More African Americans are Abandoning State-Run Schools and opting for Homeschool

By: Joshua Cook Mar 9, 2015

According to National Home Education Research Institute, approximately 220,000 African American students are being homeschooled. Black families are one of the fastest growing home school demographic.

A 2012 report published in the Journal of Black Studies found that most black families chose to educate their children at home to avoid school-related racism.

According to The Atlantic, there is a rise in homeschooling for African American families.

“We have all heard that the American education system is not the best and is falling behind in terms of international standards,” Temple University faculty member Ama Mazama said. “But this is compounded for black children, who are treated as though they are not as intelligent and cannot perform as well, and therefore the standards for them should be lower.”

Listen to Ben Swann’s interview with Dr. Ron Paul about the homeschooling revolution and why more and more families are leaving the failed public school system and choosing homeschooling for their children.

via benswann

A Look at the Folly of a Constitutional Convention

This woman has a solid grip on understanding the dangers in foisting a Constitution convention (Con-Con) on us. She is good.

Posted on March 7, 2015 by David

 

Published on Mar 7, 2015

An informative lecture by Publius Huldah, a lawyer and strict constructionist of the Constitution.

Secession Begins at Home

January 30, 2015Jeff Deist

[This article is adapted from a talk presented at the Houston Mises Circle, January 24, 2015.] To listen in audio 22mins.

Presumably everyone in this room, or virtually everyone, is here today because you have some interest in the topic of secession. You may be interested in it as an abstract concept or as a viable possibility for escaping a federal government that Americans now fear and distrust in unprecedented numbers.

As Mises wrote in 1927:

The situation of having to belong to a state to which one does not wish to belong is no less onerous if it is the result of an election than if one must endure it as the consequence of a military conquest.

I’m sure this sentiment is shared by many of you. Mises understood that mass democracy was no substitute for liberal society, but rather the enemy of it. Of course he was right: nearly 100 years later, we have been conquered and occupied by the state and its phony veneer of democratic elections. The federal government is now the putative ruler of nearly every aspect of life in America.

That’s why we’re here today entertaining the audacious idea of secession — an idea Mises elevated to a defining principle of classical liberalism.

It’s tempting, and entirely human, to close our eyes tight and resist radical change — to live in America’s past.

But to borrow a line from the novelist L.P. Hartley, “The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there.” The America we thought we knew is a mirage; a memory, a foreign country.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is precisely why we should take secession seriously, both conceptually — as consistent with libertarianism — and as a real alternative for the future.

Does anyone really believe that a physically vast, multicultural, social democratic welfare state of 330 million people, with hugely diverse economic, social, and cultural interests, can be commanded from DC indefinitely without intense conflict and economic strife?

Does anyone really believe that we can unite under a state that endlessly divides us? Rich vs. poor, black vs. white, Hispanic vs. Anglo, men vs. women, old vs. young, secularists vs. Christians, gays vs. traditionalists, taxpayers vs. entitlement recipients, urban vs. rural, red state vs. blue state, and the political class vs. everybody?

Frankly it seems clear the federal government is hell-bent on Balkanizing America anyway. So why not seek out ways to split apart rationally and nonviolently? Why dismiss secession, the pragmatic alternative that’s staring us in the face?

Since most of us in the room are Americans, my focus today is on the political and cultural situation here at home. But the same principles of self-ownership, self-determination, and decentralization apply universally — whether we’re considering Texas independence or dozens of active breakaway movements in places like Venice, Catalonia, Scotland, and Belgium.

I truly believe secession movements represent the last best hope for reclaiming our birthright: the great classical liberal tradition and the civilization it made possible. In a world gone mad with state power, secession offers hope that truly liberal societies, organized around civil society and markets rather than central governments, can still exist.

Secession as a “Bottom-Up” Revolution

“But how could this ever really happen?” you’re probably thinking.

Wouldn’t creating a viable secession movement in the US necessarily mean convincing a majority of Americans, or at least a majority of the electorate, to join a mass political campaign much like a presidential election?

I say no. Building a libertarian secession movement need not involve mass political organizing: in fact, national political movements that pander to the Left and Right may well be hopelessly naïve and wasteful of time and resources.

Instead, our focus should be on hyper-localized resistance to the federal government in the form of a “bottom-up” revolution, as Hans-Hermann Hoppe terms it.

Hoppe counsels us to use what little daylight the state affords us defensively: just as force is justified only in self-defense, the use of democratic means is justified only when used to achieve nondemocratic, libertarian, pro-private property ends.

In other words, a bottom-up revolution employs both persuasion and democratic mechanisms to secede at the individual, family, community, and local level — in a million ways that involve turning our backs on the central government rather than attempting to bend its will.

Secession, properly understood, means withdrawing consent and walking away from DC — not trying to capture it politically and “converting the King.”

Secession is Not a Political Movement

Why is the road to secession not political, at least not at the national level? 

Frankly, any notion of a libertarian takeover of the political apparatus in DC is fantasy, and even if a political sea change did occur the army of 4.3 million federal employees is not simply going to disappear.

Convincing Americans to adopt a libertarian political system — even if such an oxymoron were possible — is a hopeless endeavor in our current culture.

Politics is a trailing indicator. Culture leads, politics follows. There cannot be a political sea change in America unless and until there is a philosophical, educational, and cultural sea change. Over the last 100 years progressives have overtaken education, media, fine arts, literature, and pop culture — and thus as a result they have overtaken politics. Not the other way around.

This is why our movement, the libertarian movement, must be a battle for hearts and minds. It must be an intellectual revolution of ideas, because right now bad ideas run the world. We can’t expect a libertarian political miracle to occur in an illibertarian society.

Now please don’t get me wrong. The philosophy of liberty is growing around the world, and I believe we are winning hearts and minds. This is a time for boldness, not pessimism.

Yet libertarianism will never be a mass —which is to say majority — political movement.

Some people will always support the state, and we shouldn’t kid ourselves about this. It may be due to genetic traits, environmental factors, family influences, bad schools, media influences, or simply an innate human desire to seek the illusion of security.

But we make a fatal mistake when we dilute our message to seek approval from people who seemingly are hardwired to oppose us. And we waste precious time and energy.

What’s important is not convincing those who fundamentally disagree with us, but the degree to which we can extract ourselves from their political control.

This is why secession is a tactically superior approach in my view: it is far less daunting to convince liberty-minded people to walk away from the state than to convince those with a statist mindset to change.

What About the Federales?

Now I know what you’re thinking, and so does the aforementioned Dr. Hoppe:

Wouldn’t the federales simply crush any such attempt (at localized secession)?

They surely would like to, but whether or not they can actually do so is an entirely different question … it is only necessary to recognize that the members of the governmental apparatus always represent, even under conditions of democracy, a (very small) proportion of the total population.

Hoppe envisions a growing number of “implicitly seceded territories” engaging in noncompliance with federal authority:

Without local enforcement, by compliant local authorities, the will of the central government is not much more than hot air.

It would be prudent … to avoid a direct confrontation with the central government and not openly denounce its authority …

Rather, it seems advisable to engage in a policy of passive resistance and noncooperation. One simply stops to help in the enforcement in each and every federal law …

Finally, he concludes as only Hoppe could (remember this is the 1990s):

Waco, a teeny group of freaks, is one thing. But to occupy, or to wipe out a significantly large group of normal, accomplished, upstanding citizens is quite another, and quite a more difficult thing.

Now you may disagree with Dr. Hoppe as to the degree to which the federal government would actively order military violence to tamp down any secessionist hotspots, but his larger point is unassailable: the regime is largely an illusion, and consent to its authority is almost completely due to fear, not respect. Eliminate the illusion of benevolence and omnipotence and consent quickly crumbles.

Imagine what a committed, coordinated libertarian base could achieve in America! 10 percent of the US population, or roughly thirty-two million people, would be an unstoppable force of nonviolent withdrawal from the federal leviathan.

As Hoppe posits, it is no easy matter for the state to arrest or attack large local groups of citizens. And as American history teaches, the majority of people in any conflict are likely to be “fence sitters” rather than antagonists.

Left and Right are Hypocrites Regarding Secession

One of the great ironies of our time is that both the political Left and Right complain bitterly about the other, but steadfastly refuse to consider, once again, the obvious solution staring us in the face.

Now one might think progressives would champion the Tenth Amendment and states’ rights, because it would liberate them from the Neanderthal right wingers who stand in the way of their progressive utopia. Imagine California or Massachusetts having every progressive policy firmly in place, without any preemptive federal legislation or federal courts to get in their way, and without having to share federal tax revenues with the hated red states.

Imagine an experiment where residents of the San Francisco bay area were free to live under a political and social regime of their liking, while residents of Salt Lake City were free to do the same.

Surely both communities would be much happier with this commonsense arrangement than the current one, whereby both have to defer to Washington!

But in fact progressives strongly oppose federalism and states’ rights, much less secession! The reason, of course, is that progressives believe they’re winning and they don’t intend for a minute to let anyone walk away from what they have planned for us.

Democracy is the great political orthodoxy of our times, but its supposed champions on the Left can’t abide true localized democracy — which is in fact the stated aim of secession movements.

They’re interested in democracy only when the vote actually goes their way, and then only at the most attenuated federal level, or preferably for progressives, the international level. The last thing they want is local control over anything! They are the great centralizers and consolidators of state authority.

“Live and let live” is simply not in their DNA.

Our friends on the Right are scarcely better on this issue.

Many conservatives are hopelessly wedded to the Lincoln myth and remain in thrall to the central warfare state, no matter the cost.

As an example, consider the Scottish independence referendum that took place in September of 2014.

Some conservatives, and even a few libertarians claimed that we should oppose the referendum on the grounds that it would create a new government, and thus two states would exist in the place of one. But reducing the size and scope of any single state’s dominion is healthy for liberty, because it leads us closer to the ultimate goal of self-determination at the individual level, to granting each of us sovereignty over our lives.

Again quoting Mises:

If it were in any way possible to grant this right of self-determination to every individual person, it would have to be done. (italics added)

Furthermore, some conservatives argue that we should not support secession movements where the breakaway movement is likely to create a government that is more “liberal” than the one it replaces. This was the case in Scotland, where younger Scots who supported the independence referendum in greater numbers hoped to create strong ties with the EU parliament in Brussels and build a Scandinavian-style welfare state run from Holyrood (never mind that Tories in London were overjoyed at the prospect of jettisoning a huge number of Labour supporters!).

But if support for the principle of self-determination is to have any meaning whatsoever, it must allow for others to make decisions with which we disagree. Political competition can only benefit all of us. What neither progressives nor conservatives understand — or worse, maybe they do understand — is that secession provides a mechanism for real diversity, a world where we are not all yoked together. It provides a way for people with widely divergent views and interests to live peaceably as neighbors instead of suffering under one commanding central government that pits them against each other.

Secession Begins With You

Ultimately, the wisdom of secession starts and ends with the individual. Bad ideas run the world, but must they run your world?

The question we all have to ask ourselves is this: how seriously do we take the right of self-determination, and what are we willing to do in our personal lives to assert it?

Secession really begins at home, with the actions we all take in our everyday lives to distance and remove ourselves from state authority — quietly, nonviolently, inexorably.

The state is crumbling all around us, under the weight of its own contradictions, its own fiscal mess, and its own monetary system. We don’t need to win control of DC.

What we need to do, as people seeking more freedom and a better life for future generations, is to walk away from DC, and make sure we don’t go down with it.

How To Secede Right Now

So in closing, let me make a few humble suggestions for beginning a journey of personal secession. Not all of these may apply to your personal circumstances; no one but you can decide what’s best for you and your family. But all of us can play a role in a bottom-up revolution by doing everything in our power to withdraw our consent from the state:

• Secede from intellectual isolation. Talk to like-minded friends, family, and neighbors — whether physically or virtually — to spread liberty and cultivate relationships and alliances. The state prefers to have us atomized, without a strong family structure or social network;
• secede from dependency. Become as self-sufficient as possible with regard to food, water, fuel, cash, firearms, and physical security at home. Resist being reliant on government in the event of a natural disaster, bank crisis, or the like;
• secede from mainstream media, which promotes the state in a million different ways. Ditch cable, ditch CNN, ditch the major newspapers, and find your own sources of information in this internet age. Take advantage of a luxury previous generations did not enjoy;
• secede from state control of your children by homeschooling or unschooling them;
• secede from college by rejecting mainstream academia and its student loan trap. Educate yourself using online learning platforms, obtaining technical credentials, or simply by reading as much as you can;
• secede from the US dollar by owning physical precious metals, by owning assets denominated in foreign currencies, and by owning assets abroad;
• secede from the federal tax and regulatory regimes by organizing your business and personal affairs to be as tax efficient and unobtrusive as possible;
• secede from the legal system, by legally protecting your assets from rapacious lawsuits and probate courts as much as possible;
• secede from the state healthcare racket by taking control of your health, and questioning medical orthodoxy;
• secede from your state by moving to another with a better tax and regulatory environment, better homeschooling laws, better gun laws, or just one with more liberty-minded people;
• secede from political uncertainly in the US by obtaining a second passport; or
• secede from the US altogether by expatriating.
• Most of all, secede from the mindset that government is all-powerful or too formidable an opponent to be overcome. The state is nothing more than Bastiat’s great fiction, or Murray’s gang of thieves writ large. Let’s not give it the power to make us unhappy or pessimistic.

All of us, regardless of ideological bent and regardless of whether we know it or not, are married to a very violent, abusive spendthrift. It’s time, ladies and gentlemen, to get a divorce from DC.

via Mises.org

Rights, Morality and the State - Wendy McElroy

EDITORIAL

Rights, Morality and the State

By Wendy McElroy - March 05, 2015

"Negative rights" have been a defining force in the rise and ongoing health of human freedom. A key reason for the drastic decline in human freedom has been the current popularity of "positive rights," including a popularity within some libertarian circles. The competing theories are mutually exclusive. To understand why requires an appreciation of the role that class distinctions and the universalizability of rights have played in the freedoms so many of us took for granted until they began to vanish.

Negative rights claim that individuals have jurisdiction over their own bodies and property, which no one can properly violate. In turn, individuals have the duty to similarly respect the bodies and property of others. Freedom of speech and conscience are common examples. Positive rights claim that some individuals have an enforceable claim upon the bodies or property of others, upon the actions or goods of others. Health care and education are common examples.

Negative rights are universalizable; an individual, simply by being human, possesses the same claim to right(s) as every other individual, and to the same degree. There is no qualification other than being part of the species; in the most literal sense, negative rights are human ones.

Positive rights cannot be universalized because they establish class distinctions in order to assign positive rights to some that must be provided by others. People are divided into classes according to shared characteristics, such as race or income level. 

Those who share the characteristic for inclusion into a class also share whatever privileges or disadvantages are attached to that class. Simply being human is no longer sufficient to qualify for the same 'rights' enjoyed by everyone else. A secondary characteristic is required; thus, positive rights destroy the basis of human rights by not being applied equally to all. They become 'special' rights.

Negative rights minimize conflict within society because their exercise by one person in no way prevents the equal exercise by another person or penalizes him. If 'A' exercises his freedom of conscience, it does not prevent 'B' from exercising the same right to the same degree. 'A' being a Catholic does not interfere with a 'B's atheism or penalize him. The only way 'B' can be penalized is if 'A' claims a positive right to any act or good from 'B', such as a restriction of free speech on religion or tax-support for the Catholic Church. For reasons of his own, 'B' may decide to speak discreetly or donate to the church. But the only way to create a positive legal obligation between the two is through a contract or another vehicle that expresses the consent. It is a win-win situation that promotes cooperation.

Positive rights embed conflict into society through class distinctions. If a class of people has an enforceable claim on the services and goods of others in society, then the 'others' are forced to provide them at their own cost and to their own impoverishment. 

If the positive right is health care for those with low incomes, for example, a doctor cannot legally decline a patient and the medical service must be 'free'; that is, the service will not be paid for by the recipient but by others, usually through a form of tax. The doctor and taxpayer no longer have a full claim on the peaceful use of their own bodies and property but are required to share the claim with anyone who holds the positive right to health care. This creates a lose-win situation by which some benefit by controlling others.

Negative rights – that is, human rights – expand only when positive rights – that is, special rights – crumble. Consider the universal human right of a person to own the property created by his own hands and with his own material. First, the person must be able to own property, such as land. In the past, states or kings restricted land ownership to classes such as nobles or the clergy. When class 'rights' began to crumble over the centuries, the right of land ownership opened up to other categories such as white males, all males, women. The closer a society came to making a right universal to all humans and not merely members of a group, the freer and more prosperous that society became.

Today, political correctness is destroying human rights by replacing them with positive rights that are created through class distinctions. Political correctness seeks social justice by forcibly redistributing the power, wealth and opportunities from those who are seen to be privileged (white males, the wealthy) to those who are not (minorities, women, the poor). More accurately, it seeks special privileges at the expense of human rights.

The forced redistribution is achieved through a partnership between two mutually-supportive types of class-privilege holders: those who claim a static class privilege; and, those who acquire a dynamic one. A static class privilege comes by virtue of birth or some other unchanging situation: race, genitalia, bloodline. A dynamic class privilege comes from joining an institution such as the American Federation of Teachers or the government. Both types claim special 'rights' under law. They reach out in tandem to acquire these special 'rights' by snatching them from individuals who are at the bottom of the class hierarchy and so unprivileged. With each privilege claimed, human rights are more narrowly defined.

Ironically, the politically-correct claim to be expanding human rights. Cynically, the institutions that support PC goals use terms like "equality" to justify the imposition of a class system.

Political correctness has been wildly successful because it wore a mask of benevolence. It appealed to the best moral sentiments within man: compassion, justice, goodwill. But that's what these responses are – moral sentiments, as Adam Smith would call them. What PC beneficiaries have actually done is to collapse the absolutely necessary wall between politics and morality, between what one has the duty to do and what one should do.

Smith maintained that a non-aggressive person deserved no praise because he merely fulfilled his social duty to respect individual rights; enforcement of this duty was the bailiwick of law and politics. To Smith, the praiseworthy man was one who actively aided others through acts of generosity, empathy, respect and the like; these acts were the bailiwick of morality. Both categories of action were essential to society and they had the mutually supportive effect of creating cooperation and prosperity. But using the law to impose morality only made enemies of the two categories with people's acts and goods being compelled rather than respected. Indeed, a legally imposed morality is not morality at all, but its death knell, because such acts must be voluntary.

Political correctness is the exact opposite of what is purports to be. It does not establish human rights; it destroys them. It does not express morality; it converts morality into a mockery of itself. Universal negative rights are human rights. Maintaining a wall between rights and morality is the only way either can be expressed. Collapsing that wall destroys both.

Source thedailybell

Nullification for Lawyers

A recent article by Cato Institute chairman Robert Levy published by Investor’s Business Daily provides a ray of sunlight for supporters of nullification.

Instead of taking the position of most folks in mainstream political organizations and denouncing nullification in all situations, the CATO head offers support for the principles, at least some of the time.

Levy acknowledges that the federal government cannot force states to enforce or enact federal law.

Are states required to enforce federal laws and enact regulatory programs that Congress mandates? The answer on both counts is “No.”

In the 1997 case, Printz v. United States, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government could not command state law enforcement authorities to conduct background checks on prospective handgun purchasers.

In the 1992 case, New York v. United States, the Court ruled that Congress couldn’t require states to enact specified waste disposal regulations.

But Levy stops short of approving nullification efforts that would actively block implementation of unconstitutional federal acts. He contends that an act remains constitutional until a federal court declares otherwise. He makes a solid argument from a lawyer’s perspective, but understanding nullification requires a historical perspective that often gets buried in American jurisprudence. 

Perhaps a slight shift in the theoretical framework will move CATO all the way into the nullification camp.

Like most lawyers, Levy believes that the Supreme Court makes the final and definitive decision on the constitutionality of an act. 

This makes perfect sense from a legal perspective. Lawyers rely on court precedent to build arguments, and modern American jurisprudence holds that the Court determined early on that it was the ultimate judge of constitutionality.  But the argument falls apart when placed in the framework within which political power was delegated in the American system. In essence, the Court claimed power for itself that it never had the authority to claim in the first place. Furthermore, most legal scholars and attorneys badly misconstrue the case cited as the root of federal court supremacy.

We find the first fatal flaw in Levy’s argument early on when he confuses Jefferson and Madison’s reasoning in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798. Levy writes:

But consider those resolutions in context: Jefferson and Madison had argued that the states must have the final word because the Constitution had not expressly established an ultimate authority on constitutional matters.

Jefferson and Madison did not base their principles of nullification on the fact that the Constitution had not established an ultimate authority. They based their principles on the fact that the people of the states ARE the ultimate authority – not the federal government they created. Jefferson makes this clear in the first few lines of the Kentucky Resolution of 1798.

The several States composing, the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government…the government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers.

Madison makes the same point in his report of 1800.

The States then being the parties to the constitutional compact, and in their sovereign capacity, it follows of necessity, that there can be no tribunal above their authority, to decide in the last resort, whether the compact made by them be violated; and consequently that as the parties to it, they must themselves decide in the last resort, such questions as may be of sufficient magnitude to require their interposition.

Nullification follows from the delegation of power in the American system. The sovereign people first created independent, sovereign political societies – States – and delegated powers to their state governments. Then, the people, through those preexisting political societies, delegated specific, enumerated powers to a general government in order to form a union. The ratifiers made it clear that their states were only giving up sovereignty over those objects delegated to the federal government, and that they retained ALL powers not delegated. 

And they insisted on amendments (The Ninth and Tenth) to make this explicit.

If the federal government gets to decide the extent of its own power, through its own judicial branch, and the people of the states possess no mechanism to hold its creature in check, the whole notion of a federal government with limited enumerated powers becomes a farce.

Jefferson understood this.

Madison understood this.

And both advanced the principles of nullification because they recognized the absolute necessity for a check on federal power.

But Levy insists that the federal government itself decides the extent of his own power. Like most lawyers, he bases this notion on court precedent starting with Marbury v. Madison.

Four years later (after the drafting of the resolutions) in Marbury v. Madison, Chief Justice John Marshall resolved that oversight (of not establishing an ultimate authority). He wrote: ‘It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.’ Since then, instead of 50 individual states effecting their own views regarding constitutionality, we have one Supreme Court establishing a uniform rule for the entire nation.

Levy, along with most lawyers and legal experts, rip one sentence out of context from Marshall’s opinion and find in it authority for the Supreme Court to stand as the exclusive and final judge on the extent of federal power. But even if you accept the bizarre notion that a political body can vest power in itself on its own whim, this was not Marshall’s intent.

One cannot pull a statement out of a specific court case, addressing a specific issue, and generalize it to encompass the entire American political system. A court rules for the parties in a case, not the United States as a whole.  Marshall was answering a specific question: does the Court have the authority to consider the constitutionality of an act when ruling on a case. At issue was a provision of the Judiciary Act of 1789 and whether the Court had original jurisdiction to decide if a writ of mandamus could be issued to force Madison to hand over Marbury’s commission. 

Some argued the court should just consider the law – the Judiciary Act itself – and not the Constitution.  Marshall defended his decision to rule based on the Constitution.

The judicial power of the United States is extended to all cases arising under the Constitution.

Could it be the intention of those who gave this power to say that, in using it, the Constitution should not be looked into? That a case arising under the Constitution should be decided without examining the instrument under which it arises?

This is too extravagant to be maintained.

Clearly, the courts possess the authority to judge the constitutionality of an act. Nobody disputes that. But notice an important point: nowhere does Marshall assert that the Court stands as the SOLE or FINAL judge of constitutionality. In fact, he maintains that the Constitution also binds the Court itself.

The particular phraseology of the Constitution…confirms and strengthens the principle…that a law repugnant to the Constitution is void, and that courts, as well as other departments, are bound by that instrument.

So, what happens if the Court slips free of the bonds of that instrument? Does no remedy exist for the people of the states? 

Can those who delegated powers to the federal government in the first place muster no defense? Must the sovereign bow down in submission to its creation? No. As Madison asserted, the parties that created the federal government and delegated all of its power MUST determine the extent of that power in the last resort.

Furthermore: dangerous powers, not delegated, may not only be usurped and executed by the other departments, but that the judicial department also may exercise or sanction dangerous powers beyond the grant of the Constitution; and, consequently, that the ultimate right of the parties to the Constitution, to judge whether the compact has been dangerously violated, must extend to violations by one delegated authority, as well as by another; by the judiciary, as well as by the executive, or the legislature.

However true, therefore, it may be, that the judicial department, is, in all questions submitted to it by the forms of the Constitution, to decide in the last resort, this resort must necessarily be deemed the last in relation to the authorities of the other departments of the government; not in relation to the rights of the parties to the constitutional compact, from which the judicial as well as the other departments hold their delegated trusts.

Madison argued that we cannot raise judicial authority above the authority of the sovereign parties to the Constitution without also raising the other federal departments above it as well. This is basically the modern legal position: until the Supreme Court says otherwise ANY act of the federal government stands supreme. They rely totally on the Supreme Court to limit federal power. We find one of two assumptions implicit in this idea.

1. The  Court will always remain bound by the instrument.

Or…

2. The Court has the authority to expand federal power beyond what the ratifiers delegated.

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Both assumptions are demonstrably false.

Federal supremacists would have us believe that the people of the states created a federal government with limited, enumerated powers, insisted on an amendment making the limited nature of that government explicit and then left it to that government to decide the extent of its own power. In other words, we have to accept that the founders actually believed a government could exist as a self-limiting institution.

That idea is absurd.

Nullification, in all of its forms, naturally flows from the system the Constitution created. Without some way to hold federal power in check, we end up not with a limited government, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions.

Nullification stands as the rightful remedy –  a remedy we desperately need today.

source 10thACtr

Alabama's Judges & Gay Marriage: Obey God Or Man?

Written by: Jonathan Jones Worldview February 15, 2015 

Roy Moore. Al.com

If you haven’t watched the news closely, you might have missed a significant cultural and legal battle taking place in Alabama.

To summarize, Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore is urging state officials to defy a federal court ruling that legalized gay marriage in the state. Moore appeals to the fact that the commands of God supersede the decisions of the federal court, and therefore he must follow God. He also argues that one federal judge cannot make law for an entire state, and that “dual sovereignty” allows him to do what he’s done. Alabama’s constitution defines marriage as between a man and a woman.

But is it morally and biblically right for him to refuse to grant that which a federal court has said is lawful?

Aren’t We Supposed To Submit To Authority?

In the book of Romans, the Apostle Paul wrote, “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment” (Rom. 13:1-2). It would seem at a cursory view, then, that Chief Justice Moore is wrong for opposing the federal court. But what do you do when the governing authority gives direction that is counter to the commands of God?

The Greatest Commandment

Jesus was asked by an expert in the Law as to what was the greatest command in the Law. The lawyer was trying to back Jesus into a corner by putting Him in a position in which he would have to choose one law over another. However, Jesus’ answer silenced his critics: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment” (Matt. 22:37-38). Jesus wasn’t interested in politics or popular culture; instead, He was concerned with the name and glory of God above all else. John later writes that love for God is “to keep His commands” (1 Jn. 5:3). To take a command of Scripture and diminish it in the name of a government decision is to cease to love God because in essence one is saying, “God, get with the times. You’re too outdated and your commands are not progressive enough.” May it never be that we would say such a thing.

Awaken Your Child’s Love of Learning, History And Adventure With The REAL Story of William Wallace!

So how does one resolve this apparent tension between submitting to the governing authorities and loving God by keeping His commands? The answer is found in the following question: What is the supreme law? It is the commands of God. This means that we are to submit to the governing authorities when their policy does not interfere with Scripture; but when it does go against the commands of Scripture, we must be faithful to the commands of God.

This is precisely how Peter and the apostles responded when they were commanded by the high priest not to teach about Jesus again. “We must obey God rather than man,” they replied (Acts 5:29).

Who Are You Trying To Please?

The Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Galatia: “For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ” (Gal. 1:10). There were many times in the early church when Christ followers had to do unpopular things that were not received well by the local governing authorities. While they never led a rebellion, but instead were peaceful in their objection to the laws, they were still unwilling to dishonor God.

When Christians were told to worship Caesar as a god, they had a choice to make: Submit to the governing authorities and dishonor God, or honor God and reject this specific policy, incurring the subsequent punishment (Death!). When they chose the latter, Caesar was not happy, but God was. For those who follow Christ, the answer is simple: We seek the approval of God. We should pray for our leaders (1 Tim. 2:1-3), let our conduct silence our critics (1 Peter 2:15), while always putting the commands of God first.

In All Things, Love

The response, however, is not to start a revolt or call down fire from heaven. Instead, it is our responsibility to be respectful, peaceful citizens while making it clear why we are unable to accept a ruling that so blatantly goes against the commands of Scripture.

via offthegridnews

The Morality of Capitalism: Liberty, Honesty and Humility

By Richard Ebeling - February 10, 2015

In American culture there is one persistent villain portrayed as the enemy of humanity, the perpetrator of deception, and the agent for social corruption and human harm: the businessman.

Whether in news commentaries or on the movie screen, the businessman is presented as a heartless, greedy manipulator so concerned with squeezing the last possible dollar out of anything he does, that he is willing to destroy the planet, kill his competitors, poison little children, and sell his own mother "down the river" if it will serve his material and financial purposes.

The only thing that saves us from the end of the world at the hands of these criminal private enterprisers is either some righteous individual who refuses to "take it any more" or the virtuous hand of a government agent dedicated to protecting mankind from those who, clearly, care nothing for the common good of humanity.

Critics of Capitalism Want to Abolish or Regulate It

This imagery of the businessman's way of gaining profits has been extended by many intellectuals, academics, and public policy pundits into a general criticism and, indeed, condemnation of capitalism.

What can be praiseworthy, ethical or just in a social and economic system that fosters people to focus only on their self-centered personal interest in the pursuit of material gain with little or no thought to the betterment and improvement of mankind?

The conclusion that many of these critics have reached over the years and decades is that the entire capitalist system must be done away with and replaced with an alternative social and economic system such as socialism; or, at a minimum, business enterprise has to be placed under the detailed supervision and regulatory hand of government bureaucrats presumed to be concerned with and devoted to the general welfare of the country as a whole instead of individual private interest.

I beg to differ from this interpretation of businessmen and the free enterprise system in general. Instead, I would argue that a truly free enterprise, competitive capitalism is the most moral and humanely beneficial way for people to live together that has ever been stumbled upon by mankind.

Capitalism's Premise: Individual Rights and Liberty

There are basically two way human beings can interact and associate with each other: through the threat or use of force or by mutual agreement and voluntary consent.

When have you ever walked into a shoe store looked around and, maybe, tried on a pair of shoes, but when you decided to leave without buying anything a gruff and intimidating character with a club or a gun said, "The boss says you ain't leaving without buying something"? I doubt it any of us have had any such experience.

Why? Because the philosophical and moral premise underlying transactions in the marketplace is that each participant has the right to say, "Yes" or "No" to an offer and an exchange.

Why does every person have this implied right to "Yes" or "No" without attempted physical intimidation or use of force to make him act against his will? This is due to the fact that the foundational American principle is that every one of us has an inviolable individual right to their life, liberty, and honestly acquired property.

Virtually every other philosophical and political system throughout human history has been based on some version of the opposite. That is, that you do not own yourself; your life and property are at the disposal of the primitive tribe or the medieval king, or the social, national, or racial group or "democratic" community to which you've been designated as belonging.

That is the premise of all forms of political and economic collectivism. You work for the group, you obey the group, and you live and die for the group. The political authority claiming to speak and act for the group presumes to have the right to compel your acquiescence and obedience to the asserted needs and desires of that collective group.

Only liberal, free market capitalism as it developed in parts of the Western world, and especially in the United States, broke free of this age-old collectivist conception of the relationship between the individual and others in society.

The modern ideas of individual liberty and free enterprise that began to develop and be argued for about 350 years ago transformed the way men lived and earned a living, and the ethical premises underlying human association in society.

A new morality emerged under which human relationships became based on mutual consent and voluntary agreement. Men could attempt to persuade each other to associate and trade, but they could not be compelled and plundered so one person could get what he wanted from another without their consent.

For Americans, it is heralded as the fundamental principle under which our country was based: It is held to be a self-evident truth that all men are created equal and endowed with certain unalienable rights among which are their individual rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Capitalism Fosters Honesty and Good Manners

As a consequence of this principle of liberty, in the marketplace of the free society individuals learn and practice the etiquette and manners of respect, politeness, honesty and tolerance. This naturally follows from the fact that if violence is ethically and legally abolished, or at least minimized, in all human relationships, then the only way any of us can get others to do things we would like them to do for us is through reason, argument, and persuasion.

The reason why the shoe salesman is motivated to act with courtesy and deference toward us when we are in his store is precisely because he cannot force on us to buy a pair of the shoes he wants to sell. We can walk down the mall corridor and buy those shoes from another seller interested in winning our business, or we can just go home without buying anything that day.

The clichés of "serve with a smile," or "the customer is always right," in fact are inescapable resulting manifestations of the voluntarist principle at the basis of all market transactions.

No businessman is likely to keep his market share or even stay in business in the long run if he earns a reputation for rudeness, deception and dishonesty in his dealings with either other businesses or his consumer customers.

The famous Scottish economist of the 18th century, Adam Smith, long ago explained that the motivation for respectful, polite, honest and deferential behavior on the part of any businessman is his own self-interest. If he doe not, he may not long remain in business, as every private enterpriser knows who had learned to appreciate the importance of gaining and maintaining his brand-name and personal reputation in the eyes of all those with whom he has dealings.

Such polite, courteous, honest and deferential behavior may start out as the self-interested conscious and intentional attempt to merely succeed in the market pursuit of profits, when voluntary and free market dealings and transactions become the common and everyday way in which people associate.

But, over time, such rules of "good behavior" become habituated, a part of the routine of regular day-in and day-out interactions, until, finally, they are transformed into the customs and traditions expected in any and all human encounters, whether in the marketplace or not.

Thus, the practice of self-interested good manners and respectful tolerance fostered first in commercial buying and selling become embedded and reinforced as the general societal rules and ways of civilized and "polite society." And, thus, capitalist conduct makes its contribution to a more cultured and humane civilization.

Capitalism Creates a Spirit of Humility, Not Political Arrogance

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