Getting Back to the ‘Real’ Constitution--Fagettaboutit

Kirkpatrick Sale, for all of his shortcomings as a leader, is still a powerful theorist on secession. In this article, published DumpDC, Prof. Sale discusses why going back to the U.S. Constitution will not work, in his view.

I am not yet prepared to go as far as Prof. Sale has in this article, but his arguments are sound, and his conclusion may prove to be the only way to preserve our freedom. If this seems far-fetched, consider Arizona's experience with illegal immigration and the federal courts.

(This article is a direct quotation, despite lack of indentation).

There’s much talk these days, particularly by the Tea Party types, about getting back to the “real” Constitution, forcing the Obama government to honor the “original intent” of the Founding Fathers, and “understanding the Constitution through the eyes of its creators,” as one contributor to the Tenth Amendment Center recently put it. That center, in fact, is dedicated to, and attracting a growing following for, a rigid interpretation of that amendment reserving to the states the powers not expressly given to the Federal government.

And along with it in the last few years has grown up a Constitution Party that has the idea that the nation’s problems can be solved by “a renewed allegiance” to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and hence a return to “limited government.” The problem with current officials of both parties, as the CP see it, is that they “ignore their oaths to uphold the Constitution,” that is to say, the Constitution as originally written and used in the 18th century .

This would be a far different country, of course, if it paid an allegiance to the document of 1787 that the renegade Congress had come up with, in secret, that summer in Philadelphia, even along with its first ten amendments. But what all the critics who believe that going back to the original Constitution would forestall the kinds of forces that have led to the present bloated, overstretched, intrusive, and unwieldy government do not realize is that this is what it almost inevitably had to lead to.

Let’s wake up these “real Constitution” die-hards and the ardent “Tenthers” and tell them that it’s a waste of time to try to resurrect that document in order to save the nation ---because because the growth of government and the centralization of power is inherent in its original provisions. As the anti-Federalists were trying to say all along from the very beginning of the ratification process. Only when we get people today off this understandable but ill-fated track can we begin to open their eyes to the reality of our present peril: we have a big overgrown government because that’s what the Founding Fathers founded, and we won’t escape from it until we take the idea of secession as seriously as it must be taken.

Let’s look at some of the dangerous elements of the “real” Constitution.

It starts off with a phrase that, right there at the start, sounded alarm bells in those who, having experienced the powers of the individual states as sovereign states under the Articles of Confederation, saw that it was not to the states but to “we the people” that power would be given. “What right had they to say, We ,the people,” cried Patrick Henry to the Virginia ratification convention, “instead of, We, the states?” He saw that the phrase gave power to an amorphous “people” whom the new government could define and use as it chose, bypassing and undercutting the states. If “the people” spoke through the Congress, it could willy-nilly ignore the individual states.

Which, indeed, is what happened, and Congress was cheerfully ratified in doing so by another centralizing branch of government, the Supreme Court. But the idea was never more egregiously used than when Lincoln denied that the states had any particular power, indeed denied that they were sovereign entities at all, and argued that all power rests with the people, who had created a United States and wanted it united. “Government of the people,” in other words, means that Washington can do whatever it damn pleases in their name.

And the anti-Federalists had warned of exactly that seventy years before. The framers of the Constitution, said Luther Martin, a delegate to the convention from Maryland, were crypto-monarchists whose “wish it was to abolish and annihilate all State governments, and to bring forward one general government…of a monarchical nature, under certain restrictions and limitations.” That was said in November 1787—don’t say you weren’t warned.

But let’s go on with the faults of the centralizers’ Constitution. There is in Article I a bold statement that “Congress shall have the power to” and there follow some specifics about taxes and debts—and then “provide for the… general welfare of the United States.” Agree to that and you’ve agreed it can do anything it likes without check or rein, for what measure could not be thought to be enhancing the “general welfare”? James Madison, who had a hand in Federal enlargement elsewhere in the document, saw the danger here: “If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of …in short, everything, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police.” That is not what they had fought a war against the British monarchy for.


Not more than a few phrases away is the famous “commerce clause,” by which a Supreme Court, ever-willing to enhance the powers of the Washington establishment, managed almost from the beginning to enhance Congressional control over what the states would be allowed to do. Congress shall have the power, it reads, “to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states.” That would seem to mean that Congress could establish terms by which states could trade with each other, so that none would establish tariffs against any other—“a negative and preventive provision against injustice among the States themselves,” as Madison saw it, “rather than as a power to be used for the positive purposes of the General Government.”

But positive is what the clause became. The Supreme Court decided that practically anything that went on commercially within one state would have some kind of effect on all the others, in some way or other, and so government can regulate it; as early as 1828 it held that the government could regulate trade on the Hudson river for its entire length because some of it ran along New Jersey, and the monopoly New York state had given to Robert Fulton to run his steamboat it decided to be null and void because it affected New Jerseyans. Its reading of the clause became ever more expansive as time went on and by the New Deal it gave the government carte blanche to interfere in state business down to the level of a janitor’s salary and a farmer’s wheat crop.

And as if that wasn’t a sufficient interference in state business, the Founding Fathers wound up their Constitution with a clause that ringingly asserted that what they had just enumerated as the powers of the government—and any laws that they should subsequently pass “in pursuance thereof”—“shall be the supreme law of the land” and judges in the states better take that to heart.

This “supremacy clause” was hotly debated at the time because it, like the other sections above, could be interpreted in such a broad way that the states would be powerless to act on matters of serious concern, and thus it was that when there finally came a slew of amendments that the people of the states demanded as checks on Federal power, one of the most important was the Tenth, asserting that Washington had only the specific powers enumerated in the Constitution and the states had jurisdiction in all else.

Which brings up the final deficiency in that Constitution, that Tenth Amendment itself. It seems clear that a great many serious people felt that when it said “the powers not delegated to the U.S….are reserved to the states…or to the people,” that this guaranteed a considerable sovereignty for the states. But the centralists agreed to it (and put it at the end of the Bill of Rights) because they knew that it was so unspecific, so merely rhetorical, that it was capable of any interpretation—and that a Supreme Court capable of giving itself judicial review over Congress ( not enumerated in the Constitution) would be capable of finding that the powers delegated to the U.S. were pretty vast and those given to the states were few and limited in scope. As it so happened.

The Tenthers are fighting valiantly to reverse the 220 years in which that last item in the Bill of Rights has been emasculated and rendered effectively irrelevant, and they may even be gaining some attention, particularly in the states’ growing resistance to Obamacare. But it seems most unlikely that, with the other centralizing tools at their command, the Federal courts will give it much consideration.

And then when they finally see their beloved amendment in shreds, maybe then the Tenthers and other Constitutional-Firsters will begin to see that the U.S. Constitution, by the centralists, of the nationalists, and for the Hamiltonians, is not a document that will lead them to liberty and sovereignty. The only method for that, let us hope they finally realize, is secession.

Additional candidates to consider

I have already written pieces on:

• Ken Matesz (L) for Governor
• Charlie Earl (L) for Secretary of State
• Matthew Cantrell (L) for Treasurer of State and
• Robert Owens (C) for Attorney General

Here are some other candidates I like:

• Bill Yarbrough (L) for State Senate, 3rd District (Eastern Franklin County). He is working hard to get the position, has reasonable positions on issues affecting Ohioans, and actually has a shot at winning.
• Lawrence Binsky (L) for State Representative, 20th District (Eastern Franklin County). He is a small businessman who will, like all Libertarians and Constitutionalists, for lower taxes and more efficient government. He is also a positive, refreshing, alternative to the slugfest taking place between his opponents.
• Eric Deaton (C) for U.S. Senator.
• Travis Irvine (L) for Congress. Don't confuse him for a Republican. He skewered the Pledge to America with this and some other very creative YouTube advertising.
• Rep. Jarrod Martin (R-Beavercreek) for re-election and Sen. Timothy Grendell (R-Chesterland) as State Representative. They were staunch supporters of the state sovereignty resolutions, and for getting the Feds off Ohio's back.
• Rep. Kris Jordan (R-Delaware) for State Senator, who also supported the state sovereignty resolutions.

There are many other good candidates out there -- I just listed the ones I know. Please vote intelligently and remember, the lesser of two evils is still evil.

Robert Owens for Attorney General

Update Oct. 25 at end of post.

I am recommending for your consideration Robert Owens for Ohio Attorney General. Robert is a trial attorney in Delaware, Ohio, running for the second time for this office on the Constitution Party ticket. I know him personally from activity in the Ohio Freedom Alliance, and believe that he would be an effective Attorney General -- certainly one free of political baggage that both of his opponents carry -- the one a longtime career politician whose interest in Attorney General would be transient at best, the other (the incumbent) with a questionable record in dealing with ethics and campaign finance laws.

According to his website, Robert’s legal experience includes working for a Federal Judge in the U.S. District Court, Eastern Division. Robert subsequently practiced at a large law firm in Columbus, handling corporate, real estate, employment, and banking litigation. Even in a large firm environment, Robert focused on individual needs and concerns, resulting in repeated honors for superior client service. He prides himself on his attention to detail and his ability to "think outside the box."

Robert feels that the best thing the Attorney General can do for consumers is to strongly prosecute fraud of all types, including white collar crime. The prosecutorial power of the Attorney General and filing civil actions through the judicial system, he believes, is much better than bureaucratic regulation and administrative rules. I call this the "passive regulatory model," which I favor, and will discuss in my book Governing Ourselves.

He is also concerned about the waste of taxpayer dollars that so greatly affect individuals and small businesses. As Attorney General, he will eliminate $140 million each year in no-bid contracts, and enforcing transparency of governmental functions so it is more accountable to taxpayers.

While his site unfortunately (in my opinion) focuses too much on issues unrelated to the office he is seeking, Robert Owens does have a realistic grasp of what is needed in the Attorney General's office and has been campaigning energetically. He deserves your consideration.

Update Oct. 25 from The Ohio Project e-newsletter, another reason to consider Robert Owens . The Ohio Project is collecting signatures for an Ohio Constitutional Amendment to ensure that we will never be forced to purchase health care insurance. Emphasis is added:

Maurice Thompson, legal counsel for The Ohio Project and the Executive Director of the 1851 Center for Constitutional Law says this about the possibility of Ohio joining other states in the federal lawsuit, "Ohio’s participation in the Obamacare lawsuit, if a candidate other than Richard Cordray wins, will be much more meaningful if our Amendment is on the ballot, because it sets up a direct conflict between state and federal law, and provides a much greater likelihood of success." Indeed, a state constitutional amendment is the strongest way to fight back against unsconstitutional federal law. Furthermore, we note that if Richard Cordray wins the Attorney General race, he has already publicly declared that he believes Obamacare to be constitutional, which puts him in a position of a conflict of interest in defending the Health Care Freedom Amendment.

Why this Christian became a Libertarian

When I took my ballot last month for the primary, I became a Libertarian. I had been a Republican since I became old enough to vote thirty-nine years ago, and for about a third of that, I was a Republican activist.

In the last few years, I concluded that the GOP is not interested in the same principles that we are. So why are we settling for the "lesser of two evils?" Isn't the lesser of two evils still evil? I see settling for the lesser of two evils as a failure of character. If you believe in the Libertarian philosophy, then become a Libertarian and help Libertarian candidates get elected! If you settle for less, that's what you'll get.

In deference to my friends in the Constitution Party, I did seriously consider joining it. The reason I did not do so was the contradiction I perceived between that party's fidelity to the U.S. Constitution (which is beyond question), and its desire to use government to promote Christian morality. In my opinion, the Founders intended that persons of sound morality should govern a secular system.

I have heard some arguments that the Libertarian Party is "amoral." I do not believe this, and neither should you. It is true that Libertarians favor repealing many of the laws governing the use of drugs in this country, particularly marijuana -- which is an effective pain killer denied to many cancer patients who desperately need it. It is true that Libertarians are tolerant of homosexuals. The issue in these and other cases, however, is not morality. The issue is, what is the appropriate role of government?

Government's role is to protect us from fraud and external force. What you do with (or to) your body is your business and that of the health care professionals you trust.

Further, government has absolutely no business dealing with spiritual issues. This is why we speak of a separation between church and state. Christians say that homosexuality is a sin because it tends to separate the individual from God -- but so do many other things in life: love of money, obesity, laziness, anxiety, and many other sins.

As Martin Luther wrote nearly 500 years ago (in "On Temporal Authority"), in matters of the spirit, the church must persuade. The only thing government does well is to use force. That is why we favor limited government -- so that its force is controlled and directed only where necessary.

One of the sins for which Christians are collectively guilty is the expectation that government will do the Church's work for it; for example, by harsh legislation against drug use, and by attempting to govern the relationships of homosexuals. The result is that the church has lost its evangelical fire and most of its credibility as an institution. Many of us have lost the spiritual benefits of charity because we choose to pay high taxes, rather than to give of our own money to help others.

And then we wonder why we seem to live in a spiritual wilderness...

Not sure which party to support in the primary?

The Ohio Republic is here to help. In the coming weeks, I plan to provide information about three of the four alternative parties in Ohio: the Constitution, Green, and Libertarian Parties. (The fourth is the Socialist Party). Basic information and links are also available on the Alternative Parties tab under the Ohio Republic masthead.

The facts of political life

Facing reality – Part 1 of 2

The Ohio Freedom Alliance (OFA) is a diverse array of Tea Parties, 9-12 Projects, Campaigns for Liberty, minor parties (Constitution and Libertarian), single-issue groups, and a few cantankerous individuals such as yours truly. The mainstream media and the blogosphere has been active in recent months analyzing, dissecting, and trying to understand the purpose and direction of the liberty movement, which in Ohio is spearheaded by the OFA.

There seems to be a general agreement within the movement that, while rallies are a good thing; we need to move to the next level, which is defined as candidate recruitment and support. The movement has attracted many people who have had little or no previous involvement in the political process. The newcomers are attracted by freedom-loving ideals, but are unfamiliar with the means by which those ideals might be achieved.

The Republican Party now would like to take advantage of this inexperience, and steer the movement toward its candidates and policies. In so doing, the Republicans are doing nothing wrong – they are simply doing what the Republicans and Democrats have been doing to upstarts like us for a century and a half.

In the last two weeks, The Ohio Republic has issued several warnings – to the Tea Parties in particular – to beware of celebrities and establishment politicans. We must keep our wits about us. This means that we must communicate our goals clearly, often, and with passion. We must also be realistic about how the political process works, and what we need to do in 2010 to bring about a favorable result.

Many people who have entered politics with high ideals work at it for a while, then decide that politics is corrupt beyond repair. They get frustrated and give up. I suggest that this is because they do not have a realistic understanding of the political process.

Politics is the collective process of reaching a decision. In centuries past, when a king ruled with absolute authority, the purpose of the political process was to influence the king in one's favor. "Court intrigue" is nothing more than a synonym for politics in that context. In free societies, politics is the process of electing officials favorable to one's cause, and of influencing those officials to adopt favorable legislation or policies.

Since politics is a process, it is neither good nor evil. Rather, we should say that politics is used for good or not-so-good ends. As members of the liberty movement, we want to use the process to support greater personal freedom and a reduction of the role of government (at all levels) in our lives.

However, being a democracy in fact*, we acknowledge that every citizen has an equal right to participate in the process. Some citizens will see everything our way, some will see some things our way, and some will see nothing our way. That's life.

A legislator or executive who is accountable to the voters has to consider that the electorate as a whole has diverse opinions on every issue. The good ones will make their decisions on the basis of principles they have communicated to the people in their campaigns, and which have received popular support at the ballot box. Of course, the not-so-good ones will base theirs on which citizens make the most noise, or have given them the most money.

All right, you're saying, "Harold, this is just common sense!" And it is. Bear with me for just another minute, and you'll see where this is headed.

Legislation is a complex process of obtaining compromises, so the bill can attract the support of enough legislators to pass and become law. Take our state sovereignty resolution, for example. SCR 13 was introduced by the most libertarian members of the Senate – those who want to pass it in its original form. A majority of the Senate agreed to it without amendment – and that is because a majority of the people who voted for a majority of the Senators are likely to be sympathetic to state sovereignty resolutions. At the moment, SCR 13 is sitting in a House committee, where a majority of the people who voted for a majority of the Representatives are likely to be hostile to state sovereignty, at least in the form passed by the Senate. This leaves us supporters of SCR 13 with only two options: Accept the fact that it cannot pass in its original form and let it die in committee, or amend the bill in a way that it will attract the votes of a majority in the House. To its sponsors and the liberty movement, this will be considered "watering down" the resolution. So we must decide which is more important, to let the bill die in its "pure" state, or to get the bill passed with amendments.

When dealing with critical legislation like a budget, nearly everyone acknowledges that the bill must be passed somehow. No one really wants the entire apparatus of state government to shut down until the next election – so the only option there is to pass it with amendments. Lots of amendments. Amendments from representatives and senators who come from very different districts, all trying to respond to different, and often contradictory, sets of needs. All with an equal right to be represented. This is why we like to quote Mark Twain when he said, "Those that respect the law and love sausage should watch neither being made." It's ugly, but assuming there is no obvious corruption, it the only fair way it can be done.

I mention this because many newcomers to politics believe that any legislator who votes for a bill that contains any objectionable content lacks integrity; for example, a Congressman who would vote for a defense bill in which some other Congressman or committee sneaked in an amendment allowing torture of suspected enemy combatants. Now, what should the Congressman do? Vote for the defense bill because it was generally well-written and provides, say, better protective gear for our military forces, or vote it down because of the torture provision? If every legislator had to worry about litmus tests for every bill, nothing would ever get done. Then they would be derided for being a "do-nothing Congress."

So, if we have to expect that bills will contain some content that is objectionable, does that mean that voting for them displays a lack of integrity? No. I'll explain why in Part 2 on Wednesday.

* I agree that the Constitution intended to create a representative republic and not a democracy; but clearly the system that exists today is not the one the Founding Fathers envisioned.

Candidates filed with the Secretary of State

Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner has published the list of candidates on the statewide ballot in the May 4 primary. Following is a list of the Constitution Party and Libertarian Party candidates:

US Senate
Eric W. Deaton (Constitution)
Steven R. Linnabary (Lib)

Governor
Ken Matesz/Ann Leech (Lib)

Attorney General
Robert M. Owens (Constitution)
Marc Allan Feldman (Lib)

Secretary of State
Charles Earl (Lib)

Auditor
L. Michael Howard (Lib)

Treasurer
Matthew P. Cantrell (Lib)

Neither party has a contested primary at the state level. For information about your local races, select your county board of elections from this list.

Candidates not linked are invited to send their links for publication.

Finding the path to freedom

Restoring Freedom to Ohio: Part 2 of 3
(Part 1: The only thing we have to fear is fear itself)

In 2009, the liberty movement experienced spectacular growth. The tea parties in April and during the summer electrified the imaginations of freedom-loving people everywhere. Organizations like the Ohio Freedom Alliance, the Campaign for Liberty, and the 9-12 Project experienced significant membership growth. Events like these are exciting and inspiring, but inevitably a letdown occurs as people wonder, "Where do we go from here?"

All of us in the movement want a return to Constitutional government, but we are deeply divided on the approach. Some want to focus on Congressional action, to audit and eventually abolish the Federal Reserve Bank, for example. Those who focus on the federal level also want to bring an end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, withdrawal from the United Nations, and removal of federal funding for abortions. (This list of the legislation introduced by Rep. Ron Paul in the current Congress, which includes most of the issues of interest to the liberty movement).

Others want to focus on reforming the Republican Party for the 2010 state elections, to furnish candidates who will support appropriate legislation; or to support candidates of the Libertarian and Constitution Parties.

Still others want to focus on the state level by building on the popular success of the state sovereignty resolutions, such as SCR 13, to enact nullification of offensive federal laws and build infrastructure for resisting federal excesses, such as a properly organized militia and a state bank. Some activists want to extensively amend the Ohio Constitution to strengthen its guarantees of liberty.

The liberty movement (myself included) is bursting with ideas, and that is a good thing – but we need to remember that political capital is limited. Our best friends in the Congress and in the General Assembly have to manage their time to ensure that the best and most important pieces of legislation are adopted.

The liberty movement is struggling for solutions. United in fundamental principles, we are divided by our approach. Without a common political political agenda, we won't accomplish anything.

I am not confident that using the 2010 elections to elect members of Congress and the U.S. Senate to enact a top-down reform is an effective strategy. We have tried to reform our country in this way for nearly forty years, and every attempt has failed. To think that top-down reform would work in 2010 where it has failed before is insane, especially if you define it the way Albert Einstein did – trying the same approach over and over again, and expecting a different result.

Another top-down proposal, using Article V of the United States Constitution to set up a Constitutional Convention, has been shown to be more dangerous than helpful to the cause of liberty.

Our state sovereignty resolution, SCR 13, has been a great shot across the bow. It has awakened Ohioans and their legislators to the need to take our power back from the federal government. Given Ohio's historical timidity toward the federal government, the fact that it passed the Republican Senate is no small accomplishment! However, it will die in the House State Government Committee, because the majority Democratic leadership deems it a waste of time.

We need now to take firm action that will protect our liberties from further federal encroachment, and begin rolling back the unconstitutional powers that we carelessly gave the feds. We must therefore concentrate our efforts on the Ohio General Assembly, first to seek adoption of useful legislation; and secondly, to hold all State Representatives and Senators accountable for their votes on this legislation.

The liberty movement must also prepare to raise and support candidates for the Ohio General Assembly who will be outspoken in favor of these reforms. This will take work, and it will take money. Control of the Ohio Senate is within the grasp of the Ohio liberty movement, in part because many Republicans (and one or two Democrats) are already sympathetic to our cause. We can simply endorse those who will support our program – their campaigns are in place. Our efforts then must focus on House and Senate districts where the incumbent will be leaving office (open races), and on those where our critics are in vulnerable districts. It would be wonderful if we could put up candidates for all 33 Senate seats, but we only need to elect 17 of them. It would be even more wonderful to elect 50 Representatives, but such a feat is likely to prove to be well beyond our ability to accomplish. We must use our limited resources wisely. It would be very helpful if the Libertarian and Constitution Parties would coordinate their efforts to conserve resources in support of this goal. We should concentrate on the Senate, and if additional resources become available, we can target a few close House races as well.

Our rights come from God, but neither God nor the feds will give them back to us. We must take them back right here in Ohio, in our cities, in our townships – wherever people gather. In the 2010 campaign, we will have to effectively communicate the advantages of freedom – material and spiritual – to our fellow Ohioans. And if thousands of us unite behind these goals, "they will not be able to do anything with us. If there are tens of thousands of us, then we would not even recognize our country."* Or our state.

For Part 3, to be published New Year's Day, I will suggest a legislative program for 2010.

* From Alexander Solzhenitsyn, "Live Not By Lies," quoted on Monday.

Thank you, Todd Palin!

Secession is now on the table. Examples from today alone:

Capitol Hill Blue uses the Alaska example to thoroughly demolish the arguments against secession. (However, I also agree with the cautionary note of one commenter that an independent Alaska would create a temptation for Vladimir Putin).

Amos Wright at Examiner.com in Cleveland uses the Todd Palin story to look at what he thinks the Alaska Independence Party really means, then explains why secession is not always wrong. In addition to backing up Capitol Hill Blue (above), he cites excellent examples of why secession was a good thing in some other parts of the world.

Joel Henderson at Civil War Talk makes an excellent point about State sovereignty:

“It seems that without this sovereign power of a state to enforce the Constitution against the others, it would be utterly meaningless, except as a list of mere SUGGESTIONS and un-enforcable promises for voters and their chosen officials to consider or ignore as they pleased.”

The New Conservative has an interesting take on State sovereignty in the wake of the Oklahoma resolution:

“And we have the right to take powers from the federal government, granting them to the states in special elections and state constitutional changes - challenging the federal government on their authority over state's sovereignty.”

Finally, we have Michael LeMieux in Restore the Republic acknowledging the real root of the bailout: the addition of the 16th (income tax) and 17th (direct election of Senators) Amendments to the Constitution, and the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank. While I have a reservations about the “patriot” movement, I will count anyone as a friend who wishes to restore Constitutional government. One of the problems we do have is that the movement for freedom in America is highly fragmented – we have “patriots”, Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty, two political parties (Libertarian and Constitution), groups like the Ohio Freedom Alliance, secessionists, and many others trying to pursue the same object.

The right of secession is a necessary control on the growth of Federal power. I advocate exercising that right, because I am not confident that the entire nation can reverse its course at this point; but I am willing to be proven wrong. I am working along both tracks because above all, I want all of our people to be free and to regain the opportunity to live up to their potential.

Lesser of the two evils?

Like many other Americans, I have through most of my adult life subscribed to the notion that it is our responsibility to cast a vote for a candidate, even if we find both (or all) of the choices distasteful. In other words, we needed to decide who was the lesser of the two evils.

I have been giving this more thought, however. Doesn't a vote for the lesser of the evils still count as a vote for the system that keeps the evils coming? Shouldn't we be working for candidates who will back our principles, even if they are from a third party whose chances aren't rated as very good by the corporate ("mainstream") media?

This thought came as many Libertarians and Constitution Party supporters are thinking about the advantages of having Bob Barr and Chuck Baldwin (their Presidential candidates) run on the same ticket. Unfortunately, because of doctrinaire elements in both parties, this is unlikely to happen; but we need to keep in mind that they are choices in the States (including Ohio) that will put them on the ballot.

Look at the two Senators. If you do not genuinely feel that either of them will "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution," or that either of them will pursue policies that are beneficial for the nation, you have two choices: You can leave the President box blank, or you can cast a protest vote for a third-party candidate. And if, in discussing this, anyone questions you, just ask the question PerryJ did in the Ohio Freedom Alliance forum:

"America, how is the lesser of two evils working out for you now?"