Freedom First Society

Subordination of Parental Rights

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 [email protected].

Tangents & Traps: Con-Con Movements

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.

For these obvious reasons no second federal convention has ever been held. We do not believe, in today’s climate of Insider media control, influence, and political deal-making, that our Constitution could survive a modern convention.

A con con is triggered when two thirds of the states formally pass a resolution asking Congress to call one. The purpose for which a state might apply to Congress for a convention has no real significance, for once a con con meets and is called to order it can do anything it wants. A con con is a sovereign body and has power to create a Congress or to disband a Congress or, more generally, to change any federal entity or abolish any government office or limitation established by the first convention. If you are not yet fearful of a modern con con, please re-read and re-think the above.

The Conspiracy’s hand in trying to assemble a modern con con has been patently obvious, for certain members of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) advocate an overhaul of the Constitution, yet support con con efforts promoted under the most conservative-sounding pretexts. When you see leading figures in the CFR lobby for a balanced federal budget, for traditional marriage, and against flag burning, you know something’s fishy in Denmark. They are using popular conservative issues as a pretext to get their hands on the Constitution. Moreover, con-con advocates falsely assert that a con con can be limited to the single issue for which it is called.

In 1983, the country was just two states away from a convention. Thirty-two of the necessary thirty-four states had filed applications with Congress under the balanced-budget pretext. The work of slowing down this drive and turning it around was a monumental, organized effort undertaken by the author and led by the future founding officers of Freedom First Society.

Please be aware that it is much easier to ward off a con con movement at the outset than to rescind state resolutions in state-by-state battles. At this writing, 13 states have withdrawn their applications. Adding those to the two-state deficit of 1983, we now have a 15-state safety margin protecting the Constitution. These figures are important, because alarmists and rip-off artists are still raising funds by claiming the nation is just now only two states away from a con con. We call these characters con con con-artists, and we trust you will send them no money.

Every patriotic American should work to preserve the Constitution by opposing any state resolutions asking Congress to call a convention — no matter how appealing the reason. Any state request for a con con, even one supported ostensibly as a mere tactic for convincing Congress to act to propose an amendment, is a foolish gamble and a dangerous tangent.

Liberate Our Economy from Unconstitutional Government

On April 15th, the House approved the GOP’s Fiscal Year 2012 budget resolution. Chairman of the House Budget Committee Paul Ryan extolled the plan in the Wall Street Journal (“The GOP Path to Prosperity,” 4-5-11): “Our proposal brings federal spending to below 20% of gross domestic product (GDP), consistent with the postwar average, and reduces deficits by $4.4 trillion.” [Over ten years, compared to the deficits in President Obama’s budget!]

But Ryan’s “super-aggressive” plan merely “hopes” to get deficits down into the $400 billion range and not for at least six years! Typically, politicians seek to deceive the public with budgets that push the real discipline off to future Congresses, which inevitably repeat the ruse.

Moreover, Ryan’s suggestion that spending be limited to a specific share of America’s GDP accepts a very dangerous socialist vision of open-ended federal authority. The Constitution does not authorize the federal government to do whatever it claims will advance the social condition — as along as America can afford it. And since mushrooming unconstitutional spending during the postwar period built the foundation for our current troubles, we certainly don’t want that level enshrined as a standard.

What happened to the Constitution as a restraint? Although Ryan proposes to eliminate Obama’s grossly unpopular health care takeover, his proposal leaves decades of unconstitutional programs and departments intact, which sap our nation’s vitality. Ryan’s proposed “spending caps” will not prevent those programs from expanding once the voters tire of watching or demagogues generate some new spending pretext, such as another war. “Leadership” that throws in the towel to socialist gains can never restore America to prosperity and preserve our freedom.

America needs leadership in Congress now that will target all of the unconstitutional departments and programs that have sprung up since the New Deal.

59 Conservative Republicans Buck Party Leadership

Department of Defense and Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011 H.R. 1473 Roll Call 268 Final Results.

FFS: On Friday April 8th, House Speaker John Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and President Barak Obama worked out a compromise agreement on appropriations for the remainder of Fiscal Year 2011. The last-minute agreement prevented a government “shutdown.”

According to Monday’s CQ Briefing: “The spending cuts will be $18 billion from mandatory programs and $20 billion from discretionary programs — although $12 billion of that had already been enacted in the last three short-term CRs [Continuing Resolutions].”

Early reports heralded the “compromise” as a victory for smaller government. However, other reports, including one from the Congressional Budget Office, soon questioned the reality of the cuts. The Washington Post (4-14-2011) noted: “A federal budget compromise that was hailed as historic for proposing to cut about $38 billion would reduce federal spending by only $352 million this fiscal year, less than 1 percent of the bill’s advertised amount, according to the Congressional Budget Office.”

On closer examination, some cuts appear to be legitimate, while many others are accounting gimmicks that will not show up as actual deficit reductions. Nevertheless, it was a lot of stir about little and massive unconstitutional government is still alive and well.

Good news, however, followed the “compromise”: Not all the House GOP “conservatives” went along with it (see above roll call #268). According to Roll Call: “Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) was forced to rely on 81 House Democrats to push through a six-month spending measure Thursday over the objections of his right flank — a stark political reality that could hurt him in future battles…. [Although a majority of GOP voted for it], the overall level of defections was significant and deeper than many senior aides expected.” (“Boehner Turns to Democrats to Pass CR After 59 GOP Defections,” 4-14-11)

54 Conservative Republicans Buck Party Leadership

H.J. Res. 48, Roll Call 179

In mid-March, 54 House Republicans rebuffed their party leadership and refused to support another continuing resolution (the sixth this year funding FY 2011) that included only minor spending cuts and no policy riders.

Although the CR passed the House, 271 to 158 (see roll call 179, above), and later the Senate and was signed by the president, it is encouraging to see so many House Republicans refusing to go along. Note: The list of Democrats (italics in the roll call) opposing the measure is not as informative, because many voted ‘no’ claiming the cuts were too deep.

CQ Roll Call Daily Briefing (3-16-2011) commented on the vote:

The 54 Republicans (including a quarter of the freshmen) who voted against the three-week measure can be counted on to vote against almost any spending deal that’s negotiated between Congress and Obama. If they didn’t like cutting $6 billion over three weeks, they’re surely not going to like a final bill that almost certainly will promise reductions at a shallower depth — and that has very little chance of including both of the policy riders (defunding the health care law and Planned Parenthood) they say are required to win their support.

FFS recommends that constituents compliment their representative if he or she voted ‘no’ on the above roll call for the right reason and insist their representative refuse in the future to fund programs not authorized by the Constitution. (See our Congress: Just Vote the Constitution! campaign.)

Time to Curb the Court

Campaign for Decency

We must marvel at the foresight of America’s founders. They looked centuries beyond their time and provided ways to save us from the dreadful effects of our own negligence. They gave us the means to correct a remiss Congress, to contain a power-prone president, and to limit an out-of-control Supreme Court. We may not deserve the safety measures handed down to us, but those provisions are clearly spelled out in the Constitution just waiting for us to use them.

From among the many wise provisions of our founders we find one particular safeguard we should welcome like fresh air in a stuffy courtroom. It’s that clause found in Article III, Section 2, providentially written as follows: “…the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.”

It was never the intention of our founders to create an all-powerful, unaccountable Supreme Court. Each department of government has clearly defined bounds, but each also has oversight power that we call checks and balances. Most everyone is familiar with the president’s power to veto legislation and the offsetting power of Congress to override it. Also well known are certain checks on power through the nomination and confirmation process, and the ultimate check of impeachment, or at least the threat thereof.

The Exceptions Clause

So it is with the Supreme Court. Congress has a way to prevent its perverse rulings on appellate cases. The history of our country, even before the Constitution was ratified, confirms that there never was any misunderstanding about the meaning and viability of the exceptions clause of Article III. In 1796 Oliver Ellsworth, Chief Justice of the United States recognized not merely the option, but the essence of congressional limits on the Court’s appellate jurisdiction. This view was confirmed again by Chief Justice John Marshall in 1805 and has been affirmed by all Supreme Court justices who have commented on the subject.

The constitutional power of Congress to check the Court is alive today and remains one of the most timely and compelling mechanisms available to the American people. This means there never was any excuse for our nation’s moral standards to be mocked and demeaned by activist Supreme Court justices. Lower court cases, which have been settled on moral or religious grounds, find their way to the Supreme Court by the appeal process. Those kinds of cases — either individually or as a group — can be singled out by Congress and excluded from review by the Supreme Court.

Among landmark cases corrupted by the Supreme Court are the denial of Bible reading in public schools, prohibition of school prayer, the legalizing of abortion, banning religious displays in public places, legalizing sodomy, and defending pornography. Congress clearly has the power to make exceptions to those kinds of cases and block their review by the higher court.

In this carefully focused effort, a good question arises: If we seek to restrain the Supreme Court, why can we not also restrain the federal district courts? For certain, many of the lower courts are equally flagrant in their disrespect for moral standards. But unfortunately we cannot take on the lower courts and the high court at the same time, or at least not in this first stage of our Campaign for Decency.

Two Different Procedures

Control of the two court systems entails two different legal routes. Trying to combine the two goals into one legal action would very likely hamper, or even prevent, success. We need to explain:

The Supreme Court and the inferior federal courts cannot be limited by Congress in the same way because the two levels of the federal judiciary came into being through different levels of power. The power creating the Supreme Court was structural. It was created by the Convention of 1787, along with the mode of controlling it. On this constitutional basis, Congress may limit the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court without asking permission and without passing a pertaining law. The lower courts, on the other hand, are an entirely different breed. These district courts were created by Congress, and their jurisdiction can thus be limited only by enacting a law for doing so.

For these and other carefully assessed considerations, our Campaign for Decency faces off initially only with the Supreme Court where the opportunity for success is greater than through a combination bill such as H.R.539, a measure presently before Congress. H.R.539 attempts to limit the two levels of courts at the same time through the same (statutory) procedure. But this process mixes apples and oranges, which may very well invalidate the bill. Moreover, as a formal bill, even if passed, H.R.539 must go to the president’s desk where it will face a certain veto.

Notice that no new laws are needed to execute the work of a department when its operations and options are established by the Constitution. The president, for example, may propose a budget, nominate ambassadors, or grant pardons without asking permission or without any new laws. Congress can make its own rules without any new laws, and the Supreme Court can try its original jurisdiction cases without asking permission. Similarly, Congress may exercise its constitutional power over the appellate jurisdiction of the High Court without asking permission or without any new laws.

Exceptions to this rule are constitutional provisions that require implementing legislation. But otherwise, no department of government need hesitate, or ask permission, to act within its established bounds. Thus Congress may limit the kinds of cases to be heard by the Supreme Court without any new laws or supplemental authority. Obviously, the exercise of an original structural power by any branch of government is not subject to a veto by the president. This is the avenue we propose for controlling the Supreme Court.

By Concurrent Resolution

How then, if not by passing a bill, does Congress notify the Supreme Court of new limits on its jurisdiction? This may be done by issuing a Concurrent Resolution, approved by a simple majority of the House and the Senate. That’s all. It is not a law, it is a statement through which Congress may assert a pre-existing constitutional authority, and by which the other departments of government are bound.

A recent example of the use of such a resolution is H.Con.Res.5, which affirms the pre-existing constitutional power of Congress to declare war. It was introduced in the House of Representatives in the 1st Session of the 111th Congress (with the Senate concurring) expressing that, according to Section 8 of Article I of the Constitution of the United States, Congress has the sole and exclusive power to declare war. Under this heading the “Whereas” clauses state the reasons and applications of the resolution.

A Concurrent Resolution to limit the Supreme Court would follow the same form, expressing that, “Pursuant to Section 2 of Article III of the Constitution of the United States, Congress has the sole and exclusive power to make regulations and exceptions to the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. Accordingly, effective this date, the Congress of the United States denies the Supreme Court appellate jurisdiction over cases relating to public or private religious expression, definitions of marriage, sexual practice, and abortion.”

Significantly, this procedure would accomplish our immediate purpose while safely circumventing the desk of the president.

The simplicity of this route and the independence of Congress in following it, should be a great advantage over previously defeated efforts. All such attempts have failed to get through the Senate, where reticence to face a veto by the president — any president — is most common. The Concurrent Resolution process bypasses that particular obstacle.

Correcting Past Sins

Okay, that should curb the Court’s passion for perversion, but what about its past sins? How do we nullify the existing immoral burdens imposed by former Supreme Courts? How for example do we reverse Roe v. Wade and Lawrence v. Texas?

That will take time. The Constitution does not provide Congress the means for nullifying past Court decisions. Therefore, each overturned case will have to be taken back to the court of its origin and re-tried.

Unfair? Yes, but the second time around the lawyers fighting for decency will have a slight advantage. They will have the same files, proven arguments, decent-thinking judges, and local juries. Under these refreshing circumstances, and knowing their work will not be overturned, the lawyers can move their cases quickly through the lower courts. Finally, the original moral decisions will be just and permanent. On this glorious occasion the moral spirit of America will once again be smiled upon by God.

But while God smiles, the Conspiracy will rage. And that is exactly the reason we have taken up this cause as a major campaign. While uplifting and inspiring the good men and women of America, we hope to expose the design of those who have placed the lowest form of evil on the highest public altar. By its deliberately crass and offensive display at the nation’s highest court, the Conspiracy has depressed and discouraged millions of Americans who think the whole nation wallows hopelessly in the sewers of Sodom and Gomorrah. This is an outlandish fraud, and we intend to expose and prove it.

Our Campaign for Decency will go a long way toward rekindling courage and hope in the American people, while showing the hand of the Conspiracy behind many of the most daunting problems of our time.

Specific action steps will be spelled out in subsequent Action Reports. Those steps will provide members with opportunities to help get an appropriate resolution or resolutions introduced in both houses of Congress, to build grassroots pressure on other congressmen to become co-sponsors, and to educate other activists and leaders on our side of the culture war regarding this opportunity. Stay tuned.

Effects of Government Shutdown Exaggerated

“Psst. No shutdown during a ‘government shutdown‘” — Yahoo! News, 2-24-2011

IMF Still Working to Become World’s Central Bank

“IMF calls for dollar alternative” — CNNMoney.com, 2-20-2011

FFS: The planning for the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund originated within a subgroup of the Council on Foreign Relations’ (CFR) War and Peace Studies Project during 1941-1942, with the final plan established at the international Bretton Woods conference in 1944. The IMF was ostensibly created to help stabilize currencies at the end of World War II and to control international exchange rates. However, it was intended from the beginning to evolve, at an opportune time, into a world central bank, issuing an international currency. At the Bretton Woods conference, Federal Reserve Board governor Mariner Eccles observed: “An international currency is synonymous with international government.”

World financial ministers have sought to use the 2009 global financial crisis to strengthen both the IMF and World Bank, in the guise of reform. In the above CNNMoney report, note the proposal by CFR heavyweight (and Trilateralist) C. Fred Bergsten, founder and director of the Peter G. Peterson Institute for International Economics. (The Peterson Institute is a globalist think-tank named after the former Chairman of the CFR, who replaced David Rockefeller in 1985.) Also, note the comments by Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the 10th Managing Director of the IMF and member of France’s Socialist Party.

Gays and Lesbians to Serve Openly in Military

H.R. 2965 “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act of 2010”

House Final Vote 12/15/10 (Roll no. 638)

Senate Final Vote 12/18/10 (Record Vote Number: 281)

Washington Post story following vote in Senate

FFS: During the “lame duck” session of Congress this past December, both the House and Senate allowed President Obama to deliver on his campaign payoff to the aggressive gay and lesbian “rights” lobby. Many voters would be surprised at some of the congressmen who went along with this outrageous assault on our nation’s military. (Note: some face-saving caveats were included in the legislation, such as additional certification of no harm, before the change goes into effect — see Post story above.) The final votes from Thomas.gov are posted above.

George W. Bush Fueled the Housing Bubble (historical)

“President George W. Bush Speaks to HUD Employees on National Homeownership Month” (June 18, 2002)

FFS: “We are here in Washington, D.C. to address problems,” said President Bush in July 2002. [Regardless of constitutional limits on the federal role, we might add.] It is essential we make it easier for people to buy a home, not harder.” (See above link to full text).

Building on the socialist mortgage programs and lending institutions created under previous administrations, President Bush launched massive new unconstitutional federal loan subsidies. He also encouraged the easy credit policies of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who tied their fortunes to uncontrolled immigration. Supported by Fed easy-money policies, the stage was set for the housing bubble, whose collapse helped bring on today’s “Great Recession.”