The question is often asked, “how do we take back our country?” In my opinion, the return to sanity cannot occur via the normal political process. That would take political courage, perhaps the biggest oxymoron that I am aware of.
I have written elsewhere that an economic collapse is all but inevitable and that will provide an opportunity to return the country to its traditional Constitutionally controlled government. Of course there is a grave danger in such an event. In traumatic times, monsters arise to take over governments ala Hitler in Germany during the Great Depression. If sanity is to be returned to governance, the move will likely come from the states either via secession or other means. One of the other means is explored in the Thomas Woods Jr. dealing with nullification.
Below is a brief description of the book from Mises.org, followed by a video interview with Mr. Woods. This alternative appears to be the safest one available, and I think it will provide some hope for those in despair. The video should be watched.
The political agenda of the old liberals was not merely to limit the size of the government but also its scope. That means that lower orders of government have rights against higher ones. In the American context, that means that the state can tell the federal government that its laws are invalid – that is, a state can nullify a federal law..
In Nullification: How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century, historian and New York Times bestselling author Thomas E. Woods, Jr. explains not only why nullification is the constitutional tool the Founders envisioned, but how it works.
The book shows how state nullification has been used on behalf of free speech and free trade, and against unconstitutional searches and seizures, federalization of the militia for offensive purposes, the prospect of military conscription, and the worst outrages of the fugitive-slave laws.
The point of the book is not that the states are necessarily wise or legitimate — they are states, after all — but that competing jurisdictions are likely to give liberty more breathing room than a single, giant one. After all, Woods reminds us, liberty developed in Western Europe because a multiplicity of small jurisdictions made it easy for people to flee oppressive places — thereby depriving them of their tax base — and settle in more liberal ones.
The idea was not incidental to the American experience. Woods shows that it was central to the structure of American liberty. Without it, the entire population is subject to the whim of federal masters. With it, there is a check on power. Woods thereby argues that the idea must be revived in an effort to reclaim liberty.
* How the states were meant to be checks against federal tyranny—and how a growing roster of governors and state attorneys general are recognizing they need to become that again
* Why the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution reinforces the rights of states to nullify unconstitutional laws
* Why it was left to the states to uphold the simple principle that an unconstitutional law is no law at all
* Why, without nullification, ordinary Americans will continue to suffer the oppression of unjust, unconstitutional laws
* PLUS thorough documentation of how the Founding Fathers believed nullification could be appliedNullification is not just a book—it could become a movement to restore the proper limits of the federal government. Powerful, provocative, and timely, Nullification is sure to stir debate and become a constitutional handbook for all liberty-loving Americans.
There is much hope in the nullification model, and should be tested through the legal process. Citizens must have the means, aside from the ballot, to “nullify” offending legislators and an oppressive Federal establishment. I say, let’s take a stand, and AZ seems to be the best candidate for testing nullification in modern times.
While the idea is intriguing, I have repeatedly read that Nullification in Antebellum America is no longer an option under the 14th Amendmant. A State can act to nullify a federal law they consider un-Constitutional – we eventually end up at the Supreme Court – and then without a radical remaking of the court the State will lose 6-3 or 7-2. Then what? The State can still refuse to comply – and all of the “Legal” tools are in the hands of the Feds – as well as the option of naked force.
I think that in the long term it would be fabulous if the Feds strong-arm Arizona over the border or Texas over the EPA-lead economic warfare we’re facing. Nothing would better illustrate Federal tyranny to the public. But would ANY state have the guts to carry this through to the end?
Chuck,
In the case of AZ, it is clear that their safety, perhaps existence, is threatened by the illegal immigration problem. When situations reach such extremes of self-protection, what do you do? If you are able to protect yourself and prevented from doing so by a third party, it seems to me that you rid yourself of the third party one way or another. Interesting times we live in.
The strains, both financially and culturally, are growing to the point where something must happen. What event triggers something and what that something turns out to be are unknown. Things that are not sustainable do not go on forever.
Monty