A Yahoo News article released recently reads: Rand Paul’s Troubling Ties to Racists. The article uses the terms “Pro-confederate”, “neo-confederate” and touches on the Civil War. The source used in the Yahoo News article is from The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative online news source, which published an article slandering Paul as a radical because his aide (Jack Hunter) has long been a supporter and advocate of the Tenth Amendment to the US Constitution.
The Tenth Amendment reads: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people.
In layman’s terms, if it is not one of the powers delegated to the federal government by the US Constitution then the federal government has no business exercising power of such matters. In modern America where the federal government controls what kind of shower you can use, the type of light bulb you are allowed to light your house with and what kind of milk you decide to pour over your cereal in the morning it is no surprise that nullification is becoming a household word again.
Paul is the first modern US Senator to use the term “nullification” in support of reining in the powers of the federal government when it comes to unconstitutional federal legislation. He first used this when President Obama attempted to issue executive orders on gun control.
Paul recently visited South Carolina and spoke to a group of supporters in support of their efforts to nullify the Patient Care Act in the state through a nullification bill, which cites the Tenth Amendment. Paul says, “You know I think some states are resisting it. Here in SC they are resisting at least the expansion and part of Obamacare, but really the states end up making that decision. We’ve tried stopping it at the federal level, we keep stopping it, but you need to send us support. We don’t have enough votes to stop it.”
The bill passed through committee. Paul has also worked feverishly to bypass federal laws banning hemp in his home state of Kentucky. After years of work Paul managed to help get a bill passed in the state legalizing the cultivation of hemp. Paul now vows to get support from Washington.
Because the establishment GOP could not find a direct way to attack Paul on reigning in the powers of the federal government they are doing so by association. Hunter, a more vocal advocate on the Tenth Amendment, would not have made a viral headline on his own. However, by using Paul’s name in the headline along with inflammatory words such as “racists” and “neo-confederate sympathizer” Hunter became the perfect vector for the establishment GOP and liberals to attack Paul’s attempt to limit the powers of government through states’ rights.
Judge Andrew P. Napolitano, Fox News senior judicial analyst, took to his Facebook in support of Hunter and Paul:
Yesterday you saw some hawks, whose ideology is dying and whose worldview is being discredited every day, launch an attack on Senator Rand Paul by attacking one of his brillian aides, Jack Hunter.
Jack’s sin in their eyes was having spoken favorably of states’ rights, and negatively of Lincoln. They can’t seem to recognize that states’ rights–even secession–does not equal racism; it constitutes a brake on the feds’ march to totalitarianism. Most modern day states’ rights advocates recognize the sovereignty of the states and their inherent ability to nullify and avoid federal violations of the Constitution in order to protect life and liberty from an overgrown, intrusive federal leviathan that literally now interferes in or spies on every facet of our lives. And most historians and legal scholars who appreciate personal liberty and limited government recognize that the history of Lincoln’s assaults on civil liberties is a topic capable of divergent views and worthy of exposure.
But really, the hawks and neocons weren’t attacking just Jack—who possesses profound intellectual honesty and who has a gift for reducing complex arguments to understandable terms–for his views on federalism. Everything that was “broken” in the “news” story in the Free Beacon has been public information for a long time. It was not hidden. And it was not news. Some of it was youthful hyperbole, and all of it was sliced and diced out of context.In other words, the neocon world view, which assaulted our civil liberties in a way that would make Lincoln blush and brought us 12 years and two trillion dollars’ worth of useless wars, is crumbling. And it isn’t just crumbling on its own. It has a sledgehammer being taken to it every day by Senator Rand Paul. So, when someone does a hit piece on the Senator’s gifted aide, or when you see a vicious attack on the Senator himself as you no doubt will, think about why it is happening. The attacks are coming from those on the losing side of history.
- Allen West says that ‘States will nullify Obamacare’ - January 4, 2014
- Why Conservatives Are Wrong On Common Core - December 5, 2013
- Establishment Attacks Rand Paul on Support of Tenth Amendment, States’ Rights - July 10, 2013