8 posts tagged “constitution”

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ACTIVE Mission Statement

Active, The American Constitution and Capitalism Defense Front, is a permanent and enduring organization of American citizens dedicated to maintaining the foundational principles of the United States of America, as initiated by its Declaration of Independence and realized by its Constitution and economic system of free-market capitalism.

These founding documents and this economic system define the United States, and as such, there is no United States without them.

The changing tides of time allow for the development of threats capable of abolishing both, either through overt attack or the processes of slow erosion and unconstitutional change. The principles of free-market capitalism are eternal, and the only legitimate process to change the United States Constitution is that which is prescribed within it.

As such, it is a moral imperative for each and every loyal American to dedicate a sufficient amount of their blood, sweat, and tears to the preservation and defense of both the Constitution and free-market capitalism.

United we stand, divided we fall. Upon this eternal truth we hereby declare that it is incumbent upon the people of this great land to come together in broad union to demand that the freedoms granted to us by God, protected by our Constitution, and given wings by our self-chosen labors, are left intact.

We are the people by which the government is of and for. We are the grantors of the power that the government wields. We are the people who can recall that power from the government at any time of our choosing. We are the citizens of the United States of America. We are the defenders of the greatest nation in the history of man, and we are hereby responding to the call to become ACTIVE.

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Jason Murphey
Oklahoma Representative

Monday, February 11, 2008

David Barton

(First published in the October 2004 issue of The American Legion magazine)

The subject of constitutional interpretation may seem like a topic best fitted for an ivory-tower debate, but it actually has a very real and dramatic impact on daily life (as will be demonstrated shortly). In recent years, two competing viewpoints have emerged.

Probably the first exposure most citizens had to the two views came during the 2000 presidential debates. When asked what type of judges should be placed on the bench, candidate Bush responded: “I believe that the judges ought not to take the place of the legislative branch of government . . . and that they ought to look at the Constitution as sacred. . . . I don't believe in liberal, activist judges; I believe in strict constructionists.” ¹ Candidate Gore countered, “The Constitution ought to be interpreted as a document that grows.” ² Gore later stated, “I believe the Constitution is a living and breathing document. . . . We have interpreted our founding charter over the years, and found deeper meanings in it in light of the subsequent experience in American life.” ³ So, the two choices are . . . follow original intent, or construct a living constitution.

Proponents of a living constitution believe that we should not be bound by what dead white guys wrote two centuries ago when slavery was legal, women could not vote, and horses were the fastest means of transportation. Instead, we should live under a constitution that is alive and vibrant, reflecting today's values and beliefs.

Such rhetoric makes a living constitution sound appealing, but it is actually a complete misportrayal of the difference between the two philosophies. In reality, both accommodate an evolving society; in fact, under the strict construction (or originalist) viewpoint, Article V of the Constitution requires that the Constitution be a living document. The real difference between the two approaches is not whether the Constitution should evolve, but rather how those changes should occur - and who should make them.

Under the living constitution approach, history and precedent are largely irrelevant; instead, unelected judges create policy to reflect modern needs through the constitution they themselves write. As explained by Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes:

We are under a constitution, but the constitution is what the judges say it is. ⁴

Ironically, under this modern approach, judicial policy-makers are regularly out of step with modern society. For example, although 80 percent of the nation currently opposes flag desecration, living constitution judges have ruled that the people are wrong on this issue and that the flag cannot be protected. Similarly, 90 percent of citizens in the federal Ninth Circuit supported keeping “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, but their living constitution judges pronounced them wrong.

Equally striking is the number of recent occasions in which living constitution judges have overturned statewide votes wherein the People clearly expressed their will (e.g., striking down votes in New York and Washington that banned physician-assisted suicides; in Arkansas and Washington that enacted term limits; in Missouri that rejected a tax increase; etc.).

Each of these popular votes would be valid under original intent because in that approach, the People — not unelected judges — determine their policies and values. And whenever the People want a change, they do not rely on a judge to make it; instead, they update their Constitution to reflect their views — as they have done on over two-dozen occasions. Samuel Adams pointed out the strength of this approach:

[T]he people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government and to reform, alter, or totally change the same when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it. And the federal Constitution — according to the mode prescribed therein [Article V] - has already undergone such amendments in several parts of it as from experience has been judged necessary. ⁵ (emphasis added)

This unique American guiding principle made its appearance in the Declaration of Independence as “the consent of the governed.” The State constitutions penned after the Declaration reiterated this precept — as, for example, in Massachusetts in 1780:

All power residing originally in the people and being derived from them, the several magistrates and officers of government vested with authority — whether Legislative, Executive, or Judicial — are their substitutes and agents and are at all times accountable to them. ⁶

The same axiom was then established in the Constitution through the three-word phrase that begins its text: “We The People.”

Today's living document proponents decry this approach as majoritarianism - the so-called “tyranny of the majority.” Perhaps, but what is the alternative? Minoritarism? That a small group should be able to annul the will of the People and enforce its own desires upon the masses? Such an option is unacceptable under original intent. As explained by George Washington:

The fundamental principle of our Constitution . . . enjoins [requires] that the will of the majority shall prevail. ⁷

Thomas Jefferson agreed:

The will of the majority [is] the natural law of every society [and] is the only sure guardian of the rights of man. Perhaps even this may sometimes err. But its errors are honest, solitary and short-lived. ⁸

Does this original principle therefore mean that minorities are to be disregarded or trodden upon? Of course not. As Jefferson further explained:

Though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable — the minority possess their equal rights which equal law must protect. ⁹

While the minority is not to prevail, with its constitutional guarantee of “free speech,” it does have the “equal right” to attempt to persuade the majority to its point of view. The minority does have equal rights, but equal right is not the same as equal power; the minority is never the equivalent of the majority and should never exercise control over it.

Living constitution judges, however, view the majority as inherently wicked and depraved — always seeking deliberately to violate the rights of the minority with only judges standing between the minority and total annihilation. Therefore, under this anti-majoritarian view, the greater the public support for a position, the more likely a living constitution judge is to strike it down.

Yet American history has proven that the best protector of minority rights is not the courts but rather the People. For example, former slaves received their constitutional rights not from the courts but by the majority consent of non-slaves; women were similarly accorded the constitutional right to vote not by the courts but by the majority approval of men; the constitutional rights accorded to the poor by the abolition of the poll tax came at the majority approval of those who were not poor; and the constitutional right allowing eighteen-year-olds to vote was given by the majority approval of voters not eighteen-years-old. Additionally, all of the constitutional protections for individuals and minorities established in the original Bill of Rights (e.g., speech, religion, petition, assembly, bearing of arms, etc.) were also enacted by majority consent. In other words, all minority rights in the Constitution have in all cases been established by majority consent.

In fact, the courts have a very poor record of protecting minority rights. Although living constitution proponents love to point to the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision that ended segregation as proof that the courts protects minority rights, they conveniently forget to tell the rest of the story. In 1875, Congress — by majority vote — banned racial segregation, but in 1882, the unelected Supreme Court struck down that anti-segregation law; in 1896, the Supreme Court reaffirmed its pro-segregation position; but in 1954, the Court finally reversed itself and struck down segregation - eighty years after “We The People” had abolished segregation.

It is not surprising that judges are fallible, for as Jefferson pointed out:

Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so. They have — with others — the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. . . . And their power the more dangerous as they are in office for life and not responsible — as the other functionaries are — to the elective control. ¹⁰

Certainly, the majority will sometimes err, but as Jefferson observed, “its errors are honest, solitary, and short-lived” and can be remedied by “elective control.” However, the errors created by judicial decisions are more severe and long-lasting.

While living document enthusiasts disparage strict constructionists as being narrow or restrictive, Justice Antonin Scalia counters:

Don't think the originalist interpretation constrains you. To the contrary, my [originalist] Constitution is a very flexible Constitution. You want a right to abortion? Create it the way all rights are created in a democracy: pass a law. The death penalty? Pass a law. That's flexibility. ¹¹

Scalia points out that it is just the opposite with living constitution judges:

They want the whole country to do it their way, from coast to coast. They want to drive one issue after another off the stage of political debate. ¹²

In short, then, the living constitution approach empowers an unaccountable elite to make decisions on behalf of the People; original intent empowers the People themselves.

[For more information on this topic please see David Barton's book Restraining Judicial Activism or his audio presentation Restraining Judicial Activism on cassette.]

Endnotes
1. Commission on Presidential Debates, "2000 Debate Transcript" (at http://www.debates.org/pages/trans2000a.html). (Return)
2. Commission on Presidential Debates, "2000 Debate Transcript" (at http://www.debates.org/pages/trans2000a.html). (Return)
3. PBS.org, "Online News Hour: Al Gore" (at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/election2000/candidates/gore_3-14c.html). (Return)
4. Charles Evans Hughes, The Autobiographical Notes of Charles Evans Hughes, David J. Danelski and Joseph S. Tulchin, editors (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973), p. 144, speech at Elmira on May 3, 1907. (Return)
5. Samuel Adams, The Writings of Samuel Adams, Harry Alonzo Cushing, editor (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904), Vol. IV, p. 388, to the Legislature of Massachusetts on January 19, 1796. (Return)
6. A Constitution or Frame of Government Agreed Upon by the Delegates of the People of the State of Massachusetts-Bay (Boston: Benjamin Edes & Sons, 1780), p. 9, Massachusetts, 1780, Part I, Article V. (Return)
7. James D. Richardson, A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789-1897 (Published by Authority of Congress, 1899), Vol. I, p. 164, from the "Sixth Annual Address" of November 19, 1794. (Return)
8. Thomas Jefferson, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Julian P. Boyd, editor (NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961), Vol. XVI, p. 179, "Response to the Citizens of Albermarle," February 12, 1790. (Return)
9. James D. Richardson, A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789-1897 (Published by Authority of Congress, 1899), Vol. I, p. 322, from Jefferson's First Inaugural on March 11, 1801. (Return)
10. Thomas Jefferson, Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Albert Ellery Bergh, editor (Washington D. C.: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904), Vol. XV, p. 277, to William Charles Jarvis on September 28, 1820. (Return)
11. About, "Scalia on the Constitution" (at http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aa022701a.htm). (Return)
12. About, "Scalia on the Constitution" (at http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aa022701a.htm). (Return)

A narrow, technical New York Appeals Court decision rendered last month essentially means that American writers and publishers can be held subject to Islamic law. Alyssa Lappen explains how. Article is on Pajamas Media.

by Alyssa A. Lappen

Unless the U.S. Congress and New York legislatures act immediately to stop them, foreign terror financiers and libel tourists now can essentially impose sharia (Islamic) law on American writers and publishers.

(This is Hilliary Clinton's State. Everyone Watch How She Handles This And Please Repost, We Have To Get This Information Out To All Americans - Twana)

Intended or not, a narrow, technical New York Appeals Court decision on Thursday Dec. 20, 2007 produces that net effect. The ruling concerns jurisdiction in Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld’s suit against Saudi billionaire Khalid bin Mahfouz, seeking a federal declaratory judgment against him to render unenforceable in the U.S. a U.K. High Court default “libel” decision. By implication, the New York Appeals Court ruling harms all publishers and writers in New York, the world’s publishing capital.

Ehrenfeld’s case stems from her 2003 book, Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed—and How to Stop It, where American Center for Democracy Director reports Mahfouz’ well-documented terror funding. (Full disclosure: Since September 2005, I’ve been an ACD Senior Fellow.) As always after such terror financing reports, Mahfouz sued Ehrenfeld for libel in Britain. His attorneys informed U.K. High Court Justice David Eady that former CIA director R. James Woolsey wrote her book’s foreword. “Say no more,” Eady replied. “I award you a judgment by default, and if you want, an injunction, too.”

Eady then ordered Ehrenfeld to apologize, retract, pay Mahfouz $225,913.37 in damages and destroy remaining copies of her book. Instead, she ignored the British default judgment and false libel claim—never tried on its merits—and asked the Southern District Court of New York to rule the U.K. judgment unenforceable here.

In the U.S., the Supreme Court’s seminal 1964 New York Times v. Sullivan decision defined libel or slander by a journalist as stating or writing falsehoods or misrepresentations that damage someone’s reputation—and in cases of public figures, doing so with malice.

Under sharia, by contrast, libel constitutes any oral or written remark offensive to a complainant, regardless of its accuracy or intent. Slander “means to mention anything concerning a person that he would dislike, whether about his body, religion, everyday life, self, disposition, property, son, father, wife, servant, turban, garment, gait, movements, smiling, dissoluteness, frowning, cheerfulness, or anything else connected with him,” according to Ahmad Ibn Lulu Ibn Al-Naqib (d. 1368). 1

Repeat: Sharia regards even the truth as slander if its subject dislikes the facts. Now applied through foreign courts, sharia law interpretations of libel have demonstrably undermined U.S. press viability already. Though Mahfouz never proved merits in any libel case, he has threatened or sued more than 35 journalists and publishers (including many in the U.S.) through Britain’s High Court, and exacted fines, apologies and retractions from all but Ehrenfeld. Last Thursday, New York’s Appeals Court substantially (if not intentionally) allowed the application of sharia rules here.

New York State recently held that it can collect sales taxes from “commercial” enterprises with as little physical presence as a single link on any New York-based website. While temporarily reversed on November 15, the state’s controversial opinion will be enforced after the 2007 Christmas season.

Yet, also by New York fiat, Constitutional First Amendment rights now take a back seat to the state’s conservative “long-arm” statutes—which protect distant commercial enterprises from state courts. A Saudi national suing an American journalist in Britain, Mahfouz hired numerous New York agents and couriers and used many New York electronic and telephone communication systems expressly to halt Ehrenfeld’s investigations and publications concerning terror finance. However, on Dec. 20 the New York Appeals Court established Mahfouz’ New York-based commercial transactions as less commercial (or significant) than a distant merchant’s sales link on a New York-based website.

In its unanimous June 8, 2007 request for a local ruling on jurisdiction, the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals panel specifically extended as wide a berth as possible to the New York Court of Appeals to consider First Amendment rights within the context of Ehrenfeld’s case.

However, the New York Court ignored the federal instructions to consider Constitutional issues—or the effects this case will consequently have on Constitutional rights in the world’s publishing capital. “However pernicious the effect of this practice [libel tourism] may be, our duty here is to determine whether defendant’s New York contacts establish a proper basis for jurisdiction,” wrote Judge Carmen Beauchamp Ciparick, an appointee of former Governor Mario Cuomo.

Shockingly, New York’s Court of Appeals allowed Mahfouz’ commercial actions (and any similar commercial actions of any other foreign terror financier and libel tourist) to subjugate Constitutional First Amendment rights to archaic commercial statutes.

Now, the U.S. Congress and New York legislators must swiftly enact new “long-arm” statues, suitable to our electronic age, before further damage to the U.S. Constitution ensues.

NOTE:

1Ahmad Ibn Lulu Ibn Al-Naqib (d. 1368), Reliance of the Traveller: The Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law Umdat, translated by Nuh Ha Mim Keller, 1991 and 1994, Amana Publications (revised ed., 1994), p. 730.

What work of art (film, book, record, whatever) changed your life?
Submitted by bodhibound.

Citizenship Day and Constitution Week Proclamation
Citizenship Day and Constitution Week, 2001
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation

As the delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia began working on what would become the United States Constitution, they grasped that a great democracy must be built on the twin foundations of national consent to a Federal Government and respect for individual rights. After more than two centuries of continual cultural, legal, and economic change, our unique experiment in self-government has borne successful witness to the prescient genius and timeless wisdom of our Founding Fathers. Throughout America's history, in times of turmoil and peace, liberty and oppression, our faith in the Constitution's promise of freedom and democracy has been a steadfast rock of national stability against the raging seas of political change. Today, in the face of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, we must call upon, more than ever, the Constitutional principles that make our country great.

In creating our Nation's Constitutional framework, the Convention's delegates recognized the dangers inherent in concentrating too much power in one person, branch, or institution. They wisely crafted a Government that balanced the functions and authority of a Federal system among three separate but equal branches: the Executive, the Legislative, and the Judicial. As a further check on central power, the Framers granted citizens the right to vote, giving them the power to express their political preferences peacefully and thereby to effect change in the Government.

The Convention delegates ratified the Constitution on September 17, 1787, and submitted it to the States for approval. After much deliberation and discussion at the State level, the following two concerns emerged from among those who feared the Constitution's proposed centralization of Federal power: (1) the threat of tyranny; and (2) the loss of local control. To address these fears, our Founders amended the Constitution by adding a Bill of Rights. These ten amendments provided a series of clear limits on Federal power and a litany of protective rights to citizens. This development underscored the important and enduring Constitutional principle of enumerated powers, and it set our national course on a route that would eventually enhance and expand individual rights and liberties.

Today, our Nation celebrates not only the longest-lived written Constitution in world history, but also the enduring commitment of our forebears who upheld the Constitution's core principles through the travails of American history. They pursued a more perfect Union as abolitionists, as suffragists, or as civil rights activists, successfully seeking Constitutional amendments that have strengthened the protections provided to all Americans under law. In so doing, they rendered the moral resolve of our Nation stronger and clearer.

Our Republic would surely founder but for the faith and confidence that we collectively place in our Constitution. And it could not prosper without our diligent commitment to upholding the Constitution's original words and implementing its founding principles. From the noble efforts of public servants to the civic acts of local people, our continuous Constitutional engagement has proved to be an exceptional feature of our Nation's prosperous development.

To continue this legacy, each of us must recognize that we bear a solemn responsibility to promote the ideals of freedom and opportunity throughout our land. We each should serve our Nation by actively supporting and shaping our Government's institutions, by working together to build strong communities, and by loving our neighbors. Doing this will ensure that the American dream will become real for every willing citizen; and, in fulfilling this call together, we will honor the spirit of our powerful and enduring Constitution.

The Congress, by joint resolution of February 29, 1952 (36 U.S.C. 106), designated September 17 as "Citizenship Day," and by joint resolution of August 2, 1956 (36 U.S.C. 108), requested that the President proclaim the week beginning September 17 and ending September 23 of each year as "Constitution Week."

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim September 17, 2001, as Citizenship Day and September 17 through September 23, 2001, as Constitution Week. I encourage Federal, State, and local officials, as well as leaders of civic, social, and educational organizations, to conduct ceremonies and programs that celebrate our Constitution and reaffirm our commitment as citizens of our great Nation.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this seventeenth day of September, in the year of our Lord two thousand one, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and twenty-sixth.

GEORGE W. BUSH

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010917-15.html

Hey all, Someone asked me a question recently about why I am not a Democrat. This pretty much sums it up!

Here are 22 ways to be a great democrat.

1. You have to be against capital punishment - but support abortion on demand.

2. You have to believe that businesses create depressions - and governments create prosperity.

3. You have to believe that guns in the hands of law-abiding Americans are more of a threat than Nuclear weapons    technology in the hands of Iranians and North Korean communists.

4. You have to believe that global temperatures are less affected by cyclical documented changes in the earth's climate and more affected by soccer moms driving SUV's.

5. You have to believe that there was no art before Federal funding.

6. You have to believe that gender roles are artificial but being homosexual is natural.

7. You have to believe that the AIDS virus is spread by a lack of federal funding.

8. You have to believe that the same teacher who can't teach fourth graders how to read is somehow qualified to teach those same kids about  sex.

9. You have to believe that hunters don't care about nature, but loony activists who have never been outside of San Francisco or Portland do.

10. You have to believe that self-esteem is more important than actually doing something to earn it.

11. You have to believe that Mel Gibson spent $25 million of his own money to make "The Passion of the Christ" for financial gain only.

12. You have to believe the NRA is bad because it supports certain parts of the Constitution, while the ACLU is good because it supports certain parts of the Constitution.

13. You have to believe that Margaret Sanger and Gloria Steinem are more important to American history than Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Edison, and A.G. Bell.

14. You have to believe that taxes are too low, but ATM fees are too high.

15. You have to believe that standardized tests are racist, but racial quotas and set-asides are not.

16. You have to believe that Hillary Clinton is normal and is a very nice person.

17. You have to believe that the only reason socialism hasn't worked anywhere it's been tried is because the right people haven't been in charge.

18. You have to believe conservatives telling the truth belong in jail, but a liar and a sex offender belonged in the White House.

19. You have to believe that homosexual parades displaying transvestites in drag and bestiality should be constitutionally protected, and manger scenes at Christmas should be illegal.

20. You have to believe that illegal Democrat Party funding by the Chinese Government is somehow in the best interest to the United States.

21. You have to believe that this message is a part of a vast, right wing conspiracy.

22. You have to believe that it's Okay to give Federal workers the day off on Christmas Day but it's not Okay to say "Merry Christmas."

READY TO VOTE???

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