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Fundamental individual liberty and rights are central to our Constitution, and protection of the same from governmental infringement. Yet we see on a nearly daily basis, attempts by sometimes well-intentioned politicians, locally and nationally, to trample those fundamental rights in the name of a “greater good.”

The latest case in point, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) passed Congress with broad bi-partisan support, (proving once again that there is little difference between the two major political parties), and will reportedly be signed into law this week by President Obama.

The Act states, “Congress affirms that the authority of the President to use all necessary and appropriate force pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force includes the authority for the Armed Forces of the United States to detain covered persons pending disposition under the law of war.” And just who are those “covered persons” that can be so detained? Section 1031 seems innocuous enough by identifying anyone who had a part in the 9/11/01 attacks or “A person who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities,” against the U.S. But then this Trojan Horse language follows, “including any person who has committed a belligerent act.”

A broad interpretation of “belligerent” includes “hostile and aggressive,” and is not limited to the more specific acts of war, which the drafters of the legislation may have intended. This language swings the door of interpretation wide open to include any threatening, antagonistic, contentious, or confrontational conduct perceived to be a threat to the nation. It is not beyond the realm of possibility to see this president or any future president use this provision as justification for military detention without due process of Tea Party protestors or Occupy Wall Street activists.

The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution has served to enforce due process and habeas corpus by preventing unlawful arrest and detention, yet this one Act (NDAA) grants virtually unlimited power to the president to detain potential “terrorists” indefinitely, with all the ignominy of a military Guantanimo-like detention. And one of the most striking components of the legislation is that the “battlefield” of the “War on Terrorism” is expanded to include the homeland of the United States of America.

The Act, itself a violation of law since it was drawn up, debated, and passed in closed committee sessions without a single hearing, is clearly a violation of posse comitatus, established in 1878 which proscribes the use of the military on domestic soil to enforce the laws of the land.

While I rarely find myself in agreement with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), on this issue we’re of one accord. In their write-up of the NDAA they averred the Act “will direct American military resources not at an enemy shooting at our military in a war zone, but at American citizens and other civilians.” They continue, “The power is so broad that even U.S. citizens could be swept up by the military and the military could be used far from any battlefield, even within the United States itself.”

Section 1031 of the Act concludes with an attempt at assuaging civil libertarian concerns by stating, “Nothing in this section is intended to limit or expand the authority of the President or the scope of the Authorization for Use of Military Force.” It may not be “intended,” but the act does precisely that.

Section 1032 further attempts to mitigate the far-reaching affects of the legislation by stating that the, “The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to citizens of the United States.” While not “required,” it clearly leaves the door wide open for the possibility of military detention of citizens.

For students of history, this legislation eerily has a parallel in the Enabling Act of 1933 in Germany, where rights enumerated in the Weimar constitution were repressed or precluded by expanded central government control. The subsequent staged attack on the Reichstag or parliament building, led to the Reichstag Fire Decree, finalizing the transition of Adolph Hitler from Chancellor of the Republic, to Führer. Is that all it would take to make that final transition here?

At what point do we as citizens reject and stand up against such trampling of civil liberties? There was so much disapprobation over the Patriot Act, and this goes so much further. It’s impossible to not see another parallel from 20th century Germany in the words of Martin Niemoller, “First they came for the communists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me.”

AP award winning columnist Richard Larsen is a regular contributor to the Idaho State Journal. He is also President of Larsen Financial, a brokerage and financial planning firm in Pocatello, Idaho, and is a graduate of Idaho State University with a BA in Political Science and History and former member of the Idaho State Journal Editorial Board. He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Parents in Nashville, Tennessee were concerned about their minor son’s health condition, including the possibility that the doctor was over-medicating him. The doctor recommended administration of drug tests to see if there were other factors contributing to his discomfort. The doctor made it clear, however, that he would not be able to release the drug test results to the parents, but only to the child. After all, as the doctor erroneously explained, the child had a right to privacy based on federal law that trumped the parental rights to care for, nurture, and protect their child.

Parents of a kindergarten age child in Massachusetts were shocked to find some of the books and materials being sent home with their 5-year-old were sex education materials and books that normalize and promote homosexual activity. After visiting with the teacher and getting nowhere on an “opt out” agreement for their child, the parents met with the principal, who in turn sent the parents to a “diversity” workshop to increase their acceptance of the indoctrination of their child.

After their disturbing experience at the workshop, the parents met again with the principal, begging for prior notification of sexual content instruction and for an opt out for their child. The principal responded to their request by having a police officer handcuff and forcibly remove the concerned parents for trespassing. Parental rights to protect, teach, nurture, and inculcate fundamental values were trampled by the education establishment intently motivated by an ideological agenda.

A child in Washington state complained to a school counselor about his parents making him go to church too much. Without notifying the parents, the counselor contacted a state social worker who took the 13-year-old boy directly from school and placed him in a foster home until a judicial hearing could be set for the parents to argue their case before a judge.

These are not isolated cases. Through legislative and judicial overreach, an increasing amount of power is given to the state over our children. As with the examples provided, all parents who fail to comply with a certain ideology are assumed to be bad parents, and the state’s intentions pristine. These efforts are methodically replacing parental discretion in all areas of child rearing and development with governmental and bureaucratic dominion over our minor children.

Karl Marx, in chapter 2 of The Communist Manifesto, said that in order to establish a perfect social state you have to destroy the family. You have to substitute the government for parental authority in the rearing of children. Whether intentional or not, the current trend of erosion of parental rights and refusal to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act are perfectly facilitating the socialist agenda.

In 1989 the United Nations adopted the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), a human rights treaty that delineates the civil, political, economic, social, health and cultural rights of children. Nearly all UN member nations have adopted the protocol, and are subject to review, sanction, and enforcement by the UN. The U.S. is one of two that have not.

While ostensibly appealing in its protection of children, the document codifies the supremacy of government over parental rights in the rearing of children. This grants government bureaucrats the ability to prosecute parents or remove children from homes where parents are suspected of being out of compliance with the UN’s objectives. In short, rather than being a proactive protection for the rights of children, it is an instrument to strip the rights of parents in child rearing.

A website dedicated to this issue, ParentalRights.org says of the UNCRC, “Despite the claims of its supporters, the Convention on the Rights of the Child is more than an international ‘wish list’ – it is an instrument of societal action.  The evidence is clear in the nations that have ratified it, like France, Canada, Brazil and the United Kingdom.  Member-states are expected to incorporate its provisions into their own laws, and failure to do so is met with intense international censure and pressure to conform.  The United Nations, and its Committee on the Rights of the Child, tolerate nothing less.”

Even without adopting the UNCRC, the threat is real for American parents. Federal judges, who take an oath to defend and uphold the Constitution and our laws, increasingly rule on cases relying on customary international law. International precedence and code often align more closely with those judges ideology, and drawing from international rather than U.S. law grants them the justification necessary for “legislating from the bench.” This is facilitating a judicial creep of the tenets of the UNCRC and laws from other nations that have adopted it en toto.

All parents need to be aware of this insidious process that is slowly yet methodically subverting the rights of parents, and granting increasing authority to government to control and govern the rearing of our children. All parents should be prepared and knowledgeable about this stealthy trend, and ParentalRights.org is a superb starting point.

AP award winning columnist Richard Larsen is a regular contributor to the Idaho State Journal. He is also President of Larsen Financial, a brokerage and financial planning firm in Pocatello, and is a graduate of Idaho State University with a BA in Political Science and History and former member of the Idaho State Journal Editorial Board. He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Having witnessed the difficulties and dangers of the first Convention which assembled under every propitious circumstance, I should tremble for the result of a Second.... — Letter of James Madison to George Lee Turberville, November 2, 1788

In recent decades, groups calling for a constitutional convention (con con) have brought the nation to the brink of disaster. A con con is an assembly of state-appointed delegates meeting for the purpose of proposing amendments to the federal Constitution, as provided in Article V. But the powers of a con con extend far beyond merely proposing amendments. A federal convention concentrates in one place all sovereign powers inherent in the people of a free country. For this reason, its powers have no limits. A con con can change or repeal every word of the U.S. Constitution, including the rules for ratification of any new or revised Constitution.

Introduction

A massive, poorly recognized attack threatens to destroy America’s vital middle class.

America’s middle class is much more than an income level. It is a positive, independent force perpetuating a culture that sustains our freedom, promises opportunity, and gives rise to national prosperity.

Throughout history, whenever it has flourished, the middle class has acted as a buffer between the ruling elite and the laboring poor. From her research, internationally respected American novelist Taylor Caldwell argued:

The middle class made the dream of liberty a possibility, set limits on the government, fought for its constitutions, removed much of governmental privilege and tyranny, demanded that rulers obey the just laws as closely as the people, and enforced a general civic morality.

Taylor Caldwell, “The Middle Class Must Not Die,”

The Review of the News, May 29, 1974

Honest Establishment Newsman Affirms Conspiracy

The story of Hermann Dinsmore (1900-1980) demonstrates how it is still possible in our information-rich society for supposedly well informed individuals to be unaware of critical information adverse to the Conspiracy.

For 34 years, Herman Dinsmore worked in the heart of the Establishment's media organ — The New York Times. For nine years (1951-1960), he served as editor of the International Edition of the Times.

William F. Buckley Jr.: Far Worse Than a Fraud

Note: The following article first appeared in the March Action Report of Freedom First Society.


It was July 1973 and for the previous 18 months I had been a Coordinator on the staff of The John Birch Society. La Rita Quinn and her husband Bill had moved to Colorado from Moline, Illinois, and we were holding our first ever “Rocky Mountain Rally” in Pueblo, Colorado. Not only did La Rita Quinn have the vision to get this annual event off the ground, she also had the influence with Robert Welch to persuade him and many other top speakers and writers to attend and participate in this great event year after year.

The Internationalist “Dream” is Not Dead!

The Deniers by Lawrence Solomon, Richard Vigilante Books, 2008, 239 pp., hardback.

No More Government Power Grabs Thru Orchestrated Crises

On Wednesday, November 19th, President-elect Barak Obama addressed the climate summit hosted by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (please see 4-minute Obama video clip, below).

In the following video clip, former U.S. Senator Fred Thompson makes clever use of satire to expose the folly of current economic proposals. His insightful satire is right on the mark and worth sharing, IF it is supplemented with leadership regarding what to do about the problem (see below).

Internationalist Support for the UN is NOT Change

 Book Review

 Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them by Steve Milloy (Regnery,   2009)

 Perhaps you think the green movement is merely a fad perpetuated by overzealous conservationists with no deep consequences for you. Think again.

 In Green Hell, Steve Milloy demonstrates with exceptional clarity that our way of life — our health, mobility, comfort, prosperity, a first-world standard of living, and most especially our freedom — is at risk due to well organized and well funded revolutionaries.

On August 6, 2009, Freedom First Society had the privilege of interviewing Dr. Max Stanley Chartrand, who has been a leader in the fight against socialized medicine since the late 1980s.

Q. The subject of socialized medicine has been of concern to you for many years. When did you first become involved in the effort to oppose it and why?

On August 25, President Obama announced that he was reappointing Ben Bernanke to a second four-year term as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. The media hype accompanying the nomination reinforced dangerous illusions aiding a subversive agenda.

Obama Addresses Congress on Healthcare

Part Two: Revisiting Dr. Chartrand on the Battle Over ObamaCare

Fighting Only the Tips While Ignoring the Icebergs Will Surely Sink the U.S. & Her Constitution

“[W]e are going to put an end to the notion that the American taxpayer exists to fund the Federal Government.” — presidential candidate Ronald Reagan, July 1980

Several decades ago, one committed constitutionalist in Congress insisted that two groups were to blame for the huge federal deficits – Republicans and Democrats, or if you will, liberals and [even most] conservatives. Indeed, the leadership of both parties has long carried the socialist ball.

The following article is one of 28 essays in Tangents and Traps (2010), a booklet written by Don Fotheringham and published by Freedom First Society. The $3.00 booklet was written to help would-be activists avoid the tangents and traps that have diverted so many well intentioned Americans into non-productive or even counter-productive activity. As the author points out, "at no time in our nation's history have so many decoys and detours obstructed the road to freedom."

Tangents & Traps: Amendment Fever

But obviously, if the Insiders at the top cause enough of these “demonstrations” to be organized, and to become big enough and disorderly enough, the American people can readily be brought to accept, approve, and even applaud, the use by these Insiders of army troops, as an auxiliary or substitute for local police forces, to restore “law and order.”

As surely as the world revolves, and a new day dawns, political hope is born and reborn and reborn again. Every two years, and every four years, a surge of great expectation lights up the political horizon. New candidates putting fresh faces on old promises appear on the scene like budding plants in springtime. “Finally, at last, this year we have a great guy (or woman) who will go to Washington and get government under control! Let’s get behind this candidate and clean up that mess in Washington.” Right?