IN THE BEGINNING

Several months ago I started my efforts to promote action on the 10th Amendment in Idaho. This effort was based on the encouraging fact that the Idaho Legislature passed House Joint Memorial No.4, a sovereignty declaration not requiring the Governor’s signature. My original motivation in this effort was not to promote partisan politics. It was not an emotional effort to “strike a blow for freedom”, nor was it a revengeful effort to put the Federal Government “in its place”.

It was and still is a matter of SURVIVAL.

I saw then as now, an out of control Democratic President and Congressional majority with a socialist agenda proposing bills and mandates so illogical, that the impact in Idaho would be catastrophic. I believed then and still do, that the only entity strong enough to mount a defense against this usurping Federal Government was the states using their 10th Amendment rights.

I then authored a petition requesting the Legislature and Governor take action to enforce the statements put forth in their declaration, and to refuse to comply with usurping mandates and guidelines required by Federal funding grants to the state. The petition was relative well circulated throughout Idaho by contact with the various teaparty groups, whom I urged to form a strong statewide political coalition. I felt confident at the time that this petition was going to have a significant effect on the Legislature and Governor. I sent a copy of the petition to all one hundred five (105) Legislators and Governor, plus a special “Letter of Concern” to the Governor urging him to publically state his support for states rights.

The results for these efforts are as follows:
1. I have to date received a positive response from two (2) legislators and a negative response from one (1). I am actively working with one of these legislators.

2. Have heard nothing from the Governor’s office except after a follow up email, a staffer called and said his office would contact me. A month has passed and still waiting.

3. The teaparty group leaders have helped out to a degree, but their priority has been, and continues to be, teaparty activities in their own area, and the upcoming 9-12 rallies in DC and around the nation. They also continue to reflect very little inclination to form a structured statewide political coalition and they believe they can win their war at the Federal level. I equate this viewpoint as standing on the deck of the Titanic waiting for the rescue ship and passing up the lifeboat.

THE REALITY SETS IN
Where does the fault lie for the marginal results thus far? Obviously with my own apparent inability to organize supporters, and influence legislators, but the greater responsibility for Idaho sitting dead in the water in it’s 10th Amendment voyage is the Idaho Legislators and Governor themselves.  They are fully aware of the unconstitutional actions of the President, and the impending radical laws and mandates to be imposed on the citizens of Idaho, yet they have not made one significant move past their initial declaration. One would wonder why they are not self motivated by the common circumstances that are impacting us all.

The political reality is, they are in sitting in a political comfort zone completely out of danger. They are not getting blamed for the state of the economy and chaos in DC. They are not getting hammered by the mainstream news media. They are not getting out in the street rallies and townhalls and being pushed around by “union thugs “. They are not facing protest rallies in their home towns or state capitals against them. Sitting in this enviable political position there is simply no motivation for them to take on a fight with the Federal Government and risk losing Federal funding or exposing themselves to criticism.

I feel certain, that as 10th Amendment advocates in other states begin the implementation process, they will encounter the same reluctance for action by their governors and legislators as I have experienced in Idaho. It is one thing for state legislators and governors to vote on a Sovereignly declaration, but an altogether different matter to bring on a fight with the Feds and risk losing Federal funding. There is also great resistence by various state agencies to the idea of “rocking the federal funding boat”, i.e. taking on the Feds.

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Thus, we who are engaged in the 10th Amendment issue do have options to motivate legislators, governors, and agency heads to action, but it is going to take a great deal of work. Listed below are some tasks that I believe must be taken on if we are to realize our goals.

1. Form a nationwide 10th Amendment proactive cooperative coalition.

2. This coalition would need to initiate a statewide information campaign informing state citizens that the very state they live in has the means and muscle to throw back the intrusive Federal usurpations. I have found that the general public is basically uninformed of the 10th Amendment option, and are frustrated, fearful, and angry as they focus at the national level. A petition requesting action on passing a sovereignty declaration, or putting force of action to one already passed can serve as a good information vehicle.

3. Contact the teaparty, 912 type patriot groups within your states, and solicit their help and cooperation. They can be a tremendous asset, but as I have previously stated, they are defiantly focused in on their local sphere of influence as it relates to the federal issues, and so far have provided somewhat tepid cooperation. This is especially evident with the upcoming 912 activity.

4. Organize statewide political rallies demanding 10th Amendment action by the legislators and governors. This action is going to have to be unprecedented, comprehensive, and some what shocking to the incumbent politicians. At first it seemed that we could achieve victory by one nullification bill at a time in order to check the Feds. But it is now apparent that the blitzkrieg of federal laws and mandates are coming so fast that full time state legislative sessions would not be able to keep up. This action must take the form of a complete state plan of action, a plan of action that we as 10th Amendment advocates need to formulate and present to our legislators and governors for action. Each plan of action would have to be tailored to fit the unique characteristics of individual states. Below is plan “B” I have formulated for Idaho. This plan is preliminary, general, incomplete, and somewhat audacious, but it’s primary purpose is to start the process of planning.

IDAHO SOVEREIGNTY
PLAN “B”

ONE
Create a new state agency (as if we needed more agencies) called “Federal Relations” This agency under the direction of the legislature would be tasked with official communications between The state of Idaho and the Federal Government concerning all 10th Amendment / State Sovereignty issues. This agency would also be tasked with accumulating the following information:

A. The accounting of all federal and Idaho state taxes paid by Idaho citizens.

B. The budget requirements of State agencies and entities.

C. The amount of Federal funding that is being received by any entity in the state whether direct or through state channels. This will require all County and city governments to report these funds.

D. Search out and define any and all federal programs, mandates, or laws that are currently in violation of Idaho’s 10th Amendment rights, and in particularly the school system, as in my opinion needs to be brought back out of any Federal control into state/ school district control.

E. Present a report of the above information to the Legislature and Governor.

TWO
Through the “Federal Relations” agency issue a memorandum to the Feds that the State of Idaho will no longer recognize or comply with any federal programs, mandates, or laws that are currently in violation of Idaho’s 10th Amendment rights, and then list them. The memorandum could start out like this:

“Please be advised that the State of Idaho can not and will not comply with funded or unfunded federal programs, mandates, or laws that are currently in violation of Idaho’s 10th Amendment rights. This action has now become necessary due to the recent illogical, and economically disastrous legislation being mandated by the Obama Administration in cooperation with the Democratic controlled Congress. These funded and unfunded federal programs, mandates, and laws are listed below:” etc. etc.

THREE (SCENARIO, the fight is on)
At that point the Feds will probably withhold Federal funding in an attempt to bring Idaho back into compliance.

FOUR
In lieu of the loss of federal funding, Idaho will be forced to impose a property tax on all Federal real estate and improvements lying within Idaho.
(The Feds own approximately 3/4 of all Idaho lands)

FIVE
The Feds won’t pay it.

SIX
Idaho will be forced to confiscate all federal taxes due within the state, in order to meet the state budget. This is not violating the 16th Amendment, as the Feds can continue to tax away, the state is just temporarily confiscating the Fed’s money into a temporary state fund in order to meet state budgets needs until the Feds resume the federal funding the state has become depended on.

If one state could get this fight going it might encourage other states to join in with their own agenda, primarily confiscating federal income taxes, thereby de-funding the Feds.

It is my hope that this article may illustrate the hurdles to be overcome, yet promote real action by the advocates of the 10th Amendment movement.

Pete ketcham

Article 1 in Series, Restoring Freedom: An Entrepreneur’s Perspective

Imagine this… You and I are the founders of a start-up company. Our product is compelling. Our market is broad. We are underfunded, unorganized and unfocused. The press clearly doesn’t care about our efforts. Yet, we think we are going to take on the world. We are going to take on the largest, most powerful and monopolistic competitor possible. But we are not intimidated because the personal rewards of success are unimaginable and unlike our competitor’s offering our product will change the world for the better.

So we are driven, like an innovative capitalist… to sell individual freedom to a world that thinks it prefers servitude.

At this time in history, freedom is once again a revolutionary product. And if we are going to take on our massive federal government and replace the socialism it is offering with true individual freedom, then we had better have a strategic plan that is designed to leverage our strengths to the maximum. We cannot afford to waste any resource and our execution must be almost flawless. Sounds impossible? The odds are truly stacked against us, yes, but the good news in our analogy is that start-up companies take on large companies all the time… and more often than you would expect, they win.

For any revolutionary product (remember freedom is our product), market acceptance goes through a dynamic that involves different types of people, each with different objectives. Geoffrey Moore’s Crossing the Chasm defined a key strategy for taking a technology product to market with limited resources. Like technology, political messages have an adoption lifecycle. And like technology, political messages experience a chasm where after quick and encouraging gains the movement seems to falter. This is a common dynamic of markets and has a solution, but the solution is not intuitive. In order to understand the solution and how the tenth amendment offers the key to success, we need to have a clear understanding of a major barrier, known as the chasm.

The following graph shows the adoption lifecycle, the dangerous chasm and where it falls. Many movements die at the chasm. Why? The simple answer is that the early message that worked so well to quickly gain support from one segment of the population, offered very little to gain support from other segments, but there is much more to it than that.

In our case, think of the curve as a representation of the American population since that is our target market. We need to consider the desires and needs of the various segments with regards to freedom.

The innovators appreciate things for their own sake; many support the founding fathers and their ideas regarding America and freedom because believe they are right and they respect the ideals. They represent a small but very dedicated segment of our market.

The next group is the early adopters; these are visionary individuals who have the unique ability to match a solution, such as tenth amendment protections, to an opportunity such as regaining freedom. This represents a larger segment of the population, but not nearly enough to make significant political gain. Many of you reading this article are either innovators or early adopters.

This brings us to the early majority. This is the group that we must focus on and any strategy for re-gaining freedom must ultimately be something compelling to this group. You will not find the early majority at tea parties, commenting on blogs or generally debating politics, but many are paying attention. For the most part they currently believe that our country’s current situation is just politics as usual and that it will all get worked out in the end. “America has seen worse” is a common phrase. They are often party-line voters. In general, this group is risk averse and do not share the visionary’s excitement for revolutionary change. But true individual freedom at this point in American history is truly revolutionary change, so if we are going to cross the chasm to freedom then we must commit our resources to reaching the early majority. If we fail in this monumental task then our movement will fall short.

We can ignore the late majority and the laggards. This part of the curve represents a population that simply does not understand individual freedom.

This is where it becomes less intuitive. How can we effectively reach the early majority with our limited resources? You might think that the “Big Tent” strategy would develop the biggest following. It seems logical, if we can just sell our wonderful product of freedom to the most people then we will surely generate a massive unstoppable movement. But hold on… the “big tent” strategy always results in failure. It fails for start-up companies because the massive resources are not available. Even large companies with unlimited resources will fail when the target is not defined, the product is not focused and the message is confused. As proven by recent history, this is actually a fatal strategic mistake for political movements as well. In politics, the result is ceaseless internal debates that miss the big picture (think controversial social issues), a message defined by the press (think tea parties), and virtually zero political excitement (think McCain). It is clear that the current limitation of today’s freedom movement is this lack of strategic focus.

To cross the chasm, we need to implement a focused strategy and we need to do this now. We already have the best product ever known to mankind, individual freedom. But the best product is never a guarantee of success. As discussed, the strategy must be able to present a compelling message that will resonate with the early majority. But equally important is the strategy’s ability to build a powerful political base to work from. So what serves as the best political springboard? State Governments? The Republican Party? The growing Tea Party Movement? A third party? All of the above?

A movement with a foundation based on the tenth amendment has the best chance of returning the power consolidated in Washington to “We the People”. This strategy might seem to fall right into the hands of current state governments but is it really that simple? I don’t think so. In the next articles of this series we will discuss why the tenth amendment is the perfect foundation, who the allies might be, how we can attract the early majority and what tools we will need to make a real difference.

Brian Roberts is the President and a founder of an innovative software company in Texas. He has joined the tenth amendment movement as the meetup organizer of Texas Tenth Amendment Center. Follow Brian on Twitter, bcroberts_99.