Comments on: Amar, Akhil’s Constitution

By: Brian McCandliss

Brian McCandliss — Sun, 22 May 2011 04:28:02 +0000

Excellent response. There's no doubt that he's a "king's courtier", but the amazing thing is that the flaws in his argument are so gaping that anyone can see them– i.e. that the states somehow surrendered their sovereigny as sovereign nations via Aritcle V of the Constitution, while ignoring that sovereign states cannot be bound in that way against their will, but rather must expressly relinquish sovereignty in order to be thus supremely subject to military coercion by another state.

Naturally, any ruling power will reward storebought puppet-scholars who validate its every act, and Amar is simply one more example of a "useful idiot" lackey for the state; James M. McPherson is likewise one such court-historian for the Lincoln-regime, which is the official point of usurpation of national authority from the people of the individual states.

By: Brian McCandliss

Brian McCandliss — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 00:35:46 +0000

Professor Amar refused to answer any of my correspondences as a law student, however earnest; as a shill for the state, he knows that his best refuge is silence, since he knows full-well that anything he says can be used against him, and that he has the existing law on his side in the form of "national policy." Therefore, it is in his best interest to remain aloof, until the public challenge becomes too great to ignore.
He also wants to keep his cushy and prestigious position afforded in return for his collaborative effort with the state as what Thomas Dilorenzo calls a "court-historian–" and also a party-hack for the current regime; therefore he also wants to keep copies of "Americas Constitution" out of the bargain-bin at Wal-mart alongside "Mao's China"… or more likely (and appropriately), out of the landfill alongside copies of "Pravda."

By: Brian McCandliss

Brian McCandliss — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 00:15:48 +0000

Actually, Amar is correct that Article V of the Constitution, does bind states even to amendments which they individually refuse to ratify; however the question is whether they are bound voluntarily as sovereign nations of a federal republic, or mandatorily as subordinate states of a greater nation, as with ancient Rome.
Here, Amar's entire theory fails, in claiming that "ratification of the Constitution itself marked the moment when previously sovereign states gave up their sovereignty and legal independence." Tthere is nothing in the Constitution itself which authorizes the use of force against any state; and likewise, both Federalist and the Constitutional Convention, expressly prohibit this as an act of outright war and usurpation against the state in question. The People of each state ratified the Constitution only on this basis, so such was clearly their intent.

By: Brian McCandliss

Brian McCandliss — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 18:22:27 +0000

Again, Amar bases his entire argument of constitutional sovereignty, on the singular claim that "Article V does not permit a single state convention to modify the federal Constitution for itself. Moreover, it makes clear that a state may be bound by a federal constitutional amendment even if that state votes against the amendment in a properly convened state convention. And this rule is flatly inconsistent with the idea that states remain sovereign after joining the Constitution, even if they were sovereign before joining it."
This argument, depends entirely on the assumption that states are bound to obey the federal government by force; however the Constitution not only omits any such provision, but related documents expressly deny it, poving that each state intentionally retained its sovereignty.
Thus, Amar's argument of "constitutional sovereignty" collapse entirely, proving the Constitution to be a purely voluntary document among the individual states.

By: Brian McCandliss

Brian McCandliss — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 18:22:14 +0000

If you can, look for where Amar substantiates any provision in the Constitution, that empowers the federal government to use force against any state. Unlike Lincoln, Amar admits that the states were individual sovereign nations prior to ratifying the Constitution; therefore he cannot adopt Lincoln's argument that "perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamenetal law of all nations." In this sense, Amar's argument breaks down entirely without any express provision to use force against a state; for the supreme authority to use force, is the funamental definition and test of soveriegnty.

By: Brian McCandliss

Brian McCandliss — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 18:07:32 +0000

Correction: I do not know if Toland links the coining of "Final Solution" to Sherman; however Sherman did coin the phrase in his own writings. Meanwhile, Toland's book does publish Hitler's own written attributions of his policies of "ethnic-cleansing" and genocide to the post-Lincoln regime: e.g. "Hitler's concept of concentration camps as well as the practicality of genocide owed much, so he claimed, to his studies of English and United States history. He admired the camps for Boer prisoners in South Africa and for the Indians in the wild west; and often praised to his inner circle the efficiency of America's extermination – by starvation and uneven combat – of the red savages who could not be tamed by captivity."

The actual term "Final Solution" was first used by Gen. Sherman, in his own writings to describe what he wanted to do with the Native Americans; in 1889, he wrote a letter to his son, saying that he regretted that they did not kill not every last Indian in the U.S., but that some of them ended up on reservations."

By: Brian McCandliss

Brian McCandliss — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 17:52:06 +0000

The key to ask yourself, is whether Amar would hold his current position and success, if his official opionion was against the state, rather than in support of it; I submit that he would not only lack his current level of success, but any success whatsoever, other than possibly as a private attorney– which he certainly would not have, if he refused to concur as to the national authority of the United States, in order to graduate from any law school.
I do not think it mere chance, that not a single professor of law in the United States, will publicly admit on record that the individual states are sovereign nations, under a correct reading of international law– or that the United States has no such legal claim of national authority over any state. While this has been heretofore a mere policy of Leviathan-state "shadow-government" which upheld Lincoln's arguments without question– based on nothing other than bureaucratic pragmatism– Amar actually goes on record breaking this "code of silence" which has persisted since the Jackson-Lincoln era, and published the actual nuts-and-bolts theory of American sovereignty.
And thus the dam cracks….

By: Brian McCandliss

Brian McCandliss — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 17:08:02 +0000

Mainly, the book is "a house built on the sand." In it he writes, that ""Thus in the great debate of the 1860's both Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln got some things right and some things wrong, but Lincoln was right when it counted. Contrary to what Lincoln said, it is doubtful that a new indivisible nation—as opposed to thirteen original nation-states in a classic confederacy—sprang into existence in July 1776…the United States did not become an indivisible nation prohibiting unilateral state secession—the crux of the Gettysburg contest—until 1788. Lincoln also stumbled in claiming that none of the thirteen original states had ever been sovereign. [America's Constitution, pp. 38-39]"
He bases this argument likewise, on the claim that Article V binds the states to amendments even against their vote, unlike under the prior Confederation– but this assumes that they were bound by force, which they clearly were not under the Confederation; and nothing in the Constitution says different.

By: Brian McCandliss

Brian McCandliss — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 16:16:18 +0000

The very purpose of public schools, was to immediately keep the public believing the myth of national authority; compulsory school-attendance laws went into effect immediately following the war, as absolute power spread from federal to state government; meanwhile the "Pledge of Allegiance" was mandatory in them soon afterward– similar to all totalitarian regimes which force children to recite oaths of loyalty to the state.
Lincoln and his party made use of the Weimar-like "emergency powers" claim of martial law, in order to seize power through totalitarian censorship under claim of veracity– which no one was permitted to challenge; this became the model for the Third Reich, as detailed in "Mein Kampf–" along with those policies for human extermination in the post-bellum, as detailed in "Adolph Hitler" by John Toland, wherein the original term "Final Solution" was coined by Gen Sherman regarding his desire to kill all Indians.

By: Brian McCandliss

Brian McCandliss — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 16:04:32 +0000

There is no "state sovereignty movement" except in name; the Tenth Amendment does not pertain to state sovereignty, but simply "reserved powers."
Actual sovereignty, meanwhile, means that each state is a sovereign nation unto itself, and its respective People are the ruling sovereigns who are the supreme governers thereof.
In contrast, for example, the latest resolution, confimed by the Ohio senate, seeks to “claim sovereignty over certain powers pursuant to the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America, to notify Congress to limit and end certain mandates, and to insist that federal legislation contravening the Tenth Amendment be prohibited or repealed.”

This is a misunderstanding of the term "sovereignty," which is is not simply the reserved right to "notify" and "insist–" but the absolute national power to annul and secede.