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2011: Some Personal Highlights

By on December 31, 2011 in Tenthers 0

I wanted to share my personal list of top experiences and milestones from the past 12 months that have me going strong into the new year:

Nullify Now! Los Angeles – This event was possibly the most challenging Nullify Now! event of the entire tour.  The stakes were high- we could not allow anything short of our goal in our home city!  What we somehow pulled off was more festival than meeting, with live music, art on display, panoramic views and the hardest hitting Tom Woods speech of the entire tour.  Nearly 500 came to the event, at least 30% of which were young people.  It was a day I’ll never forget.

Fundraising Call Center – For the first time as an organization, we paid for help to raise money.  Nick Hankoff and Rajani Elek came in an made hundreds of calls to ask for financial support.  To our surprise, most of those calls ended with “thank you for calling me”. Continue Reading →

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Are Tenther Governors on the Horizon?

By on December 7, 2011 in Politicians, Tenthers 4

Your Governor took an oath to the Constitution of the United States- one which they have not followed.

Each of the 50 governors have enormous potential to lead the process of breaking apart the power centralized in DC and return it to We the People. Despite this potential we have yet to see even one strong willed example, willing not only to talk the talk but also do what America’s founders said must be done in the face of Federal tyranny. This has been true for decades.

At least two States now have a chance to vote for Gubernatorial candidates who promise to do just that. Continue Reading →

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Rand Paul Reads TenthAmendmentCenter.com

By on May 16, 2011 in Big Government, Commentary, Constitution, Health Care, Tenthers 0

Or, at least, we think alike.

The junior Senator from Kentucky recently said that to believe in a ”right” to health care one must support slavery:

I’m a physician. That means you have a right to come to my house and conscript me. It means you believe in slavery.

He’s right of course. As I pointed out nearly two years ago, it is impossible for government to grant a positive right, like health care, to anyone without first taking the good or service it is granting away from someone else, like a doctor.

As I said then

Whether by forcibly appropriating and redistributing the money to purchase care for those who lack it, or by arbitrarily devaluing the time and effort of those who provide it, once a government mandate supplants voluntary exchange, coercion must be used to exercise that “right” to health care.

But how can taking what belongs to another person (their money, time, or effort) through legislative force be a right?

Is that not the very essence of slavery?

It is, and it’s nice to see someone as prominent and influential as Rand Paul has the guts to say it.

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Oklahoma governor puts taxpayers’ money where her mouth is

By on April 15, 2011 in Announcements, Big Government, Constitution, Delegated Powers, Federal Funding, Federalism, Founding Principles, Health Care, Liberty, Nullification, Originalism, Sovereignty Movement, State Sovereignty, Tenthers 4

Oklahoma governor Mary Fallin just set an important precedent. By rejecting $54.6 million in federal money to begin implementation of ObamaCare, the governor has firmly set herself against the unconstitutional law and with the citizens of her state.

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.

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Who’s the real hypocrite?

By on April 2, 2011 in Commentary, Constitution, Federalism, Founding Fathers, Founding Principles, Government, Nullification, Tenthers 0

Some guy named Doug Thompson took a cheap shot at Ron Paul recently in an incoherent article titled “The Constitutional hypocrisy of Ron Paul.” From what I could gather, Thompson’s claim is that Ron Paul supports nullification and the 10th Amendment, therefore Ron Paul is a racist because a document published in 1956 called the Southern Manifesto once alluded to nullification.

No mention of the Virginia or Kentucky Resolutions, or of Thomas Jefferson. Continue Reading →

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South Carolina reps see the light on Commerce Clause

By on March 7, 2011 in Big Government, Constitution, Delegated Powers, Federalism, Firearms Freedom Act, Founding Principles, Government, Originalism, Politicians, Sovereignty Movement, State Sovereignty, Tenthers 1

Two state representatives in South Carolina are pushing back against a federal ban of incandescent light bulbs set to begin in January of 2012. There is no constitutional authority for Congress to impose such a ban on the citizens of the several states, and it’s nice that South Carolina noticed.

From NetRightDaily:

“State Representatives Sandifer and Loftis are taking the lead in protecting the rights of South Carolina consumers, who don’t want the federal government telling them which light bulbs they must use,” Bill Wilson the President of Americans for Limited Government said.

“The basic concept of the bill is to allow the citizens of South Carolina to be able to continue to buy incandescent light bulbs,” said State Representative Bill Sandifer, Chairman of the House Labor, Commerce and Industry Committee.

“It is my strong belief that the feds have overstepped the Tenth Amendment, and now are venturing into telling us what kinds of lighting we can have in our homes,” Sandifer added.

Their bill (H. 3735) is essentially a version of the Firearms Freedom Acts and Intrastate Commerce Acts that have been popping up all over the country. Essentially, any light bulb manufactured and sold exclusively in South Carolina would not be subject to federal regulation.

Which is already the case, but it never hurts to repeat the obvious for emphasis when dealing with a government as corrupt and insular as the one in Washington, D.C.

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Dan Casey Betrays His Ignorance While Ranting About Tenthers’ “Flawed” Arguments

By on March 4, 2011 in Constitution, Delegated Powers, Founding Principles, Tenthers 1

Casey’s central argument against what he views as our misreading of the Constitution, betrays both his ignorance of the history surronding the Constitution and the rules of legal interpretation that were understood very well by the those who framed and ratified it.

Both James Madison (the author of the amendment Casey uses to make his case), and Alexander Hamilton, had serious reservations about a Bill of Rights. Why? Because they argued what Tenthers today understand — that the Constitution created a federal government of strictly limited powers. That’s the reason pro-ratification founders, like Hamilton, expressed concern that the Bill of Rights: Continue Reading →

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Supreme Court gets the Constitution right, for once

By on March 3, 2011 in Big Government, Commentary, Constitution, Founding Principles, Government, Originalism, State Sovereignty, Tenthers 2

In an overwhelming 8-1 decision, the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of the odious Westboro Baptist Church and the First Amendment. That is, the amendment which protects ALL speech, not just politically-correct, state-approved speech.

Bravo. The nine highest-paid federal judges in the land have proved themselves capable of comprehending the plain language of the Constitution.

Why then,  we tenthers wonder, is the Supreme Court so unable to comprehend the language of other amendments like, say, the 10th?

Could it be because “granting” political protesters the right to say offensive and unpopular things in public actually increases the perceieved power and stature of the Court?

Yes, peasants, you may rabble-rouse and shout yourselves hoarse, stirring up distraction and division, but attempt to assert that there are absolute limits to the power and authority of the central government, and you will find the Constitution, to us, is really nothing more than a piece of paper.

Need we remind you of Gonzales v. Raich?

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Abandon Ship!

By on February 25, 2011 in Tenthers 7

Nullification, state sovereignty and the Tenth Amendment have become all the rage over the past year, especially in Republican Party, right wing, Tea Party circles. So much so that most mainstream media reports frame the Tenther movement as an exclusively conservative/right wing phenomenon.

But in truth, many of these new-found disciples of the Tenth Amendment seem to view state sovereignty as simply an arrow in their quiver, a weapon effective in fighting legislation they disagree with. When the rubber meets the road, many of these ardent supporters of  “states’ rights” hop ship when the principle begins to clash with their political ideology. Continue Reading →

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Virginia Blogger Calls Tenthers “Intellectual Boobs”

By on February 19, 2011 in Commentary, Constitution, Federalism, Founding Fathers, Founding Principles, Government, Originalism, Sovereignty Movement, State Sovereignty, Tenthers, The Opposition 2

Dan Casey of the Roanoke Times recently embarrassed himself with a juvenile, ad hominem attack on the Tenth Amendment movement titled “The Whole Tenth Amendment Business is Dumb and Crazy.”

While it’s unclear whether Casey actually expected his “arguments” to be taken seriously, it is clear that he cannot make his point through the use of logic or fact. Therefore, Casey’s piece is chock full of historical inaccuracies, mis-characterizations and outright falsehoods regarding the original intent and meaning of the Constitution.

So many, actually, that I cannot list them all here. However, I did respond point by point in a piece of my own to be published soon.

Here is a sample: Continue Reading →

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