President
Theodore Roosevelt; Opening of the Jamestown Exposition; Norfolk, VA,
April 26, 1907
“We of this mighty western Republic
have to grapple with the dangers that spring from popular self-government
tried on a scale incomparably vaster than ever before in the history
of mankind, and from an abounding material prosperity greater also
than anything which the world has hitherto seen.
As regards the first set of dangers,
it behooves us to remember that men can never escape being governed.
Either they must govern themselves or they must submit to being
governed by others. If from lawlessness or fickleness, from
folly or self-indulgence, they refuse to govern themselves then
most assuredly in the end they will have to be governed from the
outside. They can prevent the need of government from without
only by showing they possess the power of government from within.
A sovereign cannot make excuses for his failures; a sovereign must
accept the responsibility for the exercise of power that inheres
in him; and where, as is true in our Republic, the people are sovereign,
then the people must show a sober understanding and a sane and steadfast
purpose if they are to preserve that orderly liberty upon which
as a foundation every republic must rest.”
[President Theodore
Roosevelt; Opening of the Jamestown Exposition; Norfolk, VA, April
26, 1907]
People of all races, genders, political beliefs, sexual orientations, and nearly all religions are welcome here. All are treated equally under REAL “law”. The only way to remain truly free and equal under the civil law is to avoid seeking government civil services, benefits, property, special or civil status, exemptions, privileges, or special treatment. All such pursuits of government services or property require individual and lawful consent to a franchise and the surrender of inalienable constitutional rights AND EQUALITY in the process, and should therefore be AVOIDED. The rights and equality given up are the “cost” of procuring the “benefit” or property from the government, in fact. Nothing in life is truly “free”. Anyone who claims that such “benefits” or property should be free and cost them nothing is a thief who wants to use the government as a means to STEAL on his or her behalf. All just rights spring from responsibilities/obligations under the laws of a higher power. If that higher power is God, you can be truly and objectively free. If it is government, you are guaranteed to be a slave because they can lawfully set the cost of their property as high as they want as a Merchant under the U.C.C. If you want it really bad from people with a monopoly, then you will get it REALLY bad. Bend over. There are NO constitutional limits on the price government can charge for their monopoly services or property. Those who want no responsibilities can have no real/PRIVATE rights, but only privileges dispensed to wards of the state which are disguised to LOOK like unalienable rights. Obligations and rights are two sides of the same coin, just like self-ownership and personal responsibility. For the biblical version of this paragraph, read 1 Sam. 8:10-22. For the reason God answered Samuel by telling him to allow the people to have a king, read Deut. 28:43-51, which is God’s curse upon those who allow a king above them. Click Here for a detailed description of the legal, moral, and spiritual consequences of violating this paragraph.
[Family Guardian Fellowship Website Opening Page; http://famguardian.org]
Mr. Logan: "...Natural laws can
not be created, repealed, or modified by legislation. Congress should
know there are many things which it can not do..."
"It is now proposed to make
the Federal Government the guardian of its citizens. If that should
be done, the Nation soon must perish. There can only be a free nation
when the people themselves are free and administer the government
which they have set up to protect their rights. Where the general
government must provide work, and incidentally food and clothing
for its citizens, freedom and individuality will be destroyed and
eventually the citizens will become serfs to the general government..."
[Congressional Record-Senate,
Volume 77- Part 4, June 10, 1933, Page 12522
SOURCE:
http://famguardian.org/TaxFreedom/CitesByTopic/Sovereignty-CongRecord-Senate-JUNE101932.pdf]
The right to be
proceeded against only by indictment, and the right to a trial by
twelve jurors, are of the same nature, and are subject to the same
judgment, and the people in the several states have the same right
to provide by their organic law for the change of both or either.
Under this construction of the [176 U.S. 581, 605] amendment
there can be no just fear that the liberties of the citizen will
not be carefully protected by the states respectively. It is a case
of self-protection, and the people can be trusted to look out and
care for themselves. There is no reason to doubt their willingness
or their ability to do so, and when providing in their Constitution
and legislation for the manner in which civil or criminal actions
shall be tried, it is
in entire conformity with the character of the Federal government
that they should have the right to decide for themselves what shall
be the form and character of the procedure in such trials, whether
there shall be an indictment or an information only, whether there
shall be a jury of twelve or a lesser number, and whether the verdict
must be unanimous or not. These are matters which have no relation
to the character of the Federal government. As was stated by Mr.
Justice Brewer, in delivering the opinion of the court in Brown
v. New Jersey,
175 U.S. 172 , 20 Sup.
Ct. Rep. 77, 44 L. ed. --, the state has full control over the procedure
in its courts, both in civil and criminal cases, subject only to
the qualification that such procedure must not work a denial of
fundamental rights or conflict with specific and applicable provisions
of the Federal Constitution. The legislation in question
is not, in our opinion, open to either of these objections.
[Maxwell v. Dow,
176 U.S. 581 (1900)]
"Go to the ant, you sluggard!
Consider her ways and be wise, which, having no captain, overseer
or ruler, provides her supplies in the summer, and gathers her food
in the harvest, how long will you slumber, O sluggard? When
will you rise from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the hands to sleep--so
shall your poverty come on you like a prowler [and government dependence],
and your need like an armed man."
[Prov. 6:11, Bible,
NKJV]
[INTERPRETATION:
Laziness allows us to be robbed of our heritage and our birthright,
our dignity and our sovereignty, because we are victimized by it
and will end up surrendering our rights to the government out of
desperation in order to get the sustenance that we were otherwise
unwilling to earn. This makes the government into a Robinhood,
which using the tools of democracy, turns a sword against
its own citizens to rob from the rich to give to the poor.
This leads to the downfall of democracy eventually because the government
becomes an agent of plunder.]
The determination of the
Framers Convention and the ratifying conventions to preserve complete
and unimpaired state self-government in all matters not committed
to the general government is one of the plainest facts which emerges
from the history of their deliberations. And adherence
to that determination is incumbent equally upon the federal government
and the states. State
powers can neither be appropriated on the one hand nor abdicated
on the other. As this court said in Texas v. White, 7 Wall. 700,
725, 'The preservation of the States, and the maintenance of their
governments, are as much within the design and care of the Constitution
as the preservation of the Union and the maintenance of the National
government. The Constitution, in all its provisions,
looks to an indestructible Union, composed of indestructible States.'
Every journey to a forbidden end begins with the first step; and
the danger of such a step by the federal government in the direction
of taking over the powers of the states is that the end of the journey
may find the states so despoiled of their powers, or-what may amount
to the same thing-so [298 U.S. 238, 296]
relieved of the responsibilities which possession of the powers
necessarily enjoins, as to reduce them to little more than geographical
subdivisions of the national domain. It is safe to say that if,
when the Constitution was under consideration, it had been thought
that any such danger lurked behind its plain words, it would never
have been ratified.
And the Constitution itself
is in every real sense a law-the lawmakers being the people themselves,
in whom under our system all political power and sovereignty
XE "SOVEREIGNTY:Political power and sovereignty"
primarily resides, and
through whom such power and sovereignty primarily speaks. It is
by that law, and not otherwise, that the legislative, executive,
and judicial agencies which it created exercise such political authority
as they have been permitted to possess. The Constitution
speaks for itself in terms so plain that to misunderstand their
import is not rationally possible. 'We the People of the United
States,' it says, 'do ordain and establish this Constitution.' Ordain
and establish! These are definite words of enactment, and without
more would stamp what follows with the dignity and character of
law. The framers of the Constitution, however, were not content
to let the matter rest here, but provided explicitly-'This Constitution,
and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance
thereof; ... shall be the supreme Law of the Land.' (Const. art.
6, cl. 2.) The supremacy
of the Constitution as law is thus declared without qualification.
That supremacy is absolute; the supremacy of a statute enacted by
Congress is not absolute but conditioned upon its being made in
pursuance of the Constitution. And a judicial tribunal,
clothed by that instrument with complete judicial power, and, therefore,
by the very nature of the power, required to ascertain and apply
the law to the facts in every case or proceeding properly brought
for adjudication, must apply the supreme law and reject the inferior
stat- [298 U.S. 238, 297] ute whenever
the two conflict. In the discharge of that duty, the opinion of
the lawmakers that a statute passed by them is valid must be given
great weight, Adkins v. Children's Hospital,
261 U.S. 525, 544 , 43 S.Ct. 394, 24 A.L.R. 1238; but their
opinion, or the court's opinion, that the statute will prove greatly
or generally beneficial is wholly irrelevant to the inquiry. Schechter
Poultry Corp. v. United States,
295 U.S. 495, 549 , 550 S., 55 S.Ct. 837, 97 A.L.R. 947.
[Carter v. Carter Coal Co.,
298 U.S. 238 (1936)]
THE ATLANTIC CHARTER
The President of the United States
of America and the Prime Minister, Mr. Churchill, representing His
Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom, being met together,
deem it right to make known certain common principles in the national
policies of their respective countries on which they base their
hopes for a better future for the world.
First, their countries seek no aggrandizement,
territorial or other;
Second, they desire to see no territorial
changes that do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the
peoples concerned;
Third, they respect
the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under
which they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and
self government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived
of them;
Fourth, they will endeavor, with
due respect for their existing obligations, to further the enjoyment
by all States, great or small, victor or vanquished, of access,
on equal terms, to the trade and to the raw materials of the world
which are needed for their economic prosperity;
Fifth, they desire to bring about
the fullest collaboration between all nations in the economic field
with the object of securing, for all, improved labor standards,
economic advancement and social security;
Sixth, after the final destruction
of the Nazi tyranny, they hope to see established a peace which
will afford to all nations the means of dwelling in safety within
their own boundaries, and which will afford assurance that all the
men in all the lands may live out their lives in freedom from fear
and want;
Seventh, such a peace should enable
all men to traverse the high seas and oceans without hindrance;
Eighth, they believe that all of
the nations of the world, for realistic as well as spiritual reasons
must come to the abandonment of the use of force. Since no future
peace can be maintained if land, sea or air armaments continue to
be employed by nations which threaten, or may threaten, aggression
outside of their frontiers, they believe, pending the establishment
of a wider and permanent system of general security, that the disarmament
of such nations is essential. They will likewise aid and encourage
all other practicable measures which will lighten for peace-loving
peoples the crushing burden of armaments.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Winston S. Churchill
Source: Samuel Rosenman, ed.,
Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, vol.10 (1938-1950),
314.
[SOURCE:
http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/democrac/53.htm]
The obvious purpose of the statute
is to protect existing Government, not from change by peaceable,
lawful and constitutional means, but from change by violence, revolution
and terrorism. That it is within the power of the Congress to protect
the Government of the United States from armed rebellion is a proposition
which requires little discussion.
Whatever theoretical
merit there may be to the argument that there is a "right" to rebellion
against dictatorial governments is without force where the existing
structure of the government provides for peaceful and orderly change.
We reject any principle of governmental helplessness in the face
of preparation for revolution, which principle, carried to its logical
conclusion, must lead to anarchy. No one could conceive that it
is not within the power of Congress to prohibit acts intended to
overthrow the Government by force and violence. The question with
which we are concerned here is not whether Congress has such power,
but whether the means which it has employed conflict with the First
and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution.
[. . .]
3. In three cases, we have considered
the scope and application of the power of the Government to exclude,
deport, or denaturalize aliens because of their advocacy or their
beliefs. In United States
ex rel. Turner v. Williams, 194 U.S. 279, we held that the First
Amendment did not disable Congress from directing the exclusion
of an alien found in an administrative proceeding to be an anarchist.
"[A]s long as human governments endure," we said, "they cannot be
denied the power of self-preservation, as that question is presented
here." [341 U.S. 531] 194 U.S. at 294. In Schneiderman
v. United States, 320 U.S. 118, and Bridges v. Wixon, 326 U.S. 135,
we did not consider the extent of the power of Congress. In each
case, by a closely divided Court, we interpreted a statute authorizing
denaturalization or deportation to impose on the Government the
strictest standards of proof.
[Dennis v. United States, 341 U.S.
494 (1951)]
Green v. Biddle, 21 U.S.
1 (1823)
As to the objections made on the other side to our interpretation
of the compact, that
it impugns
*63
the right to the pursuit of happiness, which is inherent in every
society of men, and is incompatible with these
unalienable
rights
of sovereignty and of self-government, which every independent State
must possess, the answer is obvious: that no people has
a right to pursue its own happiness to the injury of others, for
whose protection solemn compacts, like the present, have been made.
It is a trite maxim, that man gives up a part of his natural liberty
when he enters into civil society, as the price of the blessings
of that state: and it may be said, with truth, this liberty is well
exchanged for the advantages which flow from law and justice. The
sovereignty of Kentucky will not be impaired by a faithful observance
of this compact in its true spirit. It does not prevent her from
making any general regulations of police and revenue, which any
other State may make; but it does prevent her from confiscating
the property of individuals under the pretext of a mere modification
of the law as to improvements made by occupying claimants. There
can be no doubt that sovereign States may make pacts with each other,
limiting and restraining their rights of sovereignty as to proprietary
interests in the soil. Such conventions are not inconsistent with
the eminent domain which the law of nations attributes to them.
Here the sole object of the compact is perpetually to secure the
vested rights of private individuals from violation by legislative
acts. It is in furtherance of the most sacred duty which society
owes to its members. And even if it stipulated a special restraint
upon the legislative
*64
power, in respect to the public revenue, it would not be the less
obligatory. All the new States, on their admission into the Union,
uniformly bind themselves not to tax the lands of the United States.
Various other restraints upon their sovereign powers have been voluntarily
consented to by the States: such, for example, as that contained
in the act for the admission of Louisiana into the Union, which
provides that all the legislative proceedings shall be conducted
in the English language.
[Green v. Biddle, 21 U.S. 1 (1823)]
Adderley v. State of Fla., 385 U.S. 39, 87 S.Ct. 242 (U.S.Fla.
1966)
Mr. Justice DOUGLAS, with whom THE
CHIEF JUSTICE, Mr. Justice BRENNAN, and Mr. Justice FORTAS concur,
dissenting.
The First Amendment, applicable to the States by reason of the Fourteenth
(Edwards
v. South Carolina, 372 U.S. 229, 235, 83 S.Ct. 680, 683), provides
that ‘Congress shall make no law * * * abridging * * * the right
of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government
for a redress of grievances.’ These rights, along with religion,
speech, and press, are preferred rights of the Constitution, made
so by reason of that explicit guarantee and
*49
what Edmond Cahn in Confronting Injustice (1966) referred to as
‘The Firstness of the First Amendment.'FN1
With all respect, therefore, the Court errs in treating the case
as if it were an ordinary trespass case or an ordinary picketing
case.
FN1.
‘Where would we
really find the principal danger to civil liberty in a republic?
Not in the governors as governors, not in the governed as governed,
but in the governed unequipped to function as governors. The
chief enemies of republican freedom are mental sloth, conformity,
bigotry, superstition, credulity, monopoly in the market of
ideas, and utter, benighted ignorance. Relying as it does on
the consent of the governed, representative government cannot
succeed unless the community receives enough information to
grasp public issues and make sensible decisions.
As lights which may have been enough for the past do not meet
the needs of the present, so present lights will not suffice
for the more extensive and complex problems of the future. Heretofore
public enlightenment may have been only a manifest desideratum;
today it constitutes an imperative necessity.
The First Amendment,
says Justice Black, ‘reflects the faith that a good society
is not static but advancing, and that the fullest possible interchange
of ideas and beliefs is essential to attainment of this goal.’
(From
Feldman v. United States, 322 U.S. 487, 501, 64 S.Ct. 1082,
1088, 88 L.Ed. 1408 (dissenting opinion).)' Cahn, supra,
p. 102.
One great object
of the Constitution is to permit citizens to structure their private
relations as they choose subject only to the constraints of statutory
or decisional law. [500 U.S. 614, 620]
To
implement these principles, courts must consider from time to time
where the governmental sphere ends and the private sphere begins.
Although the conduct of private parties lies beyond the Constitution's
scope in most instances, governmental authority may dominate an
activity to such an extent that its participants must be deemed
to act with the authority of the government and, as a result, be
subject to constitutional constraints. This is the jurisprudence
of state action, which explores the "essential dichotomy" between
the private sphere and the public sphere, with all its attendant
constitutional obligations. Moose Lodge, supra, at 172.
We begin our discussion within the
framework for state action analysis set forth in Lugar, supra, at
937. There we considered the state action question in the context
of a due process challenge to a State's procedure allowing private
parties to obtain prejudgment attachments. We asked first whether
the claimed constitutional deprivation resulted from the exercise
of a right or privilege having its source in state authority,
457 U.S., at 939 -941; and second, whether the private party
charged with the deprivation could be described in all fairness
as a state actor, id., at 941-942.
There can be no question that the
first part of the Lugar inquiry is satisfied here. By their very
nature, peremptory challenges have no significance outside a court
of law. Their sole purpose is to permit litigants to assist the
government in the selection of an impartial trier of fact. While
we have recognized the value of peremptory challenges in this regard,
particularly in the criminal context, see Batson, 476 at 98-99,
there is no constitutional obligation to allow them. Ross v. Oklahoma,
487 U.S. 81, 88 (1988); Stilson v. United States,
250 U.S. 583, 586 (1919). Peremptory challenges are permitted
only when the government, by statute or decisional law, deems it
appropriate to allow parties to exclude a given number of persons
who otherwise would satisfy the requirements for service on the
petit jury. [500 U.S. 614, 621]
Legislative authorizations, as well
as limitations, for the use of peremptory challenges date as far
back as the founding of the Republic; and the common law origins
of peremptories predate that. See Holland v. Illinois,
493 U.S. 474, 481 (1990); Swain,
380 U.S., at 212 -217. Today, in most jurisdictions, statutes
or rules make a limited number of peremptory challenges available
to parties in both civil and criminal proceedings. In the case before
us, the challenges were exercised under a federal statute that provides,
inter alia:
"In civil cases, each party shall
be entitled to three peremptory challenges. Several defendants
or several plaintiffs may be considered as a single party for
the purposes of making challenges, or the court may allow additional
peremptory challenges and permit them to be exercised separately
or jointly." 28 U.S.C. 1870.
Without this authorization, granted
by an Act of Congress itself, Leesville would not have been able
to engage in the alleged discriminatory acts.
Given that the statutory authorization
for the challenges exercised in this case is clear, the remainder
of our state action analysis centers around the second part of the
Lugar test, whether a private litigant, in all fairness, must be
deemed a government actor in the use of peremptory challenges. Although
we have recognized that this aspect of the analysis is often a fact-bound
inquiry, see Lugar, supra, 457 U.S. at 939, our cases disclose certain
principles of general application.
Our precedents establish
that, in determining whether a particular action or course of conduct
is governmental in character, it is relevant to examine the following:
the extent to which the actor relies on governmental assistance
and benefits, see Tulsa Professional Collection Services, Inc. v.
Pope,
485 U.S. 478 (1988);
Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority,
365 U.S. 715 (1961);
whether the the actor is performing a traditional governmental function,
see Terry v. Adams,
345 U.S. 461 (1953);
Marsh v. Alabama,
326 U.S. 501 (1946);
cf. San Francisco Arts & Athletics, Inc. v. United States Olympic
[500 U.S. 614, 622] Committee,
483 U.S. 522, 544 -545
(1987); and whether the injury caused is aggravated in
a unique way by the incidents of governmental authority, see Shelley
v. Kraemer,
334 U.S. 1 (1948). Based on our application of these three principles
to the circumstances here, we hold that the exercise of peremptory
challenges by the defendant in the District Court was pursuant to
a course of state action.
[Edmonson
v. Leesville Concrete Company, 500 U.S. 614 (1991)]
|