Residential energy efficiency standards. Exempts any residential building or manufactured home in Virginia from being subject to federal legislation relating to residential energy efficiency standards if such building complies with the Statewide Uniform Building Code. Except to the extent required by the Statewide Building Code, the owner of such building or home cannot be required by the federal government to (i) have an energy efficiency analysis conducted on his residence, (ii) have his residence meet federal energy efficiency standards, (iii) participate in a building performance labeling program, (iv) make modifications to the residence in accordance with federal legislation, or (v) post a label showing the energy efficiency of his home prior to its sale. The bill also prohibits any state agency from assisting any federal agency in the implementation of global warming or climate change legislation.

We at the Tenth Amendment Center believe strongly in the wisdom and views of two of Virginias’ most respected statesmen on the duty of the  states under the US Constitution; “and that in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said  compact, the states who are parties thereto, have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining within their respective limits, the authorities, rights and liberties appertaining to them.”- James Madison, Virginia Resolutions, 1798;”whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force”- Thomas Jefferson, Kentucky Resolutions, 1798

This proposed law is an example of the state asserting its right under the Tenth Amendment, telling the EPA it has no jurisdiction over building codes within state borders. Building codes are a local or state issue.

This bill is presently moving through the House and has had second reading, but at the present time, it has been watered down by amendments to remove several sections of the bill protecting manufactured homes and provision blocking any state agency from assisting any federal agency in implementation of EPA regulations. It is time for the citizens of Virginia to contact their legislator at Virginia General Assembly’s Who’s My Legislator? and tell them that you expect them to do their ‘duty’ and restore the bill to its original condition and to pass it as soon as possible.

We at the Tenth Amendment Center hope that you will join us in thanking Delegates Robert G. Marshall and Anne B. Crockett-Stark for their continued support and belief in the Constitution, the Tenth Amendment and the Sovereignty of the great Commonwealth of Virginia.

Also, please take a moment and visit the Tenth Amendments Legislative Tracking Page for other model legislation that can be introduced to further curtail the laws and regulations that are outside the powers granted to the federal government by the states.

The ordinance was passed in response to S.510, the odious Food Safety and Modernization Act, written by agricorps like Monsanto to put their smaller competitors out of business, and passed by Congress under the cover of darkness on Christmas Eve last year. 

The Sedgwick ordinance stated in part that

“Sedgwick citizens…[may] produce, process, sell, purchase, and consume local foods of their choosing,”

and declares that

“It shall be unlawful for any law or regulation adopted by the state or federal government to interfere with the rights recognized by this Ordinance.” 

As I pointed out in March:

This is so basic and yet so revolutionary.

In these days when petty tyrants seem to be at the helm of every government agency, imposing their arbitrary and destructive will upon a cowering citizenry, it is refreshing to know that there are still people with the courage and capacity to stand up and say “Not in our town.”

Now another town has joined the fight.

Voters in Blue Hill, Maine have adopted a similar ordinance to protect their own local food producers.

Nullification, the legal and moral equivalent of peaceful non-cooperation, marches on as more and more Americans discover that tyranny cannot exist without the people’s consent.  

h/t LRC

From Fox News:

To make it clear Oklahoma will develop its own plan, the state will not accept a $54.6 million federal grant for setting up a system where Oklahomans could shop for health insurance, Gov. Mary Fallin said Thursday.

Fallin said the state instead will use state and private money to form the system.

This is a step that advocates of nullification in many states have long sought. After all, it’s pretty obvious that threats of non-compliance with the feds are empty to the point of pathetic when state budgets still depend on grants of federal money (which is siphoned from their citizens to begin with).

However

Fallin’s announcement reverses her decision two months ago to accept the federal money.

Obviously the governor is bowing to some form of public pressure. In this age of  rampant and flagrant TSA molestation, it’s nice to see that pressure can still occasionally be successfully applied to public servants.

Perhaps other states whose legislatures have passed a version of the Health Care Freedom Act should consider following Oklahoma’s example.

They did so through what might be the most legitimate form of democratic expression left in America: the New England town meeting. (Which have been held in the Sedgwick town hall since 1794.)

According to one report, the residents of Sedgwick voted to enact a law that not only permits

“Sedgwick citizens…to produce, process, sell, purchase, and consume local foods of their choosing,”

but declares that

“It shall be unlawful for any law or regulation adopted by the state or federal government to interfere with the rights recognized by this Ordinance.” 

What about potential legal liability and state or federal inspections? It’s all up to the seller and buyer to negotiate. “Patrons purchasing food for home consumption may enter into private agreements with those producers or processors of local foods to waive any liability for the consumption of that food. Producers or processors of local foods shall be exempt from licensure and inspection requirements for that food as long as those agreements are in effect.”

This is so basic and yet so revolutionary.

In these days when petty tyrants seem to be at the helm of every government agency, imposing their arbitrary and destructive will upon a cowering citizenry, it is refreshing to know that there are still people with the courage and capacity to stand up and say “Not in our town.”

I can’t wait for the trolls to try and claim that, like medical marijuana, what happened in Sedgwick can’t be nullification because the Supreme Court said it doesn’t exist.

This is the crux of the argument against individual liberty in that it can be denied to any person simply because any power a person has over themselves only exist because the community gave it to them. This assumes that a person or group of people has some kind of inherent power over another and as much as we may think we do it turns out that we do not.

The reason for this is that we have a monopoly of control over our own being. The control over our own body is not shared with another so no other person can direct it in a manor that is not compliant with that person’s own wishes. No other person can direct the movement of our arms and legs which means that no other person can decide what direction their vessel for this life will take them. It simply rests in the thoughts of the person themselves and those thoughts form independently and free of other people’s control. This simply means that as our mind is free from the control of others so is the control of our body since our body is under the control of our thoughts which are naturally free. What our mind is free of thinking is what it will direct our body to do and there is nothing that can alter that relationship. This makes our person an autonomous being that is incapable of sharing power over itself with another person.

Anyone who says the collective has power over the individual is simply repeating a false idea that any person or group of people has some inherent right over someone else. They are assuming a right over someone else that they do not have. They clearly don’t have power over a person’s thoughts which are the birth place of their free-will and they don’t have power over the motor functions of another person’s body which is the physical mechanism for executing that free-will.

The extent of their power only exists over their own mind and body and nothing more and this is the limit of their power. Each one of us is born with an equal authority since each one of us is born with the same level of control of our body and mind. We each have the same level of power over our existence which is what it means to be “created equal”.

That power is unlimited over our own person since no other person shares that power with us and at the same time it is quite limited because it does not extend to others. The only authority we have is over our own selves and we have no authority over another person. Each person has the same level of authority as ourselves and since we have no authority over them they in turn have no authority over us. This allows each of us to live in freedom since no person has authority over another that can be used to deny any of us our freedom.

This is what it means to be ‘created equal’.

Think of the worst act a human being can do to another which is rape. This is a crime in every culture but the difference between rape and sex is the non-coercion principle. Sex is a voluntary act between two willing people but rape is an involuntary act. The physical act does not change itself since it is intercourse as defined by medicine but the difference is free-will. Two people who engage in sex have free-will and each other’s consent to do it but rape is an absence of consent of one person. What made it a moral crime against another person was not the act itself since the act is essentially the same in both situations but more an absence of free-will. The absence of free-will made it an act of evil since there was none.

Not only does this rule apply to that situation but it also applies in all other situations where human beings interact with each other. The act of theft is no different than the act of trade since it involves the movement of one person’s property to another. The only difference is the absence of free-will. A person who exchanges their property with another does so freely of their own free-will. They may do this for charitable reasons or to get something that someone else has but whatever the reason is it is always done in accordance with their free-will.

The act of theft is an involuntary exchange of property between two people just like an act of rape is an involuntary act between two people. The similarities between these two acts are that they are both involuntary interactions where one person is forced to participate with what the other person wants. This turned a normal interaction into an act of evil.

This is also observable in other moral crimes such as murder because it is when someone’s life is removed from them against their own wishes. A person may wish to be killed in some situations because many people have to make the terrible decision to let a loved one go because of wishes expressed in a living will. This is not considered an evil deed because it was a voluntary act between the person who was suffering and the loved one that agreed to do it. It was a voluntary interaction between them.

This is what many philosophers believed in when they envisioned a free society of people where all interactions between any of them were voluntary. I believe it was Locke who rhetorically asked what evil can happen in such a society. They knew that where free-will of the individual was maintained no evil could happen since a person’s free-will could act as a check against another person’s ill intentions for them.

No person agrees to be raped, murdered, or have their possessions forcibly removed from them and if they did it would no longer be something evil. The true nature of evil is the violation of a person’s free-will because what turns any interaction between two people into something evil is the absence of choice to participate in that interaction.

It is unknown to this author how exactly that makes something evil but it is written in most religious text that only God knows the difference between good and evil. Perhaps this is the true nature of evil that mankind is only beginning to discover for ourselves. Perhaps our species is beginning to learn what that is and like all other scientific discoveries it will allow us to live better lives.

In order to understand whether or not something mankind devises is good or evil we must apply the non-coercion test to it. Everything in the world is divided between good and evil and so is law. Good law is law that does not coerce the people to act against their own free-will while evil law (like evil people) does.

Evil law is law that has the power to commands an individual to act against their own free will. This is known as positive law because any act against any person that compels them to act against their own free-will is a positive action. A positive action can be an act of theft against someone’s property, an act of involuntary sex against someone’s body, and act of murder is an act against someone’s desire to live which all are considered evil. Governments that take positive actions against a person are no different than any other person who wants to violate the free-will of others and is thrown in the evil category.

One might wonder if it possible for a good act to happen because of positive action but if there was no harm intended by the positive action then what is the reason for force? It should be obvious that if the action benefited the person in a way that satisfied them then there should be no reason why they should oppose the positive action.

This is way any positive action is evil and positive law is no different because it becomes an instrument of evil for the people in power. The people they pass laws over lose their ability to resist the positive actions of the government which enables those in power to do whatever evil they can think of. This will always be a permanent aspect of government which makes all government an evil social institution no different than the mafia.

There is a way to channel the evilness of government to benefit the freedom of the people. When someone takes a positive action against another it is negated by the free-will of that person which is simply a negative action against the person’s positive action. The net affect is zero action because it stopped the positive action. The government can use its force to negate the positive actions of others in order to maintain the freedom of all. This is called negative law where it protects people from theft, rape, murder, and other violations of the non-coercion principle.

This is the only good government that really exists since it uses its power to insulate the people from the control of others. This rarely happens because people have power over others so they will always use it for positive law. This is why constitutions exist because that becomes the supreme authority of the people and not other people who happen to be in positions of power. This government becomes defined to the supreme law instead of the law being defined by the government.

The history of freedom has always been the non-coercion principle and for most of that history the biggest violator of the non-coercion principle has been government itself. The biggest threat to our liberty has never been our neighbor because we can easily thwart any attempt for them to control us instead the biggest threat has always came from the government. This is because government is the one institution we can not reject in the same way we can reject our neighbor which prevents your neighbor from devouring your freedom. The ability to reject government in the same way does not exist which allows the people in power to consume our natural rights. This is why the most evil things that have ever happened always come from governments and not our neighbors.

Society can only consider itself moral when its inhabitants have the power to freely interact with other inhabitants. The moral identity of a society is violated when a segment of that society is allowed to interact with others in an involuntary manor. It is like having a percentage of our society that can’t be told that they can not steal, they can not rape, or they can not murder. They simply are immune from any objection we have against our free-will which is why what they have is called power which is the root of all evil. It becomes a great enabler for evil and a humiliation for our spirit since they know that we can not resist them in any way. A rapist, a thief, and a murderer uses a gun in order to have power in order to inhibit someone’s free-will so they may do whatever evil they want to us.

Government has power and we are told that it is for our own good that it does but what good can it have in mind for us when it is used to violate the non-coercion principle? The only good that power can be used for is to negate the power that other people may attempt to obtain against us which is negative law. Since this is the exception and positive law seems to be the natural direction of it then we must conclude that the true ambition of government is to be evil. There are many who falsely believe that the state is a stairway to some divine will of the people but if power is the root of all evil and all power exist in the state then the state can be nothing more than a doorway to hell.

The non-coercion principle is the one rule of freedom because it is, as its name implies, when a person does not force or coerce in any way how another person acts. This allows each person to exist in a state of freedom since they are free to engage in any behavior they want without any other person having any say otherwise. This principle does not limit a person’s own choice over themselves but completely inhibits their choice over what other people do. The only right that is denied by this principle is the right to dictate what other people should do.

This principle forbids us from using our worldly powers from denying other people their choice of what they want to do and it also denies us from attempting to use any kind of coercion against them. This implies that we can not manipulate them, force them, or even deny them the right to think as they want since it forbids us from doing that. It is the one ethical rule that we should live by because when this is done the natural liberties we have emerges since no other person has the power to remove our freedom from us.

In some ways we, as human beings, cling to whatever power we have over other people in the same way Frodo in the Lord of the Rings held onto his ring of power. He could not give his ring in the end which seems to be our fate as well and the result is humanity is not living in their natural state of freedom from where goodness and harmony exist.

Just like all evil on middle-earth was the byproduct of the ring all evil on the real earth is the byproduct of our own power. Conflict between any two parties is the violation of the non-coercion principle since it was one party demanding another party comply with its wishes. Larger and more dangerous conflicts between nations exist when one nation wants another to do something but if each nation gave up the idea that they could force the other to comply with its wishes then their would never be a need to go to war with each other.

All other evils are just the result of not living by the non-coercion principle. An act of theft definitely violates the non-coercion principle because one person forces the other to give up something they have. Deception and manipulation violates this as well because a person who is tricked into doing something they would not have freely agreed to do if they knew the truth. Murder, rape, and all the worst evils happen can’t happen where the non-coercion principle is in play since those acts requires a person’s voluntary participation in order for those to occur.

It is said that money is the root of all evil but the truth is that evil exist because of the violation of the coercion principle. This makes the root of all evil an assumption of power over the individual which is a denial of someone’s individual liberty. The non-coercion principle nullifies that assumption which nullifies all evil.

It’s time to save humanity and throw away our rings of power.

Most of us just assume that society exists and that we, being members
of that society, just wake up, go to work, and function within it
without ever considering what it is we are functioning in. We are
like fish who just assume the water is there but we should begin ask
the question of what is the nature of the water we swim in.

Most of us assume that the purpose of society is to provide a place
for us to meet our social needs that satisfy our emotional needs for
companionship and belonging. That is not the true purpose of society
but only one of the beneficial byproducts of it.

In order to understand why we have the thing called society we must
look at why the first societies formed thousands of years ago. It was
(and still is) not possible for one person to survive on their own so
they grouped with other people who had the same basic needs for
survival as they did. This was the first society which was formed in
order to better meet the economic needs of its members such as food,
water, and shelter.

Now lets fast forward to the present and ask ourselves once again what
the purpose of society is. The basic needs for food, water, and
shelter have not changed since the early days of our history and our
modern society really has evolved from that first society so it still
serves the basic function of meeting our mutual economic needs and
without that basic need society has not reason to exist. Just look
what happens to small towns when the plant that has been providing
jobs for the people closes. The society of that small town vanishes
overnight. It did not matter how much people liked each other or the
town because it ceased to exist the minute the economic needs of its
members could no longer be met.

Societies have been and always will be an economic invention of man
much like a corporation, business, or barter club is and once we
understand this we must ponder what kind of economic system that
society should have. A society at its smallest unit is the person and
a person by himself is immune from any other person’s will since there
is no other person. In order to preserve that independence a society
of more than one person must allow each member to trade freely with
another since it preserves how each member is to interact with another
thus preserving their individual freedom.

A society that does not control or inhibit the ability for people to
trade freely with other members is a free society since the power of
choice that each member has over how their economic needs are to be
met are preserved. They can make a choice about what home they want
to buy, what chemicals they wish to ingest, what food to eat, and just
about most everything else they want to do as long as another member
wishes to provide that to them. Each member’s material existence is
determined by their own free-will which allows them to pursue their
own wishes in life.

Once we realize that society is an economic invention it destroys the
cult-like feeling that happens when we define a society by ideas or
values since economic inventions are completely devoid of ideas. This
kills the cult of fellowship mentality that compels us to embrace
certain ideas in order to be a member of the society/cult. This
allows us to function as independent persons within society who are
completely free to form whatever ideas that they want since they are
not compelled by some internal tribal impulse to conform.

The opposite is what fascist and communist preached which was
anti-capitalist (free-market) rhetoric. They knew that if you can
destroy the people’s ability to freely decide on how to meet their own
economic needs through the free interaction with other members it
would destroys their ability to move freely within that society. The
reason for this outcome is that society, be definition, is an economic
invention so to control the movement of goods from one person to the
other controls how each member of that institution interacts with one
another. It essentially gives them power over the institution which
is why most governments in history detested free-trade because it robs
them of the control over the institution itself.

This is why it is better to be a free capitalist-pig because a free
pig eats when and what he wants since those choices are immune from
the control of other pigs.