Herman Cain, gun rights, state's rights, and the Constitution

Herman Cain: Gun Control A “States Issue.” Huh?

Doug Mataconis   ·   Wednesday, June 8, 2011   ·   18 Comments

When I saw Herman Cain’s interview with Wolf Blitzer yesterday afternoon, this immediately jumped out at me:

BLITZER: How about gun control?

CAIN: I support the 2nd amendment.

B: So what’s the answer on gun control?

C: The answer is I support, strongly support, the 2nd amendment. I don’t support onerous legislation that’s going to restrict people’s rights in order to be able to protect themselves as guaranteed by the 2nd amendment.

B: Should states or local government be allowed to control guns, the gun situation, or should…

C: Yes

B: Yes?

C: Yes.

B: So the answer is yes?

C: The answer is yes, that should be a state’s decision.

Transcript via Jazz Shaw

This is, of course, entirely incorrect. In McDonald v. Chicago, the Supreme Court ruled that the 2nd Amendment, and its protections as had recently been defined in District of Columbia v. Heller, applied to the states through the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment. While the decisions in McDonald and Heller do leave unanswered the question of what forms of firearms regulation would be Constitutionally acceptable, it is fairly clear that the protections of the Second Amendment are applicable to the states.

Now, it’s possible, as Jazz Shaw suggests, that Cain simply misspoke under  Blitzer’s rapid fire barrage. The other possibility, though, is that he’s one of those “Constitutional” conservatives who rejects the entire idea that Federal Bill of Rights should be applied to the states. Ron Paul believes this, and it’s one reason I’m not entirely a fan of his. Is this Cain’s position? Does he believe that, not just the 2nd, but also the 1st, 4th, 6th, 7th and 8th Amendments shouldn’t apply to the states? Some clarification on this issue would be most helpful.

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I believe that the Federal government and the States have no authority to regulate the sale, licensing, or barter of any firearm.  I believe that this is a right reserved to the people, but usurped by the post 1865 National and State governments (mostly a 20th Century phenomenon, after a fascist shift occurred in this Nation).  It would behoove a state, however, to keep a database of convicted felons and psychiatric patients with specific diagnoses prone to impulsive, psychotic, sociopathic behavior, etc. And approve or disapprove purchase of firearms for those individuals on a case by case basis (I have mixed feelings on this type of regulation;  one of the mandates of government is to protect persons and their property.  However, it is a fine line between not encroaching and encroaching on the 2nd amendment right of an individual.  If you give a government an inch, within a few generations, the inch has become a mile...).

I have a problem with using the 14th Amendment to assert gun rights, because it legitimizes the Federal authority, which is unconstitutional and illegal, all the moreso because the authority came through force of arms and persists because of force of arms.

While I am a big State's rights supporter, I support State's rights insofar as they have reserved the right to exercise authority (under proper representation of the people) in passing local laws. Specifically, States have broad authority not specifically delegated to the Federal government in Article I, Section 8.

The pre-1865 amendments to the Constitution/Bill of Rights are inviolate; they are outside the bounds of the Federal or State governments to encroach upon.

That the pre-1865 amendments are superceded by more modern amendments, and rights eroded to the point of being occasionally granted privileges is a testiment to the woefully inadequate assertion of Popular sovereign power, and the bitter fruit of the defeat of the Confederate States of America.

State's Rights: Did States created after the Constitution have the same rights and legal status?

From an letter to the editor/comment in the Montgomery AL Advisor

"On the 150th anniversary of secession, the question of its legality becomes a matter of interest again. In my opinion as a historian, of the states that declared secession, only Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Texas have a case, because of all the Confederate states, only those five were independent before they joined the Union.

Since they voluntarily joined the Union, perhaps they could voluntarily also leave the Union. All of the other Confederate states, including Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Florida, Arkansas and Louisiana, were not independent before they joined the Union.

They were federal territories before they were states. Having been created out of federal territory, they had less legal right to secede from the Union that created them. Most of the states that declared secession in 1860-1861 did not have the legal right to do so."

Daniel L. Haulman
Montgomery

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I disagree.  The fault in the thinking is assuming that the word "federal" in "federal territory" means "national" or common to all.  The United States was not a singular national political entity until after 1865, and only became so through force of arms.  

By the Constitution, the states that founded the Union set the process by which new states could be created and admitted to the Union.  Those territories were created by the legislative branch as authorized under Article IV, Section 3.  


Before Statehood, the territory must hold a referendum, demonstrating through popular sovereignty, that the joining with the Union is the will of a majority of inhabitants able to vote.    

Every state admitted to the Union held a ratification convention or held a referendum, and voluntarily joined the Union.  The later states became cosignatories to a preexisting contract between equal sovereign political entities.  


If the process is reversed, as in 1860-61, a state holds a people's convention to discuss secession, and if the eventual vote is for secession, then the people of that state, as sovereigns, voluntarily and peacefully withdraw from the Union.

The language of "perpetual" union in the Articles of Confederation, and "a more perfect" union in the Constitution is often cited by nationalists to indicate that the Union was permanent (and by implication, involuntary).  


"Perpetual" only means indefinite, or without any defined timeframe.  "Perpetual" and "more perfect Union" say nothing about voluntary or involuntary nature of the compact between states.

The whole national theory falls apart with a look at the text of the Constitution and its ratification.  Article VII of the Constitution only calls for 9 States to ratify the Constitution to create a new Union.  


Not all 13.   


If 9 ratify, only 9 join.  The other States are in no way obligated to join the Union.  Only 11 of the 13 states ratified the Constitution initially.  


North Carolina was an independent sovereign nation, that is, not one of the United States, between New York's ratification in July 1788, and North Carolina's ratification in November 1789.  The coexistence was peaceful.  There was no military strife.  There was no coercion from the neigboring "united" States.  


Rhode Island was likewise independent until May 1790.  


The timeline of the formation of the 13 State Union is today not clear to even those with a decent knowledge of history.  

The point?  A "nation" was not founded in 1788.  A "federation" of States was created.  Every state or territory voluntarily joined the Union.  Normative contract law, known to attorneys and legislators at local, state, and federal law, indicates that voluntary contracts and compacts between equal parties can be dissolved or changed by voluntary withdrawl by one of the parties (unless otherwise specified and agreed to by such party in the contract).


In Summary:

Each new state was equal in legal standing to the original ratifying states.  


Each State joined the Union voluntarily, through defined process.


No specific clause of the Constitution speaks to illegality of secession, only that the timeframe of the compact between states is indefinite.


The Constitution between the States is like a contract between legally equal entities.  


Therefore, normative English and American contract law allows secession of a State from the Union.


Quod erat demonstrandum.

Texas woman wins settlement against TSA

JANUARY 13--The woman who sued the Transportation Security Administration after her breasts were exposed during a frisking at a Texas airport will receive a “nominal” payment from the government as part of a legal settlement, The Smoking Gun has learned.

The settlement was disclosed in documents filed last week in U.S. District Court in Amarillo, where Lynsie Murley last year filed a lawsuit accusing the TSA of negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress in connection with the May 2008 incident at the Corpus Christi airport.

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Well, isnt this special:

Woman pays taxes to federal government.

Federal government gives tax money to TSA.

Tax enabled TSA causes same woman emotional distress
by causing her to expose herself in public (without cause).

Federal court orders settlement "from the government" to wronged woman.

American taxpayer money paid out to wronged woman.  

Those [TSA employees] who violated her rights don't have to pay out of their own pocket;  no word on disciplinary action.

So, woman pays for the privilege of being abused by those oath bound to protect her constitutional rights, and tasked with protecting her life by screening for threats, 


And we pay money to support both their labor, and bail out their abuses. 

Do we as taxpayers bear collective guilt for TSA thuggery?


"People are beginning to realize that the apparatus of government is costly. But what they do not know is that the burden falls inevitably on them."--Frederic Bastiat
 

Charleston Mercury July 25, 1860 editorial "The Union"

Go to the Original Sources to understand the mindset of the time:

The Union

Charleston Mercury, July 25, 1860

The Union of the Constitution, we presume nearly all men in the South, desire to be perpetuated. It is the bond of our fathers, and as their children we will maintain it. But do the dangers and agitations which now shake the United States, arise from the Union of the Constitution? If it does, then the work of our fathers is most inadequate to our times. We maintain that these dangers and agitations are the result, not of the Constitution they transmitted to us, but of its overthrow. The Union it established does not exist. Usurpation and encroachment have drawn into the vortex of Federal power, interests which were never intended, by the Constitution, to be embraced in its operations. The General Government, under the sectional predominance and policy of the North, has become omnipotent in the laying and appropriation of the taxes; and now stretches its authority over slavery in the South. The Constitution, under such usurpations of power, is virtually abolished—and the Union it established is virtually dissolved. Hence the dissatisfaction in the South and the conflict between the North and the South, which must end either in the Union of the Constitution being restored, or in the South being destroyed by the sectional despotism of the North under the auspices of another Union, established by power on the one side and subjection on the other. Nor is the test of the true condition of the South very far off. The elections next fall must settle the question of Northern predominance—of a complete sectional despotism over the South, or of yet another chance for Southern deliverance. As things now are, the probability is that the Black Republicans will sweep the North, and command the Electoral College in the Presidential election. Now, in such a condition of things, is it truthful—is it politic in the South to deal in professions of devotion to the Union? Will they prepare the people of the South to resist the sectional despotism of the Black Republican party? With a full knowledge of the fatal effects to the South, of the possession and control of the Federal Government by the Black Republicans and Abolitionists of the North, do not such professions inevitably tend to a submission to their rule? Ought not the people of the South, rather, to be aroused to a full sense of the perils which hang over them, and be prepared to meet them, and to control their own destinies? What is now the Union?

It is a Union with the Northern States.

It is a Union with the Northern States, who have nullified the Constitution in the Fugitive Slave Laws.

It is a Union with the Northern States, who for twenty years, have kept up in Congress an agitation against Southern slavery.

It is a Union with the Northern States, who have determined to exclude the Southern people from settling, with their slaves, in any of the Territory of the United States.

It is a Union with the Northern States, who have organized their sectional power, to rule and govern the Southern States, as their interest, ambition or fanaticism shall require.

It is a Union with the Northern States, who have overthrown the Union of the Constitution, and have substituted in its stead a Union having their despotic power the sole criterion of its terms and limitations.

It is a Union with the Northern States, in which a party predominates whose vital principle is hostility to African slavery in the South and whose policy it is to extinguish it.

It is a Union with Tariff plunderers, who, by the Tariff Laws of the Federal Government, appropriate the property of the Southern people to their use, and make them their tributaries.

It is a Union with Treasury plunderers, who, by unconstitutional appropriations, drain the Treasury of the United States for their sectional enrichment and aggrandisement.

Briefly, it is a Union on the part of the South with her bitterest revilers, haters, oppressors and enemies.

Now, that any man in the South, who realizes the truth of the above positions, can love or reverence the Union, as it exists—is an utter impossibility. Lying lips may utter praise—and a cowardly heart may refrain its murmurs:—but the meanest political slave must hate a despotism which scourges and threatens to destroy him. Love and hate, are not under our control. God has so constituted the human heart that we can love only what is lovely—and we must hate what is morally wrong and detestable. We do not wish to judge others harshly, but it does appear to us that no one in the South can love or reverence the Union as it exists, but one who is at heart an Abolitionist. Many may tolerate it, under the hope of reforming it. Many may remember and love it, as it was in past days of usefulness and glory, when it was the Union of the Constitution. But now,—as it is now without the Constitution— with its furious sectionalism, and its anti-slavery fanaticism and policy at the North—the only feelings in the South which it can rationally inspire, are those of distrust, fear, contempt or hate. If you have still hopes of reforming it, and of again reinstating the Union of the Constitution—say so; but to accomplish your object, you must condemn the Union as it is. If it is worthy of your devotion—why reform it? What are all your opposition and complaints, but hypocritical ravings, for factious ends?

Jefferson Davis Illustrates original relationships of the States

This is a passage from The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government by Jefferson Davis. Here he describes the period between the 
ratification of the Constitution by 11 of the 13 States, when Rhode Island and North Carolina remained independent nations. The purpose of this passage and letter between the Governor of Rhode Island and 
President George Washington was to demonstrate how individual States did in fact consider themselves sovereign and independent at the time of the Ratification, and the Nationalist school of the founding of the country was a later distortion, and that the compact theory of the formation of the United States is most valid:

Jefferson Davis, 1808-1889

It is particularly to be noted that, during the intervals between the 
organization of the Federal Government under the new Constitution and the 
ratification of that Constitution by, North Carolina and Rhode Island, 
respectively, those States were absolutely independent and unconnected with any 
other political community, unless they be considered as still representing the 
"United States of America," which by the Articles of Confederation had been 
declared a "perpetual union." The other States had seceded from the former 
union—not in a body, but separately, each for itself—and had formed a new 
association, leaving these two States in the attitude of foreign though friendly 
powers. There was no claim of any right to control their action, as if they had 
been mere geographical or political divisions of one great consolidated 
community or "nation." Their accession to the Union was desired, but their 
freedom of choice in the matter was never questioned. And then it is to be 
noted, on their part, that, like the house of Judah, they refrained from any 
attempt to force the seceding sisters to return.

As illustrative of the relations existing during this period between the United 
States and Rhode Island, it may not be uninstructive to refer to a letter sent 
by the government of the latter to the President and Congress, and transmitted 
by the President to the Senate, with the following note:

"United States, September 26, 1789.

"Gentlemen of the Senate: Having yesterday received a letter written in this 
month by the Governor of Rhode Island, at the request and in behalf of the 
General Assembly of that State, addressed to the President, the Senate, and the 
House of Representatives of the eleven United States of America in Congress 
assembled, I take the earliest opportunity of laying a copy of it before you.

(Signed) "GEORGE WASHINGTON."

Some extracts from the communication referred to are annexed:

"State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, In General Assembly, 
September Session, 1789.

"To the President, the Senate, and the House of Representatives of the eleven 
United States of America in Congress assembled:

"The critical situation in which the people of this State are placed engages us 
to make these assurances, on their behalf, of their attachment and friendship to 
their sister States, and of their disposition to cultivate mutual harmony and 
friendly intercourse. They know themselves to be a handful, comparatively 
viewed, and, although they now stand as it were alone, they have not separated 
themselves or departed from the principles of that Confederation, which was 
formed by the sister States in their struggle for freedom and in the hour of 
danger....

"Our not having acceded to or adopted the new system of government formed and 
adopted by most of our sister States, we doubt not, has given uneasiness to 
them. That we have not seen our way clear to it, consistently with our idea of 
the principles upon which we all embarked together, has also given pain to us. 
We have not doubted that we might thereby
 avoid present difficulties, but we have apprehended future mischief....

"Can it be thought strange that, with these impressions, they [the people of 
this State] should wait to see the proposed system organized and in 
operation?—to see what further checks and securities would be agreed to and 
established by way of amendments, before they could adopt it as a Constitution 
of government for themselves and their posterity?...
"We are induced to hope that we shall not be altogether considered as foreigners 
having no particular affinity or connection with the United States; but that 
trade and commerce, upon which the prosperity of this State much depends, will 
be preserved as free and open between this State and the United States, as our 
different situations at present can possibly admit....

"We feel ourselves attached by the strongest ties of friendship, kindred, and 
interest, to our sister States; and we can not, without the greatest reluctance, 
look to any other quarter for those advantages of commercial intercourse which 
we conceive to be more natural and reciprocal between them and us.

"I am, at the request and in behalf of the General Assembly, your most obedient, 
humble servant.

(Signed) "John Collins, Governor.

Mainstream media pundit: Reading Constitution in Congress is a "gimmick"

NORAH O'DONNELL: Returning to the Constitution. That's what Republicans want to do in the new Congress. In the last year, the 223-year-old document has been getting a whole lot of lip service. So when the 112th Congress is sworn in next week, expect to hear a lot more about it, 'cause the Constitution is at center of three coming congressional battles and we love wonkery mixed up with politics. So, we're bringing our favorite wonk into the discussion to tee up some of the discussions in the weeks ahead, MSNBC contributor Ezra Wonk Klein is a staff writer for the Washington Post and joins us now. Ezra, good to see you. Thanks so much.

EZRA KLEIN: Good morning, Norah.

O'DONNELL: You heard all the different politicians talking about the Constitution. Well, this is what's going to happen. When Republicans take over next week, they're going to do something that apparently has never been done in the 221-year history of the House of Representatives. They are going to read the Constitution aloud. Is this a gimmick?

KLEIN: Yes, it's a gimmick. [Laughs] I mean, you can say two things about it. One, is that it has no binding power on anything. And two, the issue of the Constitution is not that people don't read the text and think they're following. The issue of the Constitution is that the text is confusing because it was written more than 100 years ago and what people believe it says differs from person to person and differs depending on what they want to get done. So, I wouldn't expect to much coming out of this.

Read more: http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/scott-whitlock/2010/12/30/wash-posts-ezra-klein-laments-confusing-nature-old-constitution#ixzz19d98xVGK






Hmmm...lets see what other books and documents may have "confusing" text, and "what people believe it says differs from person to person and differs depending on what they want to get done..."


1.  The Bible.
2.  The Bill of Rights.
3.  The individual States' ratifying documents for the Constitution.
4.  The Federalist Papers.
5.  The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, by Jefferson Davis, with its Constitutional arguments so cogent that the victorious and vindictive Union government never even charged him with (what is today constantly referred to as) "treason."
6. Common Sense by Thomas Paine
7.  Anything written by Locke, Burke, or Lord Acton
8. Any work of fiction, prose, poetry, history, philosophy, or law (especially those not pre-approved by official mainstream media sources) .


So y'all should stay away from those pesky confusing documents, essays, and books, and other "gimmicks" that may lead you to get uppity towards your betters...


Lucky for us that modern laws coming out of Congress are crystal clear:

Obamacare

Original Intent: Do the States or the Federal Government have ultimate authority?

In a book entitled A Brief Enquiry into the Nature of the Federal Government, written in 1840, Abel P. Upshur, a lawyer, judge, Virginia state politician, (who would become the 15th Secretary of State under Tyler, be one of the primary movers in bringing Texas into the Union, and 13th Secretary of the Navy), refutes the National Theory of the nature of the Federal government, as expounded by Daniel Webster and Joseph Story, who claimed that the Federal government was created as a national entity by a unified single people, not as an agent for the States and the people.

(Boldface statements below reflect my comments on the preceding sentence(s)):

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The Federal Government is the creature of the States.

Creature = Creation...Thirteen independent Sovereign states, through State Ratifying conventions, each independently voted to create the Federal government with the Constitution.  Historical fact.  There was no national referendum.

It is not a party to the Constitution, but the result of it the creation of that agreement which was made by the States as parties.

Each of the ratifying States was a party to a contract/compact/agreement that we call the Constitution.  The States and the people existed before the Federal government.  The Federal government was not a party to its own creation.

It is a mere agent, entrusted with limited powers for certain specific objects; which powers and objects are enumerated in the Constitution.

The thirteen original States made a new thing, the Federal government, to act as their agent, and delegated to it very specific tasks/powers.  Specifically, the numbered, listed, limited powers of Article I Section 8 of the Constitution.

Shall the agent be permitted to judge the extent of its own powers, without reference to his constituent?

That is:  Can the Federal government (logically) be the decider of just how much power it has?  No!  It could not be limited in its power.    Madison, Jefferson and others of their generation, federalists and anti-federalists, knew that each State had to independently decide if a law passed by Congress (i.e. Federal legislators), or decided at the level of the Supreme Court (i.e. Federal judiciary) or order at the Presidential/Cabinet level (i.e. Federal executive) conformed to the State's interpretation of the Constitution.  This was expounded in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798.  This concept was invoked by northern and southern states before and after the War for Southern Independence, and is a resurgent concept today.

A State was a party to the compact known as the Constitution;  the federal agency was not.  Each State was equal in legal stature to each other State.  No one state could decide whether a law was Constitutional for another State;  each retained it's Sovereignty by the Tenth Amendment.  The Federal Supremacy clause in the Constitution could only logically apply to Constitutional Laws related to the Enumerated Powers of Article I Section 8.  Any question of constitutionality was therefore decided by a State legislature or judiciary, not by the Federal government.

To a certain extent, he is compelled to do this, in the very act of exercising them, but always in subordination to the authority by whom his powers were conferred.

The Federal government has to make its laws within the confines of its delegated powers.  Only in this can the Federal government stay within it's delegated mandate from the States which created it.

If this were not so, the result would be, that the agent would possess every power which the agent could confer, notwithstanding the plainest and most express terms of the grant. This would be against all principle and all reason.

If the Federal executive, judiciary, or legislature could decide what it's own limits were, what would you get?  A gigantic central power that continually grows in leaps and bounds outside its original intent.  

You get the monstrosity that we have today.  You have a government teetering on the brink of a totalitarian shift.  We are the frog put in the pot when the water was lukewarm, but now it is approaching a boiling point.  The people are starting to get uncomfortable...

 If such a rule would prevail in regard to government, a written constitution would be the idlest thing imaginable. It would afford no barrier against the usurpations of the government, and no security for the rights and liberties of the people.

Kinda like what we got now???

If then the Federal Government has no authority to judge, in the last resort, of the extent of its own powers, with what propriety can it be said that a single department of that government may do so? Nay. It is said that this department may not only judge for itself, but for the other departments also.
This is an absurdity as pernicious as it is gross and palpable.

Isn't it though?  Judge Upshur saw our future from 1840!  Imagine that!  Why do you think the court historians that glorify Supreme Federal power bury this viewpoint?  It completely undermines the federal stance about the extent of its own powers.

If the [Federal] judiciary may determine the powers of the Federal Government, it may pronounce them either less or more than they really are.

Try more, and more, and more, until you get the most nonsensical garbage, like invoking the Interstate Commerce clause to control what a farmer grows on his own land for his own personal consumption (Wickard vs. Filburn), or forcing (call it mandating if you want) you to buy health insurance, or controlling what you eat, or controlling a private business like GM, or propping up a private bank that deserved to fail, all with your money.  

A = A.  Tyranny plain and simple.  Cruel unjust use of power.

Etymology of Tyranny:

tyranny

late 14c., "cruel or unjust use of power," from O.Fr. tyrannie (13c.), from L.L. tyrannia "tyranny," from Gk. tyrannia "rule of a tyrant," from tyrannos "master" 

The Road out of the Matrix; Declaration of Principles

Its been about two years since the beginning of the financial crisis, and about two and a half years since I made the decision that I wouldnt and couldnt vote for John McCain or Barack Obama.  My gestalt, long before I began to really understand why I had such an idea, was that voting for McCain would be the same as voting for Obama.  Both would support expansion of government, and expansion of the military industrial complex, raise taxes, continue to run deficits.  My life wouldnt change.  Personal freedom would continue to erode, the Constitution would be ignored by those who took an oath to preserve and protect it.


 I started to surf the net, reading through the websites of the various third parties.  I was coming off of a staunch Neoconservative phase.  My tendency in politics had always been to favor personal freedom.  The primary mandate of any government is to protect individual freedoms and property rights.  I am liberal in my dealings with individuals, giving most people the benefit of the doubt that they are more likely than not  to be a thoughtful and reasonable person.  Why?  The golden rule.  Treat others the way you want to be treated.  That is how I wish others would treat me when I first meet someone.  Do I expect it?  No, just wish and hope for it.


So two years ago, checking out third parties, I came across the Libertarian Party, started reading about libertarianism in general, and one web link leading to another, came to mises.org and lewrockwell.com.  I read about Austrian Economic theory and learned how to differentiate Austrian theory from the predominant Keynesian theory.  I read about how Law and Government is perverted by socialism and special interests in Frederic Bastiat's The Law.  That was the beginning of my road out of the Matrix.


Well!  If you are the kind of person that has faith in the system of government, believe in good intentions of the local police, have faith in the strength of the US economy and the US dollar, well think again!  Dont read those websites, and stay in blissful ignorance.  Keep watching CNN, MSNBC, read the New York Times, obsess about Dancing With the Stars, and spend hours playing Farmville on Facebook.  Dont worry about approaching doom!

Unfortunately for me, I'd rather know the truth about my world than feel good.  Morpheus gave me the red pill.  I dont regret taking it.


I went from an upstate NY raised public school educated kid from the suburbs, supporter of the Neocon wing of the Republican Party, to a radical arch conservative -- what I want to conserve in my government is the original intent of the founders of the republic, even if it means secession from the United States.   I now mentally recoil from the word "indivisible" in the Pledge of Allegiance.  I used to just say the words.  Now I think about what they mean.


This year I started geneological research.  As I made discoveries about my family in particular, I read related historical documents, books, and essays, and what I learned has forever changed my understanding of the history of this country.


 I found out that my North Carolina native father, and thus myself, are directly descended from founders of Jamestown, New Amsterdam, and the Newtown settlement  of Long Island.  Our family emigrated a couple of generations later, in the 1740's into North Carolina, and there we stayed.  My six great grandfather with the same last name as myself fought at Guilford Courthouse in 1781.  My three great grandfather in the same line fought in the 16th North Carolina Infantry as a private. He was a landowner, was not a slaveowner, and fought for North Carolina's right to secede from the Union.  He enlisted in May of 1861, and was parolled at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9th.


I am directly descended from 6 veterans of the army of the Confederate States of America.


I was always intrigued by the War Between the States growing up.  Now I see the war through an entirely different perspective.  Why would so many men of limited means fight tooth and nail for all those years?  To protect slavery?  Many had no slaves.  They may have benefitted from slavery indirectly, yes.   These were the men who stayed true to the original intent of the Constitution and Articles of Confederation.  The country was founded on the idea of secession from Great Britain.  It was founded as a Confederation of Independent States.  They appointed a Federal organization to represent the interests of the individual States.  Eventually this Federal entity morphed into a National entity, backed by military and monied mercantile, industrial, and financial interests, clothed in patriotic garb.  These were and still are the Yankees against which my ancestors fought.


Since 1865, this entity has grown without pause, and it eventually unfettered itself from the restraint of gold and silver based money system  -- and became the light version of European fascism.  Our now giant and powerful government teeters on the brink of what Naomi Wolf calls a "fascist shift".  Tyrannical and totalitarian elements are everywhere, if one chooses to look.


The oldest and still true concept of a Yankee is that of a busybody, but the kind of busybody that gets in your face and really interferes with your function and your interests.  This is the personality type that has dominated the US government since 1860.  We as a people havent lived in a voluntary Union of independent States since 1860-61.  My family was brought back into the United States at the point of the bayonet.  Eventually we forgot about the bayonet.  Some of us even moved up North.


But now I know about America as a voluntary Union.  I know about Nullification, Interposition and the Principles of 1798.  I know about and understand the desire for individual sovereignty and state sovereignty through Secession.  I will never again be passive.  The goal of my political and educational efforts, such as they are, will be to diminish the role of the Federal, State and Local government in the lives of individual Americans.  Since voting is like peeing into a hurricane, especially if you are a guy like me living in the heart of Yankeedom, the best choice is to blog.


Freedom in America is not the Freedom From Want of the Progressives and Liberals.  Freedom in America is the natural right of the Individual to be free to choose their own path, to succeed or fail on their own, without the help or interference of the government.  Scary, but that is what I want.  I hope you want it too.  I know many will never be able to accept the idea, so I think people need to vote with their feet, and the country should break into pieces.  That way we can each live our principles.  That way I can move to the South and smirk when the socialist Northeastern nation goes bust.


I will pray for the return of real servant government, State sovereignty, and independence of the States from the National US government of Empire.  Let the states rearrange themselves into distinct cultural and political entities so that more of us have a chance at Happiness, Freedom, and Property.