Freedom First Society

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.

Sheriffs Mack, Prinz, Mattis — A warning about this whole issue.

The force by which this bogus issue is propelled is amazing. It has exploded all over the web. I hope it is nothing more than a whole lot of good people dreaming of an easier solution to intrusive government. It would take forever to tackle all the wild assertions on this issue, so I will summarize as much as possible.

1. The Sheriff Mack case (listed as Prinz v U.S., No. 95-1503)

Advertisements for Sheriff Richard Mack’s speech state that he “fought the Brady Bill gun control law all the way to the Supreme Court and won.”

Okay, what did he win? He won the right to refuse to make background checks on gun owners, period. That’s all the case was about. It was not a Second Amendment issue, neither was it a challenge to the Brady Handgun Bill.

The Court ruled that the federal government could not force the states to do its work unless the federal government paid for the cost of the background checks, or unless the federal government did the background checks itself.

The result of this case further damaged the Second Amendment by certifying federal gun control and “buying” the states’ cooperation in the investigation process. Moreover, it strengthened the Brady Bill by legitimizing its authority to require background checks.

The Sheriff Mack case was an administrative issue, not a gun control issue, and not a grant of power to county sheriffs. The Court never so much as hinted that a county sheriff had power to arrest or restrain federal enforcement officers.

Many quotes from this and other Supreme Court cases confirm powers retained by the states; however, none of these lofty statements restrain any federal power other than who pays for the inspections – the federal gun controls are still in place.

2. The Sheriff Mattis case (listed as Castaneda v. United States, No. 96-CV-099)

The misrepresentation of this Wyoming case is incredible. In the first place the case did not challenge, deny, or grant any authority regarding any sheriff whatsoever. On the net you will see a flood of assertions regarding the rulings of this case, but in fact the Federal District Court made no rulings at all — none, zilch, zero. The case was settled outside the Court in 1997 and therefore no rulings were made, or could be made, because the case was dismissed.

The claims made by Sheriff Mattis have gotten so far out of hand that the Chief Judge, District of Wyoming, found it necessary to issue a public statement. The statement speaks for itself. To access this go to the Wyoming District Court site www.wyd.uscourts.gov and click on PUBLISHED DOCUMENTS. This opens a page that shows UNPUBLISHED DOCUMENTS under which it says: Letter from Chief Judge William Downes. Click on the words “PDF Format.”

There is plenty of irony in this: The Castaneda case went to court on charges that due process had been violated. And now Sheriff Mattis wants to arrest federal agents without due process. Is something wrong with this picture?

Montana Law: Sheriff must authorize federal employee arrest, search or seizure.

This alleged law clutters the net as if it actually existed. Lucky for the people in Montana that HB 284 was tabled five years ago, never received a vote in the Judiciary Committee, and is dead and should be dead. Anyone with any respect for the Bill of Rights knows that federal officers are also entitled to due process, and that no power exists for a county sheriff to interfere with federal enforcement. The federal officers may or may not have constitutional authority, but that is not for the sheriff to decide, especially if he decides to restrain the officers by force. Whether you like it or not, the Sixteenth Amendment is constitutional and grants direct federal action in the states. The Montana Legislature wisely tossed HB 284 in the round file, but its illegal provisions are still circulated (five years later) as if such a law actually existed.

Now this leads to the question of motives:

Do I think Sheriffs Mack, Prinz and Mattis have set out to beguile anyone? No I do not. I have not met Prinz or Mattis, but I have met Richard Mack, attended his speech, and read his book, The County Sheriff: America’s Last Hope.

In his book Mack confuses democracy with a republic. He insists that he is directly accountable to the people, which is the definition of a democracy. But in a constitutional republic an officer is not directly accountable to the people, he is accountable to the law. The United States is a government of laws, not of men. This huge gap in Mack’s understanding has led Mack into the very trap that exalts our politicians in Washington. They think they have a mandate to do anything they want because they were elected by a majority. Sorry, Sheriff Mack — that is not how our country works. You are elected to protect and to serve within the statutes of your county — you do not have federal authority.

Mack’s book is full of patriotic maxims and implied support for his claim that he has power over federal bureaucrats. He cites, for example the Castaneda case in which the plaintiffs “demanded, as part of their court settlement, that Big Horn County Sheriff, Dave Mattis devise a plan that would prevent [federal] lawlessness from ever occurring again in his county.” Judge Downes, however, reports: “This Court has never issued an order which would serve to limit the lawful activities and duties of federal law enforcement officers….” Mattis may have devised a plan, but it certainly was not a part of the court settlement, for the court did not settle the case.

So what are Sheriff Mack’s motives? I do not know. He implies more than the facts bear out, but he has fans all over the USA who adore him and I am sure he wants to be their symbol of hope, even America’s last hope, as his book proclaims. To me, the sheriff is building a false hope that cannot save the country, that is not the way to stand up for ones’s rights, and that shows a frightening ignorance of the enemy he thinks he his fighting, but whom he is inadvertently helping.

Okay, what’s going on here?

The trillion dollar question is this: Why is so much energy going into a bogus issue? Obviously many patriotic men and women are looking for that silver bullet, that instant solution to our huge, out-of-control federal government. How I wish it were all that simple: Just arrest the bureaucrats.

Has it never occurred to anxious patriots that if a county sheriff had such vast powers the founding fathers might just have mentioned it somewhere, perhaps in the Constitution? But of greater importance, if such power is granted the sheriff, could not such dictatorial powers some day be levied against you?

Now, I do not believe for a minute that federal agents are exempt from the Fourth or Fifth Amendments, and I am as anxious as anyone to stand up for my rights; but you are not going to win that fight at the point of enforcement. It must be won at the source, in Congress where the bureaucracies are created, and the regulations are made and funded. I know that’s a lot of hard work, and not nearly as much fun as cheering for a sheriff who rides in on a white charger to slay the federal dragon. Freedom is not that simple.

If you have been taken up by this widely promoted idea, there may be a far more compelling reason why you had better back off, and soon. It may well be that all this excitement is to goad you and your sheriff into a confrontation with federal agents. Behind that friendly face in Washington, there lurks a very unfriendly face that would just love to make you the cannon fodder of violence. That is how power is taken. You need an emergency, some sort of civil disobedience, that calls for federal troops and severe enforcement measures. Hitler did it that way. He created the anarchy that his own storm troopers “had to” put down. This whole bogus issue may well be calculated to make criminals out of decent, freedom-loving citizens and then put them away permanently. Please give this possibility some very serious thought.

If you are smitten by this false hope, I am sorry. Go back and research it for yourself. I have done the best I can do. I am your friend. I am telling the truth. Please do not allow the truth make me your enemy.

War Powers

“For it is a truth, which the experience of all ages has attested, that the people are commonly most in danger when the means of injuring their rights are in the possession of those of whom they entertain the least suspicion.” (Hamilton, The Federalist No. 25)

History tells the sad story of citizens whose rights were injured by leaders they trusted. For this reason the departments of power in the United States were not given the means of injuring the rights of the people. In making one nation out of thirteen states, our founders knew the danger of consolidated power, and therefore the 1787 Convention was driven by a two-fold objective: The creation of a national government armed with enough power to defend the people, but not enough power to enslave them. The final draft of our Constitution certifies that remarkable accomplishment.

Under the Articles of Confederation, the states lacked, among other things, a president. A review of the records of the 1787 Convention indicates that more time and deliberation went into the question of executive power – and the means of restraining it – than any other consideration at the Convention. On executive power, Alexander Hamilton wrote: “There is hardly any part of the system which could have been attended with greater difficulty than this.”There was more debate over this than preceded the famous Connecticut Compromise.

The current flurry of debate over the powers of our president would simmer down to a mere sigh if the contenders would stop trying to impress one another and simply review the founding objectives of these great United States. And such a consideration might be enhanced by a realization that the same old perfidy of man rolls on – perhaps even faster – in this new age of high tech, high speed, mass distribution of mistaken ideas. The debate rages with many because correct information is missing, and with some because misinformation is intended. But should little of enduring value come of this essay, please let at least one principle be engraved in the minds of all who read it:

Presidents of the United States do not have powers beyond those granted by the people as identified in the United States Constitution.

Many are surprised to learn that the Constitution makes no allowance for executive war powers or presidential emergency power of any kind. No, the president cannot commence or declare war, suspend the Constitution, ignore the Bill of Rights, declare martial law, or circumvent any restraint on his proper authority in times of exigency. This deliberate, carefully considered omission of power applies at all times to all U.S. presidents. Their power to manage military operations does not include power to determine or initiate war.

Our nation’s founders delegated the power to make war and all provisions for war entirely to Congress. Only Congress is authorized to declare war; raise and support our military forces; call up the national guard; appropriate the money for war; make all rules concerning captures on land and sea; provide and maintain a navy; make rules for the government and regulation of the armed forces; to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the national guard, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States. (See Article I, Section 8)

Why then do we hear so much regarding the president’s powerful military role? Consider the language in Article II, Section 2:

The president shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States.

Now, consider the purpose and extent of this power as granted by the men who created our country. Alexander Hamilton explained:

First. The President will have only occasional command of such part of the militia of the nation as by legislative provision may be called into the actual service of the Union. The King of Great Britain and the governor of New York have at all times the entire command of all the militia within their several jurisdictions. In this article [Article II] therefore, the power of the President would be inferior to that of either the monarch or the governor. Second. The President is to be commander in chief of the army and navy of the United States. In this respect his authority would be nominally the same with that of the king of Great Britain, but in substance much inferior to it. It would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the military and naval forces, as first general and admiral of the Confederacy; while that of the British king extends to the declaring of war and to the raising and regulating of fleets and armies – all of which, by the Constitution under consideration, would appertain to the legislature [Congress]. (Hamilton’s italics – The Federalist No.69)

From records of the Convention, we learn that “the Executive should be able to repel and not to commence war.” As commander in chief of US military forces he is to conduct the operations of war in defense of our country. He is our top military leader authorized to engage the enemy in response to a declaration of war issued by Congress, and he must look to Congress for the men, money, and materiel needed in such times of national emergency. And to further assure that national emergencies will not drag on indefinitely, funding for the support of armies is limited by the Constitution to two years. Long wars and high taxes are the road to captivity even when the US may appear to be the winner. With uncanny vision, James Madison observed:

Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies and debts and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few…. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. (April 20, 1795; Works 4:491-2)

What is the corollary to Madison’s fundamental premise? Let’s put it this way: Continual warfare is one means of consolidating dictatorial power over the people. Surely continual warfare is the greatest gift ever conjured up by wolves dressed in executive clothing – those officers of whom we entertain the least suspicion. And if our nation has been led into one war under false pretenses, that means new, more fearful pretenses must begin immediately if continual warfare is intended to bring the many under the dominion of the few.

Most anyone can fill in the blanks on this. The unbroken flow of hostility is our transition from war in Iraq to war with Iran. It shouldn’t be too hard to understand that especially in times of national stress, when public emotions peak, our God-given rights are in peril. At such times the patriotic spirit of our nation is so highly aroused that we are willing to do whatever it takes to defend our country and preserve our freedom. Almost always in the first hours of a national crisis (whether created or pretended) presidents hurry to the podium and grab more powers than ever dreamt of by the most calloused monarch.

Where are the members of Congress during such moments? Most of them are anxiously watching the applause meter at the White House. Crises tend to elevate the popularity of tough-talking presidents and congressional wimps prefer to ride the sensational wave rather than stand up and say, now wait just a minute. America’s founders expected Congress to use its authority over all aspects of war to protect the nation from enemies abroad and executive temptation at home. “The constitution supposes,” wrote Madison to Jefferson, “what the history of all governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it.” He then added: “It [the Constitution] has accordingly with studied care, vested the question of war in the Legislature.” (Letter dated April 2, 1798) Congress: Are you listening?

Not only does the Constitution contain no such war power for the president, it makes no allowance for Congress to shift its constitutional authority to any other department. Congress cannot delegate its war power to the executive department or to an administrative officer, nor can any department or officer repeal, extend, or modify an act of Congress. Any act of Congress granting executive “war powers” is an abrogation of the duty of Congress and constitutes a serious violation of the separation of powers.

The Congressional Record is replete with various versions of “war powers acts,” and resolutions purporting to authorize the president to exercise his judgement in matters of going to war. None of these bills even hint at the solemn responsibility of Congress to issue a declaration of war. From the written testimony of our founders, and the simple logic of liberty, we know these bills to be worthless paper. They embody powers once wisely vested in Congress which have been illegally shunted off to the executive department.

The notion of presidential war power is just that — a terribly pervasive, dangerous, and baseless notion. Executive authority does not evolve through the passing of time. It is not gained by precedent, tradition, or even the presence of grave danger. Strict constitutional restraints on our chief executive are, in fact, more essential in times of war and terror (including threats of war and terror) than at any other time.

These perilous times cry desperately for truth, principle, and courage. In times of exigency we need a Congress fiercely jealous of its power, willing to remind the man in the White House that his wartime role is commander of our military forces, not the ruler of the world. Moreover, we expect members of Congress to actually read the Constitution of the United States, and if they have any doubt about its purpose and meaning, they must look into the founding documents that dispel every deceitful myth on questions of power.

Who Owns the Bill of Rights?

Since the terrorist attacks of 9-11, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has challenged the federal government’s warrantless surveillance of telephone calls and emails. In this context, the ACLU properly employs the Bill of Rights as a force against federal usurpation. Is this the same ACLU that applies the Bill of Rights against the states in matters of religion, firearms, voting, and due process? It’s nice to pick your situation and apply your ethics at random, but when the ACLU goes to court, do they protect your rights or do they help centralize federal power?

Amidst the outcry over federal assaults on our freedom of speech and privacy, there exists a more fundamental reason we should be alarmed. Those in Washington who wish to alienate the people from their “unalienable” rights, don’t even own the instrument they are using. The president of the United States is a captive of the Bill of Rights, not its guardian. The Bill of Rights is enforceable against Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and their entire covert snoop department. It is not theirs to use as a weapon.

Here they are, stealing our rights with a stolen weapon and all the ACLU can complain about is their marksmanship! How come the ACLU lawyers are merely upset over hits on the Fourth Amendment, and not challenging the federal government’s right to own the gun?

A look into the origin of the Bill of Rights reveals how this fundamental protection has been turned upside-down and levied against the very people it was designed to defend.

There was no Bill of Rights in the Constitution when George Washington declared it “DONE in convention by the unanimous consent of the States present…” Why was no bill of rights included? Because it would have been out of step with the whole theory on which the Constitution was written. The Convention carried out its work with the understanding that all powers intended for the federal government were identified, enumerated, and embodied in the text of the Constitution. In other words, the founder’s work was based primarily on powers granted; anything not granted was deemed prohibited. Thus, it hardly made sense for the convention to deny the federal government powers it never had.

Alexander Hamilton explained it this way: “Why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why, for instance, should it be said that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed? (The Federalist No. 84) The same logic was applied to all rights and privileges not expressly denied in the Constitution, such as religious liberty, freedom of speech, assembly, ownership of firearms, and freedom to exercise an infinite number of other rights and immunities retained by the people.

The Convention delegates worried that a listing of certain rights would leave a loophole in their work. They feared that anything not listed in the Constitution might sooner or later be used as a gap for infringement. Moreover, in consideration of the vast number of rights held by citizens of a free country, it would have been impossible to enumerate or anticipate all of them.

But when the Convention finished its work and sent the Constitution to the states for approval, the absence of a bill of rights loomed up as a major roadblock. As far back as colonial times, the rights of the people had been protected by bills of rights in their local governments, and by the1780s, rights of the people were protected in the constitutions of nearly all thirteen states. In view of the strong centralized powers granted the new national government – and under plenty of agitation by the anti-federalists – the people refused to ratify the charter without some means of preventing federal abuse of certain treasured rights. They therefore urged the deputies to take the Constitution back into convention where it could be re-written to include, among other things, a bill of rights.

The men who had worked all summer in Philadelphia to create this more perfect union were mortified over the thought of re-opening the convention. In reply, James Madison wrote, with some degree of emotion: “Having witnessed the difficulties and dangers experienced by the first Convention which assembled under every propitious circumstance, I should tremble for the result of a second…” (Letter to George Lee Turberville, November 2, 1788)

It was George Washington who came to the rescue when he allayed all fears by suggesting that specific guarantees of freedom could be added by proper amendment after the Constitution itself was adopted. On Washington’s assurance, the states ratified the Constitution, and in the first session of the First Congress the Bill of Rights was proposed and ratified by the states in the form of ten amendments.

It must be remembered that the Bill of Rights was demanded by the people and ratified by the legislatures of the states. The first eight amendments identify certain specific rights, while the ninth and tenth satisfied Hamilton’s concern by declaring that the enumeration of rights does not deny others retained by the people; and that any rights and powers not mentioned are reserved to the people or the states.

Clearly, the Bill of Rights belongs to the people. It is a creation of the states and has force against the federal government. The language of the first line of the First Amendment is consistent with the purpose and force of the Bill of Rights: “Congress shall make no law….”*

All of which brings us to the point of this essay. The whole concept, theory, and reason for the Bill of Rights has been completely turned upside down. The Bill of Rights is not federal property. Not one word of it has force against the people or their state governments. In 1791 when the Bill of Rights was adopted, and for many years thereafter, the federal government respected its proper place in the federal system. Federal officers clearly understood that the Bill of Rights was a power to restrain them, not a device to empower them.

In those early days the federal government made no attempt to oppose the many state customs or traditions that were in conflict with rights identified in the federal Bill of Rights. Significantly, several states – including Connecticut, Virginia, and Massachusetts – upheld official state religions, and some states enforced laws taken literally from the tenets of their churches. The federal government (properly) took no action against those states because it was common knowledge that the people were answerable for their religious lives, and other private affairs, only to state authority, except with regard to powers which the Constitution specifically delegated to the federal government.

The clearly designated purpose of the Bill of Rights was never questioned until 1868 when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted. Section 1 of that amendment declares: “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

The language of Section 1 was unnecessary because due process is already guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment, and the other basic rights are guaranteed by every state constitution. Notwithstanding its redundant language, the damage inflicted on our country by the Fourteenth Amendment is astronomical, having brought the federal government into state cases far beyond its jurisdiction. Moreover, those groups and individuals who seek to expand federal power now insist the Fourteenth Amendment applies retroactively to the entire Bill of Rights, and on that spurious notion they claim the first eight amendments empower the federal government against the states.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly denied that the Fourteenth Amendment constituted a grant of federal power over the Bill of Rights, as in the 1959 Bartcus case, page 124 of opinion:

We have held from the beginning and uniformly that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment does not apply to the states any of the provisions of the first eight amendments as such. The relevant historical materials have been canvassed by this Court and by legal scholars. These materials demonstrate conclusively that the Congress and the members of the legislatures of the ratifying states did not contemplate that the fourteenth amendment was a short-hand incorporation of the first eight amendments making them applicable as explicit restrictions upon the states.

As usual, in sifting through our nation’s greatest problems, we find ourselves enslaved by false notions that a little correct information could remedy. This does not mean knowledge alone would return the Bill of Rights to the people, for in addition to ignorance, the White House relies on a steady flow of crises for an excuse to clamp down on the freedom of the American people. Thus the return of sanity in the United States rests on a twofold premise: (1) a basic understanding of the United States Constitution, and (2) an understanding of the enemy within, a deadly and determined force that conspires to lead “we the people” quietly into captivity.

*”Congress” means the whole federal government “shall make no law…”

The Global Warming Hoax

The “Science”

“The global warming alarm is dressed up as science, but it is not science. It’s propaganda.” — Professor Paul Reiter, Pasteur Institute, Paris, member of the UN’s IPCC. Ref.:The Great Global Warming Swindle.

“There is no direct evidence which links 20th Century global warming to anthropogenic [man-made] greenhouse gases.”— Professor Nir Shaviv, Institute of Physics, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.Ref.:The Great Global Warming Swindle.

“We’ve just been told lies.That’s what it comes down to.” — Nigel Calder, former editor, New Scientist.Ref.:The Great Global Warming Swindle.

The Great Global Warming Swindle is a 2007 television documentary produced in the UK by WAGTV (a DVD of the program can be ordered from their store at www.wagtv.com). A companion website for the DVD, www.greatglobalwarmingswindle.com, also presents many of the scientific arguments.

The Scientific “Consensus”

Another lie is that the world’s climate experts, even those on the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), agree that the evidence now supports the theory of man-made global warming.

“And to build the number up to 2500 [IPCC officials] have to start taking reviewers and government people and so on — anyone who ever came close to them. And none of them are asked to agree. Many of them disagree.” Professor Richard Lindzen, M.I.T. and member of the IPCC.Ref.: The Great Global Warming Swindle.

“The final conclusions [of the UN’s IPCC reports] are politically driven.”— Professor Philip Stott, University of London.Ref.:The Great Global Warming Swindle.

Why?

Why are the opinions of leading scientists who offer a contrary view suppressed?

Even more important, why are we being lied to and how is deception on such a grand scale possible?

As just one example, according to Wikipedia, Al Gore’s Academy Award winning global warming “documentary” An Inconvenient Truth grossed $49 million at box offices worldwide. The official website for An Inconvenient Truth, www.climatecrisis.net, claims:

“Humanity is sitting on a ticking time bomb. If the vast majority of the world’s scientists are right, we have just ten years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced.”

We cannot expect to prosper as a free nation when few political leaders are willing to challenge this swindle and in fact most are content to reinforce it.

So where does the passion in support of the man-made global warming hoax originate? Freedom First Society believes that the best explanation for the widespread propaganda is that the “crisis” hoax supports an immense power grab.

High level internationalist Insiders have selected the global warming scare as one pretext to help them drive forward their revolutionary “new world order.” In particular, they seek to persuade independent nations to submit to world government, cleverly controlled by an elite few from behind the scenes.

An early window to that agenda was provided in a classified 1962 study, entitled A World Effectively Controlled by the United Nations. It’s author, M.I.T. professor Lincoln P. Bloomfield, was a member of the Establishment’s Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and had recently served with the State Department’s disarmament staff.

The Bloomfield study suggested that world government could be obtained without the threat of Communism if there was “a crisis, a war, or a brink-of-war situation so grave or commonly menacing that deeply-rooted attitudes and practices are sufficiently shaken to open the possibility of a revolution in world political arrangements.”

The Bloomfield study was completed in 1962, but its conclusions have persisted as a fundamental foundation of Insider strategy. When the Berlin Wall started to come down on November 9, 1989, signaling the orchestrated “demise” of Communism, the Insiders wasted no time in heralding new enemies.

Immediately, George Kennan, touted as one of the Establishment “wisemen,” would write in a column for the 11-12-1989 Washington Post, “[T]he great enemy is not the Soviet Union but the rapid deterioration of our planet as a supporting structure for civilized life.”

In the months ahead, many others would echo Kennan’s concerns. In a March 27, 1990 op-ed for the New York Times, CFR member Michael Oppenheimer, a scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund, wrote: “Global warming, ozone depletion, deforestation and overpopulation are the four horsemen of a looming 21st century apocalypse. As the cold war recedes, the environment is becoming the No. 1 international security concern.”

The following year, Alexander King and Bertrand Schneider included this admission against interest in The First Global Revolution, A Report by the [Internationalist] Council of the Club of Rome:

“In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill….All of these dangers are caused by human intervention…. The real enemy, then, is humanity itself.”

Not surprisingly, honest climate scientists rarely have a deep understanding of the big-picture “politics” driving the “global warming” scare. An exception was the late Dixy Lee Ray. In her 1993 Environmental Overkill — Whatever Happened to Common Sense?, the former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission wrote:

“More and more it is becoming clear that those who support the so-called ‘New World Order’ or World Government under the United Nations have adopted global environmentalism as a basis for the dissolution of independent nations and the international realignment of power.”

Top Insiders have certainly sought to create new international authority to address their alleged crisis. One of books guiding elitists in 1991 was Beyond Interdependence: The Meshing of the World’s Economy and the Earth’s Ecology. Signaling his support for the book’s message, David Rockefeller, former chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations and founder of the Trilateral Commisssion, wrote the foreword.

In that book, the joint authors (Jim MacNeil of Canada, Peter Winsemius of Holland, and Taizo Yakushiji of Japan), argued for “a new global partnership expressed in a revitalized international system in which an Earth Council, perhaps the Security Council with a broader mandate, maintains the interlocked environmental and economic security of the planet.”

Follow the Money

Of course, these Insiders depended on other strategies to turn their “crisis” into public policy. One of these was the tried and true tactic of “revolutionary parliamentarianism” also known as “pressure from above and pressure from below.”

With this strategy, revolutionaries at the top orchestrate the appearance of a widespread “consensus.” Their allies in legislative bodies can then use this external pressure to justify revolutionary measures. An excellent example of this generated pressure was the UN’s 1992 Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro. Although elites at the Council on Foreign Relations pretty much had the conclusions worked out in advance, the Earth Summit was staged to give this agenda the appearance of planetary democracy at work and to hype the “consensus” to the world.

As an example of how this phony democracy — “the world” in action — was hyped, the authors of Beyond Interdependence wrote: “The Earth Summit will likely be the last chance for the world, in this century at least, to seriously address and arrest the accelerating environmental threats to economic development, national security, and human survival.”

Few Americans encountering media reports of the Earth Summit would have guessed the extent to which vocal leaders and groups at the Summit were beholden to Insider funding. For example, Lester Brown founded his Worldwide Institute in 1974 with funding from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. According to the Worldwide Institute annual reports, “the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Winthrop Rockefeller Trust provide core funding for the State of the World series. “The State of the World report was widely cited as authority for predictions of impending planetary doom by those attending the Earth Summit.

Many examples of the extensive funding of the environmental “movement” by Establishment foundations can be cited. A few of these include: Ford Foundation grants to the Environmental Defense Fund, Friends of the Earth, Natural Resources Defense Council and the World Resources Institute; MacArthur Foundation grants to the Center for International Environmental Law, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and the World Resources Institute; Mott Foundation funding for the Center for International Environmental Law, the Earth Action Network, Friends of the Earth, and the World Resources Institute; and Rockefeller Brothers Fund grants to the Earth Action Alert Network, the Environmental Defense Fund, Friends of the Earth, the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, and the Union of Concerned Scientists.

These strategies of an internationalist Conspiracy for building its world hegemony are moving rapidly to completion at the dawn of the 21st Century. For the concerned visitor to our website, we highly recommend reading Organize for Victory! This inexpensive ($9.95) paperback provides a more thorough look at the agenda behind the global warming disinformation along with a necessary and realistic solution to stop the underlying revolution that threatens our freedoms.

Not Perfect, But Excellent

This article was originally published in our August 2007 Special Action Report.

America’s founders never intended for the people at large to choose a president, at least not directly. History and experience prove that most people do not do their homework and tend to be influenced by promises of political opportunists. This fact of life was well known by the men who laid the foundation of our country. Having learned from the colonial experience and other models dating back to Europe and Rome, our Founding Fathers were unwilling to leave the choice of president to a poorly informed — or misinformed — general public. Moreover, the creators of our country took great pains to prevent a national, billion dollar popularity contest every four years.

Rather, they conceived a method for keeping demagogues and pretenders out of the race. It was a brilliant, indirect way most likely to find the best man for the job. The system, explained Alexander Hamilton, incorporates the principle that “a small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to so complicated an investigation.” He then added, “It was also peculiarly desirable to afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder. This evil was not least to be dreaded in the election of a magistrate who was to have so important an agency in the administration of the government as the President of the United States.” (The Federalist, No. 68.)

Accordingly, the Convention of 1787 adopted an indirect method of electing a president. Each state would elect or appoint individuals well known for their wisdom to be presidential electors. The electors chosen in each state would, in turn, find private citizens of presidential caliber and nominate them by ballot. Each elector would vote for two, at least one of whom had to be from another state. No popular votes were to be counted. Congress would open the ballots and the individual with the most electoral votes, if that number also be a majority, would be president. This, the constitutional method of electing a president, was applauded by both friend and foe of the Constitution. In Hamilton’s evaluation of the process he wrote, “if the manner of it be not perfect, it is at least excellent.” Even the anti-federalists agreed.

The indirect system (later known as the Electoral College) provided for the office to seek the man, rather than the man to seek the office. We note with interest that this quiet, unemotional process, gave America its first and finest presidents. Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe were men whose integrity and dignity met the qualifications our Founding Fathers had hoped to ensure. There were no demagogues in the nation’s highest office — that is, not until national political parties began to take charge of presidential elections.

Worst Fears Confirmed

Almost from the beginning the Electoral College was undermined by the rise of political parties. Our founders had taken every precaution to ensure quality presidential candidates and to prevent the electoral tumult and disorder characteristic of popular elections. But their worst fears were confirmed. The Electoral College was neutered by party control of the nomination and election process. Perhaps in anticipation of such a development, George Washington devoted a large part of his farewell address to warning Americans about the harmful effects of party and faction. In summary, he said:

I have already intimated to you the danger of parties…. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baleful effects of the spirit of party…. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another…. [I]n governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged…. A fire not to be quenched; it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume. (Writings of Washington, edited by L.B. Evans, p. 539.)

James Madison, often referred to as the “Father of the Constitution,” was no less fervent in warning against the rise of political faction, as he termed it:

By faction I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse or passion of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent aggregate interests of the community…. A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; for an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power … have in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good. (The Federalist, No. 10.)

Washington and Madison were not alone in their aversion to political parties. Most delegates at the 1787 Convention were mutually wary of that “baleful spirit” and therefore made no allowance in the Constitution for party involvement. The Convention did not provide for partisan mass meetings, the appointment of party delegates, party nomination of candidates, campaign platforms, the caucus, or any of the party control mechanisms that now dominate the election of a U.S. president. In violation of constitutional intent, the party system has made a mockery of the Electoral College by controlling the votes of presidential electors, requiring them to “vote” only for the party’s pre-determined choice.

As we approach the next presidential election, the usual chorus of “experts” will again call for scrapping the Electoral College. They will insist that we need only count the popular vote and get on with naming the new president. Fortunately for America, what’s left of the Electoral College — even in its corrupted form — retains redeeming and restraining elements: 1) Election of the president is still determined by the number of electoral votes; and 2) the voting power of rural and less populous states is greater than it would be if the Electoral College were abandoned. These two principles of republican government yet stand as sentinels against our descent into total, unrestricted democracy.

In 1804 the Twelfth Amendment revised the Electoral College slightly with regard to the selection of vice president, in order to prevent two incompatible individuals from serving concurrently. This change still provided no authority for parties to control the election. The Constitution has never been amended to grant any such power.

Apparently no one is losing sleep over this, for we know of no amendments in the hopper for legalizing this power, which is now taken for granted by the major parties. That is one boat few politicians want to rock. It is far more likely that the Left — and its ever-willing right hand — will one day make a serious effort to abolish the Electoral College.

What Should Be Done?

Foremost, we must oppose any effort to abolish the Electoral College whether attempted with or without a constitutional amendment. We will do well to remind our friends and their officials in the small and less populous states that the Electoral College was designed, in part, to protect them, to help offset the voting power of large majorities in the more populous states. Every state, regardless of population, was given two senators (two extra electoral votes) for that very reason.

Unfortunately, an aggressive effort to correct the party control of presidential elections should probably not be undertaken until a much wider understanding of constitutional principles has been created. In the present climate, any momentum for reforming the presidential election process would all too likely be hijacked to our nation’s detriment.

In the meantime, it is vital to build organization to create that understanding. Tom Gow’s article, The Great American Swindle, certainly spells out the depth, deceitfulness, and danger of America’s love affair with presidential elections. As we enter another round of presidential campaigning, now is an excellent time to obtain the widest possible distribution and attention for this insightful summary of vital lessons. Surely you know many people who will benefit from this timely report, and we must not fail to send or email a copy to each of those individuals.

In his article, Tom Gow shows why new faces in the White House never seem to change the disastrous course of our country. The formula envisioned by our Founding Fathers was for the people to exercise control of the federal government, not through the courts, and not by electing a president, but through the House of Representatives.

Control Through the House

The far-sighted design of our federal system provided not only for the indirect appointment of the president, but also for the appointment of members of the Senate,* and justices of the Supreme Court. The House of Representatives balanced the scale by speaking for the people, and being directly accountable to them by virtue of their short two-year terms and frequent re-election. James Madison explained: “As it is essential to liberty that the government in general should have a common interest with the people, so it is particularly essential that the branch of it under consideration [the House] should have an immediate dependence on, and an intimate sympathy with, the people.” (The Federalist, No. 52.)

In the same essay, Madison cites unique checks on the House of Representatives. He noted that “it has, on occasion, been shown that the federal legislature will not only be restrained by its dependence on the people, as other legislative bodies are, but that it will be, moreover, watched and controlled by the several collateral [Senate and state] legislatures, which other legislative bodies [in other countries] are not.” It was fully expected that the House would stand firmly with the people and not be seduced by pressures from the executive branch.

On a wide, national scale, this avenue for rolling back the accumulated encroachments has not yet been tested. But on isolated issues, particularly in districts where sufficient understanding has been created and in which citizens have spoken up, a majority in the U.S. House have in fact taken the constitutional high ground.

Whenever a constitutional position has wide public support, even when the public is not fully informed or well led, the Conspiracy must orchestrate major deceptions and use its influence over the national parties in order to manipulate the House. The large number of legislative districts and the natural ties of the people to their men and women in the House make it far more difficult for the Insiders to apply pressure in the House contrary to sound, widely held positions at home.

The 1787 Convention placed a powerful check in the hands of the House of Representatives. It comes as a surprise to many Americans that the Constitution grants greater power to this body than is accorded the president of the United States. When more Americans awaken to this reality, and understand the power they have to take control of their government through the U.S. House, party domination of the Electoral College and false heroes in the White House will vanish, along with a vast number of other problems affecting the freedom and independence of our country.

Our chances of success through the U.S. House may not be perfect, but they are at least excellent.

* This held true prior to the Seventeenth Amendment.

Big Money Battles for Loyalty of 112th Congress

“Freedom Works gathers GOP lawmakers to refocus on tea party goals” (washingtonpost.com, November 12, 2010)

FFS: Revealing article regarding well funded Freedom Works organization, chaired by Dick Armey, and its influence within the tea party movement. Also read the forthcoming December Action Report and note the hypocrisy regarding small-government principles and the suggestion that GOP leaders share these goals.

“House Republicans Issue ‘A Pledge to America'”

Press release from House Minority Leader John Boehner, September 23, 2010 (use above link, but link to actual pledge no longer functions)

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

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

Eternal Vigilance

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