You radical tenthers better be careful around Nebraskans and Iowans. The World-Herald knows all about your bogus scheme!

In an effort to keep inhabitants of Nebraska and Iowa from taking any queue from their Missourian neighbors, the World-Herald editorial team has published the latest and greatest compilation of mainstream attacks on nullification.

What sort of wild experimentation is Missouri engaged in? And why is it viewed as a threat by the thought police?

“A bill to declare null and void any federal gun law that Missouri leaders don’t like” is on the verge of passing with a veto-overriding majority. For those who fancy themselves part of an elite, commanding influence (even piddling elements like the World-Herald editorialists) gawk at any idea that gets the masses moving out of line, out of order. Their political reality is dependent on a deep faith in a top-down pattern of action, therefore whenever a fact contradicts their reality the natural reflex is to reject or warp it. Nullification must be bogus.

Except it isn’t. But you came here to read something bogus, and I won’t let you down.

Here are the top five bogus statements from the World-Herald’s States Must Reject Bogus Nullification:

5. Under the U.S. Constitution, Missouri has no authority to refuse to obey federal laws.
Bogus! Under the U.S. Constitution, the feds only have powers that are delegated by the Constitution. Every other power that isn’t delegated by the Constitution, or prohibited by it, belongs to Missouri, or any other state. Where is the power to refuse obedience prohibited to Missouri or any other state? It isn’t, so they have it and always have.

4. At the hearings for that bill, some supporters ludicrously asserted that it’s up to individual Americans — not the courts — to determine when a law is constitutional.
Bogus! What’s ludicrous is ignoring the three biggest words in the Constitution – ya know, the ones at the top! We The People are the ultimate voice because it is our document. Not theirs. While the federal supremacists at the World-Herald would have folks believe their only power is in the ballot box, a greater power is available in the jury box.

3. The U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment gives individuals the right to own firearms.
Bogus! The Second Amendment ain’t no handout! It’s a formal recognition of a pre-existing individual right to acquire, hold, hoard, and use military level weaponry. Don’t forget the part about “shall not be infringed.” That has a little something to do with why Missouri must nullify.

2. James Madison, hailed as the “father of the Constitution,” was still living in the 1830s, and guess what? He took pen to paper and offered a fervent attack on nullification, calling it a “spurious doctrine” and “deadly poison.”
Bogus! James Madison distinguished between his own Principles of ’98 doctrine and the bastardized nullification promoted by James Calhoun and the South Carolina legislature. Their version of the principle alleged each of the other states were bound until 3/4 of the Union voted otherwise. Context matters.

1. A state cannot claim all the benefits of being one of the United States and yet claim the ability to pick and choose which federal laws it will obey.
Bogus! Bogus! Bogus! It may be worth asking what “all the benefits” are so one knows where to begin. Of course, many of the benefits of being one of the States united is the solidarity against an encroaching federal government. When Angel Raich picked and chose a federal law to disobey in accordance with California’s medical marijuana law, the feds sued her. Other attorneys general from Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana stood up for Raich, not their “beneficiary” Washington, D.C. overlords.

Honorable Mention. Respect for the Constitution means following it. Don’t like a federal law? Elect a Congress and president who will try to change it. Think the Constitution needs changing? It covers that, spelling out methods for amending the fundamental law of the land.
Boooogus! James Madison himself covers what to do about an “unwarrantable measure of the federal government” in his Federalist #46. He writes,

“the means of opposition to it are powerful and at hand. The disquietude of the people; their repugnance and, perhaps, refusal to co-operate with the officers of the Union; the frowns of the executive magistracy of the State; the embarrassments created by legislative devices, which would often be added on such occasions, would oppose, in any State, difficulties not to be despised; would form, in a large State, very serious impediments; and where the sentiments of several adjoining States happened to be in unison, would present obstructions which the federal government would hardly be willing to encounter.”

A nullifier doesn’t believe the Constitution needs changing, that’s kind of the point of nullifying federal laws that aren’t constitutional. The op-ed department at World-Herald surely must understand at least that, right? Even their denunciation seems bogus.

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