nbruno322
03-27-2008, 10:02 PM
I wanted to compile a list of infractions to our Constitution and our American values and traditions. Most people are not fully aware of how far we have drifted and when all of the points are compiled it makes a powerful statement. This list is by no means exhaustive. Please contribute if you can. It is a work in progress, please add catogories or summarize others if you can. Thanks!
Constitutional
-Patriot Act: 10/26/2001
The Patriot Act was passed in the emotional aftermath of 9/11 to give the government tools it needed to fight terrorists. The Patriot Act broadly defines a "terrorist". Anyone who opposes a federal program or policy may find themselves under this broadly defined label. In theory, it sounds like a good idea but upon closer inspection it is clearly unconstitutional in an unprecedented way. For the first time in 230 years of US history a law exists that blatantly violates the 1st and 4th Amendments of the Constitution.
-The Patriot Act allows for the government to write their own search warrants. This completely bypasses the nation’s judicial system, destroying an element of checks and balances. The Constitution states that only a judge can issue a search warrant after being presented with probable cause. The FBI can show up on your doorstep with a self-written search warrant to enter and seize your property. According to the FBI’s own records, 167,000 people have been served self-written search warrants, often without even knowing it. Of these, 30% had nothing to do with even the broadly defined "terrorism". This is clearly in violation of the 4th Amendment.
-It is a crime, up to 5 years imprisonment, for anyone who receives such a self-written search warrant to talk about it, to anyone. That means you cannot discuss the search with a lawyer in order to properly defend yourself in court, nor can you tell a federal judge to contest it, nor can you tell your spouse, your priest, nobody. This is clearly a violation of the 1st Amendment.
Because of the unconstitutionality of the Patriot Act it should have never been passed in the first place. Congress was unable to investigate or even read the Patriot Act as they had 15 minutes to read the 300 page bill before voting on it. Little did they know how unprecedented and unconstitutional the doublespeak titled Patriot Act was. Since October of 2001, not one single successful prosecution in the war on terror has taken place on the basis of evidence gleaned from the Patriot Act.
-10th Amendment (States Rights)
The 10th 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 to the people.” This means that the states are free to make their own laws as long as it is not in conflict with the Constitution. Below are a few, but by no means comprehensive, list of instances of violations of the 10th Amendment.
-Drug War:
Unlike the prohibition of alcohol, which amended the Constitution, the drug war has not and so, seemingly it would be up to the states to decide their own drug laws. This is not the case however. Under California State law, proposition 215, medical marijuana is legal. However under the federal Controlled Substance Act (CSA) it is not. There have been hundreds, if not thousands, of cases where California-legal medical marijuana patients have been arrested and harassed by the DEA, FBI, and other federal agencies. The CSA and the federal “war on drugs” is clearly an infringement of the 10th Amendment, because it is not part of the Constitution and circumvents a states right to choose its own drug laws.
-Speed Limits and 21 Drinking Age:
Another tactic the federal government uses to coerce the states into accepting its guidelines is to blackmail them. For example, the federal government denies federal highway funding to states that do not conform to federal guidelines on speed limits and a 21 drinking age. It would be an extreme hardship on a state to defy the federal government and lose out on the federal highway funds. Again, this strong-armed, blackmail, technique infringes on a state’s right to determine its own laws and thus undermines the 10th Amendment.
-REAL ID:
The REAL ID, which is discussed in more depth in the “American Values and Traditions” section. The REAL ID Act is a widely unpopular piece of legislation with many state government passing resolutions stating their intention not to comply with it as it would be extremely expensive to implement and many states already have IDs that contain better security features than the REAL ID. The REAL ID Act sets federal guidelines that a state must follow in issuing their IDs, in essence making a de-facto national ID. The penalties for non-complying states include having their citizens being barred from opening bank accounts, entering federal buildings, and boarding aircraft. This is another example of a blackmail technique used by the federal government in order to coerce the states into accepting its agenda, undermining the states’ sovereignty and the 10th Amendment.
Former Republican U.S. Representative Bob Barr wrote: "A person not possessing a Real ID Act-compliant identification card could not enter any federal building, or an office of his or her congressman or senator or the U.S. Capitol. This effectively denies that person their fundamental rights to assembly and to petition the government as guaranteed in the First Amendment."
-No Child Left Behind (NCLB):
NCLB sets a new standard for federalizing education and setting a precedent for further erosion of state and local control of education. The federal government has no constitutional authority in education, which is why participation in NCLB is technically optional: States need not comply with NCLB, as long as they are willing to forgo the critical federal funding that comes with it. This is yet another example of federal blackmailing and undermining of the 10th Amendment.
While this list of infractions against states’ sovereignty is not comprehensive, it shows that the 10th Amendment is basically meaningless if the federal government can blackmail the states into accepting its agenda.
The Constitution and the 10th Amendment is very clear; the states are free to choose their own laws as long as they don’t contradict the Constitution. That means, any issue not mentioned in the Constitution, or added to it by amendments, is not a federal issue, but one to be determined by the states. This applies to issues such as abortion, marriage, education, drugs, healthcare, or anything not contradicting the Constitution. There is considerable diversity among the states and the founders understood this, which is why they included this important issue in the Bill of Rights.
[B]-Republic not Democracy
Ask 99% of Americans what kind of government the US is supposed to be and they will answer “democracy”. The word democracy is not mentioned once in the Constitution. The US is a Constitutional Republic, not a democracy. In a Constitutional Republic the ultimate sovereignty rests with the individual and the guaranteed rights cannot be taken away by anyone.
Democracy was feared by our founding fathers. In a pure democracy 51% of the population can take away the right of the other 49%. This is what is known as the tyranny of the majority. Put another way, democracy is like two wolves and a sheep deciding what is for dinner. In a Constitutional Republic, the sheep has a gun.
-Federal Income Tax: 1913
-Completely unconstitutional. It is a direct unapportioned tax. The Constitution clearly states that all direct taxes must be apportioned, or divided amongst the population equally.
-The number of states required to ratify the new amendment was never met.
-On average, about 25% of your income is confiscated from this tax. This money goes to pay the interest on the currency that was created by the Fed and loaned to the government. The vast majority of the money is not spent on essential programs or services.
-No statute or law that exists that requires you to pay this tax.
-Federal Reserve
1913 was one of the darkest years for American liberty as it saw the passage of the federal income tax and the Federal Reserve System.
The barons of the industrial revolution and elite Europeans (Rockefeller, Morgan, Warburg, Rothschild, and others) sought to create a central banking system in the US. The story of how they secretly conspired to force the Federal Reserve System on a weary American public is well documented in the book and video documentaries online The Creature From Jekyll Island.
The Federal Reserve is the central bank of the US. It is the institution that creates the fiat currency, which is backed by nothing. Today, dollars have no intrinsic value. The Fed controls the interest rates and the money supply (inflation). The value of the currency is regulated by the money supply, more money in circulation = less value of currency. The Fed does not simply supply the US government with money, it loans it at interest. This system produces a perpetual debt that can never be paid off by the government. Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and other founding fathers were well aware of the dangers of the central banking system to liberty.
“The refusal of King George III to allow the colonists to operate an honest money system, which freed the ordinary man from the clutches of the money manipulators, was probably the prime cause of the Revolution”. ~ Benjamin Franklin
The Constitution clearly states that only gold and silver may be used for currency and that Congress alone has the authority “to coin money and regulate the value thereof”.
Since 1913, the dollars has lost 97% of its purchasing power. Inflation = tax.
-Fed is a private corporation
-it makes its own policies, Congress neglects its oversight duties.
The Federal Reserve System is consistent with the English central banking system that the founding fathers sought to escape from when they declared independence in the Revolutionary War.
A plank in the communist manifesto.
-Cruel and Unusual Punishment
-Military Commissions Act: 10/17/2006
loss of Habeas Corpus
-Declaration of War
North American Union/NAFTA
American Values and Tradition
-Foreign Policy – Wolfowitz Doctrine, policeman of the world, permanent global American hegemony, global empire, interventionism, foreign aid.
-REAL ID
-Defense Authorization Act of 2007: 10/17/2006
The DAA allows the president to station military troops anywhere in the United States and take control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of the governor or local authorities, in order to “suppress public disorder.” By revising the two-century-old Insurrection Act, the law in effect repeals the Posse Comitatus Act, which placed strict prohibitions on military involvement in domestic law enforcement. Defense Authorization Act contained a “widely opposed provision to allow the President more control over the National Guard [adopting] changes to the Insurrection Act, which will make it easier for this or any future President to use the military to restore domestic order without the consent of the nation’s governors.” We fail our Constitution, neglecting the rights of the States, when we make it easier for the President to declare martial law and trample on local and state sovereignty.”
Constitutional
-Patriot Act: 10/26/2001
The Patriot Act was passed in the emotional aftermath of 9/11 to give the government tools it needed to fight terrorists. The Patriot Act broadly defines a "terrorist". Anyone who opposes a federal program or policy may find themselves under this broadly defined label. In theory, it sounds like a good idea but upon closer inspection it is clearly unconstitutional in an unprecedented way. For the first time in 230 years of US history a law exists that blatantly violates the 1st and 4th Amendments of the Constitution.
-The Patriot Act allows for the government to write their own search warrants. This completely bypasses the nation’s judicial system, destroying an element of checks and balances. The Constitution states that only a judge can issue a search warrant after being presented with probable cause. The FBI can show up on your doorstep with a self-written search warrant to enter and seize your property. According to the FBI’s own records, 167,000 people have been served self-written search warrants, often without even knowing it. Of these, 30% had nothing to do with even the broadly defined "terrorism". This is clearly in violation of the 4th Amendment.
-It is a crime, up to 5 years imprisonment, for anyone who receives such a self-written search warrant to talk about it, to anyone. That means you cannot discuss the search with a lawyer in order to properly defend yourself in court, nor can you tell a federal judge to contest it, nor can you tell your spouse, your priest, nobody. This is clearly a violation of the 1st Amendment.
Because of the unconstitutionality of the Patriot Act it should have never been passed in the first place. Congress was unable to investigate or even read the Patriot Act as they had 15 minutes to read the 300 page bill before voting on it. Little did they know how unprecedented and unconstitutional the doublespeak titled Patriot Act was. Since October of 2001, not one single successful prosecution in the war on terror has taken place on the basis of evidence gleaned from the Patriot Act.
-10th Amendment (States Rights)
The 10th 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 to the people.” This means that the states are free to make their own laws as long as it is not in conflict with the Constitution. Below are a few, but by no means comprehensive, list of instances of violations of the 10th Amendment.
-Drug War:
Unlike the prohibition of alcohol, which amended the Constitution, the drug war has not and so, seemingly it would be up to the states to decide their own drug laws. This is not the case however. Under California State law, proposition 215, medical marijuana is legal. However under the federal Controlled Substance Act (CSA) it is not. There have been hundreds, if not thousands, of cases where California-legal medical marijuana patients have been arrested and harassed by the DEA, FBI, and other federal agencies. The CSA and the federal “war on drugs” is clearly an infringement of the 10th Amendment, because it is not part of the Constitution and circumvents a states right to choose its own drug laws.
-Speed Limits and 21 Drinking Age:
Another tactic the federal government uses to coerce the states into accepting its guidelines is to blackmail them. For example, the federal government denies federal highway funding to states that do not conform to federal guidelines on speed limits and a 21 drinking age. It would be an extreme hardship on a state to defy the federal government and lose out on the federal highway funds. Again, this strong-armed, blackmail, technique infringes on a state’s right to determine its own laws and thus undermines the 10th Amendment.
-REAL ID:
The REAL ID, which is discussed in more depth in the “American Values and Traditions” section. The REAL ID Act is a widely unpopular piece of legislation with many state government passing resolutions stating their intention not to comply with it as it would be extremely expensive to implement and many states already have IDs that contain better security features than the REAL ID. The REAL ID Act sets federal guidelines that a state must follow in issuing their IDs, in essence making a de-facto national ID. The penalties for non-complying states include having their citizens being barred from opening bank accounts, entering federal buildings, and boarding aircraft. This is another example of a blackmail technique used by the federal government in order to coerce the states into accepting its agenda, undermining the states’ sovereignty and the 10th Amendment.
Former Republican U.S. Representative Bob Barr wrote: "A person not possessing a Real ID Act-compliant identification card could not enter any federal building, or an office of his or her congressman or senator or the U.S. Capitol. This effectively denies that person their fundamental rights to assembly and to petition the government as guaranteed in the First Amendment."
-No Child Left Behind (NCLB):
NCLB sets a new standard for federalizing education and setting a precedent for further erosion of state and local control of education. The federal government has no constitutional authority in education, which is why participation in NCLB is technically optional: States need not comply with NCLB, as long as they are willing to forgo the critical federal funding that comes with it. This is yet another example of federal blackmailing and undermining of the 10th Amendment.
While this list of infractions against states’ sovereignty is not comprehensive, it shows that the 10th Amendment is basically meaningless if the federal government can blackmail the states into accepting its agenda.
The Constitution and the 10th Amendment is very clear; the states are free to choose their own laws as long as they don’t contradict the Constitution. That means, any issue not mentioned in the Constitution, or added to it by amendments, is not a federal issue, but one to be determined by the states. This applies to issues such as abortion, marriage, education, drugs, healthcare, or anything not contradicting the Constitution. There is considerable diversity among the states and the founders understood this, which is why they included this important issue in the Bill of Rights.
[B]-Republic not Democracy
Ask 99% of Americans what kind of government the US is supposed to be and they will answer “democracy”. The word democracy is not mentioned once in the Constitution. The US is a Constitutional Republic, not a democracy. In a Constitutional Republic the ultimate sovereignty rests with the individual and the guaranteed rights cannot be taken away by anyone.
Democracy was feared by our founding fathers. In a pure democracy 51% of the population can take away the right of the other 49%. This is what is known as the tyranny of the majority. Put another way, democracy is like two wolves and a sheep deciding what is for dinner. In a Constitutional Republic, the sheep has a gun.
-Federal Income Tax: 1913
-Completely unconstitutional. It is a direct unapportioned tax. The Constitution clearly states that all direct taxes must be apportioned, or divided amongst the population equally.
-The number of states required to ratify the new amendment was never met.
-On average, about 25% of your income is confiscated from this tax. This money goes to pay the interest on the currency that was created by the Fed and loaned to the government. The vast majority of the money is not spent on essential programs or services.
-No statute or law that exists that requires you to pay this tax.
-Federal Reserve
1913 was one of the darkest years for American liberty as it saw the passage of the federal income tax and the Federal Reserve System.
The barons of the industrial revolution and elite Europeans (Rockefeller, Morgan, Warburg, Rothschild, and others) sought to create a central banking system in the US. The story of how they secretly conspired to force the Federal Reserve System on a weary American public is well documented in the book and video documentaries online The Creature From Jekyll Island.
The Federal Reserve is the central bank of the US. It is the institution that creates the fiat currency, which is backed by nothing. Today, dollars have no intrinsic value. The Fed controls the interest rates and the money supply (inflation). The value of the currency is regulated by the money supply, more money in circulation = less value of currency. The Fed does not simply supply the US government with money, it loans it at interest. This system produces a perpetual debt that can never be paid off by the government. Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and other founding fathers were well aware of the dangers of the central banking system to liberty.
“The refusal of King George III to allow the colonists to operate an honest money system, which freed the ordinary man from the clutches of the money manipulators, was probably the prime cause of the Revolution”. ~ Benjamin Franklin
The Constitution clearly states that only gold and silver may be used for currency and that Congress alone has the authority “to coin money and regulate the value thereof”.
Since 1913, the dollars has lost 97% of its purchasing power. Inflation = tax.
-Fed is a private corporation
-it makes its own policies, Congress neglects its oversight duties.
The Federal Reserve System is consistent with the English central banking system that the founding fathers sought to escape from when they declared independence in the Revolutionary War.
A plank in the communist manifesto.
-Cruel and Unusual Punishment
-Military Commissions Act: 10/17/2006
loss of Habeas Corpus
-Declaration of War
North American Union/NAFTA
American Values and Tradition
-Foreign Policy – Wolfowitz Doctrine, policeman of the world, permanent global American hegemony, global empire, interventionism, foreign aid.
-REAL ID
-Defense Authorization Act of 2007: 10/17/2006
The DAA allows the president to station military troops anywhere in the United States and take control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of the governor or local authorities, in order to “suppress public disorder.” By revising the two-century-old Insurrection Act, the law in effect repeals the Posse Comitatus Act, which placed strict prohibitions on military involvement in domestic law enforcement. Defense Authorization Act contained a “widely opposed provision to allow the President more control over the National Guard [adopting] changes to the Insurrection Act, which will make it easier for this or any future President to use the military to restore domestic order without the consent of the nation’s governors.” We fail our Constitution, neglecting the rights of the States, when we make it easier for the President to declare martial law and trample on local and state sovereignty.”