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

The Myth of the Voluntary Military

July 29, 2011 Jeffrey A. Tucker

Ludwig von Mises summed up the essence of government in words that are particularly vivid in wartime:

Government interference always means either violent action or the threat of such action.… Government is in the last resort the employment of armed men, of policemen, gendarmes, soldiers, prison guards, and hangmen. The essential feature of government is the enforcement of its decrees by beating, killing, and imprisoning. Those who are asking for more government interference are asking ultimately for more compulsion and less freedom.

What about those who are called upon to enforce state edicts, whether just or unjust? Every society includes people who are willing to act as the coercive arm of the state, those who are willing to use violence and freely risk their lives as they administer the law. The state has no great trouble recruiting policemen and prison guards. Are there enough such people to amass a huge army of hundreds of thousands of people who are willing to risk their lives carrying out destructive foreign wars of dubious merit?

When you see the pictures of American troops fighting their way through sand storms, in a strange land with strange people, seeking to overturn a government and transform a society that posed no credible threat to the United States, being shot at by average Iraqis who are clearly motivated only by the desire to expel the invader, it is not hard to imagine that US troops are wondering how it all came to this.

The British defense secretary, Geoff Hoon, claims that the coalition armed forces are made up of "men and women who made a free choice to serve their country," whereas Iraqi forces "are motivated either by fear or by hatred." It's hard to say what motivates Iraqi forces (perhaps the desire to repel invasion?), but what he says about coalition troops is simply not true.

The men and women now fighting initially agreed to be in the employ of the military. The United States is not yet conscripting people. And yet how many of these would leave Iraq if they could? What if Donald Rumsfeld announced that anyone now fighting in Iraq is free to leave without penalty? What would become of the US armed forces now attempting to bring about unconditional surrender in Iraq?

It's an interesting question, as a pure mental experiment, because it highlights the essentially forced nature of all modern military service. To leave once the war begins would amount to what the government calls desertion. This word sounds ominous, but in fact it merely describes what everyone in a civilized society takes for granted: the right to quit.

Deuteronomy's exhortation to encourage the Israelites into battle includes an invitation to freely leave: "What man is there that is fearful and fainthearted? Let him go and return unto his house." (20:8) But there is no such right in the modern US military. If you try to leave, you face coercion, particularly if you try to leave in wartime. In this way, the military differs from the police and the ranks of prison guards, jobs from which people are free to walk away without penalty.

Punishing people for attempting to leave the military — to avoid killing and/or being killed — is not a new practice. Mises speaks of the "barbarous" practices used in the 18th century to keep soldiers from deserting their units. The more undesirable wartime conditions become, the more necessary it is for the state to force people to continue to endure them.

The scene that shocked me most in the movie Gods and Generals — and it was clearly not intended to be shocking — occurs when an assistant to Stonewall Jackson informs the general that some soldiers have been discovered in an attempt to desert the army under his command. The general orders them to be tried in a military court, and, if found guilty of attempted desertion, to be shot. They were indeed tried and shot. Thus did these men die for exercising their God-given right to walk away.

One of those shot in the film was a young man recruited by Jackson himself, the son of a friend who decided to return to the North. The scene was included to demonstrate Jackson's impartiality. This general is no respecter of persons — or (more plausibly) personhood. To me, the scene demonstrated the immorality of all modern notions of military discipline.

As the movie shows, the South believed it was fighting for the right of self-government, which required that the states be able to exercise their right to leave an increasingly despotic Union. But the military command would not allow their soldiers to secede. The Confederate generals believed that the Union must be voluntary, but the army itself must be kept together through coercion.

"The legalization of desertion might provide the very key to bringing about a more humane world."

Of course, Northern armies employed the same practice. Many Union troops believed they were fighting against slavery, which amounts to nothing more than forbidding people from exercising their right to flee their alleged owners. But the imposition of the death penalty for soldiers choosing not to fight, that is, to flee their military owners, was assumed to be a normal part of military discipline.

Both North and South claimed they were fighting in order to abolish a form of captivity — the right to self-government in one case, and the right to not be employed against one's will in the other — but the ability of the military to imprison and kill fleeing soldiers was never questioned. It is not often questioned tod

The scene parallels the opening sequence in the movie Enemy at the Gates, when Russian troops in boats are being bombed from the air by German planes. Russian troops begin to jump in the water to get away. Their Russian commander starts to unload his pistol as they leap. The viewer is rightly shocked by this incredible display of totalitarian brutality. Yet, in essence, what we are seeing is nothing more than a fast-forwarded version of the court-martial, death-penalty scene in Gods and Generals.

Both scenes underscore a reality hardly ever discussed: all modern armies are essentially totalitarian enterprises. Once you sign up for them, or are drafted, you are a slave. The penalty for becoming a fugitive is death. Even now, the enforcements against mutiny, desertion, going AWOL, or what have you, are never questioned.

This is remarkable, if you think about it. Imagine that you work for Walmart but find the job too dangerous, and try to quit. You are told that you may not, so you run away. The management catches up to you, and jails you. You refuse to go and resist. Finally, you are shot. We would all recognize that this is exploitation, an atrocity, a crime, a clear example of the disregard that this company has for human life. The public outrage would be palpable. The management, not the fleeing employees, would be jailed or possibly executed.

Murray Rothbard frames the question nicely: "In what other occupation in the country are there severe penalties, including prison and in some cases execution, for 'desertion,' i.e., for quitting the particular employment? If someone quits General Motors, is he shot at sunrise?"

The military has done a study1  of what causes people to go AWOL, concluding that the practice "tends to increase in magnitude during wartime" and when "the Army is attempting to restrict the ways that soldiers can exit service through administrative channels."

The same study profiles the deserters, as compared with nondeserters, as less educated, having a lower aptitude, more likely to be from broken homes, etc. — all the usual reasons why a person is so dishonorably disinclined to want to be killed. Finally, this study examined the effects of desertion on the individual, concluding that choosing to be disemployed from the ranks of the armed and dangerous causes "loss of self-esteem and confidence" as well as "embarrassment and even shame." Well, what else would you expect from someone who has "chosen a certain path and failed to meet the necessary requirements and/or sustain the fortitude to meet those requirements"?

Now comes the report from Diwaniya, Iraq, heavily cited by a US military spokesman, that many Iraqi soldiers were fighting at gunpoint, threatened with death by tough loyalists of President Saddam Hussein.… "The officers threatened to shoot us unless we fought," said a wounded Iraqi from his bed in the American field hospital here. "They took out their guns and pointed them and told us to fight."

It could be that the captured soldiers are only trying to win sympathy. But it would hardly be surprising if it were true. To force people to fight when they would rather not is the very essence of modern military organization. In modern practice, there is no such thing as a voluntary military. Whether you are forced into the machine or not (via conscription or via payments in tax dollars), once you are a cog, you must stay in no matter how much grinding you do or how much you are ground.

The slave-like nature of the military commitment has no expiration date. Yes, there are contracts, but the military can void them whenever it so desires. Predictably, it desires to void these contracts (through so-called stop-loss regulations) when the enlisted most want to leave: when they must kill and risk being killed. All branches of the military have implemented these stop-loss regulations because of the war on terror. This amounts to the nationalization of human beings.

 

Still, one wonders how much the ranks of the militarily employed would shrink in absence of antidesertion enforcement. If modern presidents had to recruit the way barons and lords recruited, and if they constantly faced the prospect of mass desertions, they might be more careful about getting involved in unnecessary, unjust, unwinnable wars, or going to war at all. Peace would take on new value out of necessity. When going to war, they might be more careful to curb their war aims, and match war strategies with those more limited aims.

In fact, we might discover through the study of the history of antidesertion statutes the key to the transition from the limited war and decentralized military of the medieval world to the mass murder of the modern total war. The legalization of desertion might provide the very key to bringing about a more humane world.

In the meantime, US officials would do well to stop complaining that Iraqi soldiers are being forced to serve and forced to kill. A press release from the Air Force announcing its new stop-loss rule says, "We understand the individual sacrifices that our airmen and their families will be making.… We appreciate their unwavering support and dedication to our nation."

One might even have a greater appreciation for their sacrifice (even if not their mission) if one knew that it were undertaken willingly.

This article is excerpted from It's a Jetsons World, "The Myth of the Voluntary Military" (2011).

source: Mises.org  

Local, County, State Police Collude with Feds to Raid Republic Of Texas Meeting

21st century Honest Abe re-visits sovereign southern US state to maintain Washington's tyranny grip. State scalawag law enforcements & VFW complicit in Treason.

TEXIANS UNDER ATTACK # 2

At the regularly scheduled meeting of the Republic of Texas, officially starting at 9:50 a.m. and held, as usual, at the rented VFW Post 4892 in Bryan, Texas, the congenial and unimposing group was raided at 10:10 a.m. by an army of policing agencies with flashing emergency lights: Police Departments of Bryan and College Station along with their Brazos County Sheriff’s Office counterparts (northeast of San Antonio) along with deputies from the Kerr County Sheriff’s Office (west of San Antonio), The Texas Rangers, Department of Public Safety Highway Patrol State Troopers, The Texas State Attorney General’s Office, the FBI, and the US Marshall Service. Ingress and egress from Harvey Mitchell Parkway was sealed even to the media that responded two hours later from KBTX television during the four-hour ordeal.
 

How is it that a supposedly free people can be subjected to intimidating, rough and highly intrusive search and seizure when assembling lawfully and peaceably from all corners of this vast Country of Texas to educate those in attendance about the Historical 1836 Republic of Texas Constitution and celebrate a Nation wide Valentine’s Day and a fellow Texian’s 89th birthday?

The lead Kerr County deputy named in the paperwork, Jeff McCoy, who initially pretended to be a guest from Houston at the freely open-to-the-public meeting, stood up and blocked the only exit to the Republic of Texas’ rented room with armed and threatening police, announcing that he had a search warrant but he would not present it despite repeated requests stating that it would be made available AFTER the investigation. Everyone present was put on notice that they were not to leave the room without permission and escort by uniformed officers, almost all armed and wearing bulletproof vests. Some 15 to 30 minutes later a fleeting copy of the search warrant surfaced unannounced on the main table of which was never officially presented to those detained and searched.

As if dangerous criminals, many of the Texian people – generally seniors of respected middle-class business, farming, broadcasting, engineering, scientific, health, veterans and faith-based backgrounds – were one-by-one physically searched on their person and in their vehicles, finger printed, detained and then had their personal belongings and property searched and seized. Surprisingly, the warranted DNA swabbing was omitted.

A receipt (not well detailed or itemized) was issued to only SOME whose property was seized. Therefore most all seizures that day are considered LEGAL THEFT. Among the items stolen were cell phones, iPads, laptops, business papers, Republic of Texas paperwork and coinage of precious metals along with other valuables.

Some of the phones were essential to their owners in conducting business and schoolwork, safely traveling the highways and attending to emergency medical calls as health professionals. One of the senior Texians often featured in documentaries and alternative radio and known to suffer with health concerns had to be taken by emergency vehicle to a hospital as a result of the forced takeover of the peaceful assembly.

The team of investigators left with the trunk and backseat of an unmarked sedan apparently belonging to Deputy Jeff McCoy, fully packed with confiscated belongings without a copy of the Search Warrant provided to anyone associated with the Republic of Texas. Instead, the warrant was given to the Post Commander of the VFW facility who was instructed not to copy the document nor divulge its contents to anyone.

The fortuitously warrant revealed it was issued by 216th District Court Judge N. Keith Williams of Kerr County alleging an unauthorized summons had been issued by the Republic of Texas. The documents alleged to be unauthorized were a Writ of Mandamus and a Writ of Quo Warranto issued by “The Officers and Constituents of The International Common Law Court for the Republic of Texas to Melvin Rex Emerson Jr., Court Administrator, and Color of Law ID No. 24009018, 700 Main Street, Kerrville, Texas. Kerr County” and was so stated on the document “This writ is hereby served by said Petitioner upon you, Melvin Rex Emerson Jr. as an individual”. In no way was the “State of Texas” intimated to be part or parcel to the documents.

If the Writ of Mandamus and the Quo Warranto issued for the Republic of Texas International Common Law Court were purely frivolous in nature, then why did this judge call out HIS MILITIA to address this action? What instilled such fear in him?

Why was it necessary to confiscate tens of thousands of dollars, Gold and Silver Metals being private and confidential property that was unrelated to the search warrant for a allegedly Class A Misdemeanor offense? One Texian noted that one officer confided that he probably would NEVER see his property again. Just who is the guilty party here? Could it be that the people of the Republic of Texas are rightfully fully vested with the power of the paperwork served on Judge Everson? Undoubtedly, additional paperwork needs to be issued! You decide.

Contrary to patently false reports by KBTX that the Republic of Texas and its assemblage were a militia group, the truth is that the Republic of Texas is a self-determined people attempting to throw off the yoke of military occupation of Texas through peaceful and lawful process. The entire land boundaries of the United States are also under military occupation thanks to the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. If you don’t believe it, you can read it for yourself: (http://thetexasrepublic.com Select: History Tab; Select “The Non-Ratification of the 14th Amendment – Highlighted by Robert Wilson” Selection option).

John Harold Jarnecke
President of the republic of Texas
February 17, 2015
Contact: www.thetexasrepublic.com for the Secretary of State
Excerpts from:Senate Report 93-549

Senate Report 93-549 “EMERGENCY POWERS STATUTES: Provisions of Federal Law Now In Effect Delegating To The Executive Extraordinary Authority In Time of National Emergency” November 19, 1973 (cover page)

Background and History

Senate Report 93-549 entitled “EMERGENCY POWERS STATUTES: Provisions of Federal Law Now In Effect Delegating To The Executive Extraordinary Authority In Time of National Emergency” was issued on November 19, 1973 by the “Special Committee on the Termination of the National Emergency” pursuant to Senate Resolution No. 9 – 93rd Congress, 1st Session.^[1]

…..These proclamations give force to over 470 provisions of Federal law. These hundreds of statutes delegate to the President extraordinary powers, ordinarily exercised by the Congress, which affect the lives of American citizens in a host of all-encompassing manners. This vast range of powers, taken together, confer enough authority to rule the country without reference to normal constitutional processes.^[4]

Under the powers delegated by these statutes, the President may: seize property; organize and control the means of production; seize commodities; assign military forces abroad; institute martial law; seize and control all transportation and communication; regulate the operation of private enterprise; restrict travel; and, in a plethora of particular ways, control the lives of all American citizens.^[5]

….The “termination” was in name only. The emergency powers are now continued in the U.S. Code as permanent everyday powers.^[8] The state of national emergency has become a permanent condition.^[9]

….Every president since Roosevelt has used emergency powers extensively, some claim falsely that the United States has been in a continual and permanent state of declared national emergency since March 9, 1933.^[14]

….The US Senate Report states: “That since March 09, 1933 the United States has been in a state of declared national emergency.”^[29]

“A majority of the people of the United States have lived all of their lives under emergency rule. For 40 years, freedoms and governmental procedures guaranteed by the Constitution have, in varying degrees, been abridged by laws brought into force by states of national emergency.” ^[30]

30^ [U.S. Congress, Senate Special Committee on the Termination of the National Emergency, Emergency Powers Statutes, 93rd Cong., 1st sess., S.Rept. 93-549 (Washington: GPO, 1973) | page= 1]

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Has Your State taken any Steps to Reclaim Your State Sovereign Land from the Federal Government? Why not?

1st published by CV on 11.03.2011

This method is preferred first before parading with "secessionist fervor" which is far more easily debunked by our enemies. Besides, any resolution voting secession would likely be rigged.

We first posted this alert in November 2011. You can see now how much of the western states are being assumed by the fedgov in the spreadsheet below, namely the BLM. Be courageous, do the lawful thing. You've got a lot more behind you now than we did in 1860!

Would you tolerate complete strangers squatting on your front lawn? No? Then... brush-up on your spelling of N-S-A., now add B-L-M.


States Must Reclaim their Sovereign Lands From the Federal Government ~

We put up the commentary below last November. Although we have no idea how Montanans made out with HR 1505, it's an object lesson for states and how to reclaim their sovereign property from the fedgov. 

The Real Lincoln, from the Testimony of his Contemporaries (1904)

CHAPTER II

Was Lincoln a Christian? 

The real Lincoln : from the testimony of his contemporaries

- - pages 25-29

ALMOST all the Christians of Springfield, his home, opposed him for President. He was an infidel, and when he went to church, he went to mock and came away to mimic. He wrote and talked against religion in the most shocking words. He never denied the charge, publicly urged, that he was an infidel. His wife and closest friends attest all this. He became reticent about his religious views when he entered political life, and thereafter indulged freely in pious phrases in his published documents and passionate expressions of piety began to abound in his speeches; but he never denied or flinched from his religious opinions and never changed them.

As to Lincoln's attitude towards religion. Dr. Holland, in his Abraham Lincoln, says (p. 286) that twenty out of the twenty-three ministers of the different denominations of Christians, and a very large majority of the prominent members of the churches in his home, Springfield, Illinois, opposed him for President. He says (page 241) : . . . . "Men who knew him throughout all his professional and political life" have said "that, so far from being a religious man, or a Christian, the less said about that the better." He says of Lincoln's first recorded religious utterance, used in closing his farewell address to Springfield, that it " was regarded by many as an evidence both of his weakness and of his hypocrisy, .... and was tossed about as a joke — 'old Abe's last.' "

Hapgood's Lincoln (page 291, et seq,) records that the pious words with which the Emancipation Proclamation closes were added at the suggestion of Secretary Chase, and so does Usher (Reminiscences of Lincoln, ikc, p. 91), and so does Rhodes; and Rhodes shows him "an infidel, if not an atheist," and adda, "When Lincohi entered political life he became reticent upon his religious opinions." {History of the United States, Vol. IV., p. 213, et seq.). 

Of his words that savor of religion, Lamon says (Life of Lincoln, page 503) : " If he did not believe in it, the masses of 'the plain people' did, and no one was ever more anxious to do what was of good report among men." Lamon further says (page 497) that after Mr. Lincoln "appreciated .... the violence and extent of the religious prejudices which freedom of discussion from his standpoint would be sure to rouse against him," and "the immense and augmenting power of the churches," .... (page 502), "he indulged freely in indefinite expressions about 'Divine Providence,' 'the justice of God,' the 'favor of the Most High,' in his published documents, but he nowhere ever professed the slightest faith in Jesus as the Son of God and the Savior- of men." (Page 501, et seq.)

" He never told any one that he accepted Jesus as the Christ, or performed one of the acts which necessarily followed upon such a conviction." .... " When he went to church at all, he went to mock, and came away to mimic." (Page 487.) Leland says (Abraham Lincoln, Vol. IL, p. 55, et seq.): . . . "It is certain that after the unpopularity of free-thinkers had forced itself upon his mind, the most fervidly passionate expressions of piety began to abound in his speeches." Lamon tells in detail (Life of Lincoln, p. 157, et seq.) of the writing and the burning of a "little book," written by Lincoln with the purpose to disprove the truth of the Bible and the divinity of Christ, and tells how it was burned without his consent by his friend Hill, lest it should ruin his political career before a Christian people. He says that Hill's son called the book "infamous," and that " the book was burnt, but he never denied or regretted its composition; on the contrary, he made it the subject of free and frequent conversations with his friends at Springfield, and stated with much particularity and precision the origin, arguments, and object of the work.''
 
Rhodes (History of the United States, Vol. IV., p. 213) tells the same story, with confirmation in another place (Vol. ni., p. 368, in note).

Herndon describes the "essay" or "book" as "an argument against Christianity, striving to prove that the Bible was not inspired, 'and therefore not God's revelation, and that Jesus Christ was not the Son of God." Herndon says that Lincoln intended to have the "essay" published, and further quotes one of Lincoln's associates of that day, who says that Lincoln " would come into the clerk's office where I and some young men were writing, .... and would bring a Bible with him; would read a chapter and argue against it."

A letter of Herndon (Lamon's Lincoln, p. 492, et seq,) says of Lincoln's contest with the Rev. Peter Cartwright for Congress in 1848 (page 404) : " In that contest he was accused of being an infidel, if not an atheist; he never denied the charge; would not; 'would die first," because he knew it could be and would be proved." And Lamon further says (page 499): "The following extract from a letter from Mr. Herndon was extensively published throughout the United State about the time of its date, Hemdon'a Lincoln, Vol. III., p. 39, et seq., and 439, et seq., and Lamon's Lincoln, p. 492.

February 18, 1870, and met with no contradiction from any responsible source; 'When Lincoln was a candidate for oiu- Legislature, he was accused of being an infidel; of having said that Jesus Christ was an illegitimate child. He never denied the opinions or flinched from his religious views.' "

On pages 487 to 514 Lamon's Lincoln copies numerous letter from Lin(«ln's intimate associates, one from David Davis,' a Justice of the Supreme Court, and one from Lincoln's wife, that fully confirm the above as to his attitude of hostility to religion. Lamon copies {Life of Lincoln, p. 495) another letter of Hemdon, as follows: " When Mr, Lincoln left this city" — Springfield, Illinois — "for Washington, I know that he had undergone no change in his religious opinions or views." And Lamon gives (page 480) a letter of Nicolay, his senior private secretary throughout his Administration, which states that he perceived no change in Lincoln's attitude toward religion after his entrance on the presidency. The Cosmopolitan, of March, 1901, says that Nicolay probably was closer to the martyred President than any other man; .... that he knew Lincoln as President and as man more intimately than any other man." ....

(29)

West Virginia Bill Would Block Unconstitutional National Guard Deployments

Praise the Lord for creating West Virginia even if it was a Yankee stronghold in the 19th century.

A bill introduced in the West Virginia House of Delegates this week would block unconstitutional foreign deployments of the state’s national guard troops, effectively restoring the Founders’ framework for state-federal balance on the Guard.

House Bill 2168 (HB2168), the Defend the Guard Act, was introduced by Del. Pat McGeehan (R-Hancock, 1), a former Air Force intelligence officer who did tours in Afghanistan and the Middle East, and cosponsored by ten other delegates. If passed, the bill would block the federal government from deploying West Virginia Guard troops overseas unless there is a declaration of war from Congress, as required by the Constitution.

“This bill essentially says, ‘If you don’t follow the highest law of the land, then we will withhold our Guard troops.’ The language and intent of the Constitution is so clear on this one issue,” McGeehan told the Wheeling News-Register.

Guard troops have played significant roles in all modern overseas conflicts, with over 650,000 deployed since 2001. More specifically, West Virginia National Guard troops have participated in missions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Kosovo and elsewhere.

Since none of these missions have been accompanied by a Constitutional declaration of war, the Defend the Guard Act would have prohibited the deployments. Such declarations have only happened five times in U.S. history, with the last being in World War II.

BACKGROUND

Article I, Section 8, Clauses 15 and 16 make up the “militia clauses” of the Constitution. Clause 16 authorizes Congress to “provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia.” In the Dick Act of 1903, Congress organized the militia into today’s National Guard, limiting the part of the militia that could be called into federal service rather than the entire body of people. Thus, today’s National Guard is governed by the “militia clauses” of the Constitution, and this view is confirmed by the National Guard itself.

Clause 15 delegates to the Congress the power to provide for “calling forth the militia” in three situations only: 1) to execute the laws of the union, 2) to suppress insurrections, and 3) to repel invasions.

During state ratifying conventions, proponents of the Constitution, including James Madison and Edmund Randolph, repeatedly assured the people that this power to call forth the militia into federal service would be limited to those very specific situations, and not for general purposes, like helping victims of a disease outbreak or engaging in “kinetic military actions.”

“Defending one side or the other in a Middle East civil war doesn’t qualify as ‘repelling an invasion,’” said Mike Maharrey, national communications director for the Tenth Amendment Center. “The Founders didn’t trust presidents on war, and one way they insisted on balancing that power was by keeping a strong military force at home, in the states.”

RETURNING TO THE CONSTITUTION

It is this limited Constitutional structure that advocates of the Defend the Guard Act seek to restore. That is, use of the Guard for the three expressly-delegated purposes in the Constitution, and at other times to remain where the Guard belongs, at home, supporting and protecting their home state.

“For decades, the power of war has long been abused by this supreme executive, and unfortunately our men and women in uniform have been sent off into harm’s way over and over,” said McGeehan. “If the U.S. Congress is unwilling to reclaim its constitutional obligation, then the states themselves must act to correct the erosion of constitutional law.”

Maharrey agreed. “While getting this bill passed isn’t going to be easy, it certainly is, as Daniel Webster once noted, one of the reasons state governments even exist.”

Referenced by Maharrey was an 1814 speech on the floor of Congress where Webster urged similar actions to McGeehan’s Defend the Guard Act. He said, “The operation of measures thus unconstitutional and illegal ought to be prevented by a resort to other measures which are both constitutional and legal. It will be the solemn duty of the State governments to protect their own authority over their own militia, and to interpose between their citizens and arbitrary power. These are among the objects for which the State governments exist.”

NEXT UP

HB2168 has been assigned to the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee. It will need to pass by a majority vote before being sent to the House Judiciary Committee. Should it pass that stage, the full House will have an opportunity to consider whether to send the bill over to the state Senate.

ACTION STEPS

In West Virginia, support this bill by following all the action steps at THIS LINK

All other states, contact your state rep and senator, urging them to introduce legislation similar to HB2168. Find their contact info here.

NEXT STEPS
  
Michael Boldin
January 22, 2015By Michael BoldinState Bills War Powers
Defend the GuardMilitiaNational Guard
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Michael Boldin