’ rights affirmed by the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I believe that returning to the letter and spirit of the U.S. Constitution and its essential 10th Amendment will free our state from undue regulations, and ultimately strengthen our Union.”

A number of recent federal proposals are not within the scope of the federal government’s constitutionally designated powers and impede the states’ right to govern themselves. HCR 50 affirms that Texas claims sovereignty under the 10th Amendment over all powers not otherwise granted to the federal government.

It also designates that all compulsory federal legislation that requires states to comply under threat of civil or criminal penalties, or that requires states to pass legislation or lose federal funding, be prohibited or repealed.

HCR 50 is authored by Representatives Brandon Creighton, Leo Berman, Bryan Hughes, Dan Gattis and Ryan Guillen.

To view the full text of the resolution, please visit:

http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/tlodocs/81R/billtext/html/HC00050I.htm.

The 10th Amendment (of that pesky constitution)

A common misconception about conservatives is that their reservations against federal government intervention stems from a general antipathy towards government.

The reality is that most conservatives are opposed to the federal government overstepping its constitutional boundaries, especially when it impinges on self government by local communities and states. This is seen in the 10th amendment of the constitution, which states:

"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."

In this amendment we see that one of the main concerns of the founding fathers was guarding against tyranny of an overly active federal government. This is also the driving force behind the reservation of some governors against accepting funds from Obama's "stimulus plan."

Republican governors, such as Bobby Jindal (R-LA), as well as some democrat governors, like John Lynch of New Hampshire and Phil Bredesen of Tennessee are declining some or all of the federal funds because of provisions attached in which the federal government mandates that they expand and alter state and local laws. Not only is the constitutionality of this highly questionable, but it is also fiscally unsound, because federal funding would expire after two years, leaving the states with the burden of added entitlements without federal aid.

Rarely, if ever do we see an acknowledgement of the wisdom of the founding fathers who sought to guard against tyranny via clear and defined limitations on the size and scope of the federal government. Most "progressives" have shown indifference or even hostility to the fundamental American principles of limited government. From FDR to Obama "progressives" seem to view that "pesky constitution" as an impediment to their dream of expanding the size and scope of the federal government.

And as I read the following quote from Thomas Jefferson, I am quite certain that the constitution was written to guard against the power and ambition of politicians like Obama:

"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have ...The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,500785,00.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2190174/posts