Posted on 05/01/2013 7:59:50 PM PDT by EXCH54FE
1. What can a State – or several States – do to resist encroachments & usurpations by the federal government?
2. Federalist No. 46 (7th para) discusses how individual States or several States carry out resistance to the federal government’s unconstitutional encroachments. If a particular State takes an action which the federal government doesn’t like, but which has the support of the People of that State, the federal government can’t do anything about it unless it is willing to use force.
So, in para 7, Madison contemplates that not all States will oppose unconstitutional encroachments by the federal government. But he shows that this need not impede the States who do. Such States need not implement in their States the federal government’s lawless usurpations. Have we forgotten how to just say, “NO! You have no authority under the Constitution to do this, and the Sovereign State of X and the Sovereign People of the State of X won’t permit this.” If we have taken the Oath to support the Constitution (Art. VI, clause 3), then we are bound by Honor to support it!
3. Note that Madison doesn’t say the States should file lawsuits in federal court. And WHY would Sovereign States, which formed a federation for the limited purposes enumerated in Art. I, Sec. 8, U.S. Constitution; ask one branch of the federal government (judiciary) to opine on whether a “law” approved by the two other branches (legislative & executive) exceeds the enumerated powers of Congress or encroaches on the reserved powers of the States and the People (10th Amendment)?
(Excerpt) Read more at freedomoutpost.com ...
I have thought of this myself. Each state is a political community separate from the others, and to a degree independent of the central government. Its primary purpose is to serve the interests of that community. It should resist laws that threaten those interests just as each of the three branches of the central government rejects actions of other countries which threaten the interests of Americans as a whole.
Filing lawsuits in Federal Court is exactly the WRONG thing to do.
Federal Courts deal with the people and places “SUBJECT TO IT’S (the UNITED STATES) JURISDICTION.
Federal civil rights (privileges and immunities) are DIFFERENT from the civil rights you get as a citizen in a state.
I wish every person in this country would read the Slaughterhouse cases and understand them.
Ask anyone... ANYone, even your supposedly well-informed O’Reilly Republican, and they will tell you that Lincoln already solved the legalities of this issue and established the National government’s authority.
Then ask them: how? By force.
Lincoln deserves respect for leading the drive to emancipation. But he never had a chance to restore states’ rights, and apparently never intended to.
Unfortunately, Madison wrote this long before the federal government controlled 25% of the country's economy. the federal government already uses force to extract this economic power from it's citizens - through the force of the IRS. It now can simply threaten to withhold some of this money from the state, and this usually will assure compliance to its wishes.
Actually, there are a great many owners of firearms in Massachusetts and a very active owners’ association in the Gun Owners’ Action League, or GOAL.
And, yes, they would ‘try that’ in any and every state in the nation - almost certainly without any interference except a great wind from those who like to talk.
- almost certainly without any interference except a great wind from those who like to talk.”
Well, perhaps it is just bluster. Hard to say what would actually happen. I like to think I would not permit such a violation without a fight.
We’d all like to think we’d stand up for truth, justice and the American way.
However, we’re vulnerable to a lot more than kryptonite, and, when push comes to shove, life begins to seem very precious.
Not everyone is cut out to be a hero; far from it, in fact, which is why we revere our heroes - they’re very, very rare.
“They can do that to an unarmed populace like the people of Mass. I don’t see them trying that in a state that still observes the second amendment.”
If baystaters still had second amendments rights they wouldn’t have been locked up in their homes like chickens in a chicken coop. They could have been out searching for the SOB terrorist.
We got some good ideas in the legislators of Florida and a number of other states about how we could hijack that income stream and escrow it.
If we start slowly enough and get some congressmen on our side we can slowly move Washington into a position of accepting this. If we solidify this process by way of Constitutional amendment we can reverse the flow of power back to the people.
I hope this would start waking up people in the clueless states such as mine — Massachusetts.
It took a very long time to get most of the power concentrated in Washington and it will probably take a while to get that power redistributed to the states.
“I hope this would start waking up people in the clueless states such as mine — Massachusetts.”
Somehow I don’t think Massachusetts is going to wake up until a southern army of patriots is at their door step. A day I hope never comes.
What will force Massachusetts to reform is the economic reality of socialism bring depravity and rune to the people that live there. That of course could take as much as 100 years of stagnation & decline.
So in the grand scheme of things I am inclined to leave Massachusetts to it’s own devices and advice you my patriot friend to think about uprooting.
“It took a very long time to get most of the power concentrated in Washington and it will probably take a while to get that power redistributed to the states.”
Actually when you look at history time is on the side of the centerlized power, things tend to go back to the people only in revolution or collapse(by default).
If we wish to reclaim our rights from Washington we will have to take them ourselves(effecting collapse of Washington’s practical power over the issue) and then force Washington to recognize the reality.
This is the propose behind the nullification and eventually interposition strategy. It is our hope to deadlock Washington while our State’s go on the attack.
things tend to go back to the people only in revolution or collapse(by default).
“I will disagree with you a little, it is not “or”. They usually come together. I will cite the demise of the USSR as an example. Many satellite countries were ignoring the demands of the centralized USSR before the collapse came.”
I don’t dispute that it could be an and/or situation. The point is reclamation of rights tends not to happen within a political system.
My suggestion in strategy was in fact anther permutation where people ignore & resist the illegitimate acts of the central authority while fighting politically to get that authority to recognize what is already largely the case.
There are many successful examples of this kind of reclamation in American history ranging from the obbtition to the national bank in the early 1800’s to the on going “medical pot” fight. The tools of this process is called nullification and rarely(when circumstances demand and permit) interposition.
This is a brilliant strategy invented by our founding fathers in response to the then supposed(and shortly thereafter realized) senereo of the Federal Reverent(and its hand picked employees in black robes) usurping powers from the people and their states.
But this strategy takes time and precistants to implement.
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