When the U.S. territories applied for admission into the Union as states, the overarching principle that drove this decision was the desire for sovereignty to determine their own destinies, and to be removed from what the U.S. Constitution calls the “exclusive legislative jurisdiction” of the Congress over the properties owned by the U.S. government. The state of Washington removed itself from this “exclusive jurisdiction” in 1789, and was required to write its own Constitution which would provide for a representative republican form of government for its citizens. Such is the case for every state which joined our Union.

Today, our U.S. government officials and bureaucrats have lost sight of this fact, and now want to re-assert exclusive legislative jurisdiction over the states, and turn them into administrative subdivisions as though we were territories again. Sorry, U.S. government, but the Constitution says you don’t have that authority; and Americans are beginning to realize that our founders intended for the individual states to either succeed or fail based on their own laws and policies. If the people don’t like the way a particular state operates, they can move to another one where they do. The way our federal government operates today, the entire nation either succeeds or fails based on the policies of 535 legislators in Washington, D.C.; and from what we can see from its history of failed social policies, I don’t think these guys could pour sand out of their boots if the directions were written on the heel.

We need to replace the socialist mindset in Washington D.C. and our state governments with a restored American view of law and government.

This is Constitution Minute with Randall Yearout at red, white and blue collar radio, brought to you by the vast American-wing conspiracy at the Constitution Party of Washington. Contact them at constitutionpartyofwa.com

The Framers moved beyond a loose Confederation of States creating the greatest experiment in freedom the world has ever known.  They birthed a nation conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal unleashing the creative power and energy of humanity in a way never before known and never since equaled. They launched a government of the people, by the people and for the people.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, the Constitution should feel very flattered.  Our founding document has been copied by almost as many countries as radio talking-heads trying to imitate Rush Limbaugh.  Though it was the best set of compromises the Framers could hammer-out they knew as time passed it might need to be changed.  They made provisions for gradual evolution to occur without the Revolution they used to obtain change that they could believe in or the Civil War their grandchildren fought to change that change.

How are we, the descendants of the ascendant, supposed to change the foundations laid hundreds of years ago into the structure we want today?  To preserve and protect the representative nature and federal structure of the government they created the Framers designed a process through which legitimate change must involve the representatives of the people and the States through formal amendments.  Outside of this the words as written and as meant were to be the law of the land.  The idea that the words of the Constitution have to be re-interpreted every generation is ludicrous.  The Federalist papers, the notes of James Madison the primary author, and dictionaries of the time exist to tell us what the words meant to the writers.  If the words are re-interpreted with every generation all that has to be done to change the document is change the meaning of the words.

The Framers in Article Five provided two methods to propose amendments.  Congress may propose amendments with a 2/3 vote in both houses or the legislatures of two thirds of the states can call a convention for proposing amendments.  The second method has never been used, though today we’re only two states away from calling a Constitutional Convention.  When an amendment is ratified by either the legislatures or specially called conventions of 3/4 of the states it becomes part of the Constitution.

This is how we’re supposed to go about changing the fundamental nature of our Republic.  Not by fiat, not by decree, not by clever re-interpretation and certainly not by the whim of a fickle electorate every four years.

President Obama is not the first president to appoint an official adviser without submitting them to the Senate for confirmation.  Back in the 1830s with an official Cabinet of lackluster hacks confirmed by the Senate President Jackson depended on an unofficial group of close personal friends and practical politicians for advice.  Turning a good phrase, the journalists of the day anointed this the “Kitchen Cabinet.”   Thus the presidents fulfill the letter of the law moving less controversial non-entities through the confirmation process as figureheads to run bureaucratic departments while relying on others outside the glare of scrutiny as their sources of information, their compass.

Has this now become the means to change the nature of our government without using the amendment process?  From Republican to Democrat both parties have used an ever-growing number of appointments to staff their governments with people who are not accountable to anyone, who are not vetted by anyone and many who couldn’t get a security clearance if they were.  Until today we have the Cavalcade of Czars.  A school-safety czar who led the way in introducing homosexual advocacy in public schools, a pay czar who decides who gets what at companies receiving government funds, a technology czar forced to resign because of a bribery scandal replaced by one who has no education in technology.

This growing shadow government being constructed alongside our traditional governmental structure combined with the administration’s radical legislative program marks a rising to a crescendo of change that is hard to believe.   This radical agenda includes; nationalizing health care along with approximately 1/6^th of the economy, the take-over of major industries, a cap-n-tax energy boondoggle that will cripple the economy and comprehensive import-a-voter immigration reform.

Have we reached the tipping point?  Will we stand idly by while slick politicians surrounded by people we would never elect turn us into what we would never willingly become?  Will we cruise the remote while they fundamentally change America from what we’ve known to what we would never choose?  Is this the change we were promised, or has someone changed the change?

Will we leave our children in service to an ever growing centralized state with a planned economy and an obedient media singing songs to the Glorious Leader and wondering, “Why did they let freedom slip through their fingers?”

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, Religion, and Leadership for Southside Virginia Community College.  Contact Dr. Owens. © 2009 Robert R. Owens http://robertrowens.com/ Dr. Owens is available for speaking engagements.

By Dr. ROBERT OWENS

Marching out of Yorktown to surrender, the British Army played the song “The World Turned Upside Down.”  As I drive to Mega Lo Mart to make my latest deposit of monopoly money in a Chinese savings account all I can do is mumble the final tag-line of the Wicked Witch of the West, “What a world? What a world?”

There’s a massive unspoken problem in America today, floating like the iceberg in front of the Titanic waiting to sink the unsinkable ship.   Founded by revolutionaries crying, “No taxation without representation!” the Republic these revolutionaries devised devolved into a society where 47% of the people pay no Federal Income tax, and the number of people receiving government benefits is even higher.  What incentive would these non-paying receivers have to reign in an overbearing and intrusive government?  This unseen and unspoken problem is a cancer in the body politic.

Self-serving professional politicians buy votes by exempting non-productive people from personal financial responsibility while providing ever-expanding benefits at the expense of the productive.  This is not the right versus left, conservative versus liberal, Democrat versus Republican he-said-she-said endless debate that devours the chatocracy of cable’s wall-to-wall talking-heads.  This is not an academic exercise that pointy-headed political science and history majors with dueling pocket protectors debate for hours in their mother’s basement as they post their latest scoop on their samizdat blogs.  This is a dagger pointing directly at the heart of our civilization.

Western Civilization awoke from the slumber of the Dark Ages enlightened and empowered by a belief that humanity has an innate right to be free and a natural right to excel.  Rights and freedoms given by God not bestowed at the whim of some Legend-in-his-own-mind Leader.  This civilization gathered steam in Europe exploding upon the world stage through an energetic period of exploration.

In America after a revolution fought by farmers and merchants against the greatest empire of the day the Founders, dared to declare, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  After centuries of government thugs standing on the windpipe of everyday people these self-sacrificing giants observed that in a civilized world government was not imposed by the strong upon the weak it was instead built upon a social contract between the governed and those entrusted with the privilege to govern when they said, “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

Today this bold and unique experiment in freedom is being devoured from within and challenged from without.  Those who believe the collective should reign over the individual, those who believe in the suffocating sameness of socialism over the rough-and-tumble of capitalism have worked for generations building a culture of dependency which has tempered the steel will of the pioneers into the sloppy demands of the couch-potato slacker waiting for someone to find their remote as they guzzle some refreshments and wait for the game as bread and circuses take the place of innovation and accomplishment.  Schools teaching 2+2 might = 5, trophies for everyone, politically correct new-speak and affirmative action promotions have sapped the vitality from the citizens of our Republic.  Politicians and their fellow-travelers use a system of cronies and sweet-heart deals to siphon trillions from the public treasury promising the dumbed-down descendants of revolutionaries that they just might win the lotto before they have to declare bankruptcy so they might as well re-elect the same old grafters once again.

There comes a time when those who are raising the sails and paddling the boat have to admit to themselves the ballast down in steerage weighs more than the cargo.  There comes a time when even the most non-confrontational and loyal among us begin to ask, “Who is John Galt” as Atlas tires of his thankless job and shrugs the burden of dead-weight into the dustbin of history.  As the perpetually-reelected and the propaganda spewing Corporations Once Known as the Mainstream Media trumpet the inevitability of government rationed health-care, cap-n-trade industrial suicide, comprehensive import-a-voter immigration reform and the surrender of sovereignty through treaties supposedly designed to deal with  mythical global warming there shines a light in a bell tower, one if by land an two if by sea.

Without hope, you’re hopeless, and I refuse to allow the unbelievable changes currently assaulting our economy and our political system to bring about my own personal Great Depression.  Those who believe in the Devil believe he comes to steal, kill and destroy.  I believe if he can’t steal your joy he can’t keep your stuff and weeping may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning.

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, Religion, and Leadership for Southside Virginia Community College.  Contact Dr. Owens. © 2009 Robert R. Owens http://robertrowens.com/ Dr. Owens is available for speaking engagements.

Millions of Americans watch with horror as the Obama administration continues to implement its own version of ‘change.’ Change involves an unprecedented and systematic devolution of power to the federal government, in direct contravention of the Constitution.

From the pending takeover of 17% of the economy under the auspices of health care reform, to the government takeover and subsequent ownership of automobile companies, to the unconstitutional interference in the formerly private market under the rubric of stimulating the economy. Not to mention the proposed cap and trade legislation which would give the federal government unlimited powers of taxation and regulation under the guise of saving the planet.

Totally ignored by elected officials of both parties is the tenth amendment of the Constitution, which states very clearly, “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.”
Many Americans don’t agree with the left’s idea of a ‘living constitution’, arguing that the intent of the founders should govern the interpretation and application of the Constitution, not the whimsical and politically motivated present day politicians. And, largely unreported by the media, they are starting to stand up to the federal government.

To date, 37 states have introduced sovereignty resolutions, asserting their state’s sovereign rights under the tenth amendment.

Earlier this month, Louisiana became the seventh state, joining Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Idaho and Tennessee to officially adopt a resolution affirming their sovereignty. These states are putting the federal government on notice that politicians in Washington do not have the right, under the Constitution, to continue to impose their increasingly onerous federal mandates on sovereign states.

Some states, with Arizona leading the way, are going a step further.

Under Arizona’s Health Care Freedom Act, which was passed by the Arizona state legislature this month, a voting initiative will be placed on the 2010 ballot that, if passed, will allow Arizona to opt out of any federal health care plan.

Following Arizona’s lead, five other states — Indiana, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Dakota and Wyoming — are considering similar initiatives to opt out of federal health care for their 2010 ballots This, even before Congress has created the program.

Arizona is also preparing for the misnamed ‘climate’ bill, that passed the House this month. (With eight Republican votes.) The Arizona state Senate voted 19-10 to approve a bill banning the Department of Environmental Quality from enacting or enforcing measures with language pertaining to climate change.

Other states are stepping up to the plate and asserting their state’s sovereign right under the second amendment – a right that guarantees the right of the people to keep and bear arms.

On July 6, Florida introduced the Firearms Freedom Act which seeks to provide “that specified firearms, firearm accessories, and ammunition for personal use manufactured in state are not subject to federal law or regulation” in the State of Florida.

Increasingly, the representatives ‘we the people’ have elected to preserve and protect our rights, are ignoring the clear, unequivocal language of the Constitution. Our politicians seem unaware of the fact that the Constitution does not include  congressional power to override state laws.

In fact, the power our representatives are now accruing to the federal government was expressly voted down, not once, but several times.

During the Constitutional ratification process, James Madison drafted the ‘Virginia Plan’, which advocated a strong federal government. It proposed, among other things, giving Congress legislative authority, and a veto over state laws. Each of Madison’s proposals was soundly defeated. Our founders’ clear intent was vesting all powers in the states, with but a few, listed exceptions.

Ever since 1938, when FDR used the occasion of the Great Depression to drastically expand the scope of federal government (Wickard vs Filburn) using an absurd reading of the Commerce Clause, this unconstitutional taking of power by the central government has gone virtually unchallenged. Until now.

Though the media has ignored these efforts, we the people are starting to fight back, via our state and local representatives.
Politicians need to be reminded that our Constitution is still in effect. And Americans need to be reminded that just because some believe the trendy notion that our Constitution is a ‘living, breathing’ document, doesn’t make it so.

Nancy Morgan is a columnist and news editor for RightBias.com.  She lives in South Carolina.

We stand at a fateful crossroad between what this country was meant to be and what personal greed and corporate corruption wish to make it. While we sip our lattés and watch our 500 channels the heritage of our children is swirling down the drain of history. We’ve sold our birthright for a bowl of porridge. While we praise our forefathers for the wisdom and bravery, which secured us the blessings of freedom and opportunity, our descendants will curse us for the greed and selfishness that squandered the riches we were given.

A favorite question of mine is, “What’s the American dream?” most people answer, “To own your own home” or “To live the good life” or something else that highlights how far we’ve been led down the primrose path of materialism and its modern expression consumerism. However, I don’t believe it was for the fleeting high of endless acquisition that our forefathers froze in Valley Forge or died on Iwo Jima. It wasn’t for the latest fad or the newest gimmick that our brothers and sisters withstood the ridicule of the few to earn the gratitude of the many in Vietnam. And it isn’t for our wide-screen, HD, plasma televisions or our GPS equipped state-of-the-art cars that our children are enduring the sweltering heat of a fly-infested desert. No, it wasn’t for things that these heroes have sacrificed. The American dream is freedom and opportunity for all.

I look around me and when I see my fellow Americans, I see people of every race and ethnic background. We’re the melting pot of the world, and if a family has been here for more than a few generations, it is probable that they’re the genetic descendants of a multitude of people groups. In the words of a once popular song, “We are the world.”

We have no racial or ethnic singularity or difference from the people of every other nation on earth, so how did America become the greatest nation and the best hope of mankind? What was the difference? What allowed America made up of the “the tired, the poor, and the huddled masses yearning to breathe free” to surge ahead of everyone becoming the colossus that bestrides the world? Two words, “Freedom” and “Opportunity,” two concepts that opened the door for the pent-up creativity and ambition of man. That is what made us great, and I believe that’s what can restore our competitive edge.

Many call those brave souls who as young adults weathered the Depression only to step into the breach confronting the first great wave of totalitarianism, those whose personal bravery and sacrifice won World War II, who fought the good fight in Korea and who ultimately led us to victory over the second great wave of totalitarianism the greatest generation. As a grateful son of that generation, I would in no way belittle their heroism, their sacrifice or their leadership. Nevertheless, I cannot call them the greatest generation.

In my estimation, the greatest generation was that unbelievable gathering of giants who founded this Republic, who guided a struggling combination of 13 colonies, bled white by war and crushed in debt to forge a nation, which became the shining beacon of man’s greatest achievement. And while all the generations which have gone before us have stepped up and done whatever was needed to be done to preserve the freedom and opportunity which has been the catalyst for our prosperity are we to be the generation that allows indolence and greed to forge the very shackles previous generations have shattered? Within a generation, we have gone from the greatest creditor on earth to the greatest debtor, from the greatest manufacturer to the greatest consumer. Once we said, “If it’s good for GM it’s good for America” now we say, “How close is the nearest Wal-Mart?” Productivity has been replaced by consumption, innovation by indolence and where once the world ranted about American economic imperialism now everything we buy is made in China, and we’ve been sold a bill of goods!

Dr. Robert Owens teaches History, Political Science, Religion, and Leadership for Southside Virginia Community College. His latest book is The Azusa Street Revival (ISBN- 1-59781-586-1) www.azusastreetrevival.com . Other publications currently on the market include America Won the Vietnam War! How the Left Snatched Defeat from the Jaws of Victory (ISBN 1-594672-95-4) www.americawonthevietnamwar.com and NEVER FORGET! (1-591602-89-0) a case-study covering the years 1961-1968 in the Church of God in Christ which forms the basis for a leadership textbook. You may contact Dr. Owens at dr.owens@comcast.net