“Tea Party” Voters Present Challenge for GOP
October 17, 2009
Well maybe the tea parties are finally going to move the GOP back to the conservative side by keeping the pressure on.
“Tea Party” Voters Present Challenge for GOP
The Republican party is expected to make gains in the 2010 congressional elections, but the party’s plans may be hampered by the “tea party” movement that gained steam over the summer, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Protesters around the country this year demonstrated against President Obama’s stimulus package and health care plans, giving Republicans a chance to unify and energize its base after four years of dismal election results. Those demonstrators, however, do not necessarily identify with the Republican party simply because they do not identify with Democrats.
The GOP is preparing to make a comeback with 2010 candidates that can appeal to broad constituencies, according to the Journal. For example, Dede Scozzafava is running in a special election next month for an open House seat representing upstate New York. Local Republican representatives chose Scozzafava for her political experience and commitment to family values, even though she supports abortion rights. Tea party activists, however, are getting behind Doug Hoffman, who calls himself the real conservative. The split among conservatives has left their Democratic opponent in the lead.
The Journal points to other examples in which the conservative activism of the summer has worked against the Republican party. Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, a moderate but popular Republican, is running for the Senate, but faces a primary challenge from former Florida House speaker Marco Rubio, who is seeking tea party members’ support.
Liberal Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who gained some notoriety this summer for striking back against extreme protesters, said Wednesday that he thinks Republicans made a mistake by encouraging the “tea party” movement.
“I think the conservatives made a big mistake morally as well as tactically,” he said on HLN’s Joy Behar Show. “I think they thought they were benefiting from all these crazies going out and venting. I think they realized that got in the way of the rational arguments they wanted to try to make … So, I think you’ll still see some of the negativity [remain], but it won’t be as supported by the Republican apparatus.”
The disaffected sentiment of conservatives who joined in the protests this summer has been embraced by personalities like Glenn Beck, who has gained a strong following from both his Fox News TV show and nationally-syndicated radio program. Last month, Beck told CBS News’ Katie Couric that he believes the country would have been worse off with Republican Sen. John McCain as president than it is with Mr. Obama.
During the interview, Beck told Couric his viewers “don’t care about the parties, they care about their life… They say, ‘the Republicans have betrayed me, the Democrats have betrayed me… I don’t see an exit strategy here.’”
ABC NEWS: No Evidence Of Lobbyists at Townhall Protest
August 6, 2009
Well here’s more Democratic propaganda. Attempts on behalf of the Democratic party to quell spontaneous riots breaking out at town hall meetings amidst anger about Obama’s health care bill by claiming they are manufactured was disproved once again, as ABC News reported that no lobbyists were present at a meeting in Maryland on Tuesday night.
A First Hand View of a Raucous Town Hall Meeting
ABC’s Steven Portnoy reports:
There were no lobbyist-funded buses in the parking lot of Mardela Middle and High School on Tuesday evening, and the hundreds of Eastern Maryland residents who packed the school’s auditorium loudly refuted the notion that their anger over the Democrats’ health care reform plans is “manufactured.”
“I went to school in this school,” a man named Bob told me. “I don’t see anyone in this room that isn’t from Mardela Springs right now.”
“We’ve been quiet too long,” said a woman named Joan.
They came to yell at their congressman, freshman Democratic Rep. Frank Kratovil, and they were surprised to hear that the “Congress in Your Corner” event to which they had been invited — by a robocall from Kratovil himself — was not to be a public airing of grievances, but instead an opportunity for private, one-on-one sessions with the freshman Democrat.
As the crowd grew, and began venting frustration over the fact they would only be meeting with the congressman behind closed doors, Kratovil’s aides suggested he switch to a town hall format.
I am here because I understand that I do represent you folks, okay?” Kratovil said, after entering the auditorium to applause. “The opinions that you folks have, I need to know. There are legitimate concerns.”
Just then, someone in the audience shouted back, “Our freedom is being taken from us!”
Kratovil is a Blue Dog Democrat who signed onto a letter last month urging House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to delay a vote on a health care reform bill until after the August recess. His officially “undecided” stance on health care reform makes him a prime target for frustrated constituents already miffed that he voted for the House Democratic leaders’ energy bill last month, after initially telling voters he was “undecided” on Cap and Trade.
The former county prosecutor won his seat – formerly held by a Republican — last November by just 2,852 votes.
Boos and cries of “You don’t get it!” were hurled at Kratovil, as he suggested that the current health care system needed to be fixed.
“You’re deceiving us! You’re trying to shove this stuff through,” one woman yelled.
“I’m not! But I hear you,” Kratovil pleaded.
“This bill is un-American,” said another voter, who asked whether Kratovil has read it.
“I am reading it right now,” he said.
In an interview before the session, Kratovil admitted he’s under heavy pressure from both the constituents in his conservative-leaning district and his party’s leadership, but, alluding to his vote on Cap and Trade, he said he’s already cast unpopular votes.
“I’m trying to make decisions based on the merits of it, and not based on politics,” he told me.
By the end of the 90 minute town hall — which Kratovil told the crowd was his fourth interaction with constituents that day (more than we can say for our Congressman John Tanner, he having one tele-conference on the 28th with his constituents, no face to face town meetings) — the congressman looked exasperated. He was hounded by jeers all the way out to his car.
In talking to a few attendees afterward, one man said he now admires and respects his representative.
“He stood up, he took his shots, and did it like a man,” a man named Bill told me. (That’s more than we can say of John Tanner as it stands right now. He doesn’t appear man enough to take his shots.)
Two elderly women said they were embarrassed by their neighbors.
“They were rude! Oh, they were behaving terribly,” one said, calling it a “disgrace to our community.”
Said another of the anger, which sounded very much to her like what she hears on Fox News and conservative talk radio, “If it’s not manufactured, they’re brainwashed.” (that’s right make some kind of excuse, anything except accepting the truth that people are truly fed up with this agenda already.)
Let me set down a couple of fervent beliefs that animate everything I do and everything I say.
I believe that God created heaven and earth and every single individual on the planet.
I believe that the God who gave us life gave us liberty and that freedom is our birthright.
I believe that the States created the federal government and not the other way around. And that the power that the States gave to the Federal Government – they can take back.
When we were colonists, and the King and the Parliament needed money from us, and they always seemed to need money, they devised ingenious ways to tax us. One of them was called the Stamp Act. The Parliament decreed that every piece of paper that the Colonists had in their homes; every book, every document, every deed, every lease, every pamphlet, every poster to be nailed to a tree had to have the King’s stamp on it. You think going to a Post Office is bad? You had to go to a British Government office and buy a stamp with the King’s picture.
Question. How did the King know that his picture was on every piece of paper in your house? The Parliament enacted a hateful piece of legislation called the Writs of Assistance Act which let the king’s soldiers write their own search warrants, and bang down any door they chose to look for the stamps or anything else that they were looking for.
It was the last straw.
We fought a revolution. We won the revolution. We wrote the Constitution. The constitution doesn’t grant power, it keeps the government off our backs.
When they were debating the Constitution in the Summer of 1787 in Philadelphia, there were two great arguments – one by the Jefferson and Madison crowd and one by the Adams and Hamilton crowd. Jefferson argued, though he wasn’t physically there in Philly, as he did in the Declaration of Independence that our rights are ours by virtue of our humanity. That as God is perfectly free, and we are created in his image and likeness, we too are perfectly free. The big government crowd – yes they had them even in those days – argued that you can’t have freedom without government, and that government gives us our rights, and therefore, that government can take them away. This is not an academic argument. Jefferson and the natural law argument prevailed because the Constitution was written to keep the government from interfering with our natural rights.
And so, your right to think as you wish, to say what you think, to publish what you say, to travel where you want, to worship as you see fit, to keep and bear arms to defend yourself against a tyranny. And, after the right to life, the greatest and most uniquely American of rights – and I say this in front of the seat of the government – is the right to be left alone.
We wrote a Constitution to ensure that the government would never interfere with these rights. Think about it – if rights come from the government, then the government, by ordinary legislation, or presidential decree can take them away. But if the rights come from our humanity, then unless we violate someone else’s natural rights, the government cannot take our rights away.
This is not just a democrat, upper case D, or a republican, upper case R, problem. It’s a problem with government today. There’s a republican version of big government just as assaultive to our liberties as there’s a democrat version of big government.
We fought a revolution because British soldiers could knock on our doors and demand that we house them, and demand that we turn over property to them because they could write their own search warrants. In the Patriot Act, the most hateful piece of legislation since the Alien and Sedition Acts, a republican congress and a republican president authorized federal agents to do the unthinkable – to write their own search warrants. And the republican administration didn’t even let members of the House of Representatives read the Patriot Act before they voted on it.
Why should the government be able to spy on us? We should be able to spy on them!
When some judge is rationalizing away our liberty, or some congressman is plotting to take away your freedom or your tax dollars, we should know what they do every minute that they do it.
I was speaking to a group of congressman from a neighboring state – I won’t tell you which state it was, but they don’t play football there – and they came up to me and said “this is the first time we have heard that the Patriot Act allows federal agents to write their own search warrants.” Remember, in the Constitution, we put in the 4th Amendment, the right to be left alone, to make sure that if the government had a target, no matter how guilty the target, no matter how widespread is the belief in the guilt of the target, no matter how dangerous is the target, the government has to go through a neutral judge with a search warrant before it can get to that target. These members of Congress said, “we didn’t know that the Patriot Act allowed the government to bypass the courts and write any search warrant they wanted.” Then I asked them a question I knew the answer to already – did you read the Patriot Act before you voted on it? The answer – no. What were you voting on? A summary we received. Let me guess who wrote the summary – some lawyers in the justice department, right? Of course.
Would you hire anybody to run your business that committed you to a violation of the very reason you’re in business if they didn’t even the document by which they were making that committment? Of course not.
The camera is the new gun. There’s nothing that government dislikes more than the light of day, and cameras recording what the government is doing, whether it’s on a street corner, or in there, or in Washington D.C., we have the right to know everything that they do and why they do it, and when they do it, and how they are taking our freedoms.
I have another one of my basic core beliefs. The individual has an immortal soul. Every individual is greater than any government.
Your government is based on fear and force. You don’t have to take my word on it. The 2nd president on the United States, John Adams, said “Of course the government is based on fear.” And the first president, George Washington, said “Government is not reason, it is force.” I think they knew what they were talking about.
Now fast-forward to modern times. Whenever the government wants something, it scares us. During the civil war, Lincoln tried civilians in this state where no battles occured, by military tribunal. After he died the supreme court invalidated everything the military tribunals did. During the first world war, the Wilson administration locked up 2000 people called anarchists – same thing as enemy combatants. No trial, no charge, just jail for the duration of the war. In world war II, FDR locked up 150,000 Japanese Americans, people born in the United States, who got no trial and had no charges, and when the war was over were given $25 and told to go home.
Today we have federal agents. You know I get in arguments with my friends at Fox News, and one of them, I don’t have to tell you who it is, but is truly the most irascible person there. And he said to me, you know you have a problem with Guantanamo Bay, and you have a problem with the Patriot Act, what will you do if I get sent to Guantanamo Bay, will you visit me? And I say, Bill – no, because they’ll probably keep me there as well.
Government likes to say that it’s taking an oath to uphold the Constitution. In the years that I was on the bench, it seemed that every time government lawyers were in my courtroom, if the government was prosecuting someone who was legitimately guilty or whether it was a mistake, or whether somebody was suing the government because government contractors or government doctors, or government workers made a mistake – the government doesn’t come in to the courtroom to enforce the constitution, it comes into the courtroom to evade and avoid it. That, ladies and gentlemen, must be stopped.
This is a great moment in our history. A crowd of this magnitude on a beautiful day, in the boiling sun, in the most middle-American of great middle-American states…comes together not because the president is a democrat, not because his predecessor was a republican, not because a war is just or unjust, not because the Fed is stealing or printing – you’re here because you believe in human freedom.
It is the essence of our existence that we should be free. But remember this: the government hates freedom. It is an obstacle to every one of their designs. Whenever they write laws, whenever they take your tax dollars, whenever they regulate your private behavior, whenever they tell you how to spend your money, whenever they tell you what medicines to take, whenever they tell you what food to eat, whenever they tell you with who you may or must associate, they are taking away your freedom and they love to get away with it. And they cannot get away with it any longer.
In the long history of the world, very few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its maximum hour of danger. This is that moment and you are that generation! Now is the time to defend our freedoms.
Jefferson was no saint but he was the greatest of our American presidents. He believed that the individual was greater than the state. He believed that the states were greater than the federal government. And when he wrote that our rights come from our creator, and that our rights are inalienable, he forever wed the notion of natural rights to the American experience and the American experiment. We must be vigilant about every right that the government wants to take away from us.
You’ve heard the president say, present president and his predecessor, “my first job is to keep you safe.” He’s wrong! His first job is to keep us free. It is his only job to keep us free.
Shortly before he died, Jefferson lamented, that in his view of the world that is was in the natural order of things for government to grow and freedom to be diminished; how ardently he wish that that wouldn’t happen. And in order to prevent it from happening he had a very simple remedy, “When the people fear the government, that is tyranny. When the government fears the people, that is liberty!”
Judge Andrew Napolitano
More unconstitutional authority given to the Federal Reserve:
Article 1 section 8:
“The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes……..To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;” (nothing in the Constitution about private banks like the Federal Reserve which isn’t federal at all.)
Ron Paul/Judge Napoliano Slam the Federal Reserve’s New Dictatorial Powers
Congressman Ron Paul tells MSNBC that the very entity responsible for the economic crisis is now more powerful than Congress..
“They’re giving a tremendous amount of more power to the Federal Reserve – the very institution that created our problem. That’s about the way Washington works,” said the Congressman.
“Too much regulations to begin with, so they give it more. The Federal Reserve creates the problem, so we give them more power. It’s fiat money that’s the problem, so we allow them to double the money supply – you can’t solve the problems that way. That’s like saying you can take care of a drug addict by just giving them more drugs,” concluded Paul, adding that the lack of understanding about how the Federal Reserve created the problem and how the free market ought to work was the root of the crisis.
Responding to the Obama administration’s new regulatory reform plan, which will officially hand the Federal Reserve complete dictatorial control over the U.S. economy.Paul emphasized that no amount of regulation could compensate for a financial system created and controlled by the Federal Reserve that was completely unstable to begin with.
“The regulations should be on the Federal Reserve. We should have transparency of the Federal Reserve. They can create trillions of dollars to bail out their friends, and we don’t even have any transparency of this. They’re more powerful than the Congress,” said Paul.
As the LA Times reports, the government, in conjunction with the private Federal Reserve, would effectively have the clout to simply seize and take over any company it desires or considers a threat to the economy. Take over like General Motors?
In order to appease those opposed to the plan, such as Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, chairman of the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, the Obama administration has agreed to create a “watchdog” council of regulators to “advise the Fed”.
However, as former chairman Alan Greenspan has most recently pointed out, given that the Fed is an independent entity, and therefore accountable to no one, it will have the power to simply reject and overrule any advice it is offered.
Obama to Grab State Power in New US Office of Insurance
June 20, 2009
Well it just isn’t going to stop is it, until this man turns America into a complete government controlled country….as in Communist country and Congress is just standing by and letting him. In fact most seem to be working with him. Once these huge beauocracies are created they are never undone.
Obama’s Insurance Proposal May Grab Power From States
President Barack Obama’s plan to create a U.S. insurance office after the $182.5 billion bailout of American International Group Inc. may take powers from the states that have overseen the industry for more than 135 years.
Obama called for the creation of a federal Office of National Insurance within the Treasury Department to monitor the industry, represent U.S. interests in international insurance agreements, and look for gaps in state oversight. The proposal was announced this week as part of Obama’s planned overhaul of the U.S. financial regulatory system.
The administration endorsed broader federal oversight of firms posing a threat to the financial system, and said more regulation may be needed for parts of companies outside the reach of state supervision. AIG’s Financial Products unit, which brought the company to the brink of bankruptcy after it sold credit protection to firms including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., wasn’t under the states’ umbrella.
“AIG highlighted gaps in our insurance regulatory system,” said Leigh Ann Pusey, president of the American Insurance Association, which has pushed for federal oversight for a decade. “We had 20 different states with authority over 72 insurance subsidiaries of AIG just in this country.” The states didn’t work together “until the crisis hit,” she said.
The creation of a federal regulator is supported by some of the country’s largest insurers, including Allstate Corp. and Travelers Cos. Some smaller firms are opposed. The National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies, a trade group for policyholder-owned companies, said in a statement it had “concerns with some of the language in the draft paper” released by the Treasury to coincide with Obama’s announcement.
How Big a Risk?
“I cannot point to a single insurance company that I believe is systemically risky,” Vaughan said. “We do know that insurance companies can be part of larger institutions that may be systemically risky. So we have to find a way to fit into this structure, and I think it takes a very balanced approach.”
Representative Melissa Bean, an Illinois Democrat, said AIG’s collapse illustrated the problems of insurers with holding companies outside the reach of state overseers. Bean has proposed legislation to create a national regulator that is optional for most insurers and mandatory for companies judged to pose a risk to the broader system.
AIG’s government rescue includes an investment of as much as $70 billion in preferred stock and warrants, $52.5 billion to buy mortgage-linked assets owned or backed by the insurer, and a $60 billion credit line.
Unprecedented, Uncomfortable
“This was an unprecedented level of federal commitment of taxpayer dollars without any oversight or authority, and that makes everyone uncomfortable,” Bean said in an interview. “Without the holding company data and the insights and expertise at a federal level, we can’t anticipate what those systemic risks might be in the industry.”
The insurance proposal is part of Obama’s larger plan to set up an agency that oversees consumer financial products, brings hedge funds and private equity firms under federal supervision for the first time and widens the U.S. Federal Reserve’s power to monitor large firms.
The president’s announcement of the proposal marked the beginning of a congressional process that may alter his plan, with some lawmakers opposing any expansion of the Fed’s power. Obama, who has called the “sweeping overhaul” of regulation one of his domestic priorities, said he wants to sign legislation by year-end.
Pentagon pulls description of protesters as ‘terrorists’
June 20, 2009
There is something wrong when “protesters” excersising their Constitutional rights are called “low level terrorists”.
Pentagon pulls description of protesters as ‘terrorists’
HOMELAND INSECURITY
Pentagon pulls description of protesters as ‘terrorists’
But term apparently used by law enforcement ‘regularly’
By Bob Unruh
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
The Department of Defense has withdrawn a training manual question that linked protesters across the United States to terrorism, but there’s evidence coming to light that describing Americans as terror suspects, or “low-level” terror suspects, is routine.
According to the letter from the Northern California ACLU, the DoD’s “Annual Level 1 Antiterrorism (AT) Awareness Training for 2009″ tells department personnel “that certain First Amendment-protected activity may amount to ‘low-level terrorism.’”
Specifically the training “Knowledge Check 1″ asks,
“Which of the following is an example of low-level terrorism activity?”
1. Attacking the Pentagon
2. IEDs
3. Hate crimes against racial groups and Protests.
The correct answer in the training course is……. “Protests.”
Now, according to a Fox News report, the Pentagon has withdrawn the question.
A spokesman told the network the question didn’t make it clear what the difference was between violent and illegal actions and peaceful protests, which are protected by the U.S. Constitution.
“They should have made it clearer,” Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Les Melnyk told Fox. He declined to specify when the line would be crossed from one into the other.
But he said all of the 1,546 people who took the exam and saw the question will be notified of the “error” and told that there is a difference between lawful objections and violent unrest.
The whole episode developed just weeks after a scandal erupted over a Department of Homeland Security report that described as “right-wing extremists” those who oppose abortion and support secure national borders.
The Department of Defense situation was revealed by blogger Dennis Loo at Salon.com.
He cited an ACLU complaint demanding that the DoD change its instructions and those who have been given the training be told of the modifications by “sending out corrective materials.”
Loo reported at the time that the use of the term apparently is routine.
“I have just learned of a scholarly conference paper presented earlier this year that underscores the fact that the DoD training’s use of ‘low-level terrorism’ is hardly an anomaly. ‘Low level terrorism’ is a term regularly being used by state security agencies,” he wrote.
Richard Thompson, president of the Thomas More Law Center, has told WND that as part of his organization’s research for its lawsuit over the DHS “extremism” report, it has discovered additional information that it is withholding now but will include in a pending amended complaint.
Thompson said one of the things that sparked the organization’s curiosity was a reference by DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano in the original report to not only government resources but also non-governmental resources.
Thompson said the information he has “creates even more concern that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is unconstitutionally targeting Americans merely because of their conservative beliefs.”
On the website of the Southern Poverty Law Center, an Alabama-based activist group that leans strongly left, there are boasts about the organization’s effort to “train” a number of “local, state and federal law enforcement officers” about terror suspects, “hate crimes” and similar topics.
“We focus on the history, background, leaders and activities of far-right extremists in the U.S.,” the website says. “Training sessions last from two to four hours and are tailored to fit the requesting agency’s requirements.”
The SPLC said it has worked within a “groundbreaking partnership with the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) that culminated in new courses on hate and bias crimes. …
“Intelligence Project staff also offer in-person trainings on extremist activity to law enforcement and offer their expertise to educational and other groups,” the SPLC said.
The SPLC also writes of its “Hate Crime Training” work.
“Intelligence Project staff have been involved in the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center’s hate and bias crime ‘train-the-trainer’ program since its inception in 1992. FLETC trains personnel for more than 75 federal law enforcement agencies and provides services for local, state and international agencies.
Letter to the Govenor of Tennessee: Firearms Act
June 15, 2009
I got this letter from my friend Ron in Nashville that he sent to Governor Bredesen concerning the Tennessee Firearms Freedom Act just recently passed by both houses. Remember as Ron said, the states created the Federal government, not vice versa. The 2nd amendment is directed at the Federal government and restricts them, not the citizens. I thought the letter was very good and so did Steve. Ron said we could post it, so here it is. Thanks Ron.
Letter to the Govenor Bredesen of Tennessee Re: Firearms Act
Dear Govenor Bredesen,
Thank you for signing most of the bills to support and expand the right of the people for armed self-defense passed in this legislative session. All of them were in accordance with our rights enumerated in Article I, Section 26 of the Tennessee Constitution’s Declaration of Rights. According to the 9th Amendment, “the people” by their governments in the States, can expand upon and enumerate more rights than in the U.S. Bill of Rights; rights which are outside the “delegated powers” of the United States:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. –9th Amendment
I noticed that you allowed the Tennessee Firearms Freedom Act to pass into law without your signature. I thank you for not vetoing it. Some of your reported statements regarding this bill are as follows:
“This bill is not about firearms. It is about a fringe constitutional theory that I believe will be quickly dispensed with by the federal courts.”
“The Tennessee General Assembly lacks the Constitutional authority to limit the power and authority of federal government in this way…”
“…While I share the General Assembly’s commitment to federalism, this legislation contravenes our Constitution. I am allowing it to become law so that it can quickly be dealt with by the federal courts.”
If you rehearse civics history, the United States Government is a creation of the States. The U.S. Constitution is a legal document which grants “delegated powers” to the Federal Government and also added, in the words of the Preamble to the Bill of Rights, ”further restrictive and declarative clauses” in the first ten amendments. That is, “restrictive” of the Federal Government and “declarative” of the rights of the people.
First we have the “delegated powers” regarding the militia:
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia,AND FOR GOVERNING SUCH PART OF THEM AS MAY BE EMPLOYED IN THE SERVICE OF THE UNITED STATES, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress; -–Article I, Section 8.15-16, U.S. Constitution (EMPHASIS MINE)
Then the 10th Amendment makes it clear that the Federal Government cannot operate beyond the specifically ”delegated powers”. In the case of firearms, the Federal Government only has delegated power to govern the part of the militia that it calls into its service and employs for the reasons specified in Clause 15 of Article I, Section 8.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively or to the people. –10th Amendment.
Finally the 2nd Amendment is “declarative” of the right of the people and totally restricts any Federal intervention regarding an armed citizenry by saying “shall not be infringed”. The explanatory sub-ordinate clause opening the sentence makes it clear, along with the 10th Amendment, that any other powers regarding the organized militia is retained by ” a free State”.
A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infirnged. –2nd Amendment
According to an objective reading of the legal contract by which the States established the Federal Government with “delegated powers”, the Tennessee Firearms Freedom Act is completely in accordance. Once again, thank you for allowing this important piece of legislation to pass into law which will hopefully provide an impetus, along with similar bills in other States, to return the U.S. government to its Constitutional constraints.
Sincerely, Ron
Nashville, Tn..
“It would be a dangerous delusion were a confidence in the men of our choice to silence our fears for the safety of our rights… Confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism. Free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence. It is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power… Our Constitution has accordingly fixed the limits to which, and no further, our confidence may go… In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.” –Thomas Jefferson
Steve Hilton
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Mike