Guest Post by Fred Reed
I see that a man named Sessions, apparently Washington’s Attorney General, threatens to unleash the coercive powers of the federal government against the state of Colorado, his reason being that he does not like the state’s policy with regard to marijuana. This is most curious. Why he believes the policies of Colorado to be his concern is not clear. Equally mysterious is why he thinks the police of Colorado should arrest Coloradans for doing a thing that the people of the state have determined to be acceptable.
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Mr. Session’s expansive view of his importance in the universe is seen again in his menacing of the state of California because he does noi approve its policy toward its immigrants. Common sense suggests that if he does not like California’s policies, he should live in another state. I am sure this would suit California well.
What justification does this feral busybody have for meddling in what is not his business? Mr. Sessions wraps himself in the Constitution and, thus emparchmented, asserts that the Supremacy Clause gives him the authority to overrule the states. Reasonable men may disagree on this matter. I assert that the states have no duty to observe the Constitution since the federals do not.
As one instance among many, the Constitution ordains that the country shall not go to war without a declaration from the Congress. In fact the federals make war constantly with neither a declaration nor any reference to the will of people, draining their substance for purposes which are not theirs. If the Constitution is not binding on the central government, it is not binding on the states.
In any event the federals do not represent the people of the country. How many of us in the various states want to spend trillions on distant wars at the command–for that is what it is–of Israel, the petroleum industry, and Empire? Yet we have no choice.
The question of states rights is today seen, or inculcated, as the fantasy of romantic conservatives remembering a world that never was. In truth, states rights are our only bulwark against tyranny. It is the amalgamation of undeserved powers in the hands of the federals that accounts for the country’s tribulations both within and without.
A great and wise man, a leading proponent of states rights, long ago foresaw this dismal prospect, saying, “The consolidation of the states into one vast empire, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of ruin which has overwhelmed all that preceded it.”
Just so. Is this not what we see? When a single remote legislature controls a continent, then a small group wishing to dominate the whole need suborn only a few hundred members of its Congress and a few judges on its Supreme Court. By corrupting one city, they can impose any law they choose on all. That the people of many states find the law odious matters little as they can do nothing about it.
If however the people of each state made their own laws, the small group in New York would have to purchase fifty legislatures, each being under the scrutiny of the people of the state. The more local the government, the more responsive to the will of the governed. It would not be possible to establish a uniform despotism..
This despotism is what we now have, and it worsens. Today the federals dictate every aspect of our lives with no regard for those suffering the dictation. They determine what we may teach our children in the schools, what sexual practices must be preached to to those children, what religious observances are allowed us. If they decide that ten thousand Papua New Guineans in loincloths must settle upon our towns, then settle they must. They decide what statues we may have, how our world was created, who may use our bathrooms. They decide, these remote people who names we often do not know, of loyalties and faiths and beliefs many of us find distasteful, with whom we must make war.
How may we of the various states rid ourselves of such noxious influences from afar? By what right? Now I am just a countryman of no great learning in governance. Yet it seems to me that when in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
I believe that the causes of separation have been sufficiently enumerated in the foregoing. The question is how to achieve the separation.
There is no prospect of escape by armed rebellion. The federals control the army, and history has shown that soldiers will as soon kill their fellow citizens as any other.
A more fruitful, if gradual, path to freedom is to ignore the strictures of intrusive federals, to engage in passive resistance. Washington does not have the manpower to enforce alien laws upon the entire nation. We see the beginnings of this laudable disentanglement in the seven states that have made legal the use of marijuana. Should these states remain resolute, and refuse to allow their police to be used as Quisling Pinkertons against their citizenry, they may well prevail. The avowed resistance of the government of California to the imposition of laws alien to it is perhaps as important as the battle of Yorktown. As goes California, so goes the nation.
In a country deeply at odds with itself the best course may be separation, first of laws, then of administration, and finally of sovereignty. It need not be an uneven fight. As Washington can withhold federal funds from the states, so can the states withhold taxes from the federals, as California has threatened.
America seems overlarge. Perhaps the parts should go their separate ways. If the federals had to pay for their own wars, there would be no wars. General Lee was right.
There is no right to secession guaranteed by the Constitution, this was determined irrevocably by the Civil War and 620,000 dead/missing. Therefore to do this peacefully would require a Constitutional amendment, and I don’t see that happening peacefully in today’s culture. Conceptually I agree I guess, but the consequences of “things going bad” could/would be horrendous. IMHO the only other alternative is to radically reduce the power of “Washington”, but again the chances of this happening peacefully are practically nil.
not necessarily…. again someone that has no knowledge of history. Each state either applied for, or was asked to contractually join into the union. Texas actually has a clause in their contract that allows for secession if so desired. California may have also done so… but this land was not all US or fed govt… pieces were individually purchased at different times and from different countries, each with different contracts. The Constitution followed as a legally binding agreement if a state was to sign to join the union, but sets no requirements as to whether states come or go because the Constitution originally gave ALL POWER (but for a few select items) to the STATES and/or the PEOPLE.
Greetings,
Yes, Texas has a clause for Succession but how well did that clause work for them in 1861?
Blockchain and A.I. will be the destruction of the federal system. I’m certain of it.
Armed violence does not make a sufficient argument. Dumb ass.
Who gives a shit whether there is a “right” to secession enshrined in the Constitution! It is a pre-existing right the states possessed at the time of the Civil War. Regardless of the outcome of that conflict, the states retain that right. Being violently compelled to remain in a voluntary union does not abrogate the original right. The original colonies entered voluntarily into the compact that we know as the Constitution. They had at that time, and still retain the right to voluntarily abrogate that agreement and establish themselves as sovereign states. Every state that voluntarily entered into the Union subsequent to the ratification of the Constitution also retains the original pre-existing right to leave.
Secession is as much a natural right of the states as free speech is to the individual citizen. Despite 160 odd years of propaganda, the United States still “are” no matter how many ignorant citizens consider that the United States “is.”
States Rights up to, and including, the right of secession are the only hope for a peaceful breakup of this benighted land.
Very well written article. Common sense to me.
There is a difference between illegal immigration and pot. The Feds need to control immigration because both illegals and legals end up being a tax burden. With pot this might also be true but to a far lesser degree and there really isnt much documentation on it.
what I was immediately thinking. Marijuana laws should and do fall under state’s rights. Immigration is a national issue since once they are in, they most often don’t stay in California but spread like a pandemic across the countryside. Plus the Fed Gov also is bailing out states and subsidizing the education and “entitlement” welfare of all of these illegals.
Lumping these 2 issues together was either poorly thought out or intentional obfuscation of critcal facts– calling BS on this piece.
javelin. me too. sounds like fred is falling in love with the sound of his keystrokes.
Fred wants to move back to Cali while still being in Mexico. What he doesn’t get is that once Cali leaves it will soon be China, not Mexico.
Agreed.
It’s the old dox argument: your own beliefs and desires are orthodox, but anyone else’s is someone else’s doxie.
State’s rights don’t matter – the Constitution reserves those areas not claimed by the federal, to be state. The Civil War and 2 centuries of law have shown that the federal government wins all conflicts between state and federal laws.
California is welcome to try and secede, and the very non-PC military will have a lot of fun putting down that insurrection.
While I agree with much of your post, its not a matter of the fed’s “needing” to deal with immigration. Constitutionally speaking, immigration IS within the purview of the federal government, pot or anything else regarding what adults do with their bodies is not, and is not mentioned in the constitution.
Fred seems to be going off the deep end a lot more lately. I think his love for all things Mexican is clouding his judgement with regards to the merit of letting endless amounts of them squat in our country. But, he does make a good point – the feds clearly don’t obey the constitution, so why SHOULD the states themselves. Taking that a little further, every single day we see more evidence that those who call themselves our rulers don’t follow the law. So, we should anyone else?
Exactly right. You made my comment for me (and with many fewer words than I would have used).
Pot’s actually good for the community because it brings it into the tax stream. And it’s the right thing to do.
Marijuana is a Federally regulated drug at the order of Congressional legislation.
It needs to be addressed by Congress and remains the law until Congress changes it.
Same as with immigration and such. Congress needs to deal with it, the States don’t have the power to override Federal law, particularly Federal law that has already been upheld by the Court.
“Article I, Section 8, Clause 4 does read, “… To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization” so there is a constitutional authority for congress to make such laws. But, there is no such mention of regulating anything like marijuana, or anything else people might put into their bodies or do with them. Thats not how its supposed to work. There is no authority in the constitution for the feds to regulate pot or anything like it, therefor any laws they pass regarding such things are unconstitutional.
Regulation of interstate commerce.
Anything that affects interstate trade is subject to regulation.
You may be able to cut and paste parts of the Constitution, but you fail to understand it or how the Courts have determined the meanings of the various clauses it contains.
Sorry, Anonymous, it is the courts themselves who have failed to understand the Constitution or that they have not the authority to “determine” the meaning of the various clauses it contains.
The Constitution has not been the “supreme law of the land” since 1803. Which means that its validity held for a grand total of 12 years (or 14 years, depending on when you wish to count from).
Of course, Marbury was not the worst of all decisions. Or, at least, it didn’t have to be.
No, the very worst one — the least Constitutional, and most tyrannical — was Wickard … you know, the one you love and are extolling as the end-all-be-all of “Constitutionality”.
While the question of substance use in Colorado is one of, as you say, following the will of the citizens, it does not follow that California has the right to set immigration policies, given that there is a right of free travel between the states. Therefore, that state policy affects the people of the whole country.
One can only imagine Reed and his 5 foot tall taco men rising up and imagining they could run the United States. The proto human negroes have long given up on such a fantastic dream and have contented themselves on trying to extract as much as they can without becoming such a nuisance they become eligible for a ‘Final Solution’.
The proto humans simply don’t have the mental horsepower to run a modern society. They simple have to accept what niches as they are allowed to fill. They are not essential people!
Interesting. I guess your ancestors aren’t African, Asian, American Indian, German, Italian, Greek, Irish or any of the other past demographics of inferior man.
And you also have no idea of history.
The Mexican dollar was considered a superior currency than the US dollar for something like the first 100 years of the existence of the US.
It is decades of American and home grown interference which has led Mexico to being what it is today. Look at the privatization of the telephone system to create one of the richest men in the world, as one egregious example.
Deflation is death
When in an empire
that is built on debt.
we can’t realistically separate–
the war between the states was between 2 sections of the country–
today it would be neighbor against neighbor–
who forces who to move?
“Who forces who to move?” The winner….all unarmed Liberals have to move to Cuba!
Kinda a reverse Lefty Mariel boat-lift people thing….
https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=cuban+boatlift+in+the+80's&qpvt=cuban+boatlift+in+the+80%27s&FORM=IGRE
Allow me to share my fantasy on what we do with them. Round them up and sell them to the Mexican and Caribbean plantation owners and S. American gemstone miners. Just imagining myself at the Pier to hear their squeals of indignation relaxes me at bedtime.
baggsie,
those ain’t the kind of squeals i’m imagining at bedtime —
Red, are you one of those Bayshore Pirates? In the Krewe and all?
nope-i’m too poor & low class for ye mystic krewe of gasparilla–
Tampa. Those kind will keep me awake.
The federal government has failed miserably regarding everything from war on drugs , terror , poverty , economy etc … ! Our government officials have indebted the nation and every man women and child with nothing to show for it at all but a string of very expensive failures and no ability to cover that debt .
So you want to get high go for it , it’s really none of the federal or states governments business . Make it all cheap and easy access with purity of content assured by the FDA to make it cheap , Abolish the DEA and every law enforcement phony baloney job , lay them all off and drop all their pensions and benefits . Register heroin and cocaine addicts and every other person with drug and alcohol addictions , they must surrender all permits and licenses including the Social Security Card and then fuckem let them party till they drown in their own puke !
As for pot and alcohol sell it and tax it just like now for booze .
Wow just ended the highly profitable and highly dangerous drug trafficking issues plaguing our nation ! No money to be made here everybody that wants it either gets it or they are dead sounds like a win win to me ! As for Sessions he likes the drug war as do most law enforcement as they use asset forfiture to leave many people with a bleeding asshole and little or no legal recourse while cops and feds pat each other on the back . I wonder how many of them are maintenance dose alcoholics ???
As for illegals in this country get the fucking net and as for border guards issue some M-60’s and let them open up along the border . A few dead bodies withe buzzards circling should end the attempts real fast . As for the people that want to allow this influx of illegals have them sign a petition and send the bill for their portion of what illegals cost this nation . Don’t give me that DACA shit either you show me one illegal doing well and attempting to do the right thing and I will show you an MS13 gang member or other pillar of our illegal group infesting our country !
“I will show you an MS13 gang member”. Where did you see an MS-13 member, and how did you ID him as a member? They don’t wear colors like the Angels or Pagans.
Silly Blind Rabbit they have tattoos that say M13.
I wish it was that easy.
“Everybody thinks about an MS-13 team member and the first thing that comes to their mind is an individual with a tattoo of an ‘M’ and a ’13’ across the face,” Melendez said….As the gang spread to Central America and then back to cities across the U.S., Melendez says it became more subtle. Now members might display their MS-13 affiliation by wearing certain colors and sports team logos.”. https://www.npr.org/2017/08/18/544365061/identifying-ms-13-members
7:17 pm “They don’t wear colors like the Angels or Pagans.”
9:57 pm “Now members might display their MS-13 affiliation by wearing certain colors…”
Your witness, counselor.
Marshforbrains.
How old are you? Does Mommy know your awake playing grown-up on your I phone.
Expect a visit from Herr Rdawg, the Grammar Gestapo….
A very clever ruse to play the role of Grammar Gestapo yourself while acting as lookout for same.
Well, I’m looking to move up through the ranks, Herr Gestapo…
Jawohl mein Schüler.
FFS, give my buddy down the bar a shot of Knob Creek…
Fred says exactly what I have been saying. Either destroy Israel, or the US. I would not miss either.
Why don’t you just say ” The big satan and little satan” and get it over with………..
“The more local the government, the more responsive to the will of the governed. It would not be possible to establish a uniform despotism.”
A euphemism.
Look to the EU; the citizens do vote and elect their local legislatures, but they do nothing except follow the dictates from the unelected EU bureaucrats. Those individual nation states have lost their sovereignty, which is the intent of the Global Warming bureaucrats in the UN to take away the sovereignty of the US.
Colorado legalized marijuana because the people of that state did something special. I was there by the way, trying my best to make it happen. We spent years educating, collecting signatures, fighting ignorance and the ATF. Despite all the fantastic organizations dedicated to the cause, what really made the difference was the people themselves, every April.
On 4/20 people from across the state gathered in front of the state capitol building. Thousands and thousands of people. They pulled out their pipes and their joints and lit up. The police, despite their ravenous desire to beat us to death, were restrained by our sheer numbers (and a thick calming cloud). Passive peaceful resistance. We did this every year, each year it grew. More and more people joined in, unafraid to openly disobey an unconstitutional and immoral law. After a few years the police didn’t even bother showing up. No real crimes were being committed, it was probably the safest place to be in Denver on any given day.
You don’t need a leader, and you don’t need the perfect plan to disrupt the empire. Maybe all you need is an idea and a date. If enough people agree on a place and time, amazing things can happen.
I also enjoyed this read when thinking about the future:
Well, you heroes of Denver should get your shit together and go to the capital and all take a dump in front of the capital. Do this once each week, preferably near the end of a daylight legislature session.
This should grab the attention of the Denver legislature that made it legal to shit in the street.
California received 356 BILLION dollars in Federal money in 2017.
1/3 of a trillion dollars in one year. That doesn’t even seem possible with a budget of just over 4 trillion, but that’s the OMB figure.
They are, like every other state, hostages to their greed.
The Federal leviathan will only be restrained when the people stop feeding it. No state government would even dream of changing the status quo.
Respectfully, how will the people stop feeding it? Are you going to stop paying your taxes? Maybe if everyone decided together to do it all at once it might work, but in all reality that will not happen.
The withholding deduction from wages was enacted to keep this very thing from happening. The only way to stop paying taxes is to stop working as employees for other people or corporations.
TPTB know exactly what they are doing. They are giving it to the people long and hard up the rear orifice.
I am a 1099 contractor to one outfit I work with, and a part-time employee on weekend duty to another. The 1099 outfit (80% of my last year’s income) withholds no taxes and pays no benefits; the part-time agency withholds taxes, and pays no benefits. Last year I think the part-time outfit withheld about $800, if I remember right.
The Feds had to wait until January of this year to get my estimated taxes check; since all that matters is that you have about 80% of your estimated tax bill paid in by year-end, no penalty was applied. I just had to have the discipline (my wife did, actually) to pay 20% of every paycheck into a savings account, so that the money was there when due.
But if I really wanted to risk the pain, I could have waited probably into April to pay the estimated taxes, and if I really wanted pain just not paid them at all. It would have taken them a while to get to me (small potatoes here) and maybe I could emigrate to North Korea, Venezuela or China with it first, but they did not appeal to me.
But if you want to get away from withholding, there are ways.
California will eat itself alive, the the proverbial snake eating its tail, before too long. Its engaged in a self reinforcing negative feedback loop. It keeps raising taxes and raising spending, and people keep leaving, necessitating even more taxes. Not just any people, though. Productive people, seeking friendlier business climates. Their pension bomb will force them to make some interesting and amusing choices when it goes off. California is pretty much a giant graft machine used to feed a bloated public sector. Eventually, they are going to have to choose between feeding that monster and their illegal alien friends. They can’t do both forever.
cleave the [aberrant] “coasters” from just north of the Bay Area to Orange County and all “Feral funding” to said would be similar to excising a big stinking tumor.
How much of that money was first STOLEN from the citizens of the state before being “returned?” Indeed, there are net takers and net payers, but stop the flow to DC and let everyone work it out themselves. How much CA spending (or any state for that matter) is the result of complying with Federal mandates. End the mandates and some of that expense dries up everywhere. No, this should NOT be construed as an endorsement of anything California or their government does…just making a point about monies coming from DC.
“The Federal Government is treating the ‘long train of abuses’ enumerated in our Declaration of Independence like a shopping list, and is treating George Orwell’s 1984 like an operations manual.”
Stewart Rhodes
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable.”
John F. Kennedy
[should] begin at the county level and the sheriff – the elemental ELECTED law enforcement “authority”
Nullification – a great book by Tom Woods. Nullification of federal laws has a VERY LONG history, was fully supported by both Jefferson and Madison, and is essentially what Colorado, Washington, California and others are doing. It is also the way slavery (well, the fugitive slave act, alcohol prohibition, and other offensive federal policies were undermined by the states before the feds were FORCED to acquiesce.
I’ve been part of the tenth amendment movement since before it was cool. The county Sheriff’s can nullify quite a few laws and regulations but rarely do. Google the tenth amendment center (TAC). The county sheriff often has more authority to nullify than the state.