Usually, nullifiers are called racists. But now we have some dude spouting on how dangerous the nullification movement is because he believes YOU are too stupid to handle liberty and take responsibility.

In the Philly Post, Charles D. Ellison equated nullifiers to Duck Dynasty watching, rebel flag waving, outlaws in the driver’s seat heading down the path to America’s apocalyptic future.

Mr. Ellison, master of the status quo, wanted to show how that the nullification movement is disrupting the balance between two parties. He went on to assert the Civil War obviously resolved the question of who is the sole authority over 100 years ago, and that this new pesky nullification movement is messing that up.

Ohhhh Charlie!!!! You are so lame. And ignorant!

But wait! We’ve been down this road sooooooo many times before that I’m willing to look at this differently. Hey, I’m adult enough to try and see this from Charlie’s point a view. Let me try it out. Let’s see what it looks like through the eyes of someone who ignores important parts of the supremacy clause, ignores the fact that our form of government is a republican form, and believes that the Civil War settled things.

Let me set the scene as Charlie sees it.

Brute force settles things.  And in a world without unconstitutional federal laws, injustice pervades. Tensions will bottleneck over our racism and geographical turf wars. Without the feds violating the Constitution, America will descend into chaos. The sick will die. People will starve. Terrorists will kill us for our freedom! We MUST have TSA agents sticking their hands down our pants. We MUST have federal agents harassing cancer patients because they chose to find pain relief in a plant. We MUST let the government spy on us. Nullification would throw off the balance of power. Oh my!

No. I just don’t see it.

Maybe I’m not adult enough. Or, maybe I just choose not to believe in the fictional story telling of a living breathing Constitution.

So, let’s get a few things straight that Charlie doesn’t get. The federal government is not supreme. The deaths of 700,000 in the mid-1860s didn’t change the words found in the supremacy clause. As we can see, Charlie here, actively avoids that part in the supremacy clause that makes all the difference, ” in pursuance thereof.”

Congress only has authority to make laws within constitutionally delegated powers. These are enumerated powers, not ad hoc powers. These powers can be found in Article 1 section 8 with a few others scattered through the Constitution. Article 1 section 9, defines the limitations to the US congress. In the Bill of Rights, there’s this amendment that asserts something rather peculiar. “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 is the 10th amendment. So as long as a state doesn’t try to exercise a federal power in article 1 section 8 or try to use a power prohibited to it in article 1 section 10, that power is reserved for the state and the people.

People like Charlie believe that without our over-rated federal babysitters, or mythical judges who can arrest, judge and execute with ad hoc laws not found in the Constitution, lawlessness will prevail. He falsely believes that this is a matter of Democrat versus Republican. But really, it’s a matter of authoritarian versus libertarian.

Nullifiers worry about the lawlessness from the federal government because we understand that with every decision allowing the federal government to go beyond its approved powers, it destroys our republic and forms centralized government where decrees come from on high. Of course, that’s what federal supremacists like Charlie want – centralized authority making everybody do as he thinks they should.

But will our actions stripping away a false authority really lead to lawlessness out on the streets?

No! That’s nothing but a comic book plot waiting for a hero.

Kelli Sladick

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