Oh, and he’s thought of a new twist on the zombie video: Calhoun, Calhoun, Calhoun (even though Jefferson was the main originator of the idea, which is why Andrew Jackson referred to it as the “Virginia Doctrine”).

cross-posted from the LewRockwell.com blog

• Tennessee State Rep. Susan Lynn
• Michael Boldin – Director of the Tenth Amendment Center

Rep. Lynn in a member of the Tennessee General Assembly and is the Chairman of the Committee on State Sovereignty. Because of the work of the committee, the General Assembly passed a State Sovereignty Resolution that includes:

• Seeking repeal of the assumption of powers and the imposed mandates [by the federal government]
• Calling for a joint working group between the states to enumerate the abuses of authority by the federal government

The Tenth Amendment Center works to preserve and protect Tenth Amendment freedoms through information and education. The center serves as a forum for the study and exploration of state and individual sovereignty issues, focusing primarily on the decentralization of federal government power.

This topic is a vital part of the battle plan for We The People to take back control of a bloated federal government. We have incumbents and candidates in our states who need to hear from us about starting this process.  You won’t want to miss this show as The Forgotten Men will ask Rep. Lynn and Michael Boldin how we get started!

Listen live on AM930 WFMD in the Frederick, MD (Balt/Wash) area or online at www.WFMD.com. The program is from 12-1pm Eastern on Saturday, December 19, 2009. Visit us at www.ForgottenMen.com for more information.

Federalism — the idea of a nation made up of smaller, semi-autonomous states — was deemed so important by the founders of the United States that they included it in the “Bill of Rights,” the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

The tenth amendment says that “powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states.”

It’s a pretty good article, by the way. Read it here.

Thursday 9/17/2009

7:35 AM – Rob Johnson Show, 840 KMPH – Modesto, CA
8:05 AM – John Lofton, TheAmericanView.com
11:35 AM – Lou Dobbs Radio
2:00 PM – Jack Blood, Deadline Live.info

Saturday 9/19/2009

6:00 AM – Darren Weeks, Govern America, syndicated on Republic Broadcasting
9:05 AM – Mark Kreslins and Joshua Lyons on 930AM WFMD – Frederick, MD
2:00 PM – TeaPartyPatriotsLive.com with Phil Russo and Jason Hoyt on 660 WORL – Orlando, FL

Usually, places like HuffPo, MSNBC, ThinkProgress, and elsewhere slam the 10th as being pointless, try to make fun of people who believe in limited government under the 10th by calling them “Tenthers,” try to associate the entire movement with vile racism, and other nasty rhetoric designed to distract from the real issues.

On the other hand, there’s Weigant, who’s obviously making a sincere effort to give a fair report.  I think he make some good points, too. Here’s an excerpt:

The Tenth Amendment is one of the rarer parts of the Bill of Rights for the Supreme Court to actually rule on, but every so often one of these cases is taken up by the Court. And, increasingly, Republicans are using it as a “last resort” against federal laws they don’t like. Although, to be fair, one of the more recent decisions (Gonzales v. Raich) went against a California woman who argued that since she was growing medical marijuana on her own land for her own consumption, the constitutional powers of the federal government to regulate interstate trade simply did not apply. The Supreme Court disagreed, but at least it was consistent, since it had ruled during World War II that a wheat farmer could not use this argument to escape federal war efforts to regulate wheat production (Wickard v. Filburn). In both cases, the Court reasoned, even if the farmer didn’t sell his or her crop, it could still impact the interstate commerce for that crop. Meaning Congress could, indeed, regulate it

The Supreme Court has also upheld Congress’ right to essentially blackmail states to do what the feds want, by using the leverage of withholding federal funding to the states unless they comply with the fed’s wishes. Anyone who lived through the 1980s saw how Washington used federal highway funds to blackmail states into raising their drinking age in just such a fashion. But the Supreme Court has also ruled that the feds cannot tell states to actually enforce federal laws directly. Most recently, the Court has struck down gun restrictions such as a “Gun-Free School Zone,” or mandatory background checks for gun sales, which (the Court reasoned) cannot be imposed by the feds on the state governments.

Where he really did best was when he called out a journalist from the New Yorker for calling the language of Georgia’s sovereignty resolution as nutty:

But what he fails to connect is that he is, in essence, calling Thomas Jefferson a nutjob. Because the language in question in the Georgia resolution (“where powers are assumed [by the federal government] which have not been delegated [to it by the states], a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy”) isn’t merely “mock eighteenth-century style,” but in fact was written in the eighteenth century, about ten years after the United States Constitution was ratified — and that the language came directly from Jefferson’s pen.

For any hope of success, it’s important that the 10th Amendment isn’t co-opted soley by the ”right wing.”  Partisanship can only doom the principles of decentralization to failure.

Chris blogs at ChrisWeigant.com

Here’s a few observations:

1. Turley is absolutely correct that “decades of precedent” in the courts oppose the view that the federal government is not authorized to enact a national health care plan. But, what he fails to point out, is that under the original meaning, intention and understanding of the Constitution – these kinds of powers would have been unthinkable. The court is, in plain English, wrong.  Learn more here.

2. Neither the host nor Turley seem to have any clue about nullification – or its current efforts. Nullification has nothing to do with getting a positive ruling from the Supreme Court. It’s when a state passes a law simply refusing to implement a federal law. In fact, it has a long history in the American tradition. It’s been used to resist laws against free speech, fugitive slave laws, the use of the militia in war and more. Hardly “right-wing” at all.  Learn more here.

3. Nullification has also been used quite recently – and effectively too. Approximately two-dozen states refused to implement the Bush-era Real ID act. And guess what – the courts aren’t needed, and neither is Congress. The law is a dead letter. Null and void.

4. Oh, and that pesky general Welfare clause. It doesn’t mean what they’re implying – at all. In fact, it was meant as a strict limitation on power. Here’s what James Madison had to say about it – “With respect to the words “general welfare,” I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators.”

If my choice is the opinion of James Madision vs Jonathan Turley, I think I’m safe going with Madison.

Here’s what I think is most important…What both Olberman’s stand-in and Professor Turley get wrong is this – the 10th Amendment Movement is not about asking politicians to follow the Constitution. It’s not about getting permission from the Supreme Court to exercise our rights. It’s not about going to the federal government at all.  Those are all failed strategies.

This movement is about moving back towards Constitutional governance whether they want us to or not.

Whether it’s 20+ states nullifying real ID, or 2 states nullifying some federal gun regulations, or 13 states nullifying federal marijuana laws, or states nullifying a national health care plan, this is about state-level activism. And, if enough states do it, the feds can’t do anything to stop it.

Copyright © 2009 by TenthAmendmentCenter.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.

So here comes the new one – “The Tenthers.”  I recently started seeing a few references to this term in the standard places, Alternet, ThinkProgress, and elsewhere.  But now it seems to have come from on high like the NeoCons did with every new buzzword during the Bush years.

These days, everyone from MSNBC on downward is disparaging those who invoke the principles of limited government that the 10th Amendment stands for as something awful.  And they’ve got this cute little word for it too!

In fact, its usage has come on so fast and so regularly that someone over at the Washington Times picked up on the newly-approved jargon:

Health care reform supporters at the Center for American Progress, the American Prospect, MSNBC and other outlets have deployed the term against Republicans who cite the 10th Amendment as reason not to create new programs. Some of the leading Republican proponents of the allegedly “dangerous” and “conspiratorial” theory include Sens. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Jim DeMint of South Carolina, and Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota.

“As the nation emerges from the worst economic downturn in three generations, the tenthers would strip away the very reforms and economic regulations that beat back the Great Depression, and they would hamstring any attempt to enact new progressive legislation,” worried the American Prospect’s Ian Millhiser in an essay that said the “tenthers” were “no less radical but infinitely more dangerous” than the birthers.

I wonder if they call Massachusetts AG Martha Coakley a “Tenther”?  She invoked the 10th amendment in a federal lawsuit that’s in favor of gay marriage.  Or how about the many marijuana legalization activists that see the 10th as prohibiting the federal government from being involved in that area?

I’m sure they’re just a bunch of partisan hacks and don’t really care – or maybe they’re too involved in their national political party to even notice.

Either way, I’m pretty happy about it.  It’s much easier to describe myself as a Tenther than saying “I don’t have a political affiliation – neither party represents my interests or supports the Constitution. ”

Now it’s just one word.  It’s so simple that we’re taking it on and even adding it as a category here on the Tenth Amendment Center blog.

Thank you whoever you are!

I just received an email from CNN saying that the Montana Firearms Freedom Act story will be on the CNN Lou Dobbs show today at 5:15PM, Mountain Time (7:15 Eastern)

If anyone gets the video from this, please send it our way asap!