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I've read 30 posts so far and found nothing but rage. You get the feeling you have no political power? You don't.

I have to give you credit, as a group, you're doing pretty well cowing the senators and congressmen on this issue. Your faxes and phone calls seem to have some effect.

But on other threads, I have tried to forward a theory why we Americans have such a hard time controlling the political class in this country. That theory would explain why you are so mad now, why you feel the President is forcing this amnesty down your throats. No it is not because they are misbehaved, or need to be educated in Constitutional Principles. What ails us now was designed into the system from the beginning.

My thinking is along these lines: The States after the Revolution inherited much in the way of legal traditions, English Common Law, individual Rights, from the colonies. Despite the fact that the King was abusing the colonies, the people of the colonies saw themselves as inheritors of legal traditions going back to the Magna Carta. When the colonial governments were phased out and replaced by State governments, the States inherited much of what went before in the way of liberty protecting institutions.

Call me a nut if you must but consider, when the federal government was created and given a small amount of land to play in, it inherited nothing, because nothing came before it. There was no colony that was made into it, no State, nothing. There were no Citizens, no people with allegiance to the federal government. And no bill of rights for those who would eventually become citizens of the federal government once Congress got the idea to solicit for new citizens, who, of course, were told they had two citizenships, one of the state, and one federal. The people of the States were guaranteed a Republican form of government and they got it, but over the years the ancestors of those people have been reduced to "residents" of states and citizens only of the United States, i.e., the federal government. I describe the process here.

It has become an article of faith, not fact, among the people that the Bill of Rights (which are actually restrictions on the federal governments scope of power to the States and the people), applies to everyone.

This faith is held in vain and is actually damaging because it prevents the population from extracting itself from federal citizenship and returning to State Citizenship where they actually can claim to have political rights.

I am in the process of verifying this court case, but I will put it here just the same:

Quote: I have no doubt that those born in the Territories, or in the District of Columbia, are so far citizens as to entitle them to the protection guaranteed to citizens of the United States** in the Constitution, and to the shield of nationality abroad; but it is evident that they have not the political rights which are vested in citizens of the States. They are not constituents of any community in which is vested any sovereign power of government. Their position partakes more of the character of subjects than of citizens. They are subject to the laws of the United States**, but have no voice in its management. If they are allowed to make laws, the validity of these laws is derived from the sanction of a Government in which they are not represented. Mere citizenship they may have, but the political rights of citizens they cannot enjoy until they are organized into a State, and admitted into the Union. [People v. De La Guerra, 40 Cal. 311, 342 (1870)]

The above case is about federal citizens and the character of their citizenship as long as they remain a territory. The judge says if they want political rights they have to beome a state. I'm saying that we have let our State Citizenship status lapse, and the political rights along with them, and are viewed as purely federal citizens now and the reduced subject-like rights that go along with that. It is almost as if we have as a population and over generations reverted from Citizens of States, back to the (small c) citizens of territories and the District of Columbia by way of federal citizenship. It doesn't matter that you "live" in a State, you merely reside there as a "Resident." On all forms you claim U.S. citizen, which puts you at the same level as a citizen of the Territories back when we had them, and DC.

If you want to review the string of posts regarding this topic, you can find them here, going back to about 5/22. I simply started observing that "it's all about" federal citizenship these days. The States have been marginalized as sovereign entities, and since it is all about federal citizenship. Inoccuous laws have been passed in Virginia having to do with Legal Presence . Again the process is in place to get you to start and continue asserting federal citizenship, even when interacting with your State. To establish legal presence in Virginia to get a drivers license, you need a U.S. passport (fine by me), a U.S. birth certificate. Emphasis mine. The part of it I have a problem with is "U.S." why is the U.S. handling my birth certificate? For people born in a State, the State should handle its own birth certificates. The U.S. has taken over EVERYTHING that used to be of the State including protector of liberties. The joke is you don't have any as a U.S. citizen. Read the court case again. Where is the federal bill of rights for federal citizens which we are all now? There is none. That is why the federal government seems unresponsive to the will of the people, they haven't viewed us as individuals possessing political rights for a very long time.

And this is why threatening never to vote for a Republican again doesn't scare them----Democrat or Republican, they both have the right to rule federal citizens as they see fit. So it wouldn't matter if you voted in a Libertarian, or a Constitution Party President, because they'd view you as federal citizens entitled to no rights just like the other parties do. If we could get 200 million citizens to go back to being State Citizens viewing their State as the focus of Sovereignty and having allegiance only to it, then the Congress would have to listen.

Some still fighting the so-called civil war are wont to say, "The South will rise again." That is not what we need. What we really need is for all States, North AND South, to rise again, assert their sovereignty, and have their Residents go back to being State Citizens. And let the federal government, that is a City-State Democracy that inherited nothing in the way of liberty protecting institutions from anywhere, lose its pseudo-citizens (except for those that continue to reside in DC)