By
Investigating Journalist Jon Rappoport
December 20, 2010
NewsWithViews.com
The 10th Amendment Center is a group that is campaigning to nullify illegal federal laws. It's also resuscitating the right of states to exercise their basic power in this regard.
Here is a brief excerpt from a piece at their site, “The Lone Star State's Opportunity,” by Michael Maharrey:
On Nov. 16, Texas Representative Leo Berman (R-Tyler) filed a bill in the Texas House of Representatives that would nullify federal health care legislation in the the Lone Star State. HB-297 asserts:
The federal Act [ObamaCare] is not authorized by the United States Constitution and violates the Constitution’s true meaning and intent as expressed by the founders of this country and the ratifiers of the Constitution.
The
federal Act:
(1) is invalid in this state;
(2) is not recognized by this state;
(3) is specifically rejected by this state; and
(4) is null and void and of no effect in this state.
The bill takes things a step further, making it a crime for any official, agent, or employee of the United States or an employee of any corporation to enforce any part of the health care act in Texas, and imposes fines up to $5,000 and/or five years in prison for anyone convicted of doing so.
-end quote
The point of this Texas bill, which faces a struggle to get out of committee, is that the federal government has exceeded its constitutional authority by passing ObamaCare. That power is not given to the federal government by the Constitution—and is therefore reserved for the individual states and the people.
Understand this: the US Constitution was originally ratified by state legislatures, and therefore, a pact was made, in which the states delegated some powers to the newly created federal government.
The Constitution didn't spring out of thin air. It wasn't written by members of the federal government. In the truest sense, there was no federal government at the time.
And the Constitution wasn't some all-embracing gift given by the states, after which they disappeared back into the shadows, leaving the new central government to pass any laws it wanted to.
There was a pact: “We will give you certain powers, and we the states will retain all other powers.”
Implicit in this arrangement was a vital proviso: any individual state could nullify a federal law or regulation, if that state decided the fundamental pact had been violated by the federal law.
It's really quite simple. Suppose you and your neighbors create a watch group, and you elect John Jones to run this group, in order to protect the neighborhood from criminals. You grant Jones certain specific powers. But then Jones decides to import 100 free-roaming rattlesnakes as protection, and he claims he can do this because you ceded your power to him. What do you do? You probably fire him. At the very least you nullify his plan for the snakes. And you can do this, BECAUSE YOU HAVE A CONTRACT WITH JONES.
You don't disappear because you granted Jones a few powers. A contract implies two parties. They both live on, after the contract is signed. Otherwise, there is no contract.
This point, vis-a-vis the states and the federal government, has been lost. It was lost a long time ago.
To restore it requires actions by the states, because no branch or agency of the federal government is going to cut back federal power. It won't happen. To imagine it could happen at the level of the Supreme Court, for example, is a bet you'd be ill-advised to make.
In his article, Maharrey quotes James Madison, from Federalist 46:
“Should an unwarrantable measure of the federal government be unpopular in particular States, which would seldom fail to be the case, or even a warrantable measure be so, which may sometimes be the case, the means of opposition to it are powerful and at hand. The disquietude of the people; their repugnance and, perhaps refusal to cooperate with officers of the Union, the frowns of the executive magistracy of the State; the embarrassment created by legislative devices, which would often be added on such occasions, would oppose, in any State, very serious impediments; and were the sentiments of several adjoining States happen to be in Union, would present obstructions which the federal government would hardly be willing to encounter.”
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So if you had any doubt that the strategy of nullification was real, from the beginning of the Republic, this should clear things up.
Delegating someone to “run things” for you is a myth. Think about it. There is always a contract, and the contract spells out what you are allowing the other party to do. How could it be otherwise, unless you were interested in appointing a king? When one party in the contract violates it by overstepping his mandate, you can legally rein him in. You'd be a fool not to.
There is a point, however, where things get tricky. Suppose the other party is showering you with gifts, with money? Suppose he is attaching conditions to these gifts? In order to take them, you have to fall in line with a whole host of regulations. If you cave in, you're in a tough spot. You're selling out. And if you try to nullify some law he just passed, he tells you the money will stop flowing. You then take a step back and realize the gifts were always coming out of your own pocket, because you were paying taxes to the Man. Wow. What a set-up. How did you become so deluded? How did you fall for this shell game? What you gave him he gave back to you. (Well, part of what you gave him.) He used the money you gave him to buy the snakes he set loose in the neighborhood, and he kept some of the money, too. And now he says he wants to give you money so you can install better sprinkler systems on your lawns, but he'll hold that back from you—he'll hold back your own money unless you allow him to set loose the snakes.
When people in Texas try to nullify ObamaCare, they need to think about that. I'm sure they are. They're paying taxes to the federal government so it can put in place the whole ObamaCare program. Somewhere along the line, this issue is going to come up. What do you think the Founders would say about it? Taxation to pay for enforcing and administering a law that is unconstitutional to begin with? Are you kidding?
Well, one step at a time.
If enough illegal federal laws are nullified by enough states, the emperor is going to look naked, because he is. He's taxing people to pay for a whole host of laws that are unconstitutional. He keeps saying he needs more money, and it's obvious this is a lie. What he really needs is less power. What he really needs is honest adherence to the Constitution. He gave all that up a long time ago.
Every state in the Union runs, to a considerable degree, on federal money. Which means taxes and money invented out of thin air by the central government. If you think the money crunch in state capitols is serious now, what do you think would happen if states started telling the federal government they don't want that funding from Washington?
I'll tell you exactly what would happen. State governments would have to reassess their whole modus operandi. They would be forced to realize they've been operating on a bloated dream of credit, endless credit, and they would also have to realize that a great number of government contracts they award to the private sector are paid for by funny money.
And the private sector would have to wake up, too. Wake up to something called the free market.
This is how far off the track we've wandered.
This is how deeply the Constitution has been shredded.
It's not that we're opening a can of worms here or raising the lid on Pandora's box. The can and the box were opened decades ago. We're trying to remember how it was supposed to be before the box and the can were blasted apart.
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The whole national economy has essentially been bought off and bribed by federal money and state-government money, and the real operating social contract is: take the money and forget about the Constitution. That's the deal we're making now. Let's not pretend it's different. Walk into any big-company office and look around and find out where they're working this government-money angle, and you'll see the reluctance to opt out of the arrangement. The teat is warm. The teat is good. The teat is essential.
But again, one step at a time.
The states have to expose the naked emperor. Step one.
� 2010 Jon Rappoport - All Rights Reserved
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Jon Rappoport has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize early in his career, Jon has published articles on medical fraud, politics, alternative health, and sports in LA Weekly, CBS Healthwatch, Spin, Stern, and other magazines and newspapers in the US and Europe.
He is the is author of several books, including The Secret Behind Secret Societies and The Magic Agent (a novel).
Jon is the author of a new course for home schoolers, LOGIC AND ANALYSIS.
E-Mail: qjrconsulting@gmail.com
Web site, www.nomorefakenews.com
Web site, www.insolutions.info
