States' Rights and the Folly Thereof
By Ron Ewart
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Except in the absence of a superior power greater than gravity (hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, etc.), water and all other liquid or semi-liquid substances, run downhill. Such is the case with most state and local laws. They find their origin in federal law. Most of our social and radical environmental statutes came from federal law, not state law. State's rights and the right of the people are pretty much a thing of the past. The old adage that all politics is local, no longer applies, because the Feds can blackmail the states to get what they want by withholding federal funds, which the states need to fund federal mandates.
So what WE THE PEOPLE fight is highly concentrated power in the U. S. Congress. What we also fight is a U. S. Supreme Court that in most cases, rubber stamps whatever the U. S. Congress does. The origins of this practice date back to the 1930s and the insertion by FDR of the New Deal, in which the federal government declared a national emergency in the face of the Great Depression. The New Deal was a collection of socialist programs that were supposed to save us from the ravages of the Great Depression. But what the New Deal did was to strip us of our constitutional freedoms and grant much more and growing power to the federal government, which they haven't relinquished back to the people, after the Great Depression emergency was over. In fact, that same national emergency is still on the federal law books. FDR became a dictator with powers far exceeding the constitutional powers of the presidency. Many of those powers that he usurped, still exist in the presidency today. The U. S. Congress and the U. S. Supreme Court, to the ever-lasting detriment of the American people, sanctioned this act of abject socialism by FDR.
Since the 1930s, and only on rare occasions, does the U. S. Supreme Court uphold its duty to adjudicate all laws and legislation in strict interpretation of the Supreme Law of the Land, our Constitution. This solemn duty of the U. S. Supreme Court to defend the Constitution is the only defense WE THE PEOPLE had against the rising tyranny of an out-of-control federal government. It was what the Founders built into the Constitution as the "Separation of Powers" doctrine. The "Separation of Powers" doctrine is DEAD. All branches of government, federal, state and local, now work to entrench their own power, without regard to the constitutional protections or individual rights of the people.
Until WE THE PEOPLE, on a grand scale, start focusing our energies on the true source of the problem, we will only be attacking a symptom of that source. Until all freedom and liberty groups and organizations combine as one and attack one federal act or law and repeal it, (like the Endangered Species Act, ESA) we will be forever immersed in the never-ending frustration of losing local battles. You see, the state and local governments always point to the federal law, making them do what they say they have to do. The states say that their hands are tied, and the lower and higher courts uphold state and local governments every time.
Until WE THE PEOPLE rise up en masse, and tell the federal government to "tear down that wall" and mean it, as did one of our Presidents, complete enslavement of the American people to the tyranny of the federal government and mob rule, will be the result. To win the larger war and restore state's and individual rights, we must win smaller battles at the federal level. We have no choice but to take on the federal government as the source that is killing freedom in America. If we cannot win the redress of our grievances through lawful, legal means, our next choice is massive protests and civil disobedience. If protests and civil disobedience don't work, we have only two other choices left. Either we accept growing enslavement, or we resist with all the violent force we can muster. Until we GET IT, we are wasting our individual breaths, shouting into a hurricane. Let me end with a relevant quote from Winston Churchill.
“If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.”
And let me add:
"And further, the enemy we are fighting could very well be a domestic enemy, just as much as it could be a foreign one."
Ron Ewart, is President of the National Association of Rural Landowners, P. O. Box 1031, Issaquah, WA 98027. Phone: 425 222-4742 or 1 800 682-7848 (Fax No. 425 222-4743).
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