Last Updated on October 7, 2021 by Constitutional Militia
Americans are confronted by an exceedingly serious problem today. No—not the chaos now convulsing the financial markets. That is simply one, albeit an exceedingly serious, consequence of the problem this column addresses. The underlying problem is one of governance—or, as will be explained anon, of a lack of governance by America’s true governors. But it’s a problem that has provided Americans with a rare opportunity—if they have the wit and the will to take advantage of it.
The party line, of course, is that nothing is fundamentally amiss, because Americans still govern themselves through the electoral process, and can therefore choose new leaders capable of bringing about “change we can believe in.” This, however, is bird seed spread afield for political pigeons to peck at. Working through its ideologically monolithic “two”-party system, the Establishment always serves up nothing but a choice between a mutually complementary pair of totalitarian evils—the fascistic “right wing” and the socialistic “left wing,” each of which is an appendage of the selfsame voracious vulture, supra-national haute finance. No truly constitutionalist candidates need apply—and those who do step forward receive only the shortest and most derisive shrift in the big media. Worse yet, ever-increasing evidence proves that, all too often, vote fraud decides which of the “two” cookie-cutter candidates in any race wins. So the Establishment’s version of “democracy” is doubly duplicitous. The elections of 2008 are no different from any others.
Were this not bad enough, the real problems come to the fore, and the real damage is done, between elections, when the Establishment’s minions in public office enact, enforce, and interpret this country’s “laws”—increasingly to the exclusive benefit of amoral and avaricious special-interest groups which exceed in rapacity and ruthlessness the worst of the “factions” that the Founding Fathers condemned (or perhaps could ever have imagined). The contemporary electoral process provides no deterrence whatsoever against this misbehavior, because the incumbents know that they, or others exactly like them, shilling for the same sinister powers behind the scenes, will be returned to office, no matter how much common Americans want “to throw the rascals out.”
What, then, is the reason and the remedy for this state of affairs?
The reason is not an absence of good laws that, properly applied, would punish these malefactors to the fullest extent of their just desserts.
At the highest level, the Constitution requires that “[t]he Senators and Representatives [in Congress] * * *, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution.” [Article VI, Clause 3] The President of the United States must take the even more specific “Oath or Affirmation” that “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” [Article II, Section 1, Clause 7] Moreover, the Constitution imposes on the President the duty that “he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” [Article II, Section 3] This, of course, includes among those “Laws” the Constitution itself, and all the particular portions of the Constitution, including the requirements for “Oath[s] or Affirmation[s]” of office. So the President is required, not only to take an “Oath or Affirmation,” but even to enforce it against himself, as well as to enforce against all other legislators, executive officials, and judges the “Oath[s] or Affirmation[s]” they are required to take.
In addition, an “Oath or Affirmation, to support th[e] Constitution” is as well an “Oath or Affirmation” to support “the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance [of the Constitution]; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States”—which the Constitution declares to be parts of “the supreme Law of the Land.” [Article VI, Clause 2]
No one, however, can be effectively “bound by Oath or Affirmation” unless some penalty attaches for its violation. And inasmuch as all of these “Oath[s] or Affirmation[s]” are intended to compel enforcement of the Constitution and constitutional laws and treaties—in the absence of which enforcement the welfare, or even the continued existence, of the whole country could be placed at risk—the penalties for their violation should be swift, sure, and severe.
The statute books already contain provisions that punish violations of the Constitution and laws. Title 18, United States Code, Section 242 declares (in pertinent part) that
[w]hoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States * * * shall be fined * * * or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if bodily injury results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include the use, attempted use, or threatened use of a dangerous weapon, explosives, or fire, shall be fined * * * or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, * **, or an attempt to kill, shall be fined * * * or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.
Plainly, the category “[w]hoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom” includes all rogue public officials at every level and in every branch of government —not simply the executive officeholders who execute such “law[s], statute[s], ordinance[s], regulation[s], or custom[s],” but also the legislators who enact and the judges who enforce them, knowing or in willful blindness to or reckless disregard of their unconstitutionality. Not inappropriately, most at risk from this statute (and deservedly so) are the jack-booted, black- clad thugs of the burgeoning “homeland-security” police-state apparatus, because these myrmidons are the most likely to cause “bodily injury,” to use “dangerous weapon[s], explosives, or fire,” and to “attempt to kill”; and because their unconstitutional arrests and detention of innocent Americans amount to nothing less than “kidnapping.”
But jack-booted thugs in ninja outfits, wielding automatic weapons with the disdain for life, liberty, and property characteristic of SS-polizei units, do not act on their own. They are merely the malign agents of “higher authorities” from whom they “take orders” in the mechanical manner of robots. If they are guilty, so too or even more so must be their superiors in these vicious chains of—or, more descriptively, conspiracies generating—unconstitutional commands. And so Title 18, United States Code, Section 241 recognizes:
If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same; or
If two or more persons go in disguise on the highway, or on the premises of another, with intent to prevent or hinder his free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege so secured—
They shall be fined * * * or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, * * * or an attempt to kill, they shall be fined * * * or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.
If an individual dressed as a member of the armed forces or as an agent of “law enforcement” willfully misuses the apparent authority his uniform provides in order to violate an innocent American’s constitutional freedoms, he is to that extent “go[ing] in disguise,” because he has and can have no authority whatsoever to commit such a violation, no matter what uniform he wears, but nonetheless dons the uniform in order to deceive people into believing that he does enjoy such authority—thus disguising the illegality of his real purpose and his lack of authority. And not only the ones who actually “go in disguise” are liable, but also all those others who conspire with them on that account—that is, everyone in the chain of command and causation, all the way back to the legislators who originally enacted an unconstitutional statute with the intent that it be enforced, or who refused to repeal it when petitioned by their constituents to do so on the grounds of the statute’s unconstitutionality.
More specifically, rogue public officials who employ armed force in order to impose unconstitutional requirements on common Americans throughout this country are engaged in insurrection that descends to the level of treason. The Constitution declares that “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.” [Article III, Section 3, Clause 1] Ultimately, “the United States” and “We the People of the United States” are identical. For no one could “levy[ ] War against” “the United States” without simultaneously “levying War” against the People, or “levy[ ] War against” the People without simultaneously “levying War against” “the United States.” As Chief Justice John Marshall explained in Ex parte Bollman, “[l]evying war” requires an “assemblage of men for a purpose treasonable in itself.” And “if a body of men be actually assembled, for the purpose of effecting by force a treasonable purpose, all those who perform any act, however minute, or however remote from the scene of action, and who are actually leagued in the general conspiracy, are to be considered as traitors.” 8 U.S. (4 Cranch) 75, 126 (1807). So, rogue public officials’ deployment of regular armed forces, or para-militarized police forces, or armed civilian contractors, under color of “martial law” or any other phoney “emergency” decree, against We the People for any unconstitutional purpose constitutes “Treason”—and all who participate in that deployment, “however remote from the scene of action,” are guilty of that crime. The punishment is set by Title 18, United States Code, Section 2381: “Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined * ** not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.” Self-evidently, nothing in the Constitution or this statute excludes the conclusion that individuals may be capable of committing treason, and being punished for it, while holding public office and acting under color of such office as well as otherwise.
More generally, Title 18, United States Code, Section 2384 provides that “[i]f two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States * * *, they shall each be fined * * * or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.” When rogue public officials employ armed forces or police to suppress the constitutional freedoms of common Americans—who, in the final analysis, are “the Government of the United States,” because they govern themselves—those officials, and everyone who co-operates with them to effectuate their purposes, violate each and every prohibition in this statute.
From prosecutions for assaults on Americans’ constitutional freedoms, rogue public officials can interpose no purported “immunity.” For how can anyone be “bound by [an] Oath or Affirmation” of office, if no penalty attaches for violating it? And how can there be a penalty if the malefactor can claim immunity?
The Constitution recognizes only two immunities for public officials: namely, “[the Senators and Representatives in Congress] shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their Respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.” [Article I, Section 6, Clause 1] The first is only a partial immunity, which does not apply in any event to the cases being addressed here, because those fall within the categories “Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace”; and does not apply in any other cases except as to actual “Arrest” in very limited circumstances. The second is a complete immunity, but only for “Speech and Debate”—not for actually voting in favor of some unconstitutional bill. The Constitution recognizes no other immunities—so none can be interpolated into or extrapolated from it. Inclusio unius exclusio alterius. And no mere statute (let alone a judicial decision) can confer any type or degree of immunity beyond what the Constitution explicitly allows; otherwise such a statute (or decision) would release public officials from being “bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution,” which is a constitutional impossibility. Obviously, too, the President cannot jury-rig any such immunity, either for himself or for anyone else—because his constitutional duty is to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” not to excuse himself or any other public officials from the laws pertaining to “Oath[s] or Affirmation[s].”
Therefore, the problem facing America today reduces to one of remedy: In a country replete with rogue public officials who aid, abet, protect, and cover up for each other in their serial wrongdoings—who misuse the law in order to break the law under color of the law—which honest men are to enforce the Constitution, and how? Not surprisingly, the Constitution itself answers these questions in unequivocal fashion.
The Second Amendment declares that “[a] well regulated Militia” is “necessary to the security of a free State.” The Constitution authorizes the Militia “to execute the Laws of the Union, [and] suppress Insurrections” when “call[ed] forth” for those purposes—and Congress has a duty “[t]o provide for calling forth the Militia” to those ends. [Article I, Section 8, Clause 15] Congress also has a duty “[t]o provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia.” [Article I, Section 8, Clause 16] Plainly, these duties are absolute, because: (i) the Militia are “necessary to the security of a free State,” not optional; (ii) unless the Militia are sufficiently organized, armed, and disciplined, they will not be “well regulated”, and thus will not be capable of contributing to that “security”; and (iii) unless some means for “calling [them] forth” in a timely manner are “provide[d] for,” even “well regulated” Militia will be impeded in the performance of their vital constitutional functions.
If rogue Congressmen will not carry into effect these constitutional mandates, then the States’ legislators must do so, because the Militia are “the Militia of the several States” and “the Appointment of the [Militia’s] Officers,” other than the President of the United States himself, is “reserv[ed] to the States.” [Article II, Section 2, Clause 1, and Article I, Section 8, Clause 16] And if neither rogue Congressmen nor the States’ rogue legislators will perform their duties in this regard, then We the People—who constitute the Militia, who (as its Preamble declares) “ordain[ed] and establish[ed]” the Constitution, and who are the intended beneficiaries of “the security of a free State” as well as the trustees assigned the ultimate responsibility for maintaining it—must act, and cannot be prevented from acting, in their own collective self-defense.
We the People’s retained and reserved power and responsibility in extremis to organize, arm, and discipline themselves as “the Militia of the several States” is absolute. It is subject to no “regulation” whatsoever by any public officials in the General Government or the States’ governments, because it is superior to all those governments. Indeed, because the People’s power exercised through their Militia not only provides “the security of a free State” in fact, but as a matter of constitutional law is “necessary” thereto, its untrammeled exercise is the precondition for the preservation and continued existence of all those governments in both fact and law.
This power is also unalienable. The Declaration of Independence sets out three “self-evident” “truths” deducible from “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God”: namely,
(i) that “to secure [unalienable] rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”;
(ii) that “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government”; and
(iii) that “when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
The “right * * * to throw off such [evil] Government”—which in the final analysis the People must exercise themselves through their Militia—must be an unalienable right, because it is the only right that can secure all of the People’s other unalienable rights against “absolute Despotism.” And the “duty * * * to throw off such [evil] Government” must be unalienable, too, because the People cannot waive their “right * * * to throw off such Government” and passively consent to a purported “government” that claims to exercise unjust powers. If even by explicit delegation from the People a government can derive only “just powers”, it can hardly derive unjust powers through some purported waiver. Therefore, if the People cannot waive that right; and if that right is meaningful only to the extent it is enforceable and enforced; and if the People themselves are the ultimate means of its enforcement—then the People must have a duty to enforce that right and to provide themselves with the wherewithal necessary and sufficient to do so. And insofar as their right is unalienable, their duty must be unalienable as well.
The People’s power in extremis to organize, arm, and discipline themselves as “the Militia of the several States” is also nondelegable. Because, as matters of constitutional law, the Militia are “necessary” and We the People are the Militia, the People can never assign, let alone surrender, to any other entity the final responsibility for maintaining “the security of a free State.” For if such other entity neglects, fails, or simply refuses to do what is essential when that security is in jeopardy—as the Constitution predicts it will—the People will find themselves deprived of the opportunity and ability to apply the remedy the Constitution uniquely requires. But the Constitution cannot license the People to transfer their most important power to others, when the consequence of that transfer will be the Constitution’s own destruction and the People’s own enslavement.
Nonetheless, today, “the Militia of the several States” have no significant institutional presence, or even structure, let alone conduct sufficient operations, in the States. Rather, in most States, so-called “unorganized militia” are the norm. See, e.g., Title 10, United States Code, Section 311. An “unorganized militia,” however, is a constitutional impossibility.
The Constitution presumes that “the Militia of the several States” will always exist. The Second Amendment declares that “[a] well regulated Militia” is “necessary to the security of a free State,” and therefore must be in complete existence and readiness at all times, through “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms.” Therefore, under the Constitution, neither the States nor Congress can dispense with the Militia. Even a purported constitutional amendment that disestablished or prohibited the Militia could not be legally effective. For the power to amend the Constitution is a power of “Government”— and, as such, under the Declaration of Independence must be a “just power[ ].” But no “just power[ ]” can possibly exist to destroy or place in jeopardy the “free State” through which Americans’ “unalienable Rights” are “secure[d].” No power of “Government”can defeat the purpose of “Government.” Inasmuch as “Governments are instituted among Men” “to secure [unalienable] rights”; and inasmuch as “[a] well regulated Militia” is “necessary to the security of a free State”; a true “Government” without “[a] well regulated Militia,” let alone one that claims the power to suppress “[a] well regulated Militia,” is a contradiction in terms.
In pre-constitutional America, “well regulated Militia” in every Colony and independent State consisted of every able-bodied free man from 16 to 55 or 60 years old (the range of ages embodying practical judgments as to physical abilities, rather than constituting arbitrary discriminations). And these were always fully organized. Different duties may have applied to different portions of the Militia in various jurisdictions—but, everywhere throughout Colonial America, some organization applied to everyone eligible for service. Thus, the very definition of “Militia,” for constitutional purposes, is the entire body of the adult and able-bodied people, to some sufficient degree organized, armed, disciplined, and trained to perform every aspect of “homeland security” within their legal authority and physical competence.
If rogue officials in the States, Congress, or both could impose “unorganization” on We the People in their capacity as the Militia—and if We the People should tamely acquiesce in this travesty in their capacity as self-governors of their States and of the United States—then the Militia could be rendered utterly impotent. The “security of a free State” could be undermined. The Constitution could be defeated. And America’s “Form of Government” could be proven ineffective to do what any true government must do to be a government: namely, to “secure[ ]” individuals’ life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, and other “unalienable Rights.”
The Constitution delegates to Congress the power “[t]o provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia”—not for the opposite: “disorganizing, disarming, and neglecting to discipline the Militia.” [Article I, Section 8, Clause 16]. “The doing of one thing which is authorized cannot be made the source of an authority to do another thing which there is no power to do.” Wilson v. New, 243 U.S. 332, 345 (1917). Especially where the supposed “authority to do another thing” directly contradicts and renders nugatory the authority for “[t]he doing of [the first] thing.” And doubly so when it jeopardizes “the security of a free State,” which is the Constitution’s ultimate purpose.
As of now, the correct way to rectify this sorry situation is to organize Americans for the purpose of promoting legislation or referenda in each of the fifty States, to revitalize “the Militia of the several States” in strict accordance with constitutional principles. One way to go about doing this appears in Constitutional “Homeland Security”, Volume One, The Nation in Arms.
The Second Amendment declares the Militia to be “necessary.” Therefore, We the People have a constitutional right to the Militia, and a constitution duty to see that the Militia are properly formed in every State—with which right and duty no rogue public official may interfere. But a right implies a remedy at hand, and a duty implies the existence of efficient means for its fulfillment. The proper remedy at the present time is “the freedom of speech, [and] of the press,” and “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” [Amendment I] Observe: “to petition the Government,” not “rogue public officials,” because rogue officials who act unconstitutionally are to that extent no part of “the Government” at all, and in any event are the source and embodiment of “grievances,” not in any way the means to “redress them.” And any public official who does not agree to assist, to the full extent of his constitutional and statutory powers, in revitalizing the Militia in his State will prove himself, by that very refusal, to be a rogue public official of the worst kind—the kind that is inimical to “the security of a free State.”
Freedom of petition is not a “toothless tiger.” Confronted with their constituents’ demands to revitalize “the Militia of the several States,” public officials have a moral duty to act—for they sought their positions from the electorate on the at least implicit grounds that, once in office, they would behave in completely conformity with the Constitution. As an unavoidable consequence of their positions, public officials also have a fiduciary duty to act, as trustees of the public interest committed to their care. In some jurisdictions, public officials may also have a statutory duty to act. And always and everywhere, public officials have a constitutional duty to act, embodied in their “Oath[s] or Affirmation[s],” whenever the petitioners seek from those officials redress that is constitutionally required. Inasmuch as “the Militia of the several States” must exist perforce of both the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, for officials to refuse to revitalize them in the face of their constituents’ petitions to do so amounts to a plain abnegation of their “Oath[s] or Affirmation[s],” and as such a “deprivation of * * * rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution * * * of the United States” punishable by law. [18 U.S.C. §§ 241 and 242]
It is not “too late” to revitalize the Militia through State statutes. America’s present “Form of Government” meets the Declaration of Independence’s standards, because: (i) it “well regulated Militia,” made up of We the People themselves, exercising their “right * * * to keep and bear Arms”; and (ii) it requires public officials to accede to citizens’ petitions that call for enforcement of the Constitution. So Americans need not change their “Form of Government,” only enforce it.
When such an attempt at enforcement is actually made, the barriers to the proper use of the “Form of Government” to remedy the present evils besetting this country will be plainly identified for all to see: the big media, corrupt politicians and political parties, and all the un– and anti-American special- interest groups that hate common Americans’ values, way of life, and especially freedoms, and seek to subvert and destroy them. Absolutely none of these malefactors, however, can claim to be part of America’s official “Form of Government,” be it Local, State, or National. And each and every one of them can be overcome by using the means that “Form of Government” provides: the freedoms of speech, press, association, and petition, all exercised with the aim of mass organization directed towards enactment of constitutionally proper Militia statutes. Can anyone really believe that America’s “Form of Government” cannot be used to put into full operation the only entities that the “Form of Government” itself declares to be “necessary to the security of a free State”—that is, necessary to its own existence?! And if he does actually believe as much, has he any right to call himself an American?
Today, millions of Americans fear their “government”. And the extent, depth, and intensity of that fear grows with each passing hour, as the Establishment’s criminally fraudulent and economically unstable monetary and banking systems collapse upon themselves. But was it not one of the great architects of those systems—the man who stole common Americans’ gold in order to strengthen the Federal Reserve System—the political “messiah” of the 1930s who crucified his own country— Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who told his countrymen that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” and who promised them (and the whole world as well) “freedom from fear”?
Well, Roosevelt did not make good on that promise. And neither have any of his successors. Because, political elitists all, they did not respect the people; they did not desire to serve the people; they did not rely upon the people. To “leaders” of that stripe, the people are mere “human resources” in peace, “cannon fodder” in war, and at all times sheep or cattle to be prodded this way or that in aid of some elitist scheme to assign the dirty work downward while wealth, power, and social status all flow upward. As one of the characters in my not-so-fictional novel, Cra$hmaker: A Federal Affaire, describes contemporary America:
Politics are like that scene in The Ten Commandments where Moses raises the pillar * * *. All them Hebrew slaves pushin’ stones for the pyramid, built for pharaoh’s pride and power. Change is just today’s code word for buildin’ new pyramids for new pharaohs. * * * That’s the Egyptian power structure. There’s the pharaoh class: the politicians and the bureaucrats—the pointy heads in big foundations * * * private groups rakin’ in public money for counterproductive social services * * *. Then there’s the overseers * * *, the Uncle Toms—black and white—who crack the whips over their own people. And then there’s the Hebrew slaves, the common folks of all colors. There can’t be pharaohs or overseers without Hebrew slaves. So they’ll never let us go. But, man, the original Hebrew slaves didn’t stand for that. Neither will we. [Volume 1, pages 423-424]
Neither did Colonial Americans. The Declaration of Independence outlawed “the Egyptian power structure” here in America. The Second Amendment identifies the only way to keep that parasitic system from finally fastening its chains around this country’s neck. Therefore, the only way to end the present politically suicidal situation in which all too many among We the People fear “the government”—even though We the People are themselves the government, and rogue public officials and their controllers and apologists nothing but criminals—is for the We the People to revitalize the Militia, and themselves as well in and through the Militia.
The present economic crises have opened a window of opportunity. It will not, however, remain open long.
©2008 Edwin Vieira, Jr. – All Rights Reserved.
