Sep 21, 2015 | Constitution, Liberty Articles
By Harold Pease, Ph. D
Eleven debaters gathered at the Reagan Library September 16, 2015, to share their plans and visions for our future. Each extolled the virtues of Ronald Reagan and claimed to be more Reagan-like than any of their competitors. Countries discussed included Russia, Iran, China, Syria and Israel. And topics seen to be most important were mostly centered on illegal immigration, Planned Parenthood’s federal funding, and the use of marijuana. But where was the Constitution in the debate?
All were important concerns but minimized was how these and other concerns might be addressed using the Constitution—the government’s rulebook. After all, the next day, September 17th, was Constitution Day throughout the United States. This especially in light of the fact that the last four presidents, two Republican and two Democrats, largely ignored the Constitution in problem solving going far beyond its restrictive boundaries.
Liberty Under Fire carefully took note of who did and did not, use the word Constitution, or references to it, in the three-hour debate. Three: Dr. Ben Carson and Governors John Kasich and Chris Christie, never used or referenced the word. Governor Scott Walker said the word Constitution once but did not attach it to a specific part of the document. Governor Jeb Bush also used the word without attachment but a second use was attached to his support for gun rights. Senator Marco Rubio did not use the word but identified himself in support of the 2nd Amendment.
Carly Fiorina used the word twice but negated both immediately thereafter with comments clearly showing that she had no understanding of the use verses the issue. The issue was the use of marijuana and federal enforcement. One cannot be for the Tenth Amendment, which leaves all areas not specifically mentioned in Article I, Section 8 to the states alone, and advocated the existence of federal authority not in the Constitution. There exists no constitutional authority for drug enforcement on the federal level. She, Bush, and Kasich received serious negatives on their understanding of the Constitution on this point. She did reference Lady Liberty and Lady Justice but made no attachment with respect to the Constitution with either. She is no doubt sincere in her use of liberty symbols but her generalities did not demonstrate depth in what liberty and justice actually mean.
Outside the Bush and Rubio support for the 2nd Amendment, Liberty Under Fire found little hope that these seven presidential candidates would give first consideration to the Constitution in problem solving. At least three of these lacked understanding of the Tenth Amendment. This is very serious. On constitutional issues, based upon this debate at this time, Liberty Under Fire cannot recommend any of these candidates for this office.
Donald Trump is a bit of a mystery for numerous reasons. But on the issue of birthright citizenship not being in the 14th Amendment, he is spot on. In fact, in previous columns I have carefully documented how the amendments founders were specifically denying such. His only use of the word Constitution was with respect to this issue. Because this fact is not well known it is strange that a businessman who probably benefited from the common distorted belief would either know this, or so passionately defend this view. He made no other reference to the Constitution in problem solving in any other issue thus, as with the others afore mentioned, I expect to write many columns showing his subsequent violations of the document should he become president. But on this one issue he has the ear of someone who understands the Constitution, which gives me some small hope that he will continue to listen to a constitutionalist on other issues as well, but there exist no guarantees.
Three presidential candidates stand out with promise that they will use the Constitution in problem solving: Senators Rand Paul, Ted Cruz and Governor Mike Huckabee. Huckabee used the word freedom but did not elaborate. He also used the word Constitution twice but more often used constitutional references specifically citing the current threat to Amendments 1, 2 and 10. He condemned the recent Supreme Court same sex marriage decision and the attack on Kentucky clerk Kim Davis with respect to freedom of conscience in her not authorizing such marriages with her name on the certificate.
Senator Ted Cruz opened with a reference to our losing freedom. He used the word Constitution with respect to its needing defended. He regretted Justice John Roberts backing down from defending the Constitution on healthcare and same sex marriage, although Bush reminded Cruz that he had written a letter of support in the nomination of Roberts. He identified himself as for the 2nd Amendment and in his closing statement promised to defend the Constitution.
Senator Rand Paul’s opening statement identified him as one who would defend the Constitution as first concern. He used the word twice more, one acknowledging that there was no birthright citizenship in the 14th Amendment, and that we have not followed the Constitution with respect to declaring war. He cited our failure to be guided by the 10th Amendment three times, mostly with respect to the approved use of drugs in the states verses the federal government inclination to mandate a power not given it.
Although this is but a small sampling of the importance of the Constitution to the eleven presidential contenders, Liberty Under Fire fears that these indicators will not change in a year. Our bigger fear is that by then the three who really value the document will have dropped out for lack of support and that the Constitution will continue to be eroded.
Sep 21, 2015 | Constitution, Liberty Articles
By Harold Pease, Ph. D
We have spent some time on how the Progressive Movement hurt our black communities and how some of their leaders have provided solutions to rescue their people—not the race baiters selected by the media to be the only black voice, like Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson. Their common message: “Blacks are worse off now than they were before government began ‘helping’ them.” Their solution, “We need the government out of our lives.” Such can also be said of other races or groups that bought into the Progressive Movement’s nanny state. It has hurt all America.
The irony is that such hurt would not be the history of any group had we remained loyal to the Constitution. You recall that black leaders complained that the Progressive Movement left them less educated, less employable, less family oriented and more on welfare, and more both the perpetrator as well as the victim of crime. We have covered each of these previously. Truth is, the Constitution does not permit a federal involvement in education, employment, family matters, welfare, or local crime. Yes, let me say it again, the words—or anything like unto them—education, employment, family matters, or crime are not found in the Constitution. The word welfare is in the Constitution but not in the sense of gift giving. Nor is there an amendment to the Constitution that gives the federal government a role in any of these areas.
Article I, Section 8 has 18 paragraphs where federal authorization is permitted and these are grouped into four specific areas: the power to tax, pay the debt, provide for the general welfare, and provide for the common defense. All other areas of authority were left with the states as per the wordage of Amendment 10, “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.”
The Founders knew that all governments like to grow and absorb decision-making power to them. They always have and always will. To prevent this they made a list of the areas of federal jurisdiction with the understanding that all areas not mentioned belonged to the states. All convention delegates understood this and curiously placed all federal power in one sentence with 18 paragraphs. The strange construction was to make it even more difficult for future power grabbers to isolate and enhance a power. Everything had to be considered in the context of the one sentence. Not many know what you have just learned.
As mentioned the Founders gave the federal government only four areas of power: taxes, paying the debts, providing for the general welfare (that’s not the same as providing the general welfare), and providing for the common defense. That is it my friends. All of it! All four powers are identified before the first semi colon in Section 8, Article I. That following are simply qualifiers of these four. “But all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the U.S.” These were different types of taxes. There were no qualifiers on paying our debts. The Founders rejected the normal practice following a revolution of nations reneging on the debts caused by a previous government, even though it would have been easy to do so in our case as the value of the dollar had descended to seven cents.
Now to the heart of why Section 8 is so long and so hated by big government advocates, in our case the Progressives. The Founders did not dare to leave the phrases “general welfare” or “common defense” for future power grabbers. No telling what they could do with these vague concepts. So they restricted them further to prevent them being enlarged. Notice that clauses 2-9 itemizes what they meant by general welfare and clauses 10 to 17 itemizes what they meant by common defense, this to keep government harnessed.
For now let us stay with general welfare since most of the Progressive Movement deviations from the Constitution would fall under this area. Listed are 14 powers, five dealing with borrowing money, regulating its value, and dealing with counterfeiting. The other nine included naturalization, bankruptcies, establishing post offices, protecting inventors and authors, establishing “tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court” and “regulating commerce with foreign nations and among the several states.” Notice also that these provided for all equally and approximately at the same time, the general welfare, not specific welfare designating privileges for some at the expense of others.
My point again!! The words—or anything like unto them—education, employment, family matters, or crime are not found in the Constitution. The Progressive Movement ignored the 14 powers detailing general welfare in Article 8 and defied Amendment 10 of the Constitution adding the five areas of federal intrusion so hurtful to our black communities. In doing so it has done much damage to these and other groups incorporating the “nanny” principles and to the Constitution. If these could be made constitutional with any logic possible, anything could, and any pretense of a government with limited powers ended.
Sep 14, 2015 | Liberty Articles
By Harold Pease, Ph. D
We recently looked at the well-meaning progressive policies of the last fifty years, notably welfare, that have done much to return our black brother to a slavery of dependence and seemingly to set our black communities on fire driven mostly by angry black young men who have turned first on their own race then on law enforcement. Past 2012 black presidential contender, Herman Cain, said it best: “Uncle Sam is the master who gives today’s nominally free blacks just enough to get by so that they can continue to work for their master by voting for those politicians who promise to give them more of other people’s earnings.”
Many in the black community know that these progressive policies, in exchange for their vote and loyalty to the progressive agenda, have left them less educated, less employable, less family oriented and more on welfare, and more both the perpetrator as well as the victim of crime. This column shares black solutions for black problems, not normally given by the establishment press, as they identify what must change. It also borrows much from the New American article “Real Solutions for Black Americans,” written by Michael Tennant. Their common message: “Blacks are worse off now than they were before government began ‘helping’ them.”
Black George Mason University economics professor Walter E. Williams speaks to the education problem where nearly half of blacks in government schools drop out of school. Those who do reach the 12th grade, according to The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), “score at the same level as the average white seventh-or eighth-grader on standardized tests.” Williams identifies private black schools such as Marva Collins School in Cincinnati and Marcus Garvey School in Chicago where “85 percent of those kids at each of those schools read at or above…grade level….” Those not happy with government schools must have choice of other types of schools. Competition with school choice must return.
Williams advocates four other changes to help his people. The Department of Education and all federal education programs and money must be abolished as quickly as possible. More should be expected of teachers. “Education majors,” he says, “have the lowest entrance-exam scores of all majors in college.” Schools must enforce discipline, order, and structure. Finally, affirmative action must be abolished. “Black students need to be admitted to schools where they belong on the basis of their preparation and aptitude. Were this the case, many more blacks would graduate than currently do.”
With respect to ending blacks being less employable, two actions are needed. First, repealing “the minimum wage and other labor laws that discourage the employment of low-skilled workers would make it possible for many blacks to get their first jobs, where they can gain skills that will enable them to move up to higher-paying jobs and out of poverty.” Second, “remove barriers to starting and expanding businesses…. From licensing laws to permit requirements to environmental impact assessments.” Reverend Jesse Lee Peterson, a Black pastor working in the trenches, said it best when he said: We need the government out of our lives, really, as much as possible.” Adding: “Let the free market reign.”
With respect to welfare it must end says Professor Williams. He suggests “giving welfare recipients a definite deadline after which there will be no more handouts and, in the meantime, making them work for their welfare checks.” The private sector could help in teaching skills that enable getting good jobs, as once it did. Reverend Peterson does exactly this through his Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny (BOND). “We’re teaching these boys a trade so when they finish high school, if they don’t want to go to college, they don’t have to.” Fraternal societies and churches did much of this in pre government handout days and they will again if the federal government slowly stepped out, Peterson argued.
With respect to blacks being both the perpetrator as well as the victim of crime, both education and employment of young black men in particular would help. Blacks are also “disproportionately victimized by criminals in part because they live in cities with strict gun control laws that criminals ignore. Repealing these laws would give potential victims a chance to defend themselves.” Also needed is for black communities “to get more people attending church.” Males normally drop church attendance between ages 15 and 50, Peterson notes, “If kids are raised in the church and they stay in church…. They’re significantly less likely to get arrested.”
Welfare has effectively taken dads out of the home because single women with children could draw larger government checks if dads lived elsewhere, thus the black family is less family oriented—the government became the dad. Lacking fathers and an adult male role model in the home is a giant problem.
Getting the Black communities to detox from welfare addiction will not be easy. What is promising, however, is that real black leaders, those in the trenches (not the “race baiting” televised leaders), have the solutions for their own people if the establishment press will but cover them and the government will cease bribing their people with “free” money. For them it is not a conservative or liberal solution but a matter of freeing their people from slavery a second time.
Sep 14, 2015 | Liberty Articles
By Harold Pease Ph. D
Ferguson, Detroit, Baltimore and now the willful unloading by an angry black man of 15 bullets into a Texas Sheriff who was innocently fueling his automobile. Each seemingly has one thing in common—pent up anger directed first at their own race and now at law enforcement. “Black lives matter” some chant but most black homicides are by black perpetrators, not white. Blacks, we are told, now do half of all murders in the United States. It seems that the black communities are on fire and it seems driven mostly by young angry black men.
The problem has deeper roots than this. Well-meaning progressive policies of the last fifty years, most notably those encouraging dependency, have done much to return the blacks to a very real form of slavery. What is said in this article applies also to other races taking the route of dependency for problem solving, but they are not the focus of the choice of violence as in the above instances. They have not yet turned on themselves and then upon law enforcement.
Today unemployment for blacks is nearly twice that of whites and for black youth in the inner cities it has been known to soar to as high as 60 percent. Moreover, the U. S. Census Bureau listed the overall poverty rate in 2011 at 15 percent, but for blacks it was 27.6 percent. Overall household income was $50,054, but for blacks it was $32,229. The Heritage Foundation found that “only 56 percent of blacks graduate from high school.” The average black man has little to hope for in a world where seemingly all other races appear to have much more.
It did not used to be this way. According to black economist, Walter Williams, prior to the progressive socialist policies of the last 50 years, “black unemployment was lower and blacks were more active in the labor market than they are today.” In 1910, for example, “71 percent of blacks over nine years of age were employed, compared to 51 percent for whites.” This trend stayed strong through the 1960’s, “black male labor force participation in every age group was equal to or greater than that of whites,” he says. Although black schools, prior to the 1960s, were characteristically modest in funding and supplies, they “often produced student bodies with high average IQs and graduated scholars of note.”
Black economist Thomas Sowell, in his book “Education: Assumptions Versus History,” agreed, “In short, no stringent ‘elitism’ is necessary to achieve high-quality education. It is only necessary to … exclude the tiny fraction (of students) who are troublemakers.” Black poverty was steadily and noticeable declining.
What destroyed all this? It was destroyed by the socialist notion that the government will take from those who have and give to those who have less. The War on Poverty is the philosophy that largely led a race into the same type of dependency that they had worked a hundred years to escape after the Civil War and had made notable advancement. A trillion dollars a year now feeds this monster—15 trillion since the program was begun by President Lyndon Johnson in 1964; but unfortunately, with no measurable end to poverty as promised. Statistics show poverty to be proportionally about the same as when the program was begun.
Kurt Williamsen in a article, “Do Progressive Policies Hurt Black Americans?” described how this played out. Welfare “spending contributed to overall black poverty by encouraging single-parent, female-headed households…. Young black women often had children out of wedlock, beginning a cycle of enduring poverty and welfare, wherein they relied on welfare as a main source of income, as did their children. Welfare provided more money for young women with fatherless children, on average, than the same young women could have made if they were employed.” It also destroyed families. If she got married she would lose the benefits. Today, ”73 percent of black babies are born to unwed mothers” and well over a third of the race is on welfare. Unfortunately, “welfare provided an incentive for young black women to raise fatherless children and collect welfare, leading to the epidemic problems with black crime, black schooling, black unemployment and black poverty.” She may be a fantastic mom but odds of productivity in all these areas is more often improved in a full family setting.
So we return to the angry black young man tempted to use violence against his own race, then against authority to obtain what he wants. With the media on sight, almost encouraging this activity, he is rewarded in his violence and performs on cue. And the major point of this column is overlooked. Have we, in effect, returned our black brother to slavery by setting him up for a dependency that is as real as the slavery of his forefathers? I think so.
Sep 8, 2015 | Constitution, Immigration, Liberty Articles
By Harold Pease, Ph. D
Amazingly Presidential Candidate Donald Trump is right; birthright citizenship does not exist in the Constitution. The establishment media, including Fox News, jumped all over Mr. Trump like a swarm of Africanized honey bees over a pot of honey, attempting to portray him as ignorant on the Constitution. Although he may be on many other things, he is dead right on this part of his recently released immigration plan. Even Bill O’Reilly, on the O’Reilly Factor, ignorantly castigated him on this point. Trump held his ground that the 14th Amendment never authorization birthright citizenship. The ignorance of the establishment press is overwhelming.
Although most of us have great sympathy for those who were infants or born here when their parents illegally crossed the border and have lived here all their lives and know no other country, the 14th Amendment for the casual reader seems to validate such: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” A more careful read, however, shows that such was specifically denied, consider the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” The purpose of the clause was to guarantee citizenship to freed slaves and their descendants after the Civil War.
The concept of “anchor” babies refers to those whose parents are illegal immigrants into the United States and while here have a baby. That baby then inherits full citizenship and even the right later, as an adult, to sponsor his/her own illegal parents in their quest for citizenship. The debate for or against the practice of allowing citizenship for babies of illegal’s born in the U.S. rages on with virtually no one going to the source of the alleged authority—the crafters of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.
Senator Jacob Merritt Howard, architect of the 14th Amendment, actually structured the Amendment (one of two defining the legal status of freed slaves after the Civil War, the other being the 13th which gave them freedom) to prevent that very interpretation. He said: “This amendment which I have offered is simply declaratory of what I regard as the law of the land already, that every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States. This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign minister accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons.”
It was he who insisted that the qualifying phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” be inserted into Section I. Those sneaking across our borders in the cover of darkness are clearly foreigners, and not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, and thus are specifically exempted from citizenship. Notice the exclusion of babies born of ambassadors while here as well. The record of the Senate deliberations on the 14th amendment shows this to be the view of the Senate.
There is no such thing as automatic citizenship from this amendment without serious distortion of it. In fact, Lyman Trumbull, co-author of the 13th Amendment outlawing slavery, addressing the definition of the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” asked, “What do we mean by complete jurisdiction thereof? Not owing allegiance to anybody else. That is what it means.”
Those crossing our borders illegally have jurisdiction or allegiance elsewhere and thus cannot have citizenship. How can a child of such a parentage have what his parents clearly do not have? How many are born illegally in the United States per year? Statistics are difficult to validate but the Pew Hispanic Center study estimated 340,000 in 2008 alone. If they in turn are used as sponsors for their parents in their quest for citizenship such could be a million per year.
Citizenship was denied some of my ancestors. Native Americans owed allegiance to their Sioux or Apache or Blackfoot, or whatever, Indian nations and thus were not yet “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” of the nation they sought citizenship in. Certainly one must cease to be at war or conflict with the newly embraced country. This was not granted until 1924 when this requirement was satisfied.
Many of our Mexican friends send portions of their checks home to Mexico and plan to return to their native land upon retirement with pensions and/or social security sent to their “first” country from the country they extracted the wealth—the United States. Some vote in Mexican elections from here. It is indeed hard to argue that they are not instead subject to the jurisdiction of another land other than the United States–and most admit it. Unfortunately for them the U. S. Constitution specifically denies such citizenship.
To the many “bees” from both political parties, and the establishment press, who wish to destroy Mr. Trump’s presidential ambitions, you will have to look elsewhere. On this issue he is on solid constitutional ground as expressed by the Founders of the 14th Amendment.
Aug 25, 2015 | Constitution, Healthcare, Liberty Articles, Take Action
By Harold Pease, Ph. D
When the Supreme Court no longer rules by the Constitution what must states do to force them to do so? It is called nullification and previously has been used to do just that in the 1800’s and more subtly in the last two decades.
Recent Supreme Court rulings with respect to the Affordable Care Act and marriage clearly demonstrate that the Supreme Court no longer honors Article I (requiring that only the Congress make all the law, their rulings can not have the effect of making new law), Article 1, Section 8 (the list identifying federal functions), and the 10th Amendment (reserving to the states all other powers not listed or added to the list by a specific amendment). Neither health nor marriage, or anything remotely like unto them, can be found in the Constitution as federal powers and thus, as per Amendment 10, remain state functions only.
Two years ago 28 states sued the federal government for constitutional over-reach by forcing citizens to buy something that they did not wish to buy called a mandate. The John Robert’s Court, rather than rule this requirement constitutional or unconstitutional, redefined the mandate a tax, (an argument consistently denied by proponents of the law) and thus the Supreme Court effectively made law, a function constitutionally left only to Congress in Article I. In a show of defiance to the Affordable Care Act, this decision prompted 34 states (all but 16) to refuse to establish state exchanges when given a choice by the Court; essentially “If you want it you create it.” They did!! The recent Supreme Court ruling then made resisting states provide the Medicare subsidy given the few states that had set up exchanges. No constitutional authority was cited. Again judicial legislation!! The reason cited by Justice John Roberts was essentially, “Congress created it so we will save it.”
At this point the only power left to the states is the 10th Amendment to the Constitution which 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.” The 28 states initially suing the Federal Government for violating this part of the Constitution and the 34 states resisting the judicial edict to conform must use the Doctrine of Nullification to save the amendment and the Constitution. The issue is that serious! They have no other real choice for a court that no longer uses the Constitution as its sole base for ruling. Federalism, a key part of our republic, is dead otherwise.
The constitutional argument is the same for the Supreme Courts recent ruling legalizing same-sex marriage in all 50 states. Again, the Court disregarded Article I, Section 8, and Amendments 1 and 10 and utterly discarded the philosophy of federalism and the will of the people expressed in every election concerning the matter. Everything in the Constitution prior to 1868 was discarded, even betrayed, in favor of four words in Amendment 14 adopted 78 years later and intended only to extend the Bill of Rights to former slaves. The phases “due process” and “equal protection,” not defined, became fertile soil for federal government’s natural tendency to grow many times beyond original intent—each expansion becoming the rational for even more expansion. Today the Justices have used it to apply to an issue that would be entirely foreign to the framers of the 14 Amendment and to the Founding Fathers a lifetime before.
So again, the states have but one recourse to save the Constitution, federalism and the popular will of the people—nullification. But they must stand together and with one voice say, “not in our state.” States accepting same sex marriage can continue to do so constitutionally but the federal government, without an amendment to the Constitution transferring marriage authority from the states to the federal government, may not do so constitutionally no matter what a combination of five rogues justices say.
Founding Fathers Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton were especially expressive with respect to the use of nullification but what is clear in their writings is that states do have the authority to “Just Say No!” under the 10th Amendment. Such was used in 1798 in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolves, in 1832 in the Nullification Crisis in South Carolina, and more successfully with the northern states, especially Wisconsin, in 1854 over the highly unconstitutional Fugitive Slave Act.
More recently the 10th Amendment and resulting Doctrine of Nullification is beginning to be used by some states to prevent the federal government’s overreach of constitutional powers. Federal medical marijuana laws are openly defied by many states notably: Alaska, Oregon, Washington, and Colorado. Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia currently have laws legalizing marijuana in some form. States’ refusal to implement the Real ID Act, passed years ago, is a form of nullification. When enough states say no, the feds back away. In 2013, nine State Sheriffs’ Associations put the Executive and Legislative Branches on notice that they support the traditional interpretation of the 2nd Amendment of the Bill of Rights and 336 elected county sheriffs inferred that they would protect their people on this issue—even against federal agents coming into their counties. Barack Obama and the Justice Department backed away.
States you must use the Constitution to save the Constitution. In unison you must say, “We refuse to honor these clearly unconstitutional rulings in our state.”
