The burning issue

We face many issues in national politics today. Building our economic base to employ our people, resolving our foreign wars, maintaining value in our currency, ensuring access to health care, and ensuring the stability of Social Security and Medicare, are just a few of them. We hear debates between candidates that offer many approaches to these and other issues.

However, all of these discussions boil down to one burning issue. Its resolution will determine how, and how well, the others will be addressed. It is this: Do we have the confidence to govern ourselves?

 

Those who have that confidence favor local solutions, personal responsibility, defense at home, and entrepreneurship. They share Thomas Jefferson's vision of a nation of farmers and artisans, living perhaps more modestly, but in harmonious and spiritually satisfying relationships with God and their neighbors. They want to enjoy the wealth that they have created through their own efforts. They want charity to come from the heart as they cheerfully give of their bounty. Jeffersonians seek impartial justice. They seek the highest expression of human creativity and service.  They are willing to accept the risks of financial insecurity in exchange for the blessings of liberty.

Those who lack that confidence favor top-down solutions, collectivism, empire-building and corporate investment. They share Alexander Hamilton's vision of a wealthy and powerful nation that builds on the sacrifices of its people.  They find that religion and tradition hinder progress. Their notion of charity is doling out money from the government as it confiscates the work of others. Hamiltonians seek a perversion of justice that favors their friends. They seek productivity and a strong bottom line above everything else, and condition the people to accept the loss of liberty in the name of personal security.

This burning issue has been with us since 1787. In the early years of the Republic, the clash between the Jeffersonian and Hamiltonian visions provided a creative tension that helped build the nation. When Andrew Jackson shut down the Bank of the United States, the Jeffersonians prevailed, but only for a generation. Abraham Lincoln's crusade to "save the Union" supposedly resolved the issue for all time, as the Hamiltonians gained, and continue to hold, the upper hand.

Today, we see where Hamiltonian corporatism has taken us. The federal government has nearly destroyed the initiative of the people and the states to solve their own problems. It has confiscated the wealth of its people in taxes and destroyed the desire to create new business opportunities. American manufacturing has become a faint memory of the past, as its jobs and money have been exported to other lands. The Hamiltonians have built a "nanny state" that has even turned many of our adults into spoiled children living as its dependents; instead of the productive, contributing people God meant us to be. It has brought us to economic ruin. The near future is likely to bring poverty for the majority, hyperinflation, slavery to the state, mass frustration, and revolution.

The differences between Democrat and Republican, "conservative" and "liberal" are no longer relevant. Both Republicans and Democrats are Hamiltonians. The Jeffersonians have been relegated to minor parties, Tea Parties, media obscurity; and being informed by their self-appointed betters that they and their Presidential candidate, Ron Paul, are "wingnuts" unworthy of being reported in the media, let alone enjoying a place at the table.

The Jeffersonian and Hamiltonian visions are utterly incompatible. Those who would harmonize the two positions might as well try to make a compromise between good and evil. The only people who benefit from a powerful national government are bankers, the military-industrial and medical-insurance complexes, and the politicians they can buy in Washington. The rest of us not only suffer financially, we suffer from the wasteful loss of lives in wars that have nothing to do with defense, and everything to do with greed.

Albert Einstein once defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result. Every election in the last sixty years has replayed the same struggle. Yet, regardless of which party has been in power, the result has been the same: more power and more money to Washington, less freedom and less opportunity for us. We keep hoping against hope that things will be better after the next election. We should have learned by now that elections alone cannot fix a corrupt system.

Can we cure our own insanity? Right now, we can work with our state legislators to defend our interest through nullification and secession, but this opportunity will not last long. We can assert the self-confidence to rule ourselves and to cultivate the virtues we need to maintain a free society. Or we can settle for the tyrant who promises security, even after he begins to jail and murder us by the tens of thousands. Do not say it cannot happen here. We are human. We have known for thousands of years that our actions will eventually bring predictable consequences. The laws of human behavior do not respect "American exceptionalism."

This is the burning issue: do we have the confidence to rule ourselves? Its resolution will determine how, and how well, the others will be addressed.

Sound familiar?

From the British blog Autonomous Mind, entitled "Revolution Time"

If you take a couple of minutes to read this op-ed in the Irish Independent by Eamon Keane, one can quickly identify a number of parallels with our own Westminster Parliament and self serving politicians.

Some of the sentiments that stand out include: ‘Power no longer rests with our impotent national parliament’… ‘Truth be told, it’s been finished for a long time, made redundant by the actions of our politicians’…  and ”Our Dail* is also doomed because it is based on a political system where getting re-elected takes precedence over the national interest’.  Keane may be writing about Ireland, but it all has a very familiar ring to it.

But the greatest resonance can be found in the most thought provoking part of the piece:

We are in the worst crisis in our history and our parliament is impotent.
Is there any hope for democracy? Yes. While the Dail may be dead a new parliament is emerging. It is to be found in ordinary people, community and support groups who come together to discuss a way forward. A second wave is already there though social networks.

Bullseye.

One commenter to the post suggested that the most effective uprising would be through organizations similar to the Tea Parties.

* Gaelic name for the Irish Parliament

Waters over the damn

Mohandas Gandhi, one of the wisest men of the last century, once said, "First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win."

Evidently threatened by President Obama's plummeting approval ratings, and utterly unwilling to read the 6" high printing on the wall, the Congressional Black Caucus leadership has decided to start the attack phase against Tea Parties and other libertarian Americans.

Being one of those allegedly "racist" crackers myself, there isn't much I can say that would help, so I will defer to Congressional Black Caucus member Rep. Allen West (R-Florida), as reported in The Hill:

Rep. West

"When you start using words such as lynching ... that's a reprehensible word and I think we should we should move away from that language." West said on "Fox & Friends."

"One of the things I'm starting to think about is reconsidering my membership in the Congressional Black Caucus, because I don't think they are moving in the right manner toward solving the problems in not just the black community, but all of America."

After making his comments, West sent a letter to Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Missouri), chairman of the CBC, demanding that he denounce comments by Carson and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-California), At a town-hall meeting earlier this month, Waters said the Tea Party "can go straight to hell."

"I believe it is incumbent on you to both condemn these types of hate-filled ocmments, and to disassociate the Congressional Black Caucus from these types of remarks," West wrote. "Otherwise, I will have to seriously reconsider my membership within the organization."

West went on to argue that Carson's charges against the Tea Party were "racist."
"Congressman Carson's desire to generally criticize a large grassroots group as racist is baseless and desperate," West wrote. "When individuals believe they are defeated in a political disagreement, they normally resort to race-baiting, which in my opinion is itself racist."

Since Rep. Waters represents a district in Southern California, she might want to think about this.

Not to mention the contempt they are heaping on the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whom they profess to idolize.

I can only imagine what the late Elizabeth Wright would have said about all this...

Why do we have to go to the Brits to get the good stuff?

Case in point: this piece from The (London) Telegraph, which documents an exchange between an Iowa Tea Party activist and President Obama, in which both agree on one (and only one) thing -- we need to civilize our rhetoric.

The Tea Parties sounded the alarm

Jeff Jacoby at Townhall.com likens the Tea Parties to a small-town fire siren -- loud, irritating, and absolutely necessary to summon the volunteer firemen (something I remember very well from my childhood in Greentown, Ohio). Now we hear the Left complaining that the Tea Parties are loud, irritating, and relentless. Sen. John Kerry wants them silenced by the mass media. But what about the fire?

The Tea Party is racist

Uh huh.

Then how do you explain this article from The Root, a blog devoted to African-American news and commentary?

And this, a video in which Congressman Allen West defends Tea Party Republicans?

Kabuki theatre

I have heard the debt ceiling debates described as "kabuki theatre," a highly stylized Japanese form of drama and dance with elaborate sets and costumes. Those who refer to the debates as "theatre" are strongly implying that they expect those debates to achieve little or nothing. Jim Quinn, in The Burning Platform, finds that, to the mainstream media, anyone not willing to act according to the kabuki rules is by definition an "extremist."

Kabuki would not work without the backstage people who create the sets and design the costumes. In the same fashion the Congressional kabuki requires smoky backrooms, Madison Avenue advertising people, and Congressional staffers to design the talking points.

Everything we have heard boils down to a few talking points on each side (quoting Mr. Quinn):

Republican Talking Points 

• We refuse to increase taxes on all Americans to fix a spending problem.
• Spending has been out of control since Obama took control of the White House (reference $800 billion stimulus package, home buyer tax credit, and Obamacare).
• Say that Obama doesn’t have a plan and mention his ten year budget.
• Tell the American people Republicans are fiscally responsible and the real party of change.
• The people told them to change Washington with the 2010 election.

Democratic Talking Points 

• The Tea Party EXTREMISTS have hijacked the Republican Party and want to destroy the country by forcing the country to default on its debt.
• The Bush tax cuts and the Bush wars are to blame for the entire increase in debt and deficits.
• The Republicans want to protect the richest Americans while cutting Medicare and Social Security benefits for the poor.
• The Democratic Party will never cut Medicare or Social Security.
• The Democrats are willing to compromise and act like adults, while the evil Republicans resist all offers to strike a deal.

Mr. Quinn then brings on board political consultant James Carville, who makes a revealing comment about the groupthink inside the Beltway:

Carville’s shrill diatribe against the Tea Party freshman in Congress was the most humorous piece of misinformation of his entire rant. He inadvertently struck upon the most revealing point of this entire debt ceiling farce. He said:


“These Tea Party congressmen act as if they don’t care if they are re-elected in 2012.” (Emphasis his)

Mr Quinn continues:

And there you have it. These people are not doing what is in their own best interest to get re-elected. They have shocked the vested interests in Washington by sticking to their principles and not playing the games that left the country bankrupt. This is an outrage to non-principled shills like Carville and Rove. This behavior is declared EXTREMIST by the liberal pundits and self interested Washington hacks. People acting in the long- term best interests of the country are seen as EXTREME by neo-cons like Charles Krauthammer and moderate RINOs like John “Crash” McCain. The entrenched Washington ruling class is uncomfortable with any change. The establishment would prefer to lie to the American public again and let future generations worry about the $100 trillion unfunded obligations they’ve created. 

Only in America would people trying to balance the national budget be branded extremists.

I believe that history will rehabilitate Barry Goldwater, who fought the liberal establishment of that day (and was buried by it). At the 1964 Republican National Convention, his quotation of Marcus Tullius Cicero proclaimed a truth that gives courage to people in every age who struggle in liberty's cause:

"Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." (Emphasis mine)

Getting real

Over on Facebook, an interesting discussion has taken place on my friend Bill Yarbrough's wall about how (or whether) the Libertarian Party should interact with the Tea Party. The struggle in the Party is between those who would insist on absolute fidelity to the Party Platform in all decisions, and those who understand that (as my Republican political mentor, Robert E. Levitt* put it) "the purpose of the ... Party is to elect candidates." In other words, we need to be faithful to our values, but understand that, in politics, our values are a destination. Decisions made by Libertarian officeholders will fall short of the Platform's goals, but the Libertarian must be held accountable for bringing us closer to them.

Bill, who has the virtue of being both a Libertarian and a realist, puts it this way:

I agree the country and state are not ready for a third party - and they don't have to be. The Libertarian brand simply has to overcome obscurity to the point that one really good candidate wins one prominant U.S. House seat. That should be ...the focus - one winnable race of note. From there, the sky's the limit. The LP needs to sink all its money into a winnable race before the [realists] of the world will find us worth their time.

A political party that cannot elect candidates is useless. On the other hand, neither of our major parties appear to be grounded in principle, even though many of their candidates and officeholders are personally so grounded.

On the Tea Party side, there is complete agreement on where we need to go -- and total confusion as to how to get there. Some Tea Partiers are libertarians who want less government across the board, but others are conservatives who embrace the social constraints and militarism favored by many Republicans. Because many of the most visible supporters of the Tea Party are Republicans, there is a perception that the Tea Partiers are nothing but GOP hacks. Part of this confusion stems from the amorphousness of the Tea Party. The Tea Parties and related organizations stem from many roots. As Bill Yarbrough observed, to properly judge a Tea Party, one has to look at each individual local organization.

Leadership and members in both movements need to understand that candidates and officeholders can only work with the legislation as it is. Legislators can amend bills and try to persuade others toward our Platform goals -- but they can only vote on what is in front of them.

Thomas Sowell reminds us of this reality in today's Townhall:

One of the good things about the Tea Party movement is that it resisted the temptation to actually form a third political party, which has been an exercise in futility, time and time again, under the American electoral system.


But, if the Tea Party movement within the Republican Party becomes just a rule-or-ruin minority, then they might just as well have formed a separate third party and gone on to oblivion.

It is not in the interest, either of the Tea Party or of the people, to insist that Congressmen or state legislators commit political suicide in support of a long-range goal. For example, I agree that Congress should take a hard line both against raising the debt limit and raising tax rates; but if we don't completely balance the budget, we are not sacrificing our principles. We are still moving toward our goals. We are preparing Congress and the people for a greater victory later on. The point is, that victory will not come until we take the intermediate steps.

On a personal note, Mr. Sowell also explains why I should not run for office:

Writers can advocate things that have no chance at the moment, for their very writing about those things persuasively can make them possible at some future date. But to adopt the same approach as an elected member of Congress risks losing both the present and the future.

* Robert E. Levitt (1926-1997) was a Republican state representative and longtime chairman of the Stark County Republican Party. I worked as his executive director 1978-1982, where I got quite an education in political reality.

New links

I am continuing to add and edit my Links page (on the menu under the masthead). Here are my latest additions:

• A listing of Ohio Tea Parties (also in the sidebar under "Join the Ohio Liberty Movement")
• Bill Yarbrough's Yarblog, a Libertarian perspective on Ohio politics
• Townhall.com, a conservative publication that contains many articles of interest to libertarians.
• TheTeaParty.net, a national clearinghouse of information for Tea Parties.

The Tea Parties STILL don't get it

Update April 1: The rally was not heavily publicized in the media, and likely for good reason. The turnout, estimated at 200, was pathetic. The event was well organized, but very poorly publicized. (I did not know of the rally until the day it was being held, and then only through Facebook). Here is the UPI report, for what it's worth.

More than a year ago, I warned that if the Tea Parties started drinking the Washington Kool-Aid, they would fail. I warned last August that Glenn Beck's 8-28 rally would not accomplish anything politically (though, perhaps, it did morally). So what is Tea Party Nation planning? Yup. Yet another rally in the imperial capital, which they call "Continuing Revolution 3.31."

It will surely fail. Even Congressmen who were elected as Tea Party supporters have failed the movement. With extremely few exceptions (starting with Ron Paul), the Washington environment corrupts whomever it touches. For the rest of my reasoning, I yield my space to Mike Tuggle at Rebellion (emphasis added):

How, then, can concerned patriots hope to bring about real reform? Go where real battles are being fought for the reforms the people demand, and you'll find yourself at the local and State level. The reasons for this are simple. For one thing, DC is too divided politically, with conservative States grappling endlessly with liberal States for mythical "one-size-fits-all" legislation.

Worse, the DC bureaucracy actively opposes the reforms the people of the States so desperately need -- how else can you explain Obama siding with Mexico to oppose the people of Arizona to control the border? State initiatives not only work, they send shudders down the jellied spines of the ruling elite -- and if you don't think so, read the ruling elite's frantic denunciations of State efforts to solve the problems DC won't, and ask yourself why these efforts terrify our rulers.

Here's the entire text of a recent email from a [Rebellion] reader:

How can we get more involved in FREEDOM?
There's no mystery here. If you want to catch fish, you head toward water, not the desert.

Graphic by Mike Tuggle at Rebellion.

SB 5 passes House, awaits Gov. Kasich's signature

Here is the Associated Press's take, from the Washington Post website. The bill's passage was prominent in the national news last night.

The bill passed by a vote of 53-44. Two Republican State Senators who objected to the bill, Timothy Grendell (R-Chesterland) and Bill Seitz (R-Cincinnati) questioned its legality. I have extensively discussed the ramifications of the bill with a teacher in the Support SB5 Facebook page. News reports indicate that, for teachers, the bill will base merit heavily on test scores. This basically is forcing teachers to teach by rote, which only forces facts down children. It does not teach them to think or reason. I am not familiar enough with education to suggest a better way to reward merit in education; but I cannot believe that one does not exist. The teaching profession will be hard-hit by this bill; and I would urge the members of the House-Senate conference committee to weigh these concerns heavily when finalizing the bill for Gov. Kasich's signature.

I have supported SB5, and continue to do so; but I am not satisfied with the result. The purpose of the bill should be to help the State of Ohio contain payroll costs, not to punish certain groups of workers or impose burdens unevenly across state employees. With this in mind, I quote with approval a statement by State Rep. Matt Szollosi (D-Oregon, reported in the Columbus Dispatch): 

These are not numbers on a page or lines on a graph, they are people with families ... and they do not deserve to be slapped in the face and put further into harm's way because liberty groups or tea party groups or whoever is pulling the Republican strings right now have demonized public workers.

From being involved with the Support SB5 Facebook discussion, I can tell you that far too many supporters have demonized public workers. This is just as wrong as the selfishness shown by many of its opponents. Far too few of us (on either side) are even trying to look at this issue rationally.

The unions are expected to call for a referendum in November to repeal this bill. The campaign will be bitter and will divide the state politically in a way that we have not experienced since the Right to Work debate in 1958. Unions may be smaller and less powerful than they were 53 years ago, but they still command a great deal of support.

We can only hope that Gov. Kasich and the Republican leadership in the General Assembly have soberly weighed the advantages of SB5 against what could become a very long, hot summer.

The politics of freedom is like an unfair basketball game

... so says Charlie Earl in littlestuff-minoosha using an apt comparison with March Madness. While I agree that blunt talk is necessary, it need not be uncivil. For example, in my less than humble opinion, there is no excuse for namecalling or personal attacks -- ever. But stating the truth honestly and without regard for whether or not the truth is pleasant is absolutely necessary.

The liberty movement is in the unfortunate position of having to work twice as hard to accomplish half as much. We therefore must maintain a "laser-like" focus on our "goal of restoring our constitutional republic," and as Charlie writes, avoid rancor within the movement.

However, if we are to maintain that laser-like focus, we have to agree on our priorities. If you have not yet commented on my Wednesday post on setting priorities, please do so now.

Advice to the Left: Look in the mirror

In the wake of the mass killings committed by Jared Loughner in Arizona, we are now hearing pious words from commentators like MS-NBC's Keith Olbermann (see Washington Post article), who charges that the Tea Party movement is inciting violence with its rhetoric. He also wants us to believe that Sarah Palin's crosshairs logo applied to a list of incumbent Congressmen she wants to defeat are having the same effect, and that Glenn Beck is inciting revolution.


Please.

No one of sound mind condones what Jared Loughner did. He should be prosecuted and given a fair trial according to our rule of law. If he is competent to stand trial and the evidence is conclusive that he committed the crime, he should be tried and, if found guilty, sentenced appropriately.

So far, reports of Jared Loughner's politics have shown considerable ambiguity. The hook the Left seems to be trying to use against the Tea Party and conservative commentators is that he favors a gold-backed currency (honest money). 

I have followed the Tea Party movement very closely almost since its inception, and I can say with complete confidence that neither the Tea Party movement, Sarah Palin, nor Glenn Beck* have ever advocated the use of violence in pursuit of liberty. There may be a few commentators in the extreme fringes of the militia movement doing so on short-wave radio; but they have small followings, and they deserve to be condemned (but not censored) for their views.

It has been evident for several months that the Left has desperately sought to find a violent event on which to hang the liberty movement, and apparently they think they have found one here. But the truth is, the liberty movement believes strongly in the rule of law. Our principal objections to recent Administrations has been their contempt for the rule of law as embodied in the Constitution of the United States.

The Left needs to look in the mirror. Can its followers honestly say that our rhetoric is any more violent than that of Saul Alinsky or Van Jones? Or for those few who can remember history, the radical movements so beloved by the Left in the Sixties, such as the Weather Underground and the Black Panther Party?

My challenge to the Left: Use reason to attack our positions. Stop trying to run us out of the public space. If you want domestic peace, respect honest dissent.

Update 1/10: The Hill, a newspaper and blog reporting on Congress, notes that "Rep. Robert Brady (D-Pa.) reportedly plans to introduce legislation that would make it a federal crime to use language or symbols that could be perceived as threatening or inciting violence against a federal official or member of Congress." Of equal interest is the comment below the post by Creed, reminds me that I have a short memory:

But putting cross-hairs on Pres. Bush, while he's making an address, on CNN or adding the words "s[***]er wanted" when his picture is posted on a late-night talk show is all right? Or a "documentary" on the Day the President Died (Bush, of course) That's not inflammatory rhetoric, is it?

 No. Only when it comes from the Right, apparently.


* Faithful readers of this space know that I have vigorously criticized both Mrs. Palin and Mr. Beck when the occasion called for it.

Three questions to ask in any political discussion

Here are three questions every liberty activist and Tea Partier should ask whenever a political discussion comes up on pending federal legislation. They will help educate others and strengthen the movement. These come from Karl Uppiano at American Thinker.

1. Which article of the Constitution gives government the authority to do this?

2. How does this help reduce the deficit and balance the budget?

3. Why does this have to be mandatory and not voluntary?

 

 

Peace on Earth?

[The angels sang,] "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests." -- Luke 2:14 (NIV)

[Jesus said,] "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword." -- Matthew 10:34

Should we be at war in Iraq and Afghanistan? This issue divides both the Tea Parties and American Christianity.

At Christmas, we tend to quote the angels as singing "Peace on earth, goodwill to men," but what the angels promised was not the absence of war. What they promised was a way for Christ's followers to find inner peace.

On the other hand, Matthew 10:34 has Jesus saying something very uncomfortable -- something that many Christians want to pass over. He is not advocating war. The following verses (Matthew 10:35-42) state that those who choose to follow him run the risk of losing their families and even face violent persecution because of their faith.

Too many Christians, and too many in our movement, are willing to rationalize America's warmaking in Afghanistan and Iraq. They say we must "project our strength" to defend our freedom, when our experience since 2001 tells us the very opposite. The terrorism we experience in this country is a response to our aggression, not the cause of it.

We will not be free until we align our faith and our movement with the idea of a strong national defense within our borders, and a willingness to proclaim what the Bible really said in these passages. Until then, pro-war Christians and liberty activists will be rightly viewed as hypocritical liars.

America is great because she is good. When America ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.
-- Rev. John McDowell, sermon in New York September 3, 1922; quoted by Dwight D. Eisenhower in his final campaign speech November 4, 1952.*

Christians and liberty-minded people, wake up! If good is to prevail, we must act to bring about real peace -- in our hearts, and for our country.

I pray that you will enjoy the blessings of Christmas, and that the truth will set you free.

* This quotation is often misattributed to Alexis de Tocqueville in his book Democracy in America. It appears nowhere in that book.

Another reason not to get too excited about the GOP victory

Gary North, the contrarian economist and writer for LewRockwell.com, says that incoming U.S. House Speaker John Boehner will sell out the Tea Parties. How? By promising that the GOP will repeal Obamacare. If it fails now, they will keep up the pressure in the 2012 campaign, and elect a Republican President and U.S. Senate. In 2013, they will repeal Obamacare.

And then replace it with something else that will also be a budget-buster.

The truth is, the Good Old Boys of the GOP's first loyalty is to the Bigs: Big Business, Big Pharma, Big Oil, and Big Banking.

There is only one way to keep that from happening. We have to keep their feet to the fire on balancing the budget and limiting powers to those provided in the Constitution. Constantly.

The next two years could be grueling -- but the alternative would be a lot worse.

The state of secessionism in Ohio

Yesterday, in “Kerfuffle in Vermont,” I agreed with Kirkpatrick Sale that The Ohio Republic is not a “real secessionist movement.” Ohio does not have a secessionist movement; and in my view, that is not a problem. In this post, I shall explain why.

The idea that Ohio could secede from the union is a very new one. As far as I know, I made the first serious public reference to secession outside this blog at the Southwest Ohio Liberty Conference in Beavercreek, November 21, 2009 (photo at left). Those who were in attendance were remarkably open to secessionism. Ideas as radical as this take time and favorable events to take hold. We are not ready for such a movement.

Secondly, Ohio has a well-developed, well-coordinated liberty movement, in which the various Tea Parties, 9-12 Projects, and similar organizations are working together – thanks to the hard work of people like Joe Bozzi, Jason Rink, Jason Mihalick, and many others building the Ohio Freedom Alliance, the Ohio Liberty Council, and The Ohio Project (which is working to nullify forced health care). Ohioans who have thought about and discussed secession agree that it should be resorted to only when it becomes clearly evident that less radical measures, such as nullification, have been tried and failed. As I noted yesterday, nullification has not yet been tried in Ohio. If the result of next month’s election for the Ohio General Assembly proves favorable to the liberty movement, I anticipate that several nullification bills will be introduced and passed. If these and all else fail, I have little doubt that the liberty movement in Ohio can be persuaded to support secession – but such talk is clearly premature at this time.

Finally, we have to consider the fact that the success of any movement requires favorable public opinion. Frankly, the public opinion I have observed has viewed most existing secessionist movements as rather flaky. We do not need this kind of public relations baggage.

We have a good thing going in Ohio. We don’t need, and shouldn’t even want a secessionist organization at this time. If the situation changes in a way that would make such a movement desirable, we can reconsider.

Photo by Andy Myers

Don't mess with Texas

A crowd demonstrated in Austin, Texas on Monday in 104-degree heat, and the mainstream media can't be bothered. Not only did they demonstrate, as displayed below (and reported in Human Events); but their Governor Rick Perry reportedly got an icy reception from Emperor President Obama when he wanted to hand him a letter requesting additional federal help in protecting the southern border from drug cartels and gangs. Democratic politicians in Texas have become allergic to the President.

While most of the speakers were candidates running for state and local office as Republicans, the rally itself had a Tea Party flavor to it, albeit with a Texas twist.

Attendees carried signs with anti-Obama and anti-government messages, similar to Tea Party slogans:

• Rejecting Socialism is Patriotism
• I Love My Country, I Fear My Government
• Free Markets, Not Freeloaders.
• Sounds Like Marx, Acts Like Stalin, Must Be Obama

The Tea Party favorite “Don’t Tread on Me” flags were joined by the Texan “Come and Take It” rallying cry from their War of Independence against Mexico.

And there were plenty of signs that said “Hands Off Texas,” “Don’t Mess with Texas,” and “Secede.” [!]

This led Old Rebel at Rebellion to observe:

Readers send me emails asking if I think secession from the immoral empire will happen within our lifetimes. These days, it looks like it could be within a few months.

I don't think it will happen quite that soon. Keep in mind that, at the present time, no state is prepared to secede. None have an active state militia and none have developed an alternative currency; but the pressure is building. Americans have had enough of federal arrogance, and will soon be ready to throw it off.

Ohio will not secede on its own, but once the collapse begins, we will join most of the rest in finding our way out. I expect this to occur within the next two years.

The Tea Parties' dilemma

Does a grass-roots organization need to raise money? Or can it even survive if it doesn't? This is the question facing many Tea Party movements as they grapple with the fact that "money is the mother's milk of politics." * Here's what Kenneth B. Vogel writes in politico.com.

Many tea party organizations have shied away from the heavy-handed solicitations that flood the e-mail boxes of political activists. And the handful of tea party groups that have raised substantial amounts, either by embracing aggressive fundraising or through pre-existing connections to wealthy donors, are viewed suspiciously within the movement.

Local groups have been left to literally pass hats seeking donations at their meetings or rely on their organizers’ bank accounts, while some national groups have failed to live up to their bold fundraising predictions.

“I don’t blame them, since most of these people are so new to the process, and they don’t know anything beyond the protests, but at the end of the day, the energy and the passion will only take you so far,” said Ned Ryun, president of American Majority, a nonprofit group that teaches grass-roots conservative activists how to influence the political process. “Without money, nothing quite works like it could.”

The Tea Parties themselves need money less than do the candidates they favor. It runs against the grain of libertarianism to funnel money to a Tea Party, which then distributes it to candidates the group collectively favors, but which an individual may not.

Tea Parties need to steer members into the campaigns of those it likes, some of whom will do fundraising for those candidates. It does not have to be a corrupt bargain, as long as the candidates and the donors have a natural community of interest. But to completely ignore this reality will cause the Tea Parties to become nothing more than a "flash in the pan."

Virtual buckeye to Libertarian candidate for Secretary of State Charlie Earl (in Facebook).

* California politician Jesse Unruh said this in 1966.

Tea Party civics and the logic of lawyers

Now comes Joseph Becker, who in writing an opinion piece for the National Law Journal, holds that the "[Tea] Party members' reading of the 10th Amendment to deny broad power to the federal government is without support in legislative history or Supreme Court case law."

The summary is correct. It doesn't. However, there's a flaw in Mr. Becker's logic, as we shall see presently. He begins by citing the response of the First Congress to anti-federalist objections that the Tenth Amendment should deny the federal government all powers not expressly delegated to it by the Constitution. In the debates, James Madison countered, "it was impossible to confine a Government to the exercise of express powers; there must necessarily be admitted powers by implication."

Mr. Becker continues:

The proposal was rejected. Chief Justice John Marshall, in McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), thought this bit of negative legislative history profoundly significant: It meant that the federal government had implied powers inferable from those actually granted. A wooden reading of the amendment, favored by grand simplifiers of the Tea Party, would not disclose this hidden truth.

A "wooden" reading? Do I detect a hint of bias? Here is what the distinguished New York attorney says about Tea Parties:

The party's affection for the 10th Amendment exudes something else: an aroma, not of tea but of the foul smell of secession. In Texas, the air is particularly heavy with the scent. It is apparently not enough that the calamitous Civil War was fought to put an end to such talk. Nor, it seems, is it significant to that state's current governor that, as a legal proposition, the Constitution prohibits secession: This is an "indestructible union," said the Supreme Court in Texas v. White (1868), a post-War holding that the purported secession by Texas (ironically) was a nullity. The principle is now indubitable.

I'll get to Texas v. White in a minute.

Mr. Becker continues by citing U.S. Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story in what he called a "dismissive" construction of the Tenth Amendment, quoting the good Justice in 1833 as writing that the amendment "could only 'reserve' that which existed before." A state cannot reserve a power that never existed.

This argument is logically sound, except for one thing. The thirteen original states, Vermont, Texas, Hawaii, and (technically) California, were de jure independent nations prior to their ratifications of the Constitution. Every state is required as a condition of admission to ratify the Constitution. This is usually done -- as it was in Ohio in November 1802 -- in the form of an ordinance by the new state's Constitutional Convention. This suggests to me that for every state, for the brief moment between the adoption of its initial state Constitution and the passage of its ratification ordinance, was de facto an independent nation, with full sovereignty. In other words, all the powers that apply to independent nations were "reserved" to the states prior to their ratification of the U.S. Constitution, if only for a brief moment. I am not suggesting here that any state other than those I named above even thought of this (though four of the original thirteen did expressly reserve the right of secession in their ratification statements). Nor am I suggesting that any of them had any desire in that moment to bolt from the union. Nor am I suggesting that they were in any condition to do so if they had tried. But this is a legal discussion, and as a matter of constitutional law and procedure, this appears to be the truth to me.

Mr. Becker closes by pulling out Texas v. White, a U.S. Supreme Court decision that was written in the heat of Reconstruction, at a time when the United States had completed its conquest by force of another nation, the Confederate States of America. The Confederate States used the established processes of law to secede; but the unionists wanted to use the law to cement the military victory. In other words, he who uses Texas v. White as the basis of an argument against secession is being hypocritical. Why? Because he is asserting on the one hand, that we are a nation of laws, and the Supreme Court is the final interpreter of the law. On the other hand, as I just wrote, he is stating that might makes right. Now which argument should we expect from a professional who has sworn to uphold the law as an officer of the court?

Let me remind the reader of a contrary argument, made by Judge Harris in the case of Chancely v. Bailey and Cleveland, 37 Georgia Reports 532 (1868) * While it expresses the minority opinion of that court, I believe it states the truth about the adoption of the U.S. Constitution:

If any prominent advocate of the Federal Constitution had … intimated an opinion, that by ratification of the Federal Constitution, the states surrendered their separate individuality and sovereignty as States, such was the extreme jealousy for the maintenance of State sovereignty, [that] such an opinion… would have led to the prompt and overwhelming rejection of that instrument.

The intent of the framers of the Constitution and of those who attended the conventions to ratify it is quite clear and a matter of public record. They did not make the right of secession explicit, because they believed that rights are given by God, not any government; and "whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government..." The Declaration of Independence is not a legal document, but here in Ohio (and many other states), we have a Constitution that asserts the same right (Article I, Section 2 of the Ohio Constitution).

This Court finds in favor of the Tea Parties. Case dismissed.

* On page 350 of the link.

Virtual buckeye to Bill Miller at Secession and Nullification News and Information.