States Rebellion Pending (Congress, legal, gasoline, highway)

[SilverOne]

A MINORITY VIEW
BY WALTER E. WILLIAMS
RELEASE: WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 2009 AND THEREAFTER

States Rebellion Pending

Our Colonial ancestors petitioned and pleaded with King George III to get his boot off their necks. He ignored their pleas, and in 1776, they rightfully declared unilateral independence and went to war. Today it's the same story except Congress is the one usurping the rights of the people and the states, making King George's actions look mild in comparison. Our constitutional ignorance -- perhaps contempt, coupled with the fact that we've become a nation of wimps, sissies and supplicants -- has made us easy prey for Washington's tyrannical forces. But that might be changing a bit. There are rumblings of a long overdue re-emergence of Americans' characteristic spirit of rebellion.
Eight state legislatures have introduced resolutions declaring state sovereignty under the Ninth and 10th amendments to the U.S. Constitution; they include Arizona, Hawaii, Montana, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Washington. There's speculation that they will be joined by Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Nevada, Maine and Pennsylvania.

You might ask, "Isn't the 10th Amendment that no-good states' rights amendment that Dixie governors, such as George Wallace and Orval Faubus, used to thwart school desegregation and black civil rights?" That's the kind of constitutional disrespect and ignorance that big-government proponents, whether they're liberals or conservatives, want you to have. The reason is that they want Washington to have total control over our lives. The Founders tried to limit that power with the 10th Amendment, which reads: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
New Hampshire's 10th Amendment resolution typifies others and, in part, reads: "That the several States composing the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their General (federal) Government; but that, by a compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a General Government for special purposes, delegated to that government certain definite powers, reserving, each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force." Put simply, these 10th Amendment resolutions insist that the states and their people are the masters and that Congress and the White House are the servants. Put yet another way, Washington is a creature of the states, not the other way around.

Congress and the White House will laugh off these state resolutions. State legislatures must take measures that put some teeth into their 10th Amendment resolutions. Congress will simply threaten a state, for example, with a cutoff of highway construction funds if it doesn't obey a congressional mandate, such as those that require seat belt laws or that lower the legal blood-alcohol level to .08 for drivers. States might take a lead explored by Colorado.
In 1994, the Colorado Legislature passed a 10th Amendment resolution and later introduced a bill titled "State Sovereignty Act." Had the State Sovereignty Act passed both houses of the legislature, it would have required all people liable for any federal tax that's a component of the highway users fund, such as a gasoline tax, to remit those taxes directly to the Colorado Department of Revenue. The money would have been deposited in an escrow account called the "Federal Tax Fund" and remitted monthly to the IRS, along with a list of payees and respective amounts paid. If Congress imposed sanctions on Colorado for failure to obey an unconstitutional mandate and penalized the state by withholding funds due, say $5 million for highway construction, the State Sovereignty Act would have prohibited the state treasurer from remitting any funds in the escrow account to the IRS. Instead, Colorado would have imposed a $5 million surcharge on the Federal Tax Fund account to continue the highway construction.

The eight state legislatures that have enacted 10th Amendment resolutions deserve our praise, but their next step is to give them teeth.
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at Creators Syndicate - Celebrating 20 Years as a World-Class Syndicate Of Talent.
COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
A MINORITY VIEW (http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/wew/articles/09/StatesRebellionPending.htm - broken link)

[ovcatto]

States aren't rebelling just a few GOP wannabe Presidential candidates who are latching their cart to the wrong horse. In point of fact each of the reincarnations of Robert Toombs, Jeff Davis, George Wallace and Ross Barnett has had to deal with a revolt of their own party members in their respective state legislatures.

[Oerdin]

What a joke.

[jetgraphics]

Originally Posted by Oerdin

What a joke.

Agreed. But not for the obvious reasons.

State governments surrendered their sovereignty in 1789, to the Federal government, via the supremacy of the U.S. Constitution.

However, the people retained their sovereignty. But they could surrender it, in order to assert citizenship, a voluntary drop in status.

To illustrate, we know that governments are instituted among men to secure rights to life, liberty and property. See Declaration of Independence, 1776.

And we should know that the militia is defined as all able bodied male CITIZENS, between 17 and 45. And pursuant to the constitution, the government can order the militia to assemble, fight, and die, if necessary, on command of the governor or the commander in chief.

A government instituted to secure one's right to life cannot simultaneously infringe that right, via conscription - EXCEPT by consent.

Citizenship, therefore, must be a voluntary acceptance of civic duties in exchange for political liberties. If it was imposed at birth, it would be involuntary servitude and unconstitutional.

Thus, we see that citizens do not have inalienable rights to life, liberty nor the pursuit of happiness. They are subjects of the government, unlike the people who are sovereign.

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References:

USCON, Art 1, Section 8
The Congress shall have Power ... To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

USCON, Art. 2, Section 2
The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States;

DUTIES of U.S. citizenship

Title 10 USC Sec. 311. Militia: composition and classes
(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, CITIZENS of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are—
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.

Title 50 USC Sec. 453. Registration (Selective Service)
(a)...it shall be the duty of every male CITIZEN of the United States, and every other male person RESIDING in the United States, who, on the day or days fixed for the first or any subsequent registration, is between the ages of eighteen and twenty-six, to present himself for and submit to registration at such time or times and place or places, and in such manner, as shall be determined by proclamation of the President and by rules and regulations prescribed hereunder. ...

Sovereigns (with domiciles) and subject citizens (with residences) are mutually exclusive. Congress has not infringed upon the sovereignty, freedom, rights nor powers of the sovereign people. But woe to the citizens... especially those "voluntary" socialists.

God Bless the USA!