Jan 13, 2012 | Constitution, Globalism, Tea Party
Dr. Harold Pease
The Republican Presidential Primaries have obscured the President’s late December signing of the most damaging law to the Bill of Rights in my lifetime. Known as the National Defense Authorization Act the over 600 page, $662 billion law “would require the military to hold suspected terrorists linked to Al Qaeda or its affiliates, even those captured on U. S. soil, indefinitely” and without trial, on the say so of the military through the President alone. Moreover, even U.S. citizens could be removed to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba against their will and deprived of their constitutional rights. In my commentary on this law in early December (see “New Bill Damages Bill of Rights and Could Target Americans for Military Detention,” LibertyUnderFire.org), I noted that the law gave no protection from a revolving definition of terrorism to anti-government, perhaps even Tea Partiers or Occupy Wall Street folks.
The threat of potential incarceration without recourse to a lawyer, judge and trial is very serious. The military performing police duty, heretofore rendered by civil authorities, is unconscionable in a free society. Our only hope was a promised Presidential veto which did not happen. Therefore, what follows are details on how the new law emasculates the Writ of Habeas Corpus in the U.S. Constitution and Amendments 4, 5, 6 and 8 of the Bill of Rights.
The Writ of Habeas Corpus found in Article I, Section 9 recognized that some day war might exist on our soil and that the accused had rights that might have to be momentarily delayed until recognized civilian authority could reasonably attend to them. It allowed this delay in only two circumstances “when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.” Section 9 is a list of powers specifically denied Congress; nor were they given to the President in Article II. This strongly suggests no federal role outside these two parameters in the delay of justice—certainly no military role. The removal of any civilian role and the carting off of U.S. citizens to a foreign country without benefit of judge or jury obliterates this right.
Amendment 4 deals with searches and seizures and reads in part “no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation…” Warrants give civil authority the power to arrest only when the reason for the search (probable cause) has been reviewed and authorized, normally by an elected judge, who has given an oath to uphold the Constitution. He stands between the plaintiff and the defendant as the protector of Constitutional law. There is no role for the military even with a President’s authorization. Tell this to the young soldiers just following orders. Freedom dies when this amendment dies.
Amendment 5 has several parts that are affected by the new law but space limits my coverage to just a couple. Infamous or serious crimes mandate a grand jury, twelve or more citizens to evaluate the evidence before proceeding, which will not exist in a military arrest and extradition to Guantanamo Bay process. Moreover, one cannot “be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” Due process is the civilian judicial system. The amendment does have a short-term exclusion “when in actual service in time of war or public danger” but the National Defense Authorization Act is a permanent exclusion rather than a temporary one and this brief exclusion should only hold when the enemy has brought war to our soil.
Amendment 6 deals with criminal court procedures where “the accused shall enjoy the right to … a public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed … to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel in his defense.” The new law destroys the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution. There will be no “impartial jury,” no “obtaining witnesses in his favor,” no “counsel in his defense,” and Cuba is hardly within “the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed.”
Finally, the new law will obliterate Amendment 8 for those the President and his military define as terrorists. The protection against cruel and unusual punishment for them ends and torture is justified. Does anyone really think that the military will care about excessive fines or bail either?
Sadly both parties, despite their oath to preserve the Constitution, are responsible for this bill. There was bipartisan support for it. Unbelievably, Ron Paul is the only presidential candidate from either party to speak out against it.
Dr. Harold Pease is an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 25 years at Taft College. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Oct 8, 2011 | Constitution
By Dr. Harold Pease
Freedom Sunday, held Oct. 2, is now over. This was the Sunday when 539 ministers throughout the United States defied the IRS and federal government and did at least three things in common in their Sunday sermons. They identified where the candidates stood on the issues, what the Bible says on these issues, and where a follower of Jesus Christ should stand. Their followers, of course, are left to make their own decisions, but the clergy is no longer silent. The following day they mailed a recorded copy of their sermon to the IRS; all the evidence that is needed to deny their 501C3 tax exemption status.
Standing by to defend three first amendment rights, that of freedom of speech, religion, and even assembly, is a group of 2500 attorneys united under the Alliance Defense Fund should the federal government wish to enforce the previously constitutionally uncontested Lyndon Baines Johnson Amendment initiated in 1954. Thirty-three pastors successfully did this in the year 2008, 84 in 2009, and 100 in 2010 with no retribution. In fact, no church’s tax exemption status has been taken away for having done so in the 57 years the amendment has been in place. Proponents encourage other ministers to follow their Pulpit Freedom Movement by going to www.speakupmovement.org or by phoning 1-800-telladf. Consider the over-the-pulpit political statements made by Martin Luther King, Jr., Jessie Jackson or even Jeremiah Wright.
The ministers argue that the Johnson Amendment which resulted in the tax exemption legislation known as 501C3, wherein tax exempt organizations cannot endorse or oppose candidates, was actually designed to deal with two businessmen in Texas who had used tax exempt money to oppose the future President Johnson, and that the legislation was never intended to be used on churches. Whether that is so or not, the IRS viewed it so and constantly threatens to apply it. The effect has been to “silence and chill the pastors.” At election time pastors frequently receive a letter reminding them that they can lose their 501C3 status should they make political statements as a pastor.
The movement demands a return to pre-1954 when there was no government censorship on the pulpits of America at all, whether left or right on the political spectrum—true separation of church and state. Both persuasions should have pulpit freedom.
Is this activity constitutional? Absolutely!! It is an American tradition. Many of the Founding Fathers were clergymen and used their pulpits before and after the American Revolution to foster a better understanding of liberty. The Constitution only denies the requirement of a religious test “as a qualification to any office of public trust under the United States.” The First Amendment also specifically denies Congress from making any “law respecting an establishment of religion.” Any attempt to muzzle the clergy is unconstitutional.
The urgency of the ministers picking up their traditional role as a conscience of the culture is critical for the saving of the culture. Bishop Harry Jackson of Hope Christian Church in Beltville, Maryland said it best. “In the next decade or so what America will be for the next few hundred years, I believe, will be decided.” Speaking directly to his clergy colleagues he continued, “Would you want to be someone who stood by and did nothing and had no voice in changing America for good, that lives through years of regret that you did nothing when you could have spoken out? Or, will you be someone, no matter how small your congregation is, or how large your congregation is, that will take up the challenge to follow Christ and endure momentary discomfort in trying to figure out how to articulate the message? That is a little price to pay for the benefit that we can bring to the entire culture.”
No pastor should fear the IRS. Clergy, it is your constitutional right and responsibility to speak boldly and clearly on any subject that you think important. If not you, who? If not now, when? Your government has muzzled you with fear and intimidation. Remember parishioners came to you for guidance. A good Shepherd will give it to them. Clergy who were unable to participate October 2, are invited to do so on another Sunday. Again, who will speak if the church is silent? After all, it’s about your liberty, please pass this along.
Dr. Harold Pease is an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 25 years at Taft College. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Oct 1, 2011 | Constitution, Taxes
By Dr. Harold Pease
Governor Rick Perry is accused of referring to Social Security as a Ponzi scheme. To consider the authenticity of this claim we must return to the deceptive strategy of its origin.
Since Social Security was not on the list of the qualifiers of general welfare—Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution—government had no power to forcibly extract a portion of a man’s wage and force his employer to match this fund—not even close. So they used the power to tax to justify this action. But Congress had no power to tax for powers that it did not have. Never the less the government took over the responsibility for everyone’s retirement and the people lost the right to their own money—the portion that was forcibly extracted as a condition of employment. Moreover, since the federal government would now do this for them, they had no incentive to do it for themselves.
At the time the Supreme Court had ruled much of the New Deal legislation unconstitutional and Social Security probably would have met the same end had Franklin D. Roosevelt’s new Court Packing bill not been threatening the independence of the Supreme Court. They let this one slide. To do so they had to agree to place the new tax monies in the “Treasury like internal-revenue taxes generally, and … not earmarked in any way” (301 U.S. 619, 1937). They should have gone to Article V, adding an amendment to the Constitution empowering the federal government to do so, but they were uncertain that it would pass so enacted an end run around the Constitution instead.
The money taken under the guise of taxes was not set aside for the giver’s future at all, as most believed, but just added to the general fund and spent. If private firms did the same thing, the federal government would call it a Ponzi scheme and perpetrators would serve time. When taxpayers do retire, they will have to depend upon the resources of future generations to cover what was promised. The system could never end without injustice to the “old” people. Each generation rightfully came to believe in their entitlement, having allowed FDR to spend their contributions on the previous generation.
Payroll taxes and benefits payments began in 1937. Ida May Fuller, a legal secretary, paid a total of $24.75 into the system between 1937-1939. Her first monthly check issued Jan. 1940, was $2.00 short of this. “After her second check, Fuller already had received more than she contributed over the three-year period. She lived to be 100 and collected a total of $22,888.92 (Research Note #3: Details of Ida May Fuller’s Payroll Tax Contributions, Social Security Administration).” How can this not be a Ponzi scheme?
Those receiving social security in 1935, never having paid a cent into the program, were grateful, of course, for the generosity of the nation and became beholding to the party in charge of the handouts. This insured the democrats’ continuance in office for the next 17 years. Prosperity returned in the fifties and sixties, and a challenge to the now established and popular program was unthinkable. People saw Roosevelt as having saved the country. Only now, younger historians, not favorably conditioned to a worshipful response to Roosevelt, recognize and document that it was not the New Deal but World War II that pulled us out of the 21-year long Great Depression.
Over time more groups that paid nothing or very little into the fund have received benefits: spouses, widows, children and the disabled—even illegals. I have a friend who brought his mother to America and she received benefits until her death. Government figures estimated in 2010 that 54 million were receiving Social Security benefits. Without significant changes the program will crash by 2036 say the Social Security Board of Trustees in their 2011 Annual Report.
We agree that somebody does owe our elders the total of what they paid into the program, but it is not the new generation. They did nothing wrong. Why should they pick up the tab for commitments made before their birth? How can government take their money, spend it on others, look them in the eye, and tell them that this isn’t a Ponzi scheme? They are its biggest victims.
Dr. Harold Pease is an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 25 years at Taft College. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Aug 13, 2011 | Constitution, Economy, Taxes, Tea Party
By Dr. Harold Pease
I do not usually write on themes getting extensive attention in the media but the establishment press has overlooked a big story in the debt limit debate. Every one has covered who lost: the President, Congress and both major political parties but almost no one identified the Tea Party Patriot movement as the clear victor.
Remember the over 2400 separate and spontaneous gatherings of Tea Party Patriots in 2009, geographically spread throughout the nation and proportionately held April 15, July 4, and Sept. 11, with about 800 such gatherings held each date. These gatherings, with no national leadership or direction, led mostly by moms with homemade signs, was perhaps the showing of greater anger against the federal government than in any single year in our history—certainly in my life time.
Remember as well the two Tea Party assemblages of over a million in Washington D. C. during that same year crying out “President Obama!! Can you hear us now?” “CAN YOU HEAR US NOW?? Yes, the establishment media had trouble covering these stories then too, but they still happened.
The Tea Party movement resulted in the election of a few candidates committed to Constitutional limited government, the free market and fiscal responsibility—the Tea Party’s core values and actually those of the U.S. Constitution as well. Values perceived by them as having been largely abandoned by the leadership of both major political parties.
All this is conceded but how does this translate to a win for the Tea Party Patriots on the Debt Limit Deal? True to the Constitution and their election promises these patriots bucked the weak-kneed Republican Party in the House of Representatives and the spend-happy Democrats in the Senate and forced both to talk about the following previously ignored concepts. What is the proper role of government? How do we get a Balanced Budget Amendment to curb our addiction to debt? Are raising taxes always the only answer? And given government’s addiction to growth, will they ever have enough?
The promise to vote on a Balanced Budget Amendment, to not raise taxes, and to actually cut future spending, are each a part of the finished agreement because of the insistence of the Tea Party members of Congress. As a group only the Tea Party saw the looming financial problems ahead if we did not seriously live within our means and scale back our debt. NOW!! With our debt credit down grade and near stock market crash of this week can anyone seriously question Tea Party philosophy now? Still, there are voices in the land aimed to discredit them.
Republicans have shown themselves to have no fire in their bellies and have thus caved-in to the run-away spending plans of their adversaries every time. Sometimes, as under the Bush Stimulus, they have shown themselves as leading the charge for debt enslavement. In short, modern Tea Party Patriots gave the Republican Party enough fire so that they did not cut and run so easily.
Did the Tea Party get what they wanted? No! Definitely not!! Were that the case they would have had an actual Balanced Budget Amendment, actual spending cuts, and our credit rating would not have been down graded. Reducing the rate of increase is not the same as reducing spending. The deal did nothing to stop the growth of our debt and resulting bondage of our children. In fact, it did just the opposite. Still, opponents were forced to listen and give some attention to the Tea Party Patriots—a huge victory especially given their small size in Congress and governments nature to spend without restraint. We just need more of them in Congress. Returning to the Constitution is the only answer and they are the only ones saying it.
Hopefully, more Americans will see the Tea Party Patriot movement and our defense of the Constitution as the same thing. Until now they have been a somewhat lone voice in the wilderness as far as Congress was concerned but with this victory should merit our greater confidence lending to greater support resulting in even bigger victories to come.
Dr. Harold Pease is an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 25 years at Taft College. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Apr 20, 2011 | Constitution
By Dr Harold Pease
Donald Trump’s recent assertion that he isn’t convinced that President Barack Obama was born in the United States but hopes that he can prove that he was, took the lid off a story that has laid under the table too hot for the establishment news to touch for years. Those even hinting such could be the case are normally met with the word ”birther,” designed by proponents to cause the inquirer to shutter in shame as did the vampire to the cross in mythical horror stories, or to the anti-communist confronted with the word McCarthyism in the 1950’s. That one word is seemingly their only answer and defense. Properly discredited, without an ounce of evidence presented to the contrary, he proceeds no further and is silenced, which is the intent. But what if it is true?
Just because the media will not touch this story does not make it not believed. Arizona, also not convinced, just passed a law requiring that to be placed on the ballot in their state those running for elected office must first show a birth certificate proving citizenship; at least 12 other states are sure to follow. If this happens, and the President cannot do so, he may not be on the ballot in perhaps a fourth of the states in the 2012 election very likely ensuring his defeat. Such a law is also under consideration in the House of Representatives.
One’s citizenship is an important constitutional question since citizenship is mandated as a requirement for the highest office in the land. If the Constitution is not enforced when violated the requirement is weakened or destroyed by past practice and anyone in the world can be our president. The Constitution clearly mandated that only one of our own could be our president. If citizenship cannot be proven than Obama must vacate the seat making Joe Biden President.
So here is what we know. Barack Obama does have a Certificate of Live Birth. Contenders say that this is not the same as a Birth Certificate because such is always embossed with the seal of the state of issuance and signed by a recognized authority of that state. Obama’s certificate, they maintain, has no signature and Xerox copies cannot prove embossment. Moreover they argue, that his Certificate of Live Birth also demonstrates evidence of having been tampered with. In Obama’s defense some states only issue Certificates of Live Birth, so in those states this is their birth certificate.
Obama’s paternal grandmother reportedly told her pastors that she was present at Obama’s birth in Kenya. The two pastors reportedly have signed affidavits to that fact. Moreover, his mother enrolled him as a student in Indonesia where such enrollment necessitated renouncement of citizenship in any other country (The New American, November 24, 2008, p. 8). It is also contended that his religion at that time was listed as Islam. It is not disputed that Obama attended school in Indonesia for four years but clarity on the other issues remain lacking.
Obama has refused to release his medical records or records from Occidental or Harvard College. Contenders say that the reason he cannot do so is because they would demonstrate that he received financial aid on the basis of having applied as a foreign student. Releasing his college records should put this allegation to rest but the president still will not do so further feeding the argument that he may have something to hide.
One must also note that there exists some false reporting on the contenders (or those posing to be contenders) side. This is not helpful as it discredits honest sources. Snopes.com had to declare as false a story alleged to be from AP insisting that a forced release of Obama’s Occidental College transcripts two weeks ago, did verify the above allegation. No such AP release exists. This does underscore the need for clean investigative reporting or a bi-partisan congressional review.
That said, apparently there are a vast number of others, besides Donald Trump, who “are not convinced President Barack Obama was born in the United States but hope that he can prove that he was,” despite the establishment medias,’ seemingly deliberate, attempt to villainize anyone suggesting such with the word “birther” rather than investigate the claims. Lets put this story to rest for both Obama and his accusers.
Dr. Harold Pease is an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 25 years at Taft College.
