Tag Archives: Constitution

Joe Drunk, by Eric Peters

Posted on August 3, 2021 | Leave a comment

The treatment of people suspected of driving while intoxicated shreds the Constitution. From Eric Peters at ericpetersautos.com:

The presumption of innocence is something not paid much respect – or even given much thought – anymore. Everyone is guilty – of everything. No matter that you or I haven’t actually done anything.

It is just a matter of accusation.

The finger now points at every driver – and soon, at every new car buyer – who is to be presumed “drunk” without the bother of conviction.

Or even a probable-cause-free sobriety checkpoint.

Senate Democrats – and some might-as-well-be Democrats who identify as Republicans – have inserted language in the $1 trillion “infrastructure” bill peristaltically making its way through the Senate colon that would require every new car sold within 10 years be equipped with what you used to have to be convicted of DWI to have to have installed in your car:

An alcohol-detecting interlock of some kind that disables the vehicle and prevents it from being driven by a “drunk” driver – the latter to be defined presumptively as every driver.

And on the basis of ever-attenuating standards of “drunkenness,” which now encompasses the drinking of as little as a single beer or even less, in states that have lowered their Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) thresholds defining it at .05 or even less (for those under 21). No evidence of actual impairment being necessary to convict.

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Civil Liberties, Crime, Government, Law

Tagged , , ,

Their Endgame For The Flag, The National Anthem, The Declaration Of Independence And The Constitution

Posted on July 7, 2021 | Leave a comment

The game is not just to get rid of cherished national symbols, but to get rid of the ideas embedded implicitly or explicitly in those symbols. From Michael Snyder at themostimportantnews.com:

A huge national debate about our most important national symbols has erupted, and it is rapidly becoming one of our hottest political issues.  But what most people don’t realize is that this isn’t really a debate about our past.  Rather, it is a debate about what our future is going to look like.  Those that are demonizing the American flag, the national anthem, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are not doing so for the purpose of winning a historical debate.  Their true goal is to “cancel” those symbols and replace them with new ones, because our existing national symbols represent values and principles that are diametrically opposed to the values and principles that they wish to impose upon society.

If they ultimately get their way, the United States will eventually become an extremely repressive high tech dystopian society where absolutely no dissent is tolerated.  In other words, we would look a whole lot like communist China does today.

When I was growing up, the “godless communists” on the other side of the globe were the “bad guys”, and I was raised to greatly love the flag and the freedoms that it represented.  But now our flag is regularly demonized by the corporate media.  For example, the New York Times just published an article in which the flag was described as “alienating”…

What was once a unifying symbol — there is a star on it for each state, after all — is now alienating to some, its stripes now fault lines between people who kneel while “The Star-Spangled Banner” plays and those for whom not pledging allegiance is an affront.

And it has made the celebration of the Fourth of July, of patriotic bunting and cakes with blueberries and strawberries arranged into Old Glory, into another cleft in a country that seems no longer quite so indivisible, under a flag threatening to fray.

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Collapse, Government, Law, Philosophy, Politics

Tagged , , , ,

Can the President Kill? by Andrew Napolitano

Posted on July 1, 2021 | Leave a comment

It certainly was not the intent of the Constitution’s framers, but the presidential war power has become such that the president can unilaterally make war. Wars do indeed kill people, which means that yes, presidents can kill. From Andrew Napolitano at lewrockwell.com:

Last weekend, President Joseph R. Biden Jr. ordered the U.S. military to bomb targets in Syria and Iraq in an effort “to send a clear and unambiguous deterrent message” to Iran. It is apparently the belief of the Biden administration — as it has been with Biden’s three immediate presidential predecessors — that the U.S. has the moral and legal authority to destroy any target outside the U.S. with financial or political or military ties to Iran.

Morally, the U.S. can only use force defensively or to repel an imminent attack. When asked for the legal authority for an offensive attack, a Pentagon spokesperson stated that it could be found in Article 2 of the U.S. Constitution. Yet, it is not there.

Governments love war. The political philosopher Randolph Bourne, who made a lifetime study of the effects of war, once famously and derisively called it “the health of the State” because it tends to unify persons behind the military might of the war-makers and it makes it easier to raise taxes to support the troops. It keeps the government’s agents busy and its patrons well compensated. Hence the nearly irresistible impulse that modern American presidents have had to utilize the military to assert imperial political will around the globe.

Can the president on his own send lethal missiles to any target of his choosing? In a word: No.

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Government, Law, Military, Politics, War

Tagged ,

Taking Liberty for Granted, by Andrew P. Napolitano

Posted on June 3, 2021 | Leave a comment

A governments that does not protect its citizens’ natural rights can and should be replaced with one that does. From Andrew P. Napolitano at lewrockwell.com:

“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”
— Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826).

No one knows if Thomas Jefferson personally uttered those words. They have been widely attributed to him, but they don’t appear in any of his writings. If he did not literally utter them, he uttered the sentiments they offer. They remind us not to take liberty for granted.

As America returns to pre-pandemic normalcy, we should think about the dangers of taking liberty for granted. This column has argued frequently that personal liberty is our birthright. It is a natural right. It doesn’t come from the government. It comes from our humanity, which is a gift from God. As God is perfectly free, so are we.

The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution presume that our liberties are natural and cannot be suppressed or taken away by the government absent due process.

Due process requires a notice of charges, a fair hearing with all constitutional protections at which the government must prove fault, and the right to appeal. The Constitution doesn’t grant liberty; it restrains the government from infringing upon it.

Some liberties are so essential to the pursuit of happiness that the Constitution prohibits their infringement, period — with or without due process. These are the liberties that we exercise every day — worship, speech, peaceable assembly, self-defense, privacy, ownership and use of property, commercial transactions, travel. We voluntarily establish governments to protect our liberties.

Are the governments we have established morally legitimate? They are when they have, as Jefferson wrote in the Declaration, the consent of the governed, and when they defend our liberties. Absent consent and defense of liberty, government is not legitimate.

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Civil Liberties, Collapse, Government, Law, Morality, Politics, Tyranny

Tagged , ,

The Government’s Emergency Powers Myth, by Andrew P. Napolitano

Posted on May 20, 2021 | 1 comment

Other than Article I, Section 9, clause 2’s suspension of the writ of habeas corpus in “Cases of Rebellion or Invasion,” the Constitution doesn’t grant the federal government, and by extension via the 14th Amendment, state governments a single other emergency power. From Andrew P. Napolitano at lewrockwell.com:

“The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times and under all circumstances. No doctrine involving more pernicious consequences was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government.”
— Ex Parte Milligan, Supreme Court of the United States, 1866.

Last week, the media in New Jersey began to ask Gov. Phil Murphy when he would surrender his emergency powers. He claimed emergency powers in March 2020, and he also claimed that those powers are not limited by the Constitution when he said on Fox that the Bill of Rights is above his pay grade. His reply to the media inquiries was that he will surrender them when he surrenders them!

I am using the example of Murphy in order to address the concept of emergency powers, but there is no hyperbole here. Murphy quite literally issued executive orders barring folks from doing what the Constitution guarantees them the right to do, and he imposed criminal penalties for violating his orders, and he had folks who defied him arrested and prosecuted. Stated differently, he assumed the powers of the state legislature — which is to write the laws — and he violated his oath to uphold the Constitution.

He claimed that somehow he can interfere with the exercise of basic human freedoms — like going to church, going to work, shopping for food, operating a business, assembling and traveling — because he declared a state of emergency.

If the government declares an emergency, can it thereby acquire the lawful power to interfere with constitutionally guaranteed freedoms? In a word: No.

Continue reading→

1 Comment

Posted in Civil Liberties, Governments, History, Law

Tagged ,

Can Federal Judges Alter the Constitution? by Andrew Napolitano

Posted on May 13, 2021 | Leave a comment

Judges aren’t supposed to be able to alter the Constitution, but they’ve done so repeatedly, such that much of that document has little relation to its original intended meaning. From Andrew Napolitano at lewrockwell.com:

“No person shall be… deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” — Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

Last year, a detainee at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, filed a writ of habeas corpus in a federal district court in Washington, D.C. — to which all cases from Guantanamo have been assigned — and it was denied because he was not in the United States.

A writ of habeas corpus is the ancient individual right of every person confined by the government to require the government to justify the confinement under the law to a neutral judge. That right is guaranteed by the Constitution. This is so because the framers, who knew of summary incarceration by British authorities, made certain that the new government here could not treat any persons as the British government had treated the colonists.

One of the arguments that the British government had made was that the rights of Englishmen — which included the right of habeas corpus — only applied to persons in England. So the framers included language in the Constitution that prohibited the suspension of the right except in cases of rebellion or invasion of such magnitude that the courts could not sit. Like most rights in the Bill of Rights, the Constitution does not grant the right of habeas corpus — which comes from our humanity — but prohibits the denial of it.

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Civil Liberties, Collapse, Government, History, Law, Politics, Propaganda

Tagged ,

Unconstitutional Debt and Future Generations, by Andrew P. Napolitano

Posted on April 29, 2021 | 1 comment

Not the least of the national debt’s many vices is that it’s blatantly unconstitutional. From Andrew P. Napolitano at lewrockwell.com:

Earlier this week, President Joseph R. Biden Jr. asked Congress to raise taxes and increase borrowing so his administration can spend $2.3 trillion — on top of the $1.9 trillion Congress authorized two months ago for so-called COVID relief — for thousands of projects he calls “infrastructure.” All this is in addition to the $2 trillion that the government borrows annually these days just to make ends meet.

These are serious numbers of dollars, the repayment of which will have seriously unpleasant consequences for future generations of Americans. Indeed, under Biden’s administration, the feds will borrow three times what they collect in taxes. This is not a new phenomenon, but it exacerbates the modern trend of spend now and pay later.

Under the Constitution, can the feds borrow as much as they want and can they spend it on anything they want? Here is the backstory.

When James Madison and his colleagues wrote the Constitution, they addressed the problem of debt. They knew governments borrow vast amounts of money to address emergencies, usually wars — as the 13 colonies had just done. When Madison and his colleagues were deciding upon the powers of the new federal government, they included the power to borrow money but excluded the power to create and operate a bank.

Madison understood that the Constitution limited the power of Congress to spend monies — whether obtained by taxes or debt — to the 17 discrete areas of governance delegated to the federal government in the Constitution.

Continue reading→

1 Comment

Posted in Banking, Currencies, Debt, Government, History, Law

Tagged ,

Constitution Comes Forward To Accuse Biden Of Assault

Posted on April 9, 2021 | Leave a comment

From The Babylon Bee:

Leave a comment

Posted in Humor, Law

Tagged ,

Turley On ‘The No-Show’ Option: Trump Could Sit Out The Senate Trial And Still Prevail, by Jonathan Turley

Posted on January 19, 2021 | Leave a comment

There is a substantial legal issue, and one which President Trump could win: how can you impeach and remove an official from office if he or she is already out of office? From Jonathan Turley at jonathanturley.org:

elow is my column in the Hill on why President Donald Trump might want to consider skipping the upcoming Senate trial. This is an expanded version of that column. Rumors continue to suggest that Trump is considering Rudy Giuliani as counsel — a role that would be viewed as open contempt to the Senate and, as Karl Rove noted, would increase the chances of a conviction.  There is a better defense: no defense.

Here is the column:

In a matter of days, this country will face an unprecedented Senate trial. The Senate not only will try a president for a second time but will do so after he has left office.

Vice President-elect Kamala Harris assures us the Senate can politically “multitask” to deal with an impeachment, an incoming Biden administration and a pandemic. However, the threshold question is whether this is constitutionally one of those tasks — and for soon-to-be citizen Donald Trump, the best defense may be no defense at all.

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Government, Law

Tagged , ,

2020: The Year the Tree of Liberty Was Torched, by John W. Whitehead

Posted on December 29, 2020 | Leave a comment

2020 has been the worst year in American history, by far, for liberty. From John W. Whitehead at rutherford.org:

“The people are unaware. They’re not educated to realize that they have power. The system is so geared that everyone believes the government will fix everything. We are the government.”—John Lennon

No doubt about it: 2020—a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year for freedom—was the culmination of a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad decade for freedom.

Government corruption, tyranny, and abuse coupled with a Big Brother-knows-best mindset and the COVID-19 pandemic propelled us at warp speed towards a full-blown police state in which nationwide lockdowns, egregious surveillance, roadside strip searches, police shootings of unarmed citizens, censorship, retaliatory arrests, the criminalization of lawful activities, warmongering, indefinite detentions, SWAT team raids, asset forfeiture, police brutality, profit-driven prisons, and pay-to-play politicians were accepted as the norm.

Here’s just a small sampling of the laundry list of abuses—cruel, brutal, immoral, unconstitutional and unacceptable—that have been heaped upon us by the government over the past two decades and in the past year, in particular.

The government failed to protect our lives, liberty and happiness. The predators of the police state wreaked havoc on our freedoms, our communities, and our lives. The government didn’t listen to the citizenry, refused to abide by the Constitution, and treated the citizenry as a source of funding and little else. Police officers shot unarmed citizens and their household pets. Government agents—including local police—were armed to the teeth and encouraged to act like soldiers on a battlefield. Bloated government agencies were allowed to fleece taxpayers. Government technicians spied on our emails and phone calls. And government contractors made a killing by waging endless wars abroad.

The American President became more imperial. Although the Constitution invests the President with very specific, limited powers, in recent years, American presidents (Trump, Obama, Bush, Clinton, etc.) claimed the power to completely and almost unilaterally alter the landscape of this country for good or for ill. The powers that have been amassed by each successive president through the negligence of Congress and the courts—powers which add up to a toolbox of terror for an imperial ruler—empower whoever occupies the Oval Office to act as a dictator, above the law and beyond any real accountability. The presidency itself has become an imperial one with permanent powers.

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Civil Liberties, Collapse, Government, History, Law, Medicine, Politics, Privacy, Surveillance

Tagged ,