Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Is the USA in a pre-revolutionary mode?

Reposted from here

Ann Barnhardt said:

ObamaCare is not being repealed. The only way to get rid of it is either a junta or a civil war and establishing a Second American Republic.

Perhaps it would be useful to go back to first principles. Number one is the founding documents, such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution itself.

The Constitution does provide for a means to make significant changes to the government or to even break up the Union. With respect to the Civil War Era, a constitutional convention could have legally accomplished what they tried to do by military force. Going back and repeating that error will likely lead to the same results or worse. If the government is truly oppressive and must be changed, the people still have the right to vote to alter and abolish it. If that is suppressed, and if it is clearly the will of the people to alter and abolish the current system, then we have a revolutionary situation on our hands. At the moment, that does not appear to be the case to me. [ Update: Note: With the reelection of Obama, we just got a lot closer to that.]

However, there was a poll recently which said that we don't have a government that has the consent of the governed. The government tends to ignore what the people want. Those in government are not honoring their oath of office. The respective political parties are showing more loyalty to themselves than to the Constitution for which they have given an oath to support and defend. This is betrayal to their oath and to the Constitution, and to the people. This is inconsistent with principles- among them is the rule of law as opposed to the rule of men. Therefore, we may be heading in a revolutionary direction.

The Declaration provides the justification for rebellion should the Constitutional option fail.

Once having decided to rebel, you had better find an organization that can pull it off.

A civil war is not the rule of law. To propose that is to go down a slippery slope towards the rule of men.


You still have a lawful, legal option to deal with this situation as it stands now. That should be attempted first. If that doesn't work, then it means that the rule of law has broken down. Then it is a matter of fighting or surrendering to what is in fact an unlawful authority. Ann Barnhardt is on shaky ground. But the very ground under our feet is shifting.

Everybody knows it.

Update:

With respect to Roberts decision, I think it would have been consistent with the Constitution if the law was actually written as a tax. But is it a tax? Clearly, it wasn't written to be interpreted as a tax. Those who passed this law deny that it is a tax. So how is it a tax?

If it were written as a tax, there would be no argument. But the Court has rewritten the law so that it would be in conformance with the Constitution. That's the problem.

Judge Robert Bork wrote a book in the nineties which, among many things, dealt with how to overturn bad Court decisions. He suggested an amendment that would allow Congress to set aside bad decisions like this one. I note that he suggested supermajorities in Congress could overturn Court decisions. That seems to be too high of a bar to overcome.

But such an amendment, if passed, would not repeal this law. That's because Congress is divided. The House would repeal it, most likely. But the Senate would not.

There is also the possibility of removal from office. But that would be counter productive. A liberal would be appointed in his place.

The only thing left, aside from open rebellion, is the ballot box. If you lose there, you are out of options.

What do you do when the Court exceeds its authority? What do you do when a President exceeds his authority? What do you do when the Congress exceeds its authority?

What do you do if the people don't care if the government is out of control?

Seems like you are running out of options.

That's the issue that may have to be decided extra legally. This is what can happen if you don't play by the rules. The losers see a rigged game and decide not to play this game anymore.

Update:

The term in the title "pre revolution" is discussed here in terms of the American Revolution as a timeline. We are not at the Patrick Henry moment. We may be closer to "No Taxation without Representation" than the Declaration of Independence. There was a revolution over taxes, and this was the kickoff.


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