ARTICLE III, SECTION 3
Treason against the United States shall consist only
in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid
and comfort. No person shall be
convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt
act, or on confession in open court.
A couple of weeks ago, a professor of journalism called for the suppression of the National Rifle Association,
because he believes their rhetoric was treason, and anyone who supports this organization is deserving of a fire
squad. This kind of sentiment is
mainstream leftism. Liberals look upon
liberty loving citizens as the true enemy and they must stop us at all cost,
even if it takes Abrams tanks and Hellfire missiles.
What constitutes treason? According to the left, it is opposition to an
all encompassing federal government.
Progressives, like the professor, applaud the dissolution of our
founding principles. They applaud the
suppression of states’ rights and the inability to nullify unjust federal laws. In their eyes, the collective reigns supreme,
and we will adhere to their dictates.
As we’ve come to witness, progressives have taken
over the federal bureaucracies. They
have the same attitude as the professor. The IRS has targeted tea partiers and
constitutionalist. They muzzled these
citizens through threats and intimidation, and in some cases confiscated
property and shut down businesses. Some
were audited because they supported Mitt Romney. This kind of harassment is not exclusive to
the IRS, the EPA and other agencies have also violated the rights of those they
deem political enemies.
What is disturbing is these agencies are arming
themselves with the very weapons the progressives are trying to ban from the
general public. IRS agents are training
with AR-15 rifles. What does a revenue
agency need with so-called assault weapons?
And to further emphasize that they see tea partiers as the enemy, Homeland
Security funded training exercises targeting patriots. Here is an excerpt from the Boston Globe:
The scenario had been carefully
planned: A terrorist group prepared to hurt vast numbers of people around
Boston would leave backpacks filled with explosives at Faneuil Hall, the
Seaport District, and in other towns, spreading waves of panic and fear. Detectives
would have to catch the culprits.
Months of painstaking planning
had gone into the exercise, dubbed “Operation Urban Shield,” meant to train
dozens of detectives in the Greater Boston area to work together to thwart a
terrorist threat. The hypothetical terrorist group was even given a name: Free
America Citizens, a home-grown cadre of militiamen whose logo would be a metal
skull wearing an Uncle Sam hat and a furious expression, according to a copy of
the plans obtained by the Boston Globe.
But two months before the
training exercise was to take place, the city was hit with a real terrorist
attack executed in a frighteningly similar fashion. The chaos of the Boston
Marathon bombings disrupted plans for the exercise, initially scheduled for
this weekend, forcing police to postpone. Now officials must retool aspects of
the training.
“The real thing
happened before we were able to execute,” said a law enforcement official with
direct knowledge of the planned exercise. “We’ve already been tested.”
This would have
been the third year for Urban Shield, a 24-hour federally funded training
exercise meant to test the response of police and other public safety personnel
in a large-scale emergency, such as a toxic spill or a natural disaster.
‘The main goal
of this was to arrest as many of the people as possible and absolutely identify
where the [supposed] cache of bombs was being kept.’
Last fall, a
slew of agencies including Boston police and other police departments, the
Coast Guard, and the MBTA joined forces to confront a simulated armed bank
robbery in which the robbers were trying to escape with hostages.
For this year’s
training, the agencies wanted to test the investigative skills of their
detectives, as well as their ability to work with detectives in other cities,
and share intelligence, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity
because details of the planned exercise were confidential.
The training,
funded by a $200,000 Homeland Security grant, will probably be rescheduled to
early next year, said Transit Police Chief Paul MacMillan, whose agency was
slated to participate.
It is quite clear that the federal government is
unaccountable and out of control. And
most of this tyranny comes from the bureaucracies. The Constitution
specifically states that only Congress has the authority to introduce
laws. The progressives have circumvented
this provision by establishing regulatory agencies. These agencies pass mandates that have the
force of law. Clearly, this is a violation
of our Constitution.
Many like to cite the Federalist when it comes to
matters of the Constitution. I like to
cite the Anti-Federalist. One of my
favorites is Brutus. He denied the ability of prophesy, but in his refutations he most certainly can be
considered an oracle. Here is an excerpt
from essay #15:
I have, in the course of my observation on this constitution, affirmed and
endeavored to shew, that it was calculated to abolish entirely the state
governments, and to melt down the states into one entire government, for every
purpose as well internal and local, as external and national. In this opinion
the opposers of the system have generally agreed — and this has been uniformly
denied by its advocates in public. Some individuals, indeed, among them, will confess,
that it has this tendency, and scruple not to say, it is what they wish; and I
will venture to predict, without the spirit of prophecy, that if it is adopted
without amendments, or some such precautions as will ensure amendments
immediately after its adoption, that the same gentlemen who have employed their
talents and abilities with such success to influence the public mind to adopt
this plan, will employ the same to persuade the people, that it will be for
their good to abolish the state governments as useless and burdensome.
Perhaps nothing could have been better conceived to facilitate the abolition
of the state governments than the constitution of the judicial. They will be
able to extend the limits of the general government gradually, and by insensible
degrees, and to accomodate themselves to the temper of the people. Their
decisions on the meaning of the constitution will commonly take place in cases
which arise between individuals, with which the public will not be generally
acquainted; one adjudication will form a precedent to the next, and this to a
following one. These cases will immediately affect individuals only; so that a
series of determinations will probably take place before even the people will
be informed of them. In the mean time all the art and address of those who wish
for the change will be employed to make converts to their opinion. The people
will be told, that their state officers, and state legislatures are a burden
and expence without affording any solid advantage, for that all the laws passed
by them, might be equally well made by the general legislature. If to those who
will be interested in the change, be added, those who will be under their
influence, and such who will submit to almost any change of government, which they
can be persuaded to believe will ease them of taxes, it is easy to see, the
party who will favor the abolition of the state governments would be far from
being inconsiderable. — In this situation, the general legislature, might pass
one law after another, extending the general and abridging the state
jurisdictions, and to sanction their proceedings would have a course of
decisions of the judicial to whom the constitution has committed the power of
explaining the constitution. — If the states remonstrated, the constitutional
mode of deciding upon the validity of the law, is with the supreme court, and
neither people, nor state legislatures, nor the general legislature can remove
them or reverse their decrees.
Had the construction of the constitution been left with the legislature,
they would have explained it at their peril; if they exceed their powers, or
sought to find, in the spirit of the constitution, more than was expressed in
the letter, the people from whom they derived their power could remove them,
and do themselves right; and indeed I can see no other remedy that the people
can have against their rulers for encroachments of this nature. A constitution
is a compact of a people with their rulers; if the rulers break the compact,
the people have a right and ought to remove them and do themselves justice; but
in order to enable them to do this with the greater facility, those whom the
people chuse at stated periods, should have the power in the last resort to
determine the sense of the compact; if they determine contrary to the
understanding of the people, an appeal will lie to the people at the period
when the rulers are to be elected, and they will have it in their power to
remedy the evil; but when this power is lodged in the hands of men independent of
the people, and of their representatives, and who are not, constitutionally,
accountable for their opinions, no way is left to controul them but with a
high hand and an outstretched arm.
