by Bryce Shonka

Early in my development as a human being, there was the pledge of allegiance. There was the National Anthem and of course, the Stars and Stripes.

I grew up in Southern California and now that I have had a chance to deprogram myself (which has taken years) I have some questions- for one, where was the pledge to the California Republic? Where was my class on the California Constitution…or even just a mere mention of it in one of my other government classes at my government school? Continue Reading

by Rob Natelson

In an earlier post, I wrote that the Tenth Amendment was adopted to reinforce the legal interpretation rule providing that if you list some items in a document, this implies that other items are excluded.  The Tenth Amendment clarified that the federal government enjoyed only the powers listed in the Constitution and no others.

But why should anyone think there were others?  Especially if there was a legal rule of interpretation to the contrary? Continue Reading

by Thomas DiLorenzo, LewRockwell.com

It only took the Obama administration a couple of weeks to prove that the national leadership of the Democratic Party is guided by totalitarian-minded socialists who seek to create an omnipotent government. The U.S. government is now controlled by people who have been dreaming of living out their utopian socialist fantasies ever since the fantasies were brought to their attention in college decades ago by their Mao/Castro/Che Guevara poster-hanging, capitalism-hating, communistic professors.

The administration’s main agenda is an explosion of federal spending and debt so large and outrageous that America will soon exceed Sweden in the proportion of the economy that is controlled by government – if it hasn’t already. That’s just for starters. They also want to sharply increase taxes on the most productive and hardest-working people in society; increase the capital gains tax to deter private investment; expand the welfare state; spend trillions on pure, pork barrel spending in a massive vote-buying spree; set all corporate compensation levels by governmental fiat; tax away the wealth of unpopular business people (only starting with those AIG executives); regulate and control all risk taking by private entrepreneurs; enforce a civilian draft to create a modern-day, American version of the Hitler Youth (See Rahm Emanuel’s creepy, Stalinist-sounding book entitled The Plan); nationalize entire industries, starting with the capital markets (they understand that there can be no capitalism without private capital markets); and double, triple, and quadruple the number of “regulators” who already regulate all aspects of human life in America. Continue Reading

by Karen De Coster

There is a secession movement afoot and its proponents are determined to put a halt to the federal government’s ambitions to destroy and reconstruct an entire economy and dissolve the last remnants of individual liberty. Twenty-eight states are invoking the law of the land, the U.S. Constitution, by rolling out legislation to assert their sovereignty as free states in order to keep from being undermined by the never-ending swarm of unrestrained federal decrees. Continue Reading

by VirginiaConservative

I’ve met a lot of social conservatives over the years.  It should come as no surprise after all, I’m one too.  For some people, the desire to promote all, or a specific, issue(s) in the social conservative agenda is their modus operandi, his or her specific driving force in politics.  Continue Reading

by David Bardallis, LewRockwell.com

Note: The following letter was found left behind at a local drinking establishment; the authors’ identity is unknown. It is passed along without comment.

“That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness], it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it…” ~ Declaration of Independence of the American Colonies, 1776

Dear Federal Government,

Drop dead.

Excuse us. Some may consider such bluntness to be indecorous, but why beat around the bush? In any case, we’ve been around this bush (Bush?) too many times to count already. It’s time to let you know what we really think of you, what we say behind your back, what we whisper to each other when you leave the room.

We hate you. We want you to drop dead. Or, anyway, to go away and never come back. You are not welcome anymore. We have tolerated you – and we emphasize “tolerated” – for a long time, long after whatever romance there may have been was gone. We can pretend no more. You are disgraceful, boorish, nauseating, corrupt, shameful, arrogant, dishonest, self-serving, parasitic, disgusting, hypocritical, and rotten to the core. You have not even one redeeming quality. There is nothing you offer that we want any longer. We’re not even sure what it is we ever saw in you to begin with. Continue Reading

“The federal government should stop trying to do everything, which it doesn’t do well, and start doing, and doing better, the few tasks that only it can handle,” says Bob Barr, the Libertarian Party candidate for president.

“For instance, Uncle Sam has become a nanny-state, telling us what we can eat and how old we must be to drink. More than 100 university presidents have called on Washington to reduce the drinking age of 21. Maybe they are right and maybe they are wrong, but this isn’t a job for Congress. It should be the decision of the 50 states, which have very different histories, traditions, and views of such issues.” Continue Reading

by Clay Barham

If you reflect back on how the institutions of governance grew in America, from 1620 to the present, you will see that National Government grew into its present level without much public support.  The settlements starting in New England, as well as Jamestown, were small and managed more from a town hall perspective than any formalized institution.  Every hamlet, town and county was an almost informal, non-national government.  None of them existed as the means for special interests to capture the loyalty of some inhabitants, nor was there any treasury worth plundering.

They existed mainly for peacekeeping and settling civil disputes.  Town and hamlets wrote their own laws or ordnances to establish behavioral boundaries acceptable to the majority of citizens.  On occasion, when special interests did gain excess power, or criminals were more powerful than the peacekeepers, vigilante groups formed by citizens corrected those conditions.  Each colony acted as its own governing institution as it related to currency, infrastructure and relations with colonies and nations outside of its boundaries. Continue Reading

by Clay Barham

Easier said, but it can be done.  It starts with the new CEO of the Federal Government, the President, telling all those who work for the Executive Branch there will be no more hiring, except for the military.  That means when people die or retire, they will not be replaced by anyone from the outside.  If necessary to replace them, it will be from people already working in other departments of the government, like musical chairs.  That is when you will see impending shrinkage of the bureaucracy.

In addition to that, you eliminate the Cabinet Departments by telling them they may neither hire nor replace at all, ever again, for certain, and if done, heads will roll. Each Cabinet chief comes into the administration for the sole purpose of eliminating the department in, say, four years.  The result is departments will ultimately disappear and have to share necessary functions, if there are any, with the states until they are out of the loop.  This is kind of a Tenth Amendment thing, gradually accomplished by deaths and retirements, and no replacement of those working in the Departments. Continue Reading

by Clay Barham

It is a project long overdue. We know how America runs best, when it worked best and what levels of government are most appropriate. We just need to back up and pare down. I do not know anyone who thinks the Post Office mentality operates any organization better than free people do.

We know our Declaration of Independence qualifies the role of free people and their government, and we know our Federal Constitution, as originally put forth, helped shape the way America functioned organizationally. If that is so, then we need only move back to a time when everything was best. America proved best for all people when compared to all other styles and forms of civil organization. Continue Reading