Saturday, November 7, 2009

The purpose of the constitution

If there's any definition of the United States that stands out in my mind, it is the long and painful struggle against oppression. Across the two centuries our nation has been in existence, we've had many oppressed groups, many rulings that have come down from the Supreme court.

Thousands of court cases have been reviewed, hundreds overturned within the first few decades for lack of adherence to the principles of limited government. Statements had been made in many such cases, statements of intent and principle, quoting from the Federalist papers, as well as letters of negotiation between representatives in the Continental Congress regarding the ratification of the Constitution itself.

Our nation grew from the Common Law, the old Scottish Right, the ideal that rights were not something to be given or taken by mere documents, but something inherent, something miraculous within ourselves, and by virtue of our very humanity they were not something that could legitimately be taken or given away by fear, fraud, or mistake.

Those rights, in the 1800s books of law, were inalienable, untouchable, and for every human being in the nation by virtue of international treaty and compact. It did not matter if you were a resident alien, it did not matter if you had committed criminal acts, it did not matter who you were, nobody could take those rights from you. The principles of a just, limited, and general representative republic were laid down at the beginning, within the Federalist papers, and in the Constitution itself.
The only legitimate powers of government were general. Nothing could be voted in that did not affect every person equally, nothing could be taken away that did not penalize all persons equally. That equality under the law was not an equality of things, but an equality of intangibles, an equality of properties that were inherent in the human being. The right to live, the right to liberty, the right to property, and the inherent right to defend all of the above.

Government was created, not for the purpose of creating these rights, but for the purpose of protecting them. The legitimate nature of the courts is not as the arm of the will of the legislature, but for the arm of justice, and the constitution. Before any federal justice can take his bench, he must swear an oath in the United States: "I, ________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as ________ under the Constitution and laws of the United States.  So help me God."

If our government fails to execute the powers and obligations it has been placed under, or exercises the powers that it has been granted outside the scope of the contract of the Constitution, it has enacted fraud upon its people, and that fraud obviates any duty to follow such a law, edict, or act.

“I will add, as a fifth circumstance in the situation of the House of Representatives, restraining them from oppressive measures, that they can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as on the great mass of the society. “ Federalist 57

Furthermore, the act of owning another person is banned in every state, and ownership is defined as exercising any of the powers of ownership over a person; i.e. the powers of dominion and control, the powers of disposition and disposal, all of which comprise the power of subjugation by force, and lack of choice.

We've had many steps forward, from the decisions made in the Amistad and Yick Wo V. Hopkins, to the decisions made in Brown v. U.S, and Trop v. Dulles. We have also had many steps away from the ideal of freedom and justice for all, from the decision of Buck v. Bell, to the decisions involving Smith v. Doe.

Ultimately, however, it comes back to specific things written in argument in the Amistad decision.

As quoted by John Adams: "Constans et perpetua voluntas, jus suum cuique tribuendi." "The constant and perpetual will to secure to every one HIS OWN right." from the Justinian Institutes was the motivations of the court, and as noted by Justice Story within his own notes: “. . . it was the ultimate right of all human beings in extreme cases to resist oppression, and to apply force against ruinous injustice," As also noted by him: “a situation could arise in which the checks-and-balances principle ceased to work and the various branches of government concurred in a gross usurpation.” By the principles of the 'common good', governments may engage in excusing non-republican methods, targeting individuals or groups that are outside of the good graces of the rest of the society, and removing those rights by force. There would be no appeal to the courts, nor to the system of the ballot, no power to repeal the law nor to constitutional amendment due to the very minority of the party assaulted.

Our greatest security is that very rule of law, that the law itself is bound down from the mischief of good intentions, and limited to just, equal, and constitutional powers. Any arrest based on a false warrant, or no warrant at all may be resisted by any force necessary to repel the assault. “Citizens may resist unlawful arrest to the point of taking an arresting officer's life if necessary.” Plummer v. State, 136 Ind. 306.

“Where the officer is killed in the course of the disorder which naturally accompanies an attempted arrest that is resisted, the law looks with very different eyes upon the transaction, when the officer had the right to make the arrest, from what it does if the officer had no right. What may be murder in the first case might be nothing more than manslaughter in the other, or the facts might show that no offense had been committed.” John Bad Elk v. U.S., 177 U.S. 529.

Acts of war are any act which attempts to use force outside of the rule of law, to remove the rights or property of the people by those acts of force. Acts of war against the people of the United States, attempting to use force to remove the rights which the government was founded to preserve, not to create, are no less acts of war. They are no less acts of fraud for their attempts to circumvent the constitution outside of the legitimate domain of governments of the states, as well as the federal government. They are no less attainder for attacking groups of individuals as attacking individuals, no less attainder for attacking the right to liberty and property as attacking the right to life.

The only power that was capable of attacking those rights was the corruption of blood. It was not primarily about inheritance, though that too was part of the power, it was about the very humanity of the individual. That 'taint' for which the corruption of blood was assumed established the foundation for the corruption, seizing those rights by force and arbitrary will, and establishing the government as the owner of the person, and all of his rights.

“For the very idea that one man may be compelled to hold his life, or the means of living, or any material right essential to the enjoyment of life, at the mere will of another, seems to be intolerable in any country where freedom prevails, as being the essence of slavery itself. “ – Yick Wo v. Hopkins

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Tuesday, October 6, 2009

They do not deserve to live: Sex offenders and justice

The hue and cry is out, that sex offenders, as a whole, have abandoned their humanity, their human rights, their very nature, by their crimes and misdeeds. The fear is palpable in the air, and political animals tear at the flesh of the law to feed within the confusion. But have sex offenders abandoned their humanity? Can they?

Those human rights are not created, nor instituted by human contract, nor by the essence of the civil society. They exist, rather, in spite of that society, preexisting it, and standing stark and solitary before it. They are the rights upon which societies are founded, the essence and nature of the reasons for free societies. Our American republic was established, not to create new rights, but to preserve the ones we have against intervention by that government, and by interested parties.

We have long stood with forces fearful of freedom and liberty. From the arguments against the slaves, their lack of humanity, lack of souls, the shapes of their skulls showing their inferiority, Every possible excuse was extended, every possible reason that the persons in controversy could not be human, and their 'innate criminality' and 'moral inferiority' were paraded about as fact.
There is ample evidence in the past of the 'humanity' argument. From the 'inhuman inferiors' of the Nazi party, to the 'inhuman' slave races, and the 'inhuman' non-citizens in Rome, in all cases the argument was not about their humanity or lack thereof, but rather of the government's right to control the persons in any or all aspects of life.

Citing the ideals of 'racial purity' and 'removing defectives' and 'criminal existence' and 'imbecility' the worst atrocities of the modern age have been accomplished. Buck v. Bell, for instance, saying 'three generations of imbeciles are enough', pushed through the ability to surgically sterilize human beings, for 'genetic impurity'. The most telling thing in the Buck v. Bell case, sadly enough, was the true reasons behind Bell's pregnancy.. her rape, and the coverup. Moreover, she graduated in the top of her class.

The question at present is what we are willing to do to another group? And how long until it's extended to others, including ourselves? Are we creating a 'civil code' of government, very similar to old Rome before its collapse? Civil law is not the same as criminal law, under the Common Law with which our nation was founded. It had its own limitations, which are long since removed.

Lest we forget, we have had other 'civil' codes in the past, in our own nation that have been implemented to the detriment of human beings, real human beings who lived, breathed, and died under that civil code. From the internment camps of the United States, for the Japanese, and Germans, to the Indian resettlements, and the very nature of slavery itself, civil codes have long been the tools used by those who would tyrannize others and steal from them.

Civil codes, after all, allow seizure of property, under the Roman Law. You are guilty until proven innocent, you can be held until you confess or are executed, and you have no power to appeal the system, as the system itself holds the power to allow or deny your appeal.

Is civil law such a great idea in today's world? They talk of the Constitution as being antiquated, and replace it with a law system that failed, spectacularly and repeatedly, far before our Constitution even came into existence.

How often do we, as a people, 'civilly' punish others for our perceptions, our fears, our beliefs that defy reality? How often do we place their bodies, their minds, and their lives under the heel of the 'majority', and thus validate our own worldview of their innate violence when, under all the responsibiliti es of society, and bearing none of the benefits, they cease to seek reentry?

But after all.. it's not punishment, it's a civil regulation that bears all the hallmarks and trademarks of punishment... just like slavery.

-- Tried By Conscience
Eric L. Hansen.

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Friday, August 7, 2009

In shock.

Not only would I not have gotten to argue my case, I'd not have even gotten a trial...

WHat has happened to our country?

No civil case could provide criminal punishment, and no criminal case could be tried in a civil court. No civil case could provide prison time, however... they're claiming the power to provide criminal felony sentences by a civil court hearing?


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Tried By Conscience.

I may be a fallen man, but this is a fallen world. And it is my duty, my honour, and my right to change myself, and my world I find myself in.

No more will I allow injustice, victimization, and harm where I might help. No more will I allow tyranny and fear to hold the hearts and minds of man.

No more inequality, no more injustice.



In this false and fallen world... the most difficult thing of all is to do the right thing, and to know that it is the right thing. To do it no matter the cost, no matter the pain, no matter the fear.

To try, and to end injustice, even at the cost of all you care for, and everyone you love.

That.. is the ultimate trial of conscience. That is the quest. That is the dream. Ending injustice, ending harm, ending victims, and ending... abuse of all sorts.


Oh the trumpets are calling, now call me to rise, yes the trumpets are calling to me.

And wherever I ride, ever staunch at my side, my squire and my lady will be.

Long ago.. I saw this, and changed my life.






Without redemption, can any man be anything more than a criminal? Can any man overcome his past, when it comes back so oft and destroys his dreams? Can any man love society when society rejects him? Can any man embrace redemption, when redemption is repudiated?

We are all human. We have always been.

And it's time for a change. Humanity, who has so long been full of hate, so long full of anger... it's time to embrace something new. True equality under the law. Punishments, just punishments for transgressions, but not torture, not undending punishment for a past we cannot change, when the conscience sears our souls every day, those of us who wish to change.
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