Feds raid State legal medical marijuana facilities in Montana

As people in Montana and beyond struggle to come to grips with a massive federal raid of Montana medical marijuana businesses, the question that comes up is: Were these businesses violating state law that allows medical marijuana, or were they raided because they are in violation of federal law, which prohibits the use and possession of marijuana.

This memo from a U.S. Attorney, shared with the Colorado Independent may shed some light on that question.

The memo was sent to the Independent by the Cannabis Therapy Institute, and can be seen here (pdf).

The “Haag Memo” was written on Feb. 1, 2011 by United States Attorney Melinda Haag (Northern District of California) to John A. Russo, Esq., Oakland City Attorney, in response to an Oakland City Council request for guidance regarding medical marijuana and federal law. Haag writes that the memo was written with consultation and approval from U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

Holder had previously said the feds would not interfere with states that legalized medical marijuana.

From the memo:

We will enforce the CSA (Controlled Substances Act) vigorously against individuals and organizations that participate in unlawful manufacturing and distribution activity involving marijuana, even if such activities are permitted under state law.
…
Others who knowingly facilitate the actions of the licensees, including property owners, landlords, and financiers should also know that their conduct violates federal law.

Taken verbatim from the Washington Independent, link here.

----------------------------------

Big, big, big surprise: The Obama administration fails to live up to another of its 2008 campaign promises.  

In case you don't give a hoot for medical marijuana, a subject I suggest you learn more about, let me tell you why you should consider this another shovel full of dirt on the way to burying your liberty.

Every time the feds assert their law (meaning: send unopposed armed men to enforce a law that was passed in Washington, DC, but nullified by or contravened by preexisting State law), they grow in power, and we individuals, locales, and States shrink in power.  

This time it's state legal marijuana, the next time it's likely to be state legal (locally manufactured) firearms and ammunition. 

Do you want them arresting your 23 year old daughter, who's never been sick in her life, because she refuses to spend 15 or 20 grand on a healthcare policy she doesn't need because of the Obamacare mandate? 

Who knows? Someday, they might want to tax off the grid electricity production or confiscate personally owned gold or silver bullion.  Every time there is a new precedent in centralized Federal power over local law, the door to let them in your house creaks a little bit more open (I guess that is a ridiculous analogy, since the TSA is already in our pants).  

State laws need teeth when they nullify a Federal law.  The state law enforcement or state militia has to be tasked with arresting and punishing (as a felony) any individual federal employees that seek to violate a State law.

Personal liberty can only be maintained for the vast majority in this country if a person has the option of "voting with their feet," and relocating to a more preferable State which is more desirable based on their personal beliefs and values--this is an originalist Jeffersonian idea.

How the South "rationalizes" Secession, it's "Revolution"

In an article entitled: "How the South rationalizes secession" on Salon.com, Prof. Glenn LaFantasie of Western Kentucky University has an agenda to smear any defender of the Southern perspective in regards to the reasons for Secession in 1860.  He does this through a number of historical errors and omissions.


"In any event, Southern secessionists believed that it did, so they came to see themselves as conservatives, not revolutionaries. This position entrapped them in the contradiction of wanting to overthrow the government of the United States while also remaining under the protection of the Constitution. As a result, Southern justifications of the constitutionality of secession and their own conservatism became almost surreal. "


LaFantasie calls Jefferson Davis "One of America’s worst traitors, a man who had committed or condoned far worse acts against his country than Benedict Arnold,..."
and:  "...Until his death in 1889, he found a stronger voice in passionately defending the right of secession and extolling the nobility of the Lost Cause. He became, like so many of his fellow Confederates, an unreconstructed rebel. As one might expect, he never believed that he had committed a single traitorous act; in fact, he boldly, even arrogantly, affirmed that every one of his actions was legal and constitutional."


He asks:  "How can anyone possibly be a patriot by calling for the destruction of the country one professes to love and honor?"


Prof. LaFantasie concludes thus:  "In pledging allegiance to the flag, Americans vow to uphold "one nation, indivisible." For Lincoln, the issue was straightforward. Secession was revolution. Secession was treason. There still should be no doubt about that, especially as we ponder the meaning of the 150th anniversary of South Carolina’s ignominious -- and traitorous -- secession from the Union."

Let's start off with the basics here.  We need to define our terms, something Professor LaFantasie doesn't bother to do:

rationalize 

1803, "to explain, to make reasonable," from rational + -ize.

secession 

1530s, from L. secessionem (nom. secessio), from pp. stem of secedere "secede," from se- "apart" (see secret) + cedere "to go" (see cede). Originally in a Roman historical context, "temporary migration of plebeians from the city to compel patricians to address their grievances;" modern use in reference to religious or political unions dates from 1650s.

revolution 

late 14c., originally of celestial bodies, from O.Fr. revolution, from L.L. revolutionem (nom. revolutio) "a revolving," from L. revolutus, pp. of revolvere "turn, roll back"

insurrection 

mid-15c., from M.Fr. insurrection, from L. insurrectionem (nom. insurrectio) "a rising up," from insurrectus, pp. of insurgere "to rise up"

treason 


early 13c., from Anglo-Fr. treson, from O.Fr. traison (11c.; Fr. trahison), from L. traditionem (nom. traditio) "a handing over, delivery, surrender" (see tradition). O.Fr. form influenced by the verb trair "betray." In old English law, high treason is violation by a subject of his allegiance to his sovereign or to the state

Please forgive me, Professor LaFantasie, but I have doubts about secession representing treason.


The Texas v. White case used to demonstrate the illegality of secession is silly, because it was written after the fact to justify the war by one of the former members of Lincoln's cabinet.  


Let me counter the quote "It is safe to assert that no government proper, ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination" with the following inconvenient points:  The federal government is the servant of the people, who are sovereign, and of the States, which created the federal government and gave it specific enumerated powers.  The right of the government to rule derives from the consent of the governed.  The voluntary consent of the governed.  Otherwise you cannot claim that the United States is a free country.


Moreover: When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

To continue:


Using the different etymological definitions listed above, there are many rationalizations for secession.  The rationalizations for secession were and are reasonable and Constitutional.  The Southern States did want a Revolution in the original sense of that word.  That is to say, they wanted to come full circle back to States Rights as it was understood by the ratifying conventions of the several States in 1787-1788. The federalist proponents of the Constitution recognized that if powers were not specifically enumerated in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, the powers were reserved to the States and the people of the States.  The understanding of the Southern States ratifying conventions was that of implicit recognition of the right of a Slave State to maintain it's slaves and set its own laws regarding slavery and slave ownership without Federal interference.


This is what is meant by the claims that secession is both conservative and revolutionary. 


You can go on about the immorality of Slavery and the need for Abolition all you like.  If you utilize the Congress and Federal judiciary to effect changes that affect the Southern States in particular on these issues then you have crossed a constitutional line.


As far as Professor LaFantasie's claims that [the Confederate States were] "taking up of arms against the United States":  Does the professor propose that the Confederate States government was planning a march on Washington DC to overthrow the United States government (at the time of secession)?


Secession was separation and withdrawal from the Union.  It was not an internal revolt or insurrection.  Militias were raised at the time because the States were withdrawing from the Union and no longer had the US Army or Navy for defense.  Moreover the Southern States had reason to fear the Lincoln government and the remaining States in the Union based upon the rhetoric from the Executive Branch and the northern press at the time.


To claim treason, you must prove that individuals were working to overthrow their government (by the specific definition of Treason in the Constitution).  In the case of secession of the Southern States in 1860-1861, you have State conventions of elected representatives of the people of the individual states voting to withdraw from the Union.  The Union was formed on a voluntary basis in 1788, and was being undone on a voluntary basis in 1860-61.  That is, this was a legal Constitutional process of withdrawal;  There is no call for marches on Washington or the overthrow of Lincoln, etc.,.  The Confederate States increased in number when Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to put down the insurrection [sic], pushing the border States out of the Union.


Is it not clear to a reasonable person that the United States could continue to exist as an independent nation with Abraham Lincoln as its president, without the seceding states, just as the 11 states of the United States existed without the States of Rhode Island or North Carolina after the ratification of the Constitution in 1788 to 1789?


The South's withdrawal from the United States cannot be logically likened to trying to destroy the United States.  It is a change from the past, to be sure, but both countries could have coexisted and benefited from commerce and mutual defense.


The pledge of allegience that LaFantasie refers to in his conclusion was written by a socialist utopian in the 1890's.  This was long after the unsatisfactory conclusion of the War to Prevent Southern Independence, long after the death of the voluntary Republic.  The pledge was written to indoctrinate children to a new way of thinking about their "nation," as the true history of the United States was buried.

Regarding the Professor's continued use of the terms Revolution and Treason, I defer to Inigo Montoya:





Regarding "How can anyone possibly be a patriot by calling for the destruction of the country one professes to love and honor?"  


I would say that equating one's government to one's country is not legitimate.  The country, in my opinion, is composed of it's people, not it's government.  Too often the people in government have an agenda which increases their own power at the expense of the productive members of that country. 

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.

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)):

--------------------------------------------------

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.