Are You Avoiding Your Duty to Help Keep The United States Free?

Well ARE YOU?

“A regrettably large share of our legal experiences operate not in the shadow of the Constitution and its constraints, but rather in the shadow of explicitly unconstitutional rules, actions, and orders. In the time it takes for improper Executive Orders to be reined in, for illicit administrative decisions to be corrected, and for misinterpretations of constitutional power to be overturned, so much of society’s activity is framed by what we might call the not-Constitution — all those acts of government that are deemed illegal only after they have caused enduring harm. A most troubling aspect of government power is its insistence on pushing past constitutional constraints and operating in a blurry legal wilderness of its own creation while forcing Americans to prove that those power grabs lack legitimacy.” ~ J.B. Shurk

Given the sheer number of unconstitutional enactments forced upon us in this country in recent decades, the most common defense in any federal courtroom should be:

1) The Declaration of Independence tells us that all legitimate governments are instituted among men to "secure the Unalienable Rights" with which we are "endowed by our Creator," among these being "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" -- necessarily including an unalienable right to keep the fruits of our labor.

2) Following logically from this precedent, then the U.S. Constitution creates a government of acutely limited powers, with all such powers being limited to only those specifically listed.

3) The 9th and 10th Amendments -- still part of the highest law of the land, superseding all subsequent enactments -- further assure us that the people have many rights "not enumerated" in the Constitution, and that "any powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution" are reserved to the States or the people.

4) In his definitive 1803 ruling in the watershed case "Marbury vs. Madison," Chief Justice Marshall instructed us that any unconstitutional enactment must be treated as though it never existed. And this also may be the time when the supreme Court started violating it’s very purpose. See: Is THIS when the Supreme Court went off the rails? by Jon Rappoport

The power of the US Supreme Court to review federal and state laws wasn’t (aside from a few isolated exceptions) written into the Constitution. In 1809, with Marbury vs. Madison, a relatively minor issue involving a judicial appointment, the Court TOOK that power. And has held it ever since. The Court routinely rules on the legality and constitutionality of all sorts of laws, both federal and state. Prior to 1809, state courts ruled on the legality of laws within their own states. They also had the power to rule on the legality and the constitutionality of federal laws. State courts STILL have both of these powers.

5) Therefore, since the statute, regulation, ordinance, edict, or "interpretation of some code" under which the defendant now stands accused, represents an attempt by the federal legislature and/or bureaucracy to meddle in an area where it has no constitutional authorization (trafficking in constitutionally protected firearms, trafficking in medicinal plant extracts, declining to "volunteer" to pay unconstitutional direct federal taxes or to participate in a federal retirement pension or "payroll withholdings" scheme; "money laundering" to facilitate such commerce, etc. etc. etc.)

6) These charges should be dismissed; and the defendant declared innocent.

The reason this widely appropriate and fully adequate defense is seldom heard, of course, is that the black-robed lawyers who today masquerade as "judges" in our court system will not permit such things to be spoken. Defense attorneys are actually threatened with jail if they so much as dare to advance such an argument, the rationale being that "We're only here to decide the facts of the case. If you want to argue unconstitutionality of the underlying statute, the time to do that is years from now at the appellate level, after the defendant is bankrupt, has lost his home and family, and has been infected with a fatal disease by being gang-raped in the prisons for a couple of years."

This is a lie, of course, and any judge who says such a thing should him (or her)self be indicted for violation of his oath of office (treason), and for depriving a citizen of his civil rights under color of law. It is also the outgrowth of the government school system which of course never teaches the “subjects” how and why certain provisions were added into the Constitution in the first place. If and only if unanimously convicted by a randomly selected jury, such judges should be stripped of their office for life, imprisoned, and -- in cases where such misconduct has had a particularly egregious effect on the life of an innocent defendant -- executed. Why not?

That's not going to happen any time soon, of course. So decadent has our nation become that our lawmakers laugh hysterically at the idea that there are any restrictions whatsoever on how much they can tax or what they can spend it on, while the cynical, ambitious lawyers who staff our prosecutors' offices would never dream of enforcing the Bill of Rights by indicting most of our sitting politician/judges for violating their oaths.

Does any constitutional safeguard remain? Actually, yes. Though the Constitution is primarily a bill of limitations on government action, it does create through strong implication on a few duties for the people. And of course those in power do not want us to know about any of these facts. Which is one reason for government controlled “free” education. To keep us dumbed down.

Since no fewer than three of the first 10 amendments deal with the right to a trial before a randomly selected citizen jury, of your PEERS, that is a person who has equal standing with another or others, as in rank, class, or age. So there must obviously be some duty for citizens not only to serve on juries when called, but also to remain knowledgeable about their duty to stand as a last line of defense for fellow citizens being railroaded under unconstitutional edicts. See FIJA

One searches the writings of the founders in vain for the notion that jurors should "decide only the facts and not the law" -- in fact, constitutions of early states like Maryland specifically mention that jurors must be allowed to decide the law as well as the facts of the case. Nor will we find any mention of "runaway juries" or "rogue juries" to describe jurors who acquit despite a judge's instructions that the law gives them "no choice but to convict if you find that the defendant acted as charged" -- in fact, America's freedom of the press was born in New York's John Peter Zenger case, where the jury acquitted under just such circumstances. Here is the definition of “Jury” in an 1828 Websters Dictionary:

JU’RY, noun [Latin juro, to swear.] A number of freeholders, selected in the manner prescribed by law, empaneled and sworn to inquire into and try any matter of fact, and to declare the truth on the evidence given them in the case. Grand juries consist usually of twenty four freeholders at least, and are summoned to try matters alleged in indictments. Petty juries, consisting usually of twelve men, attend courts to try matters of fact in civil causes, and to decide both the law and the fact in criminal prosecutions. The decision of a petty jury is called a verdict.

So you see people, there are FOUR branches of “Government” in the US. The first branch is enumerated in the first THREE WORDS of the Constitution. WE THE PEOPLE! And we are being treated worse than the colonists were by King George! Just read the Declaration of Independence! And I want to repeat: Any judge who tells you that in a criminal case you cannot judge the law is a bold faced lying piece of crap. The definition above is what was understood about a jury at least up to 1828. After that they started changing the meaning. Do you think the Founding Fathers knew what the jury had the right to do? OF COURSE THEY DID!

---

Poisoning the Language of Freedom

Similarly, today's champions of tyranny -- and the victim disarmament which is a necessary condition for the advancement of any enduring tyranny -- have been busy for some years attempting to demonize the term "militia."

What does "militia" actually mean? Richard Henry Lee, who drafted the Second Amendment as well as the rest of the Bill of Rights, gave us a definitive answer in 1788:

"A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves. ... The Constitution ought to secure a genuine [militia] and guard against a select militia, by providing that the militias shall always be kept well organized, armed, and disciplined, and include ... all men capable of bearing arms, and that all regulations tending to render this militia useless and defenseless, by establishing select corps of militia, or distinct bodies of military men not having permanent interests and attachments in the community [are] to be avoided. ... To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."

But mention "militia" in polite company today, and many folks -- having been fed regular doses of the aforementioned carefully crafted collectivist propaganda -- automatically think of some small band of racist skinhead kooks in Montana or Idaho, embracing the laughable racism of "The Turner Diaries" and preaching some deviant doctrine of white supremacy and racial separation.

And according to College of William and Mary law professor and future U.S. District Court judge St. George Tucker in 1803 in his great work Blackstone’s Commentaries:

With Notes of Reference to the Constitution and Laws of the Federal Government of the United States and of the Commonwealth of Virginia, as the “true palladium of liberty.” In addition to checking federal power, the Second Amendment also provided state governments with what Luther Martin (1744/48–1826) described as the “last coup de grace” that would enable the states “to thwart and oppose the general government.” Last, it enshrined the ancient Florentine and Roman constitutional principle of civil and military virtue by making every citizen a soldier and every soldier a citizen.

Yet the arguments of these gun-grabbers quickly turn in on themselves, "as dogs upon their masters," in Shakespeare's phrase. They have long assured us -- despite the firm disagreement of such well-known left-wing legal scholars as Lawrence Tribe -- that the Second Amendment doesn't mean what is clearly says ("The right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.") Why? Because those of us who would honor our Constitution and do our duty to defend it (and the free country it created) supposedly ignore the introductory clause of the amendment, to wit: "A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State ..."

Well, what's the plain meaning of this clause? Note the use of the word "free." A well-practiced citizen militia is not necessary to the security of a police state, since police states have droves of uniformed bully boys goose-stepping about in fancy black uniforms and willing to follow the Imperator's orders to arrest and imprison anyone who refuses to obey every jot and tittle of the myriad of “laws” that make victimless acts reason to fine you, cage you or murder you. Just look at what happened recently in Little Rock Arkansas where a man had neglected to pay $200 for a Federal Firearms license and was murdered by the vaunted standing army mercenaries in the ATF. Proving to YOU, Mr. and Mrs. Mundane that your life is worth $200 to the ATF.

What the founders meant by that "militia" which must be maintained as our main source of armed men for national defense, if we are to remain a free country, are companies of citizens like the farmers and tradesmen who picked up their rifles and swarmed to Saratoga in the fall of 1777 to ambush Gentleman Johnnie Burgoyne's foraging parties, eventually bringing the invading redcoat regulars to battle and defeating them under the ad hoc leadership of one of America's great combat heroes, New Haven storekeeper-turned-soldier Benedict Arnold (yes, I know he later messed up) -- thus guaranteeing the colonists' triumph by drawing France into the war on our side.

As Americans have a duty not merely to show up for jury duty but to understand their right and obligation to acquit any defendant on trial under an unconstitutional statute, which basically is any “law” where there is no victim involved -- or any defendant who has clearly been refused his right to present a principled constitutional defense at trial -- so do Americans have a strongly implied obligation under the Second Amendment to stand ready to defend our freedoms (remember, "NECESSARY to the SECURITY of a FREE State") by owning, maintaining and keeping in good practice with a firearm of "militia usefulness" -- that being, in this day and age, an M-16 or (preferably, in my opinion) an AR-10 or an M1-A or an FN-FAL or the German H&K 91 all of these chambered in 7.62x51 NATO or a .308-caliber, combat rifles. My choice is the AR-10.

Now, there is a slight problem. The would-be tyrants on the Potomac have made it a federal crime for any American to build or import a military-style, select-fire M-14 or M-16 rifle for sale to a fellow citizen who does not wear a government uniform -- the exception being granted for members of precisely the kinds of "special militias" and "standing armies" which the founders feared.

This leaves only a limited supply of "pre-ban" M-14s and M-16s still circulating. The laws of supply and demand thus mean I'm going to pay more than $20,000 for my fully-automatic M-14 -- after I pay a $200 tax and submit myself to fingerprinting and other clearly unconstitutional indignities and "infringements" -- once I finally get enough saved up. Which really isn’t going to happen to easily. And you can’t tell me that if we were “allowed” by our psychopathic parasite rulers on the Potomac that they would cost much more than a standard semi-auto since there is very little difference in the mechanics.

In the meantime, I can proudly declare myself a member of Arkansas' unorganized constitutional militia, by dint of my ownership of the semi-automatic version of the military M-16 -- the semi-automatic civilian AR-15. However, if push comes to shove, I’m setting the AR-15 to the side for my preferential AR-10 chambered in 7.62x51 (.308 caliber).

Of course though fans of tyranny like Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein and Nancy Pukeloosy and Chairman Xiden naturally seek to ban these slightly less useful militia weapons at every turn, lying and calling them "assault rifles" (an assault rifle must be capable of fully-automatic fire; these are not) and by -- get this -- trying to link them to "dangerous Militias" ... a word which originally defined precisely the kind of peaceful, armed citizens who might stand in the way of their plans for a massive, cradle-to-grave, welfare/police state!

What do you suppose the massacres of the Armenian Turks in 1915, of the Ukrainian Kulaks under Stalin in the 1930s, of the Jews and Gypsies under Hitler in the 1940s, of the "landlords" under Mao and the "intellectuals" under Pol Pot all have in common? The victims were all disarmed, by law, first.)

---

Some Duties Cannot Be Delegated

Have you ever shirked your jury duty? I did once, mainly because I would have had to drive over 150 miles a day until my jury duty was over. It was cost prohibitive to me at the time. I know it didn’t make me proud to know some fellow citizen who never harmed anyone may now be serving time because I wasn’t able to go stand as his last line of defense against a bad law or overzealous prosecution -- or, worse yet, because maybe I would in ignorance a the time followed some black-robed lawyer's "order" to convict, even though I couldn't have for the life of me figured out who the defendant had hurt, and felt in my heart it was the overzealous cops, trampling our precious Bill of Rights to "build their case," who should really have been on trial? Unless there is a really good reason NOT to be on a jury, be that guardian for freedom that can hang or better yet convince the other jurors of the fact the law is evil if there is no victim involved.

And what about your obligation as a citizen to help maintain the militia, so "necessary to the security of a free state"? Have you bought into the hate-filled propaganda about "militia" being merely a synonym for racist rednecks? The absurdity that we "don't need militias any more; times have changed and the standing armies of the DEA and FBI and BATF and the National Guard" -- the guys who flew the helicopters that machine-gunned the babies and nursing mothers at Waco -- "can do the job just fine"?

Oh, now there's a good excuse to spend the weekend on the couch, watching the game.

Be wary of any attempt to propagandize concepts and words which the founders considered vital to instruct us about our freedoms and the tools necessary to preserve them, turning them into "hate speech" terms of scorn and derision.

John F. Kennedy said we should "ask not what our country can do for us, but what we can do for our country." That can be a dangerous doctrine, if it leads us to forget that in America the state exists to protect the people and their liberties -- not the other way around.

But we do indeed have a few duties to our countrymen. Jury service is one. Owning a combat rifle is another. (No, you cannot "delegate" such a duty to the police or the National Guard, because your obligation to our progeny is precisely to own arms sufficient to discourage the police or the National Guard from ever getting too big for their britches.)

Have you shirked either of those duties, assuming "someone else will do it -- someone better trained. I can't be bothered, and besides -- what do I know?"

Sometimes, freedom requires a little investment, and a little work. If you can't afford a $1,500 M-1A, a WWII surplus Garand can be found for about $500 ... or a WWI surplus Enfield for $250. Anything is better than nothing. I’ve seen AR-15’s down in price recently for $399.00.

And don’t expect to be able to learn how to use one by osmosis. You will have to get out and practice. Where I live I can go out in my back yard and shoot five days a week due to an agreement with a neighbor for three hours a day. I don’t do three hours a day, but I can say this…I’ll do a half hour with a rifle and half hour with a pistol at least two or three times a week. I can keep a 5 shot .357 Ruger 2 1/2 revolver on a 10” steel pate at 40 yards so well that I wouldn’t want to be in a shootout with myself.

ARM up and CARRY on. And be sure to learn about the power of the Jury.

---