Category: Principles

Are the Founders Inconsistent with Military Service in 2013?

9/27/2013

Are the Founding Fathers too extreme? Is being an advocate for liberty or wanting to make the world a better place incompatible with military service? Somebody seems to think so. After filing a Freedom of Information Act request, an organization called Judicial Watch was able to obtain documents from the Department of Defense, which labeled the Founding Fathers as extremists and states, “participation in extremism is inconsistent with the duties of military service.” To be specific, it was the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute (DEOMI) which claimed in a January 2013 lecture on “Extremism”:
"In U.S. history, there are many examples of extremist ideologies and movements. The colonists who sought to free themselves from British rule and the Confederate states who sought to secede from the Northern states are just two examples."

The document further claims:
“Individuals who hold extremist views are in conflict with the standards expected of all military members, and participation in extremism is inconsistent with the duties of military service...”
“All nations have an ideology, something in which they believe. When a political ideology falls outside the norms of society, it is known as extremism. When extremists take their ideology to the next level and believe that it is the only right ideology to follow, it becomes supremism.”

My immediate questions involve trying to figure out who decides what the “norms of society” are and what do they mean by “taking it to the next level?” Does that mean holding a rally or protest? A letter writing campaign? Starting a petition?

But here is the really alarming statement in the document:
“Nowadays, instead of dressing in sheets or publicly espousing hate messages, many extremists will talk of individual liberties, states’ rights, and how to make the world a better place.”

In the twelve years after the terrorist attacks on 9-11 by Islamic militants, our nation has been engulfed in a Global War on Terror and we continue to seek out, identify and eliminate threats from extremists the world over. At this point however, it seems that extremism has been used so broadly that it can mean anything from a suicide bomber to the signers of our Declaration of Independence only because they signed a document highlighting the sanctity of individual liberty.

“Nowadays, instead of dressing in sheets or publicly espousing hate messages, many extremists will talk of individual liberties, states’ rights, and how to make the world a better place.”
-Department of Defense Document, January 2013

We need to understand the parameters this document has set. The document states that you become an extremist simply because your political ideology doesn’t fit the norms of society. Who, we should ask, is in charge of looking at the 300 million plus people in our country and gets to decide what the scope of normal is? How does the government establish whose ideas are normal and whose aren’t? From my understanding of history and the constitution, I have been under the impression that the 1st amendment was established to protect my right to express my ideology and thoughts and religion even if they were unpopular, or outside the “norms of society” if you will. Furthermore, the Department of Defense basically implies that those who advocate for states’ rights, a constitutionally identifiable mechanism of checks and balances, are also extremist.

Here is a real mind bender: the document states that, “Nowadays… many extremists will talk of individual liberties… and how to make the world a better place.” Huh? Lets follow the logic here. If the Department of Defense is setting policy for our military that identifies extremism as an ideology that falls outside the norms of society and they identify extremist behavior as those who advocate liberty and want to make the world a better place then it means that someone has already established that it is “normal” in our society for the majority of people to demonize liberty and to be so immoral as to not want to make the world a better place. What is going on at the Department of Defense that someone could actually get away with writing this? I believe just the opposite; the vast majority of Americans want to enjoy liberty and in fact want to make the world a better place.

Many people have always been under the impression, and rightfully so, that the point of American government was to protect liberty in an effort to make the world a better place. That might still be the case but apparently, someone has decided that the prevailing thought is something else. If you are in the group of people who still hold to the traditional, constitutional and liberty-minded school of thought, this document has branded you an extremist. According to this document, traditional American government and constitutionalism is now so far outside the scope of normal society that the Department of Defense must label it “extremism” and incompatible with U.S. military service. The irony here is that in order to become a member of the U.S. Military, one must still swear an oath to the Constitution, at least for now.

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THE NINTH AND TENTH AMENDMENTS AND STATE SOVEREIGNTY

6/28/2012

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"I consider the foundation of the [Federal] Constitution as laid on this ground: That "all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people." [10th Amendment]
To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specifically drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition."
--Thomas Jefferson: Opinion on National Bank, 1791

Among the first orders of business of the First Congress was the debate over establishing a bill of rights. Although the Constitution had made the separation and enumeration of powers very clear, the American people and the States wanted certain rights of the people to be explicitly stated within its text. After securing their independence from Britain, our Founding Fathers understood, better than anyone else, what freedoms a despotic and tyrannical government would attempt to take from the people.

The rights enumerated to the people in the bill of rights are those that are required to be exercised by the people if they are to retain their power over the government. For example, the inherent freedom of speech is one that any despotic government must take in order to control information. After all, knowledge is power; so whoever controls the dissemination of information has the power. Similar to the freedom of speech, the freedom of assembly, religion, and the right to bear arms and maintain a militia are all just as necessary to the people so they always have the means of establishing themselves as the ultimate authority over the government.

Not everyone believed that the bill of rights was necessary. For example, Alexander Hamilton believed that the structure of the Constitution was enough to bind down the federal government. He explains that the Constitution is set up so that the people of America “surrender nothing” by delegating powers to the central government. In that sense, Hamilton was right. Any federal legislation that falls outside of the confines of the Constitutional limits of Congressional power is by default unconstitutional; it is a breach of contract; it is an invasion of the sovereignty of the State or the States and the will of We the People. In Federalist No. 84, Alexander Hamilton uses the Preamble of the Constitution to explain that a bill of rights is not necessary. Hamilton wrote:

“[Our Constitution is] professedly founded upon the power of the people...Here, in strictness, the people surrender nothing; and as they retain everything they have no need of particular reservations. ‘WE, THE PEOPLE of the United States, to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do establish this Constitution for the United States of America.’ Here is a clear recognition of popular rights...”

Hamilton then went on to reference several articles, sections, and clauses which did, in fact, identify the structure of the new government as one that protects the rights of the people. Hamilton’s main fear was that the enumeration of certain rights would lead to the belief that those certain rights were all the rights of the people and that they were granted by the benevolence of the government. In the end, the will of the people and the States led to the ratification of the bill of rights.

With one hundred proposed amendments supplied to Congress by the States, James Madison initiated the debate. Of the proposed amendments, only ten were selected for ratification as the people’s bill of rights. Two amendments chosen for ratification, the ninth and tenth, were designed to be solid reinforcements of the limited role of the federal government. These two amendments did not enumerate any rights to the people; rather, they were composed in a manner that identified the rights of the people as almost completely unlimited.

The ninth amendment to the United States Constitution was written to explain that the people have rights that go beyond what is expressed in the bill of rights, thus eliminating Hamilton’s fear that a bill of rights would be identified as the entirety of the rights of the people. The Ninth Amendment states:

“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

The Ninth Amendment gives explicit attention to the protection of liberty by preventing the federal government from reaching beyond its delegated powers. In other words, the Ninth Amendment is saying “just because we list some of the people’s rights it does not mean that we have listed all of the people’s rights.” It also means, “all the rights of the people need to be protected but here is a short list of the ones that need special attention.” The Ninth Amendment is not a delegation of power; it is a statement of understanding The Ninth Amendment ensures the context of the bill of rights as a protection of the people’s liberty; not as granting the peoples liberty. James Madison stated this understanding as he proposed the bill of rights on the House floor when he said:

“It has been objected also against a bill of rights, that, by enumerating particular exception to the grant of power, it would disparage those rights which were not placed in that enumeration, and it might follow by implication, that those rights which were not singled out, were intended to be assigned into the hands of the general government, and were consequently insecure. This is one of the most plausible arguments I have ever heard urged against the admission of a bill of rights into this system; but, I conceive, that may be guarded against.”

Just as the Ninth Amendment is written to reinforce personal liberty, the Tenth Amendment is written to reinforce the limitations of the federal government by making it clear that undelegated powers belong to the people unless given by the people to the States or the federal government. Just in case the Preamble to the Constitution wasn’t clear enough; incase Article 1 Sections 3 and 8 were not made clear at all; in case Article 2 Section 2 and Article 4 Section 4 left the American people wondering whether the States or the federal government had more authority to govern the people, our Founding Fathers added one last reinforcement for State sovereignty. That last reinforcement of State sovereignty came with the ratification of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution. The Tenth Amendment says that before Congress can act, it must point to one of their enumerated powers as the source of their authority; and if they do not have that power enumerated to them, then it is a power left to the people. The Tenth Amendment 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 the people.”

Paraphrased #1:

“All the powers we forgot to give the federal government and all the powers we forgot to tell the States they don’t have....those powers then, are by default, given to the States and to the people.”

Paraphrased #2:

“If they didn’t put it in the Constitution then they didn’t put it in Washington!”

It was America’s intent all along to keep the States free from intrusiveness that might someday come from an overbearing and tyrannical central government. Also, many people do not know that Article II of the Articles of Confederation, America’s first form of government, had a similar provision which clearly stated the same point:

“Each State retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress Assembled.”

Much like the previous declaration in the Articles of Confederation, the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution defines the scope of federal power as only that power enumerated to the federal government by We the People. All power that is not enumerated to the federal government must necessarily remain with the States or the people. To further assure the American people of this limit on the federal government’s ability to intervene in their lives, James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 45:

“The powers delegated to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the state governments are numerous and indefinite. The former [federal power] will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce...The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.”

Should the people ever decide to enumerate any more power to the federal government, we can amend the Constitution to legally provide for that delegation of power. We have already discussed the amendment procedure which is detailed in Article 5 of the Constitution.

This is why we call it the federal government; because it is a federation of sovereign States. Governments exist on two levels in America: the defined sovereignty of the federal government and the indefinite sovereignty of the State governments. Madison referred to this when he said, “The powers delegated to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the state governments are numerous and indefinite.” State Sovereignty is not unlimited, simply because the States have delegated some power to Congress. States do however have indefinite sovereignty because of the indefinite issues that exist outside of those powers delegated to Congress. James Madison, the Father of the Constitution and the drafter of the Bill of Rights, had this to say about the sovereignty of the States:

“[T]he government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general.”

By this point, we have come to understand that the United States Constitution is saturated with the idea of having sovereign States; free to exercise all the powers reserved to them outside of those delegated to the federal government. Not only have we found that the States have a larger array of powers but we have also found out that the federal government exist only for the benefit of the States so that they may enjoy domestic tranquility, a general welfare and have provided for them, a common defense. We have also discovered that the federal government, according to the Constitution prior to the ratification of the 17th Amendment, could only operate with the consent of the States. It is obvious, considering the principles outlined in the Declaration of Independence, that just as our government operates only with our consent for the protection of our rights, so does the federal government operate only with the consent of the States to protect the sovereignty of the States.

Copyright 2012 by Paul Curtman, All rights reserved. Don't Tread On Me! The Constitution and State Sovereignty. 2009

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WHY DO THEY VOTE YES ON BAD BILLS?

10/31/2011

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NEWS FLASH:Bad policy can come from BOTH sides of the isle. It isn’t a PARTY issue; it’s a PRINCIPLE issue.
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What makes someone vote YES on a bill they don’t like?
After seeing so many good people vote in favor of horrendous bills (both Democrats and Republicans in state and federal government) I decided to start asking why they were voting for them. Recently I approached some politicians on an economic development bill that, in my mind, was very unfair to small businesses and would have implemented a terrible tax policy geared toward incentivizing big business over small businesses and competitors, all at the expense of the taxpayer. I was also concerned by the new bureaucracy that would have been created and been given the ability to acquire new debt backed by the taxpayers. The bill was being pushed as a “jobs” bill, which by itself is a bribe only because no one wants to vote against “jobs.”

I asked some of the office holders what they thought about the bill and after they told me they were in favor of it I asked them why. The answers I received from many of them were disappointingly shallow: “Well, something HAS to be done.” Or, “Well, I’m against some of these unfair economic policies and debt but I have to vote for it.” Even after I tried to inform some “conservatives” that the bill would drastically grow the size of government at an expense that we cannot fully predict, I still heard things like, “There is a whole lot I don’t like about this bill but there are a couple good things so I’m going to vote for it.”

A couple years ago I spoke with a US Congressman who voted in favor a defense-spending bill. The problem with this particular bill is that the so-called “hate-crime” amendment was attached to it. I don’t believe that any crime is more or less heinous based on what motivates it, a crime is a crime period, otherwise there is no equality under the law. Murder and rape should not be worse because the victim fit a certain demographic. If we say it is more evil to murder a black or white person than it would be murder a Latino or Asian person then there is no equality under the law and what we are really doing is dehumanizing certain groups of people. I asked the Congressman why he voted for the bill if it promoted such inequality of the law and the answer was that he didn’t want to vote for it but he had to in order to fund the troops. What sense does it make to fund our troops who fight for our freedoms and at the same time erase the equal protection of those freedoms? He basically told me he understands my point and would have voted NO on that principle except a NO vote would have looked bad. The troops would have been funded even if this bill had failed because of this amendment; the funding bill would have just been reintroduced.

These experiences have caused me to wonder, where does a person draw the line on how they vote? At what point does the cost of a bill outweigh any benefit that it might have? How much liberty are we willing to foreclose on for the sake of what might seem to be a more noble cause? When we are told that a bill has a lot of good but a lot of bad in it, do we vote for it so we can claim the good only? I don’t believe it works that way. If we vote for a bill that has some poison in it only because we want to claim ownership of the good part, we must also accept that we are responsible for the poison too.

For example, if you are hungry, you may go to a restaurant and order a hamburger that comes with french-fries. Although you may not want the fries, the waitress tells you that they are included in the price of the meal, you reluctantly nod your head and accept the fries but only because you want the hamburger. This is a good description of an acceptable compromise. Although you would rather had some other side, you accepted the fries since they came with your hamburger. You would much rather have had some other side dish to satisfy your hunger but the fries will still do that if you choose to eat them but it really comes down to preference in this particular case. This illustrates how it looks when someone might vote for a bill that has a “side” that we may not prefer but really can’t be called bad. If it doesn’t violate the proper role of government or the Constitution but still satisfies a particular statutory need, you may vote for the larger bill that it is attached to although you would prefer a different “side.” For example, if you ask a legislator why he voted for such a bill you might hear him say, “I don’t necessarily like lowering the speed limit on certain dangerous state highways, but it is in our jurisdiction to do so and it is a smaller part of a bill we need to pass in order to rebuild some damaged bridges across the Missouri River so I will vote for it.”

Now lets say that you order a hamburger off the menu and you are told that it comes with a little e-coli. Do you still order it? Do you use the argument that so many in government use to vote in favor of bad bills and just say, “Well, I don’t like e-coli but it is only a little and I need to eat lunch so OK, I’ll take it.” I seriously doubt you would and I think it is safe to say that if anyone used that explanation to feed your child a hamburger with any amount of e-coli, you would sue them for negligence in the care of your child. Why then do we use that explanation to destroy our liberty? Isn’t this what we are hearing when a politician says, “Well, I know that this bill will send us deeper into debt, grow the size of government or infringe on our freedoms but we need to do something.”

A lesson I learned as an infantry squad leader in the Marine Corps, is that it can be fine to compromise, if you must, in order to accomplish the mission but if your compromise in any way defeats the purpose your mission, then you are the enemy's new best friend. The proper role of government is to protect people’s liberty. If we vote for compromises that in turn destroy liberty and further enslave us to more debt then it is safe to say that we have become our own enemy. Bottom line: when you compromise the principle, you are NOT compromising, you are surrendering.

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Are the Founders Inconsistent with Military Service in 2013?

THE NINTH AND TENTH AMENDMENTS AND STATE SOVEREIGNTY

WHY DO THEY VOTE YES ON BAD BILLS?

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