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Author Archive | Steve Palmer

2nd Amendment Action Alert for Upper Pottsgrove, Pennsylvania

By on March 17, 2013 in Activism

France Krazalkovich, who is running for a seat on the Upper Pottsgrove Board of Commissioners, introduced a Second Amendment preservation resolution to the board during their February meeting. The resolution was introduced in his capacity as a citizen and resident of the township. Mr. Krazalkovich writes that it was met with mixed response in February and that he will ask for it to be considered again tomorrow evening, March 18, 2013. Of the resolution, he says,

The Resolution would 1) Condemn federal overreach and infringement upon the Right of the Individual to Keep and Bear Arms; 2) Express support for, and urge immediate passage of PA House Bill 357; 3) Reserve the right of the Township to take measures necessary to prevent enforcement of federal acts respecting the Right of the Individual to Keep and Bear Arms; and 4) Direct the Township Manager to immediately transmit copies of the Resolution to a host of public officials including the President of the United States.

To support this resolution, you can contact Elwood Taylor, the President of the Board of Commissioners. The Board’s web site gives Mr. Taylor’s e-mail address as: etaylor@upperpottsgrovetownship.org. Urge Mr. Taylor to bring the resolution up for a vote.

To stay informed on this and other issues, Like and get active on the Pennsylvania Tenth Amendment Center Facebook page. Also join the Second Amendment Preservation Act of PA Facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/groups/2ndAmendmentPA/

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Health Care Freedom Act Introduced in the PA Legislature

By on February 5, 2013 in Health Care

TAC_HealthCareFreedomThe Tenth Amendment Center’s four step road map to nullification of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) includes 1.) Refuse to implement the state-run health care exchange; 2.) Reject the Medicaid expansion; 3.) Pass Health Care Freedom Legislation; and 4.) Full nullification of the PPACA inside the state’s borders. Here in Pennsylvania, step 1 has been accomplished and a coalition of activists are currently working to accomplish step 2.

Representative Matt Baker has now continued progress on step 3 with the introduction of HB273, the Health Care Freedom Act. This act provides for the right of the individual to purchase private health insurance and prohibits any law from compelling an individual, employer, or health care provider to participate in any health care plan or system. It currently has 42 co-sponsors and it is assigned to the House Committee on Health, of which Rep. Baker is the chair. Continue Reading →

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No Budget, No Freedom

By on November 26, 2012 in Economics, Founding Principles, History, Taxation

Jonathan Mayhew, via wikimedia commons.

There are rallying cries from the American revolutionary period which are still axiomatic in American Society. One was apparently coined by Jonathan Mayhew in a 1750 sermon, “Discourse Concerning Unlimited Submission and Non-resistance to the Higher Powers“. It is, “No taxation without representation.” Similarly, James Otis is often credited with the phrase, “Taxation without representation is tyranny.” It is claimed that Otis used this phrase in his legal argument against the Writs of Assistance.

These phrases are unquestionably correct in a free society, but what is it that makes them true? What are the characteristics of taxation without representation that make it tyrannical — and how do these principles apply to today’s American society?

Continue Reading →

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Presidential Elections are not Silver Bullets

By on October 30, 2012 in Uncategorized

At any time, our country is either moving towards freedom or towards tyranny; Towards the founding American ideals or away from them; Towards the idea that we are all created equal and endowed with the natural rights to life, liberty and property or away from that idea. Sadly, throughout my life, government has grown and freedom has diminished. This is unsustainable, but no matter who wins the Nov. 6 election, expect the trend to continue. Our main problem is structural, not electoral.

The Tenth Amendment to the US Constitution says that powers which were not delegated to the federal government were reserved for the states and the people. This codified systematic checks into a design which James Madison referred to as a “compound republic”. As most know, the executive, legislative, and judicial branches were intended to check each other inside the federal government. Less known is that the states, the people, and the federal government were intended to act as checks on each other when one seized a power that should be held by another.

When we blindly support politicians because of the (D)s or (R)s after their names, or when our states become financially dependent upon federal handouts (which are taken, in part, from our children), this delicate balance of power is threatened. Continue Reading →

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EPA to World’s Hungry: “Let Them Eat Cake”

By on September 14, 2012 in Commentary

Ethanol corn mandates are not just useless.  When people are starving, these policies make the problem worse.  Much worse.

What’s the number one reason we riot?  The plausible, justifiable motivations of trampled-upon humanfolk to fight back are many—poverty, oppression, disenfranchisement, etc—but the big one is more primal than any of the above.  It’s hunger, plain and simple.  If there’s a single factor that reliably sparks social unrest, it’s food becoming too scarce or too expensive.  So argues a group of complex systems theorists in Cambridge, and it makes sense.

…

But how accurate is the model?  An anecdote the researchers outline in the report offers us an idea.  They write that “on December 13, 2010, we submitted a government report analyzing the repercussions of the global financial crises, and directly identifying the risk of social unrest and political instability due to food prices.”  Four days later, Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire as an act of protest in Tunisia.  And we all know what happened after that.

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“Recent droughts in the mid-western United States threaten to cause global catastrophe,” Yaneer Bar-Yam, one of the authors of the report, recently told Al Jazeera.  “When people are unable to feed themselves and their families, widespread social disruption occurs.  We are on the verge of another crisis, the third in five years, and likely to be the worst yet, capable of causing new food riots and turmoil on a par with the Arab Spring.”

Did you catch that?  “Recent droughts in the mid-western United States threaten to cause global catastrophy,” Why are recent droughts such a threat?  Because, Continue Reading →

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Hands OFF My Health Care Rally

By on September 7, 2012 in Uncategorized

Stopping the health care exchanges is the first step in our Nullify Obamacare road-map.  In its June ruling, even the supreme court agreed that our state cannot be compelled to implement the health care exchanges.

Here’s a short video explaining why the states should refuse to create health care exchanges, from Michael Canon, with the Cato Institute:

Washington is never going to fix Washington, but Harrisburg and 49 other state capitals can do it.  Continue Reading →

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Nullify Now! Pennsylvania Needs Action Today

By on August 15, 2012 in Uncategorized

CLICK HERE – to sign on to our NULLIFY OBAMACARE campaign!

Dear Friends,

The June Supreme Court decision on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was disappointing, but not surprising.  After all, the Supreme Court is a branch of the Federal Government.  It can surely not be a surprise that nine employees of the Federal Government found in favor of the Federal Government in its dispute with more than half of the American States.

We have good news, though.  Continue Reading →

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If You Have an Ally, Don’t Go It Alone

By on July 5, 2012 in Federalism, Government, Health Care

Cross posted from the Pennsylvania Tenth Amendment Center.

There is a point that I think I’ve been trying to get to for much of the time that I’ve been working with the Tenth Amendment Center.  Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ve done a very good job at getting there.  I’ve written a few articles that skirted past it and danced around it, but I kept missing this particular target.  It’s something that we probably all know, but maybe we don’t all know that we know it.

I got close to this idea it in The Individual and the Tenth, where I talked about the role of the individual in resisting the federal government during the “Whiskey Rebellion”.  Apparently, though, I didn’t really have things clear enough in my own mind at the time, because I only got part way there.  It came closer to the surface some time last year, when I drew up this diagram, intended to depict the proper Constitutional balance of power.

Continue Reading →

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