Freedom First Society

Beware the False Idea that Treaties Override the Constitution

The United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen will not make the earth one degree cooler. But in reality the Conference is not about CO2 emissions or the temperature of the planet. It’s about power — it’s a sheer, unmitigated grab for control over every man, woman, and child on the face of the earth. And on top of their power over all living (or dead) human beings, the engineers of this enormous fraud hope to pocket all that remains of the world’s wealth — lots of slaves and lots of money. Not a very complicated purpose.

Please don’t credit President Obama for engineering this massive plot. He deserves only the International Impudence and Audacity Award, something he my want to hang next to his Nobel Peace Prize. Remember, he just follows the rules. He is not really in charge; he is the hired runner trying to impress his masters by how fast he can carry their baton to the finish line.

At Copenhagen Mr. Obama will likely sign anything that’s laid on the table. But that will not, as some voices conjecture, signal the end of the U.S.A. The December meeting is preliminary to the big kill. It serves two goals: first to intensify the fear of a climate crisis; and second, to get the American people accustomed to the heresy that “treaty laws can override the Constitution.”

Origin of the Myth

The frightful idea that U.S. treaties with foreign nations supercede the Constitution has been regularly promoted since the Eisenhower era. It was given a big boost in 1952 when Secretary of State¹ John Foster Dulles, a founding member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), made the following statement:

… congressional laws are invalid if they do not conform to the Constitution, whereas treaty laws can override the Constitution. Treaties, for example, can take powers away from Congress and give them to the President; they can take powers from the states and give them to the Federal Government, or to some international body and they can cut across the rights given the people by the Constitutional Bill of Rights.²

It would be hard to find a more preposterous assertion. Sadly, however, many citizens have been led to believe that treaties do override the Constitution. Could anyone really think our founding fathers spent four months in convention, limiting the size, power and scope of government, and then provided for their work to be destroyed by one lousy treaty?

But one might object, what about Article VI? Article VI establishes the supremacy of U.S. laws and treaties made within the bounds of the Constitution. It is called the Supremacy Clause, because it places federal laws and treaties that are made pursuant to the Constitution above state constitutions, laws. and treaties.

Some Important History

This was needed because, contrary to their agreement under the Articles of Confederation, certain states had violated their trust and entered into treaties with foreign powers. During the convention, Madison said: “Experience had evinced a constant tendency in the States to encroach on federal authority; to violate national Treaties, to infringe the rights and interests of each other.”³

State-made pacts often conflicted with peace and trade treaties wanted by the Confederation Congress for the benefit of all thirteen states, making it hard for Congress to consummate better agreements with other nations. This also led to fierce contention between the states in their effort to monopolize the import of goods from Europe and the Indian tribes. But more serious dangers arose in matters of security, for should one state be at war with a foreign power while a sister state honors its peace agreement with the same enemy, the security of the entire Confederation would be threatened.⁴

In an effort to head off such dangers, the Confederation Congress frequently attempted to nullify state-made treaties in the state courts (there were no federal courts). But as might be expected, the state judges ruled inevitably in favor of their own states, pursuant to the state laws and constitutions.

The 1787 Convention corrected that problem by making certain only federal treaties would be recognized as valid. In this light, it is not hard to understand why paragraph two of Article VI is worded as follows:

This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, any thing in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.

Upon ratification of the Constitution, the state treaties were nullified. Thereafter, only federal treaties were recognized as supreme, regardless of any remaining state provisions to the contrary. Moreover, under the new Constitution the founders established a Supreme Court, granting it original jurisdiction over treaty controversies, and thereby removing from state judges jurisdiction over treaty cases. In addition to quelling strife among the states, Article VI accomplished a major objective of the Convention, mainly that of placing the United States in a position to speak to the world with one voice.

United States treaties are created when proposed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate. The power of the President and the Senate, in their treaty-making capacity, was never intended to be a power greater than the Constitution.

Citizens who met in the state ratifying conventions (1787 to 1790) to examine with great care the provisions of the proposed Constitution had a correct understanding of the Supremacy Clause. During the ratifying debates, James Madison answered questions regarding the new national charter and commented on the extent of the treaty-making power under Article VI:

I do not conceive that power is given to the President and Senate to dismember the empire, or to alienate any great, essential right. I do not think the whole legislative authority have this power. The exercise of the power must be consistent with the object of its delegation.⁵

In the same discussion Madison said: “Here, the supremacy of a treaty is contrasted with the supremacy of the laws of the states. It cannot be otherwise supreme.” That is, a treaty cannot in any other manner or situation be supreme.

Thomas Jefferson: “I say the same as to the opinion of those who consider the grant of treaty-making to be boundless. If it is, then we have no Constitution.”

But we do have a Constitution. Its life and viability depend entirely on the small number of citizens who, 1) understand the document and 2) who equally understand the forces at work to destroy it. At this point enough time has passed, and enough false teachings have been promulgated, to cause modern Americans to fall for the treaty power ploy. It is not surprising that John Foster Dulles, a ranking member of the CFR, should in 1952 circulate the treaty-power heresy that yet prevails. We must wonder also by what objective Lord Christopher Monckton overstates the scope of the Copenhagen conference and repeats the Dulles heresy that U.S. treaties absolutely over-ride the Constitution.

It is time for serious reflection on the words of Edmond Burke, “The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.” We who work to preserve the sovereignty of the United States must work energetically to expose the Dulles delusion — the ridiculous idea that treaties have intrinsic powers greater than the Constitution. We can do little to stop the President from signing accords at Copenhagen and other places,⁶ but we can do much to render his antics impotent by building a better informed public.

__________

^¹ Dulles actually made this statement during a speech in Louisville on April 2, 1952, shortly before Eisenhower appointed him Secretary of State.

² Quoted by Frank E. Holman, Story of the Bricker Amendment, (New York Committee for Constitutional Government, Inc., 1954), pp. 14, 15.

3 The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, Farrand, Vol. I, p. 164.

⁴ Benjamin Franklin’s Plan of Union, America, Vol. 3, p. 47.

⁵ Debates on the Federal Constitution, Jonathan Elliot, ed., second edition, Philadelphia, J.B. Lippincott Company, 1907, Vol. III, p. 514.

⁶ President Obama is expected to seek ratification of three major pacts aimed at reducing U.S. nuclear weapons, in addition to pressing for ratification of the UN’s Law of the Sea Treaty.

A High-Speed Constitution?

For a brittle old piece of parchment, the U.S. Constitution certainly lives a charmed life. Since the day it was born, the Constitution has been battered by aspiring rulers, demagogues, reformers, collectivists, conceited intellectuals, deluded students, journalists, ambitious presidents, and creative members of the Supreme Court.

Hardly a citadel of power has resisted attacking the Constitution — yet when the smoke and thunder settle, that venerable document continues to wave like old glory in the dawn’s early light. Why is this so? Because it is not paper and ink. It is not simply a relic preserved in a vacuum under glass at the National Archives. The Constitution survives precisely because it is not what its critics think it is or what some want it to be.

The Constitution is not, for example, a sponge that swells when wet. It does not rise and recede with the tide, nor does it shift left or right with day-to-day opinions. It is not as some fancy it, “a living constitution,” a pulsating organism that mutates into whatever an alleged majority want it to be. The Constitution is not a retail product appealing to the mass market; it has no model year, flaunts no new amenities, and is not always user-friendly.

Okay, then what is it? The Constitution is the containment vessel of government. It controls meltdown when government heats up. It is designed to keep government within its walls at all times and under all circumstances. The size and power of government tend to expand in proportion to the egos of those who run it. Therefore, until modern science produces an ego-deflation device, a human-ambition retardant, and a lust-for-power inhibitor, we’d better hang on to that old parchment and treat it kindly.

A growing number of writers and reformers miss the point. They want to put the Constitution in a wind tunnel and trim it for Mach One, thinking faster is better — believing that instant amendments, overnight legislation, quick treaties, and hasty impeachments are the substance of good government.

Do they really think the founders of our country stumbled by chance upon separate institutions, enumerated powers, checks and balances, bicameral lawmaking, and the executive veto — never realizing such measures would be inconvenient or cumbersome? Sorry, 1787 was not a time for loose reins and neither is today.

Those who think they are smarter than Washington, Madison, and Hamilton need to get off their populist soap boxes and look into our country’s great documents. Records of the founding Convention chronicle the hard, step-by-step deliberations of the men who worked out a remarkable balance between power and restraint, creating a government with enough power to defend its people, but not enough to enslave them.

The creators of our Constitution purposely and carefully built guard rails, roadblocks, and speed bumps into the system to assure that no one individual or department could crash through its walls, consolidate power, and run off with our freedom. Deliberate, and sometimes slow, lawmaking is a small price for the freedom we enjoy here in the USA.

But Daniel Lazare thinks otherwise. In his book, The Frozen Republic, Lazare describes a United States paralyzed by “a counter democratic system dedicated to the virtues of staying put in the face of rising popular pressure.” Certainly, our system is counter democratic. For history teaches that popular pressure — artificial or real — is the common pretext employed by the ambitious for assuming despotic power.

Our founders knew that and therefore gave us a republic, a system that prevents 51 percent of the people from voting away the liberty and property of the other 49. But that principle doesn’t seem to faze writers who are hooked on speed in government. As with so many instant intellectuals, Lazare attributes U.S. failures to problems never addressed in the Constitution, and often to problems stemming from the outright violation of it.

Another hurry-up critic is a college professor at the University of Texas. Writing in the Los Angeles Times, Sanford Levinson says, “[T]he Constitution is so far from perfect that it threatens our ability to resolve the daunting problems facing our society.” As one example Levinson cites the cumbersome process of impeachment and the pain of waiting so long to dump the president. He claims that “60% of Americans disapprove of the job [the president is] doing.” Yet Mr. Bush, he laments, will occupy the White House until January 20, 2009.

The professor thinks a national plebiscite (a popular “no confidence” system) should replace our present method of impeachment. He says not a word about the actual impeachment of Bill Clinton, which moved through the House precisely as the founders intended.

Before the impeachment resolution reached the Senate, however, the House charges had been touted in the media as nothing more than cheap Republican efforts to exploit a sex scandal involving a Democratic president. Under media influence and White House pressure, the Senate waffled and refused to look seriously at the evidence.

The Senate’s failure to convict was not a failure of the impeachment system, but a disregard for it. By ignoring the seriousness of the charges, the Senate simply failed to carry out its constitutional duty. As with many critics of our national charter, Levinson attributes daunting problems to the document itself, rather than to the defiance of its wise provisions.

The idea that the Constitution was written for a backwoods, horse-and-buggy society and will not work in our advanced hi-tech civilization is nonsense. The Constitution does not confront technology or distance or population; it confronts the nature of man. It retards man’s ambition to use the power of government for personal power and dominion — a trait that exists in human beings at all times. It matters not whether one travels in a horse-drawn carriage or a jetliner, the universal tendency to exercise political power over others is the same — if not even worse today in this world of high-speed everything.

Honest Establishment Newsman Affirms Conspiracy

The story of Herman 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.

Dinsmore became angry at what he saw at the Times — a deliberate, systematic distortion of the news as a matter of official Times policy. And so, the professor of journalism took up his pen and wrote an exposé of the Times, appropriately titled All the News That Fits.* His critical analysis of the Times appeared in 1969 during the Vietnam War, the Times coverage of which drew special criticism from Dinsmore.

What is particularly noteworthy is what Mr. Dinsmore discovered with further study after leaving the Times. He began to see the big picture. Mr. Dinsmore had every reason to consider himself well informed. As editor of the International Edition of the Times, it was his duty to be aware of every story reported in the paper. However, his further investigation led him to an awareness of important events that had not been reported. With new insight he would acknowledge the existence of a Conspiracy.

In 1974, Dinsmore published a much more enlightened exposé of what was afflicting our nation. In The Bleeding of America, Dinsmore wrote:

The idea that the United States of America was under attack from some of its own citizens developed very slowly in the writer’s mind. It was not until he read Dr. Medford Evans’ The Secret War for the A-Bomb that he became convinced that a genuine effort was under way to establish a global check on this country — to balance other nations against it, to prevent it from winning wars; in short, to clip the wings of the American eagle.

Prior to publication of The Politician, while Mr. Welch’s leaked manuscript was in the form of a private letter, statements taken out of context from The Politician were used to support a withering smear campaign in the nations’ media against Mr. Welch and his Society. After publication, the book was conspicuously ignored. Nevertheless, in total disregard for whatever embarrassment or harassment it might cause himself, Mr. Dinsmore made this statement:

Reading The Politician, which I have just done during December [1969], was for me quite a revealing experience. It is hard for a professional newspaper man to confess that so many things, which he thought were just happening, were actually being made to happen by sinister and conspiratorial forces. But in all honesty the confession must be made. The Politician was a real eye-opener, which caused all kinds of mysterious pieces, of a puzzle that still bewildered me, to fall rapidly into place. I recommend the book emphatically to every patriotic American who wants to understand not only what is now taking place all around him, but also why. This book is the product of historical research of the first order.

Since World War II, the Conspiracy has undertaken many steps to “clip the wings of the American eagle,” as Mr. Dinsmore discovered. The object has clearly been to limit America’s ability to act independently and to increase her dependence on other nations and international authority.

In recent decades, America has suffered from deindustrialization and manufacturing flight. Our steel factories have shut down, while the U.S. has helped to build China’s steel production. America is even importing raw materials from abroad.

Over the last several decades, America has lost military bases in Iran, the Philippines, and at the Panama Canal. In Vietnam, the U.S. built a seaport at Cam Ranh Bay and an air base at Da Nang, and then with our pullout allowed these facilities to fall into Soviet hands. These developments are also summarized in Organize for Victory!

* Herman H. Dinsmore, All the News That Fits: A Critical Analysis of the News and Editorial Content of The New York Times (New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House, 1969).

Tangents & Traps: The Election-year Illusion

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?

What’s wrong with this familiar scene? Nothing, other than it’s chronology is all backwards. The renewable energy of political action is light-years ahead of the electorate. Unless the people at home understand the problem to be solved in Washington, political action is nothing but a wishful roll of the dice. It is a gamble, which even if won is lost. That’s right, rolling a seven or eleven might even get a good man in office, but it cannot keep him there. Moreover, if he uncharacteristically keeps his campaign promises, he will be an outcast in that whirlpool of compromise and accommodation.

The best person you send to Washington can never restore republican government in the face of badly informed, brainwashed Republicans and Democrats at home. The failure of the freedom battle is manifest in public office, but its roots are at home in the public mind. Most people simply do not know what is going on (or who really runs things), and that is the huge flaw in premature political action. We send men and women into the lion’s den, unaware that there is even a lion lurking in the pit.

When the media begin to chew up perfectly good members of Congress, few citizens in their district can overcome the onslaught or see through the ruse. Hardly any American citizens realize there is an enemy who rules behind the scenes, and consequently few in his home district realize what’s happening to their elected official. He may have done his best to honor his oath of office, but his own party, the press, and the leadership in Congress have isolated and silenced him, and his poorly informed friends at home no longer stand by him.

Unless the voters in a congressional district understand the anti-American forces at work, and have sufficient numbers to stand solidly behind a real statesman in Congress, their political action is doomed. It is way ahead of its time. Freedom is a year-round undertaking, not an election-year hope. To achieve positive, genuine reform, the great expense and energy spent every election year must first be used to build a strong base of citizens wise to the Conspiracy.

The illusory quick-fix of political action directed at a naive, uninformed electorate is a huge election-year, no-win tangent.

Tangents & Traps: Public Protest Gatherings

“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.'” — Robert Welch, December 1969

Wise activists are wary of attention-seeking activities that challenge public order. Any such major activity nearly always attracts the media. Television crews and reporters rush to such occasions looking for strife, controversy, and yes, many reporters hope to film violence.

News coverage of public dissent in the form of a march, demonstration, or protest plays directly into the hands of the Conspiracy. Anarchy — or virtually any form of public disorder — creates an excuse for government to show its muscle and exercise force against the dissidents, which turns out to be force against everyone. This has been one of the most common yet subtle ways by which governments expand their power.

The general public wants order, and the Insiders want police power for which disorder is a convenient excuse. Citizens must beware of being used in any form of public protest that strengthens the enemy by furnishing an excuse for more laws, more government, and extreme enforcement measures.

Once a public protest is organized — for good or ill — all it takes is one or two people planted in the crowd to provide the violence or ill manners that can be displayed on television to discredit the cause.

For this and other good reasons, Freedom First Society does not organize demonstrations, marches, and other kinds of public protest. Moreover, we scrupulously stay away from areas where confrontation or violence are likely to occur, and we advise our patriotic friends to do likewise.

Tangents & Traps: Amendment Fever

“Towards the preservation of your government and the permanency of your present happy state … you should resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretext.” — George Washington, September 17, 1796

The wisdom of George Washington applies today more than at any other time. He cautioned future Americans to safeguard their freedom by avoiding constitutional amendments “for light and transient reasons.” Yet year after year hundreds of amendments are proposed. We should feel relieved that most proposed amendments do not make it into the Constitution, because they fail to qualify as constitutional protections. If passed, most of them would reduce individual freedom and increase federal power.

Here are a few examples of recently proposed amendments: Traditional Marriage Amendment, Anti-Flag Burning Amendment, Anti-Abortion Amendment, Equal Rights Amendment, Balanced Budget Amendment, Term Limits Amendment, Bible Reading Amendment, School Prayer Amendment, Campaign Finance Amendment, Victims’ Rights Amendment, Electoral College Amendment, and a Line Item Veto Amendment, among others.

Why not add these to the Constitution? Because the absence of the above matters does not reflect a flaw in the Constitution; the Constitution does not, accordingly, need correction.

Our lack of a balanced federal budget, for example, is not due to the absence of constitutional spending limits, it’s due to the cost of thousands of federal programs for which there is no constitutional authority. Simply adhering to the U.S. Constitution would reduce spending by billions and leave us with an easily balanced budget.

Likewise, allowing members of Congress to remain in office until voted out, is not a flaw, for if the congressman is bad, he can be thrown out any time the voters decide to do so. But if he is “term-limited” by an amendment, then we lose our right to re-elect him. Term limits is a voter copout, an excuse not to study the issues or pay attention to the voting records of our congressmen. It is a serious responsibility of our citizenship to elect good men and women and throw bad ones out.

Most amendment proposals would add redundancy to the Constitution, for they seek to block federal action in areas where the federal government has no authority to act. So why make such matters as marriage, religion (“Congress shall make no law…”), school prayer, abortion and Bible-reading off limits to the feds, when they already are? What we need is more conformance with the Constitution, not more duplication of its declarations.

It’s quite ironic that proposed constitutional amendments create so much excitement when our elected officials ignore most of the Constitution (as it now is) anyway. What good would a new amendment be, if nobody paid attention to it? Our immediate duty is to get the federal government back under the Constitution according to the intent of the 1787 Convention.

Are there any amendments that patriotic citizens ought to support? Yes, amendments to remove the barnacles in earlier amendments. Unfortunately, such proposals put the cart before the horse.

Truly constructive proposals have no chance of being ratified until a large majority of Americans understand the harmful effects of certain clauses in some of the later amendments, beginning with the 14th. This means Americans must first rout the Conspiracy that controls so much of American public opinion. Routing the powers that have almost destroyed this country is the top priority of the Freedom First Society (www.freedomfirstsociety.org).

Once our brain-laundered friends wake up, we would eagerly support repeal of the Fourteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Amendments, just for openers. It takes a repealing amendment to nullify an existing amendment. Therefore, we would need the votes of two-thirds of both houses of Congress, plus ratification by three-fourths of the states.

So you can see, we have much work to do before that is even a dream. It will not happen with the existing Insider control of education, the foundations, the White House, Federal Reserve, news media, Congress, and the federal courts.

There are no easy shortcuts to a free America. At present, we will do well to keep the Constitution intact and out of the hands of those who hate it. We are in a state of emergency, the flag is at half-staff, and the Constitution is in God’s hands. Beware of any amendment proposals, no matter how specious the pretext, for any work to amend the Constitution at this time is a very unwise tangent.

Tangents & Traps: Muslim Hysteria

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.”

It’s easy to get blind-sided by this tangent for it evokes plenty of emotion. The specter of a Muslim population taking over our cities, electing their own Congress, gaining control of the United States, and crushing all of Christianity is not a picture lightly dismissed.

So let’s take a few steps back and look at the “Muslim doomsday” from another viewpoint. Let’s start by considering the long-term objectives of our global engineers at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Is it not in their plan to destroy America’s middle class and merge an impoverished U.S.A. with the nations already captive by the global elite? If so, then how is a Muslim ascendancy compatible with their worldwide plans? It’s not.

From that angle, the Muslim hysteria has one primary purpose: It takes your eyes off the CFR-run Conspiracy and gets you hypnotized on a more visible, more frightening sort of impending Muslim takeover.

We find it interesting that the national news media, owned and controlled by CFR stalwarts, have been so gracious in their coverage of the “growing Muslim menace.” Also, those writers who flood the net with horrible tales of Muslim atrocities are no amateurs at fright propaganda. Hitler would have eagerly hired them to heap identical hatred on the Jews. In fact, their hate-a-Muslim tirade might even be plagiarized from some old Nazi script. It has an eerie similarity.

The history of U.S. meddling in the Mideast reveals plenty of intrigue, such as maneuvering the good leaders out and installing radical rulers. A prime example was the CFR/Carter administration’s orchestrated removal of the pro-Western Shah Reza Pahlavi of Iran so that the viciously anti-Western Ayatollah Khomeini could seize power. So we now reap the effects of CFR meddling in the form of “official” administration words and threats, likely intended to give credence to the media’s Muslim distraction now being orchestrated here in the U.S.A.

In recent years, CFR Insiders have intervened to prevent the arrest of individuals, such as Sami Al-Arian, whom U.S. intelligence officers had clearly identified as foreign Muslim terrorists on U.S. soil. We do not forgive the terrorists, nor do we forgive the U.S. Insiders who could have prevented the tragedy of 9-11. Our point is this: The same enemy that opened our borders to terrorists and drug runners will open the way for any other crisis-creating condition, whether it be Muslims or the mafia, or welfare addicts, or spies, or communists, or terrorists, or Jack-the-Ripper. That’s part of the crisis strategy for gaining power. The Insiders depend on emergency conditions to impose unprecedented restrictions on Americans, not to take effective action against anyone or anything that weakens the United States.

Meanwhile the Insiders have moved the spotlight away from their diabolic purpose and turned it, for the time being, on a Muslim threat. Please do not fall for this. Don’t allow hate or fear toward any religious or ethnic group to alter your good will, dampen your spirit, or block your view of world events. Look for the source of the hate propaganda, determine the motives of the perpetrators, and just keep a cool head as you steadfastly identify and expose the master Conspiracy.

Part Four: Dr. Chartrand on the Recently Passed HealthCare Reform Bill

Why Survival of the Nation and Its Constitution Depend on Repeal of ObamaCare

Editor’s Note: Freedom First Society commissioned a series of interviews with Dr. Max Stanley Chartrand, who formerly served on the DC-based Healthcare Equity Action League. In this segment, we are interested in his insights into the potential repeal of what is fast becoming the single largest government takeover of private enterprise in the history of the United States.

Q: Hello, Dr. Chartrand, as you know, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was signed into law on March 23, 2010, in total disregard of the will of the people. Why do you feel such an unpopular form of healthcare reform was able to pass in the face of unprecedented public opposition?

A: Well, Paul, what many Americans are beginning to sense is that this horribly convoluted legislation has very little to do with providing equitable healthcare. Rather, it is part of much larger schemata. Certainly, with about 25 million still without coverage under ObamaCare, its passage wasn’t about universal coverage; its passage was about universal government regulation. Every objective proforma on this legislation shows it will run healthcare quality into the ground, while costs continue to rise from 16.5% of current GDP to more than 24% of GDP by the time it takes full effect in 2017.

Instinctively, many people understand that anything requiring illegal bribery, backroom strong-arming, and political threats in an already rabidly liberal Congress cannot possibly be a good thing. The people have made no secret about their steadfast opposition, and yet their elected representatives doggedly ignore their desire to prevent this awful government takeover.

Cap and Trade legislation, as well as the Finance Reform legislation now sitting before Congress, are going the same route: bribery and skullduggery, in an effort to force through economy-crushing bills against the will of the people. The same applies for just about everything the Obama-Pelosi-Reid Triumvirate has pushed down the throats of Americans to date.

Instead, as Americans suffer through the incredible shrinkage of the private sector and explosion of the size of welfare and government, they see that there is a sinister effort to bring the great middle class of this nation to its knees. One little girl recently said, “I can’t wait until I’m old enough for disability.” Thus, dependency is spreading faster than the government can handle it, while freedom is hijacked by a gang of men and women who despise the Constitution and free enterprise and have little respect for the Supreme Being that inspired the largest experiment in freedom in human history. Patient gradualism, the modus operandi of the past to bring this country to its knees, is no longer enough. The people are awakening, and those whose agenda is to erase state rights and the Constitution are getting desperate.

What careful research will bear out is that this has been going on a long time, long before even the Constitution of the United States was pounded out by the Founding Fathers. In uncovering the historical context, it would not take long for an astute researcher to discover, for instance, that Hitler was financed by American and European capitalists who prospered from the blood and war he created, or that busloads and planeloads of demonstrators are regularly paid to disrupt events all over the world. The impoverished men of Al-Qaeda are simply doing the bidding of their paymasters, who may reside in the United States, Great Britain, and Canada as easily as Saudi Arabia, Iran, or Russia. Likewise, Obama and Pelosi and Reid are mere actors in the larger scheme. They all are doing the bidding of the interests that finance them. Americans are caught in the drama, largely unaware that nearly all of it is contrived.

Q: So you think that ObamaCare was not pushed through because of genuine concern over the uninsured and skyrocketing insurance premiums?

A: Let’s take the premise of your question that ObamaCare actually addresses skyrocketing insurance premiums. The real reason premiums of private policies have skyrocketed is becausegovernment third-party payer programs, such as Medicaid and Medicare, underpay the system by at least 41% of actual costs. Someone has to pay the bill, and private payers end up covering the lion’s share of it. The fact that a sizable number of private hospitals are expected to go under as the gut-wrenching power grab of ObamaCare takes hold will be another area where somebody will have to fill the uncompensated gap. Politicians who trumpet “Medicare Reform” are really just taking the expedient route of cost-shifting to the private sector. Nothing substantive is ever done about the real underlying costs of healthcare: dwindling incentives for the consumer to control his cost and to be healthy at the personal level, and a system bogged down in John Edwards’ style litigation, lack of competition across state lines, and cost-shifting from public underpays.

But let’s take the argument on its face that this really is about reducing costs. I mentioned earlier that ObamaCare will cause the cost of healthcare in the United States to soar from its present 16% of GDP to at least 24% by the year 2017. How is that possible? Simply by giving us more of what is already wrong with the system: Someone else paying the bill shields people from the consequences of behavior.

Who, upon being discharged from a weeklong stay in the hospital, bothers to scrutinize their 1,000-page hospital bill? After all, someone else is paying for it. Routinely, we hear seniors tell us that they don’t worry about the skyrocketing cost and overprescribing of medications under Medicare, because “it doesn’t cost me anything.” This scenario applies to a majority of the current broken system. But, under ObamaCare, it will apply to 100%, as there will be nobody left to whom these costs could be shifted. In other words, personal responsibility for one’s health — the main driver for cost under free enterprise — becomes virtually passé under ObamaCare.

Q: What about the MSA model to which you referred in past interviews? How does that stack up against ObamaCare?

A: Like night and day, Paul. Under the Medical Savings Account/Major-Medical model devised by the HEAL Committee back in 1990, the pilot study showed that most people stopped smoking, started exercising, ate healthy, and took better care of themselves. This was because the economic incentives were to get and stay healthy. The healthy were rewarded by not having to spend the deductible portion of the program. The heart of the program is what Obama derisively calls a “Cadillac policy.” But guess what, under the MSA model, the cost is about half what a standard policy costs today. That is fact, and the data is impressive.

ObamaCare is based on a static model that bad health is rarely a consequence of personal lifestyle choices. Therefore, with someone else footing the bill, there will be no reason for the millions of substance abusers, junk food junkies, and those exhibiting high risk behaviors to worry about the costs of those behaviors — that number will surely explode under ObamaCare. As said before, the object of ObamaCare is not cost savings, but instead control over the market. If Obama — himself a heavy smoker — does not care about the MSA vs. ObamaCare data, will he care about whether Americans have incentives of personal responsibility over their own health? Obviously not.

Q: But don’t insurance and corporate executives and their boards know this? Where were they while politicians blandly repeated the mantra about needing reform because of private care inflation?

A: That is a good question: Where were they? Well, some did protest vehemently, and then slinked off into silence as regulators and legislators threatened them, and then waved the false image of a huge new market that can be theirs if they play nice. The skullduggery Americans saw out in the open on Fox News, for instance, was child’s play compared to the strong-arming and wimpy caving in that occurred off camera. The same happened to corporate interests, who, after being cajoled and ridiculed before the public, were given false images of someone else paying their humongous employee healthcare bills. The executives would only suffer a bit of a nuisance with the “Cadillac policy” tax, while their employees were to be treated like welfare recipients under the new system of government care.

Q: What is happening on the movement to repeal ObamaCare, and what do you think the chances are that it can be repealed?

A: I am asked this all the time nowadays. But usually the question is prefaced with the opinion that ObamaCare cannot be repealed. But as sure as I stand here, I know it can and must be. If we care about the state of the nation, the economy, our families’ wellbeing, our freedom, the Constitution (the only thing standing between freedom and despotism), we must repeal. In my last interview with you, you might recall that I was among some others who called on the state governors to step forward and block this illegal usurpation of power. To date, more than 20 states have filed lawsuits with the Department of Justice and/or passed legislation to prevent ObamaCare from pre-empting state laws and regulations. This is progress, but it will not be nearly enough.

Immediately following the passing of the bill, a number of politicians postured over repeal, but it is the citizens that oppose ObamaCare that will make it happen. For that reason, they must be informed, especially within the framework of the Constitution. A good place to start is for your readers to turn to the “Say ‘No’ to Socialized Medicine” campaign page at the www.freedomfirstsociety.org website.

Without an informed and determined electorate — if past is prologue — we will see a bipartisan sellout at the last minute, and those who “represent” us will once again give up one final chance to restore states’ rights, bring true reform to the politician-created healthcare mess, and protect our nation’s economic freedom.

This November, we should settle for no less than men and women who will vote according to the Constitution. Then, after the election, regardless of party label, we must hold their feet to the fire of that sacred document, for it is the only thing standing between tyranny and us.

Moreover, I would that it will someday be said of the struggle over ObamaCare, as it was once said by the enemy’s general about Americans’ response after the attack on Pearl Harbor, “I think we awakened a sleeping giant.”

Dr. Chartrand serves as professor of behavioral medicine and is a widely published author and health researcher. He is also a Constitutional conservative who advocates workable, free-market solutions to the current problems within the U.S. healthcare system.

Part Three: Dr. Chartrand on the HealthCare Summit

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

Q: Hello, Dr. Chartrand. So much has happened since our last interview…

A. Paul, it almost seems strange that we’re up against an even more formidable final push toward ObamaCare today than when we visited this topic earlier, until one stops and realizes the reasons why this threat came about in the first place.

We have known for some time, and it is increasingly more obvious, that what we are dealing with is not a drive to improve healthcare, but instead a drive to concentrate power and control in the federal government. But it goes further than that, and this is the point I hope to drive home today: The threat we now face on all fronts — healthcare, energy, economy, religious freedom, education, culture, the list goes on — are merely pieces of a much larger push to destroy the U.S. Constitution and the freedoms it grants.

Q. What about the recent HealthCare Summit, which seemed so carefully engineered to present President Obama and the Democrats in the most favorable light while “tolerating” opposing voices?

A. Like many individuals, I watched the five-and-a-half hour staged play billed as “The Bipartisan HealthCare Summit.” The President gave his much anticipated oratory of distortion, disingenuity, and emotional appeal and did his best to squelch any opposing arguments. I was embarrassed that a man of that level of power in the world could display such arrogance and treat with such disdain the arguments of those who are considerably wiser and more experienced on such matters.The Democrats, led by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, presented their usual fact-challenged arguments in favor of a government takeover, as well. But the biggest disappointment came from the Republicans who had a rare opportunity to present the real threats to freedom and to the citizens of this nation. Instead, they tiptoed around the elephants in the living room and allowed the opposition to go essentially unchallenged.

Q. So, you felt the Republicans had an opportunity to do much more than they did in this media-controlled exercise? In what ways?

A. Well, I will preface this by stating that I felt that many of the arguments presented by the Republican Senators were well reasoned and actually quite good … as far as they went. But they tiptoed around the much more important reasons that this monstrosity should be stopped. Had they brought out the most salient and disturbing issues relative to ObamaCare, enough of the public would have likely turned against it that we would be seeing headlines proclaiming defeat of the erstwhile measure by now. For instance:

• The National ID Card provision stipulates that citizens’ financial assets and property will be made accessible to the federal government, in case of unauthorized use or overutilization of government-approved healthcare services. Put into practical terms, this means that the federal government would have the power to reach into one’s bank account without permission and withdraw funds anytime they feel you stayed in the hospital too long or if your doctor decided to save your life without first consulting the governing panel ahead of time. Few citizens would willingly hand over that kind of power and control over their lives to the political class. But after it becomes the law of the land, their disagreement to this kind of chicanery would be meaningless. This is perhaps the most onerous of all provisions of ObamaCare, because it is a direct assault on individual liberties — privacy, due process, and private property. Yet this terrible threat to the citizens of this nation was not brought up once during the so-called healthcare summit.

• There will be government appointed “panels” to decide which age groups, populations, and conditions receive public resources. This will, by necessity, lead to both rationing and passive euthanasia. The “death panel” analogy painted by Sarah Palin is very much a real part of ObamaCare when it finally takes over and ultimately destroys private healthcare. In reality, such panels in limited form now exist in both MediCare and Medicaid. With ever-dwindling resources relative to demand, their mission is to decide length of hospital stays, limits of care, and approved treatment regimes based on cost (not quality). Transposed into a “universal” program designed to drive out private market competition, these panels would hold life and death control over what treatments individuals are allowed to receive within their purview. Otherwise, what would be the purpose of such oversight panels?

• Public-funded abortion will become the law of the land, no matter the show of opposition staged by a few politicians now. From past experience, we expect to see this administration and legislative leaders bribe, threaten, and otherwise pressure fence-sitters into voting for this bill. Saying anything and doing nothing that was promised, this administration is pulling one fast one after another to remake this nation into their own or their masters’ image.

• Obama & Congress pretend that they have legal authority to sweep away hundreds of state regulations and mandates. However, States Rights are still very much the prevailing law of the land, except in well-defined cases of interstate commerce. Where are the governors in all this? By simple decree almost any one or two governors can stop Congress from overstepping that which is within the purview of state government! We should be challenging state governors to take back states’ rights and powers in this debate and tell the federal government that it has overstepped its constitutional authority.

• The most important aspect of true reform would be in incentivizing good health practices and an emphasis on individual responsibility. Instead, ObamaCare carefully shields the consequences of poor diet, lifestyle, and personal choices from consideration. Republicans could have cited important studies on the positive behavioral changes that routinely occurred under the Medical Savings Account model. Under such shared employer/employee plans (and their private counterparts), workplaces become safer, workers make better health and lifestyle choices, quality of care improve, and the cost of healthcare plunges. Instead, Republicans allowed unchallenged Obama’s scoffing disdain toward “high-deductible insurance” (which is not the MSA model!) to carry the argument.

• Other consequences of ObamaCare will involve en masse closures of private hospitals, rampant job loss and job dislocation, sharp reductions in eldercare services and certain specialty services, such as cochlear implantation to deaf adults, etc. These all add up to loss of freedom, reversals in scientific progress, and loss of empowerment for the most debilitated individuals in our society. It is and has always been the private sector that has given us innovation and advances in healthcare.

Likewise, with up to 30% of physicians vowing to retire if ObamaCare passes, we will see an almost instant shortage of physicians, reduced quality of care and accessibility. It is pure fantasy that ObamaCare or any modification of it will enjoy a smooth transition without having gut-wrenching effects upon the economy.

• Cost-shifting from public short-pays to the private-pay sector is the main reason for the recent private market premium increases. In the past, each time there is “reform” to control runaway Medicare, VA, and Medicaid costs, short-pays shift over to the private sector. Now the private sector of health care has shrunk to little more than 40% of the entire U.S. healthcare system, so that the vast majority of cost overruns, waste, fraud losses fall squarely in the lap of the public sector programs—and if Obama and Company have their way there will be no place for these inherent weaknesses of politically controlled healthcare to go. Senator Coburn’s (R-OK) suggestion to send out undercover patients to entrap unsuspecting physicians was a serious error. After forcing All-ObamaCare-All-The-Time onto the private market, the next step would be to eliminate the political opposition by unleashing a small army of undercover agents to put them out of business.• A final point is that many Republicans are well aware, as are the Democrats, that the push for socialized medicine has nothing to do with improving or genuinely bringing down the costs of healthcare. Instead, it is all about loss of freedoms, all-powerful central government, and is ultimately about merging this nation into a one-world government structure much like what has happened to Europe and the Mediterranean nations. This last point may be seem outlandish to an uninformed observer. But everything we have seen for some time now, efforts to destroy the U.S. currency, exploding foreign ownership of U.S. assets, killing of private sector jobs in the face of exploding jobs in government, and a drive to regulate everything but government spending and behavior, all point to a destination that ultimately leads to a loss of Americanism and the rise of One-worldism.

Q: Wow, these are serious points to consider! And you did not even touch upon the central themes brought out by Republicans.

A. No, I didn’t. The more peripheral points were fairly well stated by Republicans during the so-called summit (i.e., competition across state lines, tort reform). But, while excellent points, these only constitute the tips of the proverbial icebergs lurking below the surface. The fact that the President and liberals in Congress are still pushing ObamaCare in the face of the most opposition in public opinion in recent memory to any bill of the past should inform any astute observer as to the purpose behind such a push. Taxes will by necessity rise by more than $100 billion per year, large fines will be imposed for non-compliance (except for the governing elite and their union supporters), and there will still be millions of uncovered individuals. It is amply obvious that the purpose behind tearing up the current system is to: 1) make a free people less free, 2) destroy private sector employment and commerce, and 3) make the population more dependent upon the federal government for everything, cradle to grave. Passage will also promote the bankruptcy of U.S. currency (and enable it to be “saved” by joining an international currency). To do all of this, of course, they must first destroy every vestige of the United States Constitution and its clear delineation of rights and powers.

Q: What do you suggest for citizens to defeat Obamacare?

A. First and foremost we should become well informed about this and all such legislation against the backdrop of the U.S. Constitution. One will quickly find that at least 75% of today’s topics of legislative discourse are straw men, for there are simply few legitimate federal solutions for these real or imagined problems. One will also find that most of the serious problems of the current healthcare system (lack of personal responsibility, rampant fraud and waste, and politicization) exist primarily because of federal programs. So, the only reason for pushing for more of the same are blatant attempts to concentrate even more power in Washington.Secondly, once informed, we become obligated to act. Awakening family, friends, and community is a good place to begin. Share all of the FFS interviews by this author, and The Marxist Attack on the Middle Classby G. Vance Smith and Tom Gow, as well as Don Fotheringham’s excellent essays on the Constitution found at www.freedomfirstsociety.org. Never has there been a time in our lifetime when so many people are so receptive to the hard truths of today’s drive for all-powerful government.

Third, keep an open public discourse on relevant topics and issues in letters to the editor in local and regional newspapers and publications.

Fourth, while Obama, Reid, and Pelosi are asking legistlators to commit political suicide, I feel these legislators would much prefer to go on living (politically). Write and call them—there are a number of websites now that feature direct links into congressional offices. Even though few of the emails received are actually read (some are), all are tallied into “for” and “against” columns on each issue.

Finally, we must stay focused. One’s greatest influence is local. Typically, legislators take more seriously letters from their constituents, editors are more likely to print locally-generated letters in newspapers, and those with whom we may have the greatest influence are those who know and trust us within the community.

Q: Any parting thoughts?

A. It is entirely possible, after all our best efforts, that this legislative nightmare may pass in the present Congress. We should never underestimate the depths of legal, ethical, and, yes, criminal activity that will be expended by those intent on forcing such sweeping control over the citizens of this nation. If they do succeed in passing ObamaCare, we must work hard toward throwing the rascals out of office and drive this and other bad legislation into the repeal process. In doing so, we may find welcome support from many of those we know.

Dr. Chartrand serves as professor of behavioral medicine, and is a widely published author, and health researcher. He is also a Constitutional conservative who advocates workable, free market solutions to the current problems within the U.S. healthcare system.

New Hampshire Kills Con-Con

Eternal Vigilance

Our determination to preserve the U.S. Constitution is never-ending. In 1990, one of our patriotic friends in New Hampshire began a vigil to keep the Constitution out of the clutches of radical reformers. The specter of subjecting the Constitution to destructive changes came by the action of 32 states (including New Hampshire) as a result of their applications to Congress to call a federal constitutional convention (con con). The number of states needed to trigger a convention is 34 (two-thirds of the states), meaning the nation was on the brink of a constitutional disaster, for a con con is a sovereign assembly having no higher authority to limit or control its work.

By 1990, two of the 32 states (Alabama and Florida) had awakened to the reality that the U.S. Constitution could never survive a modern con con, and they took the lead by formally withdrawing their con con requests.* New Hampshire was among the remaining 30 states where alert citizens tried repeatedly to get a resolution passed to kill that state’s con-con application.

For the next 20 years faithful citizens, led by Bill McNally of Windham, New Hampshire, kept draft legislation on the desks of their state legislators, constantly reminding their elected officials of the dangers of a modern-day con con. Finally, this year their vigilance paid off with passage of a rescinding resolution, HCR 28. It was titled: “A resolution rescinding all requests by the New Hampshire legislature for a federal constitutional convention.” We are especially heartened to note that this legislation passed unanimously in both the House and the Senate.

*As of this date, the final score shows 13 state withdrawals. Adding this to the original two-state deficit, we now have a safety margin of 15 states preventing a constitutional crisis.