Off topic, but speaking of the scoundrels sitting on the Tenth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, they’ve had the teeth of our (Oklahoma’s) Immigration law, H.B. 1804, suspended since June of 2008 on the basis that the provisions under suspension probably violate federal immigration law, which is b.s. and the court knows it. The provisions were to go into effect in July of the same year.

The idea is, that 1) by backing a law with legislative findings and declarations of fact as to the original intent of the 1st and 14th Amendments, the State completely cuts the legs out from under the doctrine of “selective incorporation” and announces that it cannot and will not be bound judicial activism that contravenes the intent with which a law/amendment was enacted, 2) it binds federal agents and other persons (lawyers, plaintiffs, federal marshals, etc) and makes criminal any attempt to enforce an order violating reserved states’ rights regarding an establishment of religion. I sent a copy to Representative Charles Key, author of Oklahoma’s 10th Amendment Resolution, and to Judge Roy Moore, the famous 10 Commandments Judge, in Alabama. If followed up on, it would create an immediate constitutional confrontation: judical activism vs. original intent and State Sovereignty!

I’ll post the other version later when I get home from work.

Excellent letter. Thanks for posting it.

I’ve added it to my blog entry on the subject “On the destruction of local self-government/”the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states”", with attribution, of course. Here. Hope you don’t mind.

Dear Board of Commissioners,

It was with saddened hearts that we learned of the recent ruling of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals declaring that the display of the Ten Commandments was an unconstitutional “endorsement of religion.” However, we were greatly encouraged by the statement of Commissioner Mitch Worsham indicating it was your intention not to obey or to take the monument down. We write to strengthen and confirm you in that resolve.

It has been the sovereign right of the People of the several States to acknowledge God in our public places since before the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock. All of our nation’s organic documents acknowledge Christ and God. This is historically true. The Tenth Amendment reserves to the States and to their peoples all powers not given to the federal government nor prohibited by the Constitution to them. The First Amendment prohibition against an Establishment of Religion applies by its express terms only to Congress. The usurpation of reserved States Rights by liberal, activist judges cannot override the written Constitution nor can it obviate our duty before the Majesty in Heaven. We must obey God more than men. We implore you not to yield to spiritual wickedness in high places by surrendering your ground.

Oklahoma recently passed a Tenth Amendment Resolution claiming sovereignty under the U.S. Constitution. To date, 34 States have followed or are following Oklahoma’s example in telling the federal government to cease and desist it unlawful intrusion into and usurpation of reserved States’ Rights. To bring this matter to an immediate Constitutional confrontation and crisis, we encourage you to petition the Oklahoma Legislature to enact legislation making it unlawful for any officer of the State or any of its subdivisions to obey a federal court judgment purporting to invade reserved States’ Right by ordering the removal of any monument displaying the Ten Commandments, the Cross of Christ, or other acknowledgement of God as the Supreme Majesty in Heaven, who alone is the author of our being, the guardian of our liberties, and the wellspring of our happiness.

God bless you as you endeavor to persist in your moral courage and resolution to resist the unlawful acts of a usurping federal judiciary. Better that Oklahoma secede from the Union than to abandon its duty to its citizens and to God.

Sincerely,

Patrick Henry Lives

202 E Main Street
County Courthouse
Stigler, OK 74462-2439
Phone: (918) 967-4352
Fax: (918)967-3290

Kenneth Short Jr. Commissioner, District 1
Paul Storie Commissioner
Mitch Worsham Commissioner, District 2
Bryan Hale Sheriff
Gail Dixon Treasurer
Roger Ballard Assessor
Gail Brown County Clerk

We agree. But as I indicated in a comment under another entry at this site recently, people tend to come along at their own pace. We see in the O.T. stories concerning the Israelites the very nature … of human nature, at the risk of coining a repetitive phrase. But it’s true, isn’t it? When things were going good for the Israelites, they forgot about their God. When they became desperate, they cried out to him for relief. And as the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts assured its constituents in a proclamation issued just four days prior to the “shot heard ’round the world,”:

It is the happiness of his Church that, when the Powers of Earth and hell combine against it, and those who should be Nursing Fathers become its Persecutors–then the Throne of Grace is of easiest access–and its appeal thither is graciously invited by the Father of Mercies, who has assured it, that when his Children ask Bread he will not give them a Stone.

If history is any indication, I imagine we’re going to see, in the relatively near future, people rediscovering their roots, re-asserting their manhood, and resisting the tyrannous practices of a completely out-of-control central government and the ideology currently controlling it. The lines will be drawn, and the real men will step forward as a matter of principle and duty. That, in a nutshell, is what I see coming.

Take heart, brother!

The John Galt Option is one of many ways in which individuals can make a significant difference, as I intimated in the comment you were referring to. And it needn’t be an all-out (no pun intended) non-participation. It can be partial (and legal and moral as well) and still effective. There are all kinds of federal taxes imposed on all kinds of goods and services that the average person doesn’t even think about most of the time. The great majority of which are non-essential to ones ultimate survival. The “dependent masses” aren’t paying any taxes anyway, by and large, so it’s up to those who are to start “opting out.”

Your question draws from the assumption that the bought-and-paid-for masses are equally distributed among the various states, which is far from the case. This is evidenced merely by the fact that the states themselves are more or less serious about their assertion of their tenth amendment priveleges depending on which state you’re talking about, just to offer an example of a very recent phenomenon, but also among other issues equally revealing. As far as Oklahoma is concerned, as an example, and as I’ve said before, when you get down to where the rubber meets the road (we’re not quite there yet, but anyway), you’re probably looking at something along the lines of a 65-35, 60-40 split in favor of state sovereignty. When I said above that my belief at this point is that the United States is virtually unreformable based on the numbers of irreformable dependent citizens we have, I meant the United States taken as a whole, not in its constituent parts. The numbers, of course, vary from state to state, region to region. Which is also the reason that secession, when it occurs (and it will occur), will likely reveal a regional split in attitudes.

But like I said, we’re not quite there yet. Give it some time.

I think the ultimate issue facing us today is whether we have men of sufficient moral conviction, courage, and resolution to do anything about what is happening. I fear that soft living in the land of plenty has blunted our moral consciences so that principle, right vs. wrong, honor, honesty, piety, self-sacrifice for what we beleive are largely missing from the landscape. Why does it take an economic crisis for the States to finally rouse themselves and start passing 10th Amendment Resolutions? Is the thing that matters most money? Doesn’t God come first, and what about our children being victimized by a school system that is overtly hostile to Christianity? Why do so few care? Millions attend church from week to week, yet they seem oblivious to what is happening around them. I have to conclude that the quality of religion in America is very, very low. Otherwise, they would not sit still but would rise up.

I have always felt that Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore’s forced removal from the bench should have sparked outrage and State secession across the Bible belt. Yet, it was a total cave in. I think only Mississipppi said anything that was supportive or defiant of federal authority. I worry that we have been reduced to a nation of moral eunuchs, castrates, and neuters that the will to resist is now non-existent. I hope I am wrong.