The Owner is the Owner

The owner is the owner, not you, Nanny. We are all growed up. Lexington County Council, we didn't elect you to tell us what is good for us. We didn't elect you for CHANGE. Leave us alone. For goodness sakes get Government OFF our BACKS, not into our homes and businesses. Who - just who do you think you are, God? Public health issue my backside, you are busybodies and that's all you are, sticking your noses into other people's business. If we don't want to smoke we can go to the Flight Deck or a hundred other places. Some of us want to smoke and a whole lot of non smokers don't give a rip if we do. JUST GET OFF OUR BACK!

Go back to California, New York or Massachusetts where people just can't get enough Nanny telling them how to live their lives. South Carolina is grown up and doesn't need YOU, so grow up yourself and get down off your high moral horse, no one elected you to RULE OVER US!

Go to Make it Your Lexington to read a proper essay about who is pushing this smokeless tyranny down our throats!

New York Thugs Police the Subs

Occupation Army News Item 2
dateline: February 19, 2009, NYC
Assault Camera taken into Custody
No Crime Committed

Abuse Machine.

South Carolina Sovereign: Cant or Can?

It has been 149 years and 52 days since South Carolina declared her sovereignty in the face of federal overreach. Apparently, South Carolina is still not entirely satisfied with the way her declaration was ultimately decided.

On February 12 2009, bill S. 424 was introduced during the118th Session of the South Carolina General Assembly, by freedom-fighter Senators Lee Bright, Shane Martin, Thomas Alexander, Paul Campbell, Michael Fair, Jake Knotts, Ronnie Cromer, "Mick" Mulvaney, Danny Verdin, Larry Martin, Phillip Shoopman, Michael Rose, Glenn McConnell, David Thomas, Raymond Cleary, John Courson, Creighton Coleman, Tom Davis, Glenn Reese, Kevin Bryant and "Chip" Campsen.

The bill concerns the power of the U.S. Government relative to that of the State of South Carolina. Its text is explicit and succinct. It begins thus:

A CONCURRENT RESOLUTION

TO AFFIRM SOUTH CAROLINA'S SOVEREIGNTY UNDER THE TENTH AMENDMENT TO THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION OVER ALL POWERS NOT ENUMERATED AND GRANTED TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT BY THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION.

Unlike the recent New Hampshire bill, the South Carolina bill doesn't spell out the manner of response contemplated by the South Carolina Legislators upon the inevitable continuation of the breach of its enumerated powers, that will inevitably place the U.S. Government in non compliance with the law, shortly after, if not immediately upon, this bill's enactment.

And how could they? Unless they have arranged for a patron with mighty deep pockets to step into the breach when U.S. Funds for government services stop flowing in in response to any substantive resistance to its power, the Federal Government won't even need for the CIA to implement its covert contingency plan. South Carolina's own citizens would themselves disadvise the errant lawmakers of their hubris. Until a substitute for the Federal dole is devised no escape will be possible.

The sponsors' bill is obviously meant as a palliative to impotence, by men who are railing merely as theater now that the opposition party has tossed theirs out at the federal level. Their bold words are for consumption only, not a rallying cry.

Do any of these men contemplate any true positive non compliance option, secession or even nullification being, for them, zero options? If so, what is it? Do they believe that the Federal Juggernaut will be slowed down by their words? Obviously not.

Obviously not - some among these men may even have ambitions to move on to Washington, D.C. Should fate smile their way, they would cheerfully become part of the problem. The proof of the emptiness of this bill lies in the fact that they know that their signature upon it would hinder such ambitions none at all.

Contrast this with what views of their potential futures at a federal level New Hampshire freedom fighters, Daniel C. Itse, Paul C. Ingbretson, Tim Comerford, and William P. Denley must have held as they presented their bill to the New Hampshire Legislature. Theirs, though it has no chance of passage, certainly stands each of these men out as a Patriot for New Hampshiremen's rights! And certifiably non federal material!

Never the less, it is good to see South Carolina join the howl.

Though the wording of South Carolina's bill is mild compared to both New Hampshire's and Montana's, both of which could portend real conflict, what makes South Carolina's resolution different is the number of Senators who introduced it.

New Hampshire's bill had 4 sponsors out of 400 Representatives and 24 Senators while the South Carolina bill is merely the Senate version; the House version was introduced later. South Carolina's bill is co-sponsored by 20 Senators, including the Chairman Pro Tem, Glenn McConnell, out of a total of 46 Senators. About 1% of New Hampshire's legislators sponsored their bill, while 43% of South Carolina's Senators sponsored hers. It is comparing apples with oranges, of course, but at least this resolution will pass in the Senate of South Carolina.

Of course, the legislators don't mean a word of it. It is a complete sham. Not a one of them would put anything on the line in defense of the notion of South Carolina's sovereignty.

And yet, it is there:

Be it resolved by the Senate, the House of Representatives concurring:

That the General Assembly of the State of South Carolina, by this resolution, claims for the State of South Carolina sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government by the United States Constitution.

----------------------------------

A similar bill was introduced in the South Carolina legislature in January, 1995 - S 0206 by freedom fighters: Wilson, Courson, Giese, Hayes, Lander, Leatherman, Martin, McConnell, O'Dell, Passailaigue, M.T. Rose, Russell, Ryberg, Thomas and Waldrep

A CONCURRENT RESOLUTION

CLAIMING SOVEREIGNTY UNDER THE TENTH AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OVER ALL POWERS NOT OTHERWISE ENUMERATED AND GRANTED TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT BY THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES; PROVIDING THAT ALL GOVERNMENTAL AGENCIES, QUASI-GOVERNMENTAL AGENCIES, AND THEIR AGENTS AND EMPLOYEES OPERATING WITHIN THE GEOGRAPHIC BOUNDARIES OF THE STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA, OR ALL GOVERNMENTAL AGENCIES AND THEIR AGENTS AND EMPLOYEES, WHOSE ACTIONS HAVE EFFECT ON THE INHABITANTS OR LANDS OR WATERS OF THE STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA, SHALL OPERATE WITHIN THE CONFINES OF THE ORIGINAL INTENT OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OR BE SUBJECT TO PENALTY OF LAW AS PROVIDED FOR NOW OR IN THE FUTURE, WITHIN THE CONSTITUTION OF SOUTH CAROLINA, THE SOUTH CAROLINA STATUTES, OR THE COMMON LAW AS GUARANTEED BY THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES; AND SERVING NOTICE AND DEMAND ON THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AS SOUTH CAROLINA'S AGENT TO CEASE AND DESIST IMMEDIATELY ALL MANDATES THAT ARE BEYOND THE SCOPE OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT'S CONSTITUTIONALLY DELEGATED POWERS.

I am unaware of the fate of this former bill but its spirit has been ignored. The growth of Illegal Federal Government power has blossomed in the intervening years.

The overreaching is now at a fever pitch. The greed and ineptitude of the central cabal has reached proportions not dreamed of in 1995. And, with the internet, far, far more people are aware of it. The clock appears, at last, to be clicking down.

I emailed each of the cosponsors of the new bill congratulating them. You can do that too, if you wish, by clicking on the names of the freedom fighters above.

Read more at SC LOBBYMAN

Montana equals Freedom?

Bill HB 246, (follow it here) recently introduced by freedom fighter Joel Boniek in the Montana House, would exempt firearms, accessories and ammunition manufactured in Montana from regulations under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution of the United States.

The bill and the justification for its exemption from the notorious Commerce Clause follows:

NEW SECTION. Section 2. Legislative declarations of authority. The legislature declares that theauthority for [sections 1 through 7] is the following:

(1) The 10th amendment to the United States constitution guarantees to the states and their people all powers not granted to the federal government elsewhere in the constitution and reserves to the state and people of Montana certain powers as they were understood at the time that Montana was admitted to statehood in 1889.The guaranty of those powers is a matter of contract between the state and people of Montana and the United States as of the time that the compact with the United States was agreed upon and adopted by Montana and the United States in 1889.

(2) The ninth amendment to the United States constitution guarantees to the people rights not granted in the constitution and reserves to the people of Montana certain rights as they were understood at the time that Montana was admitted to statehood in 1889. The guaranty of those rights is a matter of contract between the state and people of Montana and the United States as of the time that the compact with the United States was agreed upon and adopted by Montana and the United States in 1889.

(3) The regulation of intrastate commerce is vested in the states under the 9th and 10th amendments to the United States constitution, particularly if not expressly preempted by federal law. Congress has not expressly preempted state regulation of intrastate commerce pertaining to the manufacture on an intrastate basis of firearms, firearms accessories, and ammunition.

(4) The second amendment to the United States constitution reserves to the people the right to keep and bear arms as that right was understood at the time that Montana was admitted to statehood in 1889, and the guaranty of the right is a matter of contract between the state and people of Montana and the United States as of the time that the compact with the United States was agreed upon and adopted by Montana and the United States in 1889.

The United States Congress is bought and sold, as is the Presidency, while the appointed Judiciary is selected for its willingness to enable these two enemies of limited government. Therefore, the only legislative possibility for the reestablishment of the limited powers of government that the Constitution sought to establish and upon which human freedom stands its only faint chance in this Empire, is the States themselves. The best hope among these is the smaller States where money can have less impact on elections.

If there yet exists a legislative means to reassert individual rights against tyranny than it resides here, in these small States' legislatures. If it can not be reestablished by individual acts of defiance in these bodies than no other peaceful means will emerge.

Let us pray for for the success of Bill HB246.

Secession is Coming

There comes a time when the old must die. This is not so much bad or good as necessary for life to go on.

The government of the United States of America is played out. Its time to pass from making history to being history is fast approaching. With its every new mega project it hastens its exit.

One by one legislators in the several States that make up the moribund empire are waking up. They are realizing that no longer (if it ever was) is the Empire a net benefit to them, and they realize that the voters in their districts are, one by one, shifting their loyalty from their rulers in Washington to their home States.

The latest blast is the resolution pending in the New Hampshire legislature introduced by freedom fighters, Daniel C. Itse, Paul C. Ingbretson, Tim Comerford, and William P. Denley which begins:

A RESOLUTION affirming States’ rights based on Jeffersonian principles.

Whereas the Constitution of the State of New Hampshire, Part 1, Article 7 declares that the people of this State have the sole and exclusive right of governing themselves as a free, sovereign, and independent State; and do, and forever hereafter shall, exercise and enjoy every power, jurisdiction, and right, pertaining thereto, which is not, or may not hereafter be, by them expressly delegated to the United States of America in congress assembled; and

Whereas the Constitution of the State of New Hampshire, Part 2, Article 1 declares that the people inhabiting the territory formerly called the province of New Hampshire, do hereby solemnly and mutually agree with each other, to form themselves into a free, sovereign and independent body-politic, or State, by the name of The State of New Hampshire; and

Whereas the State of New Hampshire when ratifying the Constitution for the United States of America recommended as a change, “First That it be Explicitly declared that all Powers not expressly & particularly Delegated by the aforesaid are reserved to the several States to be, by them Exercised;” and

Whereas the other States that included recommendations, to wit Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Rhodie Island and Virginia, included an identical or similar recommended change; and

Whereas these recommended changes were incorporated as the ninth amendment, the enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people, and the tenth amendment, 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, to the Constitution for the United States of America; now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the House of Representatives, the Senate concurring:

That the several States composing the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their General 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, --

and concludes:

That any Act by the Congress of the United States, Executive Order of the President of the United States of America or Judicial Order by the Judicatories of the United States of America which assumes a power not delegated to the government of United States of America by the Constitution for the United States of America and which serves to diminish the liberty of the any of the several States or their citizens shall constitute a nullification of the Constitution for the United States of America by the government of the United States of America. Acts which would cause such a nullification include, but are not limited to:

I. Establishing martial law or a state of emergency within one of the States comprising the United States of America without the consent of the legislature of that State.

II. Requiring involuntary servitude, or governmental service other than a draft during a declared war, or pursuant to, or as an alternative to, incarceration after due process of law.

III. Requiring involuntary servitude or governmental service of persons under the age of 18 other than pursuant to, or as an alternative to, incarceration after due process of law.

IV. Surrendering any power delegated or not delegated to any corporation or foreign government.

V. Any act regarding religion; further limitations on freedom of political speech; or further limitations on freedom of the press.

VI. Further infringements on the right to keep and bear arms including prohibitions of type or quantity of arms or ammunition; and

That should any such act of Congress become law or Executive Order or Judicial Order be put into force, all powers previously delegated to the United States of America by the Constitution for the United States shall revert to the several States individually. Any future government of the United States of America shall require ratification of three quarters of the States seeking to form a government of the United States of America and shall not be binding upon any State not seeking to form such a government; and

That copies of this resolution be transmitted by the house clerk to the President of the United States, each member of the United States Congress, and the presiding officers of each State’s legislature.

The Constitution was not an expansive document but a restrictive one, denying the federal government legitimate activity in any but a very limited number of endeavors. Thus its legitimate mandate as agreed upon by the several States was narrow. The only legitimate means of altering these limitations was also spelled out, and the fact that entry and exit from the union was voluntary was manifest, as well, in that their intention to jealously retain their sovereign rights was codified in the ratification documents of several of the States and elsewhere specified.

Radical change is going mainstream. Legislators in New Hampshire now have an opportunity to make 2009 a very good year for liberty.

Worse in Government Hands

The “Century of Self,” a 2002 BBC documentary by film maker Adam Curtis accurately and entertainingly presents the Twentieth Century as characterized by manipulation of the mass psyche. Successful new psychological ideas and technologies allowed marketers to influence potential customers in ways never before possible. One premise of the series, which consists of four hour long segments,is that marketing has elevated the consumer to the status of king but taken away his free mind. It makes much of Sigmund Freud's notion of the unconscious and his nephew Edward Bernays' techniques of marketing to unconscious desires.

Adam Curtis deplores this wildly successful method of persuasion. He is a statist, disgusted that businesses fill people's heads with nonsensical desires and then takes advantage of those desires. The shows are anti business, of course, and anti consumer. They take for granted that people thus influenced are diminished, those in control as undeserving, and Bernays, himself, among others, as offensively arrogant.

But in the last of the four presentations the show focuses on what Curtis considers the very worst culprit, politicians, whose adoption of these same strategies to win elections has allowed unscrupulous campaigners (Bill Clinton and John Major) to win elections based entirely on their willingness to spout whatever focus groups have demonstrated that voters what to hear, with no intention of actually trying to deliver on their promises.

While the motives of business advertising are essentially straightforward (all they want is to sell a product) when politicians use the same techniques, they do so to lie. Politicians pander to the voter and then, once elected, act much differently than they promised.

Curtis believes that government should be above the callous machinations that compel grubby business. But when he shows that what works for business (finding out what people want and giving it to them) can not work for government, statist that he is, he leaves out the important fact that government power rests upon coercion while competition restrains business. When businesses use focus groups to find out what consumers subconsciously desire, they plan to use the information to actually design and market products that consumers will willingly pay for.

And despite his assumption that business is the heavy and that if only government could escape its pernicious influence and govern in a truly “democratic” style all would be well, the malevolence of political operators fairly pops out at the viewer.

The summation statement at the end of the series, delivered by the well known statist Robert Reich unintentionally sums up the argument of freedom lovers everywhere. Reich gets too close to the enemy he was trying to stare down. By contrasting the relative success of business in satisfying individuals, with government's hopeless defect, Reich inadvertently frames a more important debate that the program hadn't considered at all: whether or not government is even necessary.

Fundamentally, here we have two different views of human nature and of democracy. You have the view that people are irrational that they are bundles of unconsciousness emotion That comes directly out of Freud. And business are very able to respond to that. That's what they have honed their skills doing. That is what marketing is really about. What are the symbols, the music, the images that will appeal to these unconscious feelings. Politics must be more than that. Politics and leadership are about engaging the public in a rational discussion, a deliberation about what is best, and treating people with respect in terms of their natural abilities to debate what is best. If it is not that, if it is Freudian, if it is basically a matter of appealing to the same basic unconscious feelings that business responds to, why not let business do it? Business, after all is in the business of responding to those feelings.

To governing elites, successful business advertising seems an easy target. What people in really do want is seldom what the elite consider best for them. After all the Soviet Union produced exquisite Ballet for the masses. Whether they preferred it or not, who knows; without a free market government decides.

And that's the point. Someone gets to decide. In the Soviet Union, the governing elite, wielding power through theft and coercion, decided what entertainment would be available.

Governing elites are like that: what else could they be like? Business elites, living and dieing by voluntary interaction, must pander to their markets.

Which is more benign?

Socialists are in power everywhere, but lucky for freedom, their most articulate spokesmen are intellectual midgets.

Government Corrupts

Earned power, the kind you get by figuring out what others want and giving it to them, all through voluntary interaction, tends toward virtue. Earned power is a pleasure all around. When people are benefited without stealing from or coercing anyone, the sum total of good in the world increases. People actually want to reward those who make them feel good, so we're talking about a virtuous cycle here .

And yet, earning power virtuously this way can be a lot of work, and in a world where unearned power is everywhere on display it can seem a fools game. Why should you be content to work when, not only is someone you know living off a government check, but TV images portray the wielders of unearned power as better than the rest.

The situation is further complicated by the fact that almost all politicians and many business owners and managers have been working hand in glove for so long that the line between earned and unearned power has vanished for the bigger players whose favored, manipulative relationship with government places their gains squarely in the unearned-reward category.

No one knows anymore how to get business and government out of the same bed. Almost no one can imagine a world without this vice. Worse yet, most of those who think that something is wrong with the way businesses benefit from their relationship with politicians simply want government to regulate businesses into submission.

Few understand that this business/government partnership is a symptom, not of corruption, but of government itself, and that it will develop under any system of government. It can't be solved as long as government exists.

Successful businesses are dynamic, opportunistic, nimble and single minded while all government can do is coerce, steal and redistribute the loot. Government is a complacent occupation force, jealous at all times and brutal when confronted, whose preferred condition is inertia, while successful businesses thrive on challenge. Fundamentally wedded to force and fraud, government will always be at a competitive disadvantage vis a vis business, which must seek to influence it.

Regulation that is not managed by the business it regulates is too dangerous for them to ignore. Therefore, where government and business mix it is inevitable that the regulated will seek to become the regulator.

For business, standing aside only encourages others to determine their future without them even being at the bargaining table. Therefore, when government regulations or contracts choose winners and losers, every business with the reasourses to do so will be sucked into the game of influence buying. The key to success becomes getting one of the 435 Congressmen or 100 Senators to favor you. No other course is rational.

Wal Mart is an example of a large business that attempted to operate legally with minimal lobbying. Finding that its competitors and other enemies were not of the same mind, Wal Mart was ultimately forced to engage lobbyists and fund politicians as a counter measure. Government simply sucks businesses into its orbit, whether or not they want to go there.

Government is the problem - not this government or that one, but government itself.