Well, the shutdown is over!
- Veterans, visit the memorials. You’re free of barricades!
- Hikers, walk in the woods again. It’s legal.
- Rangers, put the handles back on water fountains. These people are thirsty.
- Troopers, open up those scenic off-ramps. Mount Rushmore’s gonna dance.
- Michelle Obama, get back to tweeting. We need centrally planned lunches.
- Everyone, your favorite .gov website is back online. Except healthcare.gov, that one is special.
But wait, what was accomplished by the shutdown? If your thinking “nothing”, you win. Of course the shutdown didn’t stop Obamacare, it never had a chance.
From beginning to end, the People aggressively petitioned DC, campaigned for federal politicians, wrote stern letters to existing US Representatives, installed new ones, marched on Washington, put their hope in the United States Supreme Court and finally relied on Congress to use their power of the purse to defund the ACA. There was a whole list of federal cult of personality leaders too. Brown will save us. Judge Roberts will save us. Cruz will surely save us. But they couldn’t, and they didn’t.
With regards to Obamacare, there is nothing to show for all this effort. The dream that Obamacare might be stopped at the federal level is over. Federal politicians will never limit the accrual of power to Washington DC; and on issue after issue the prove that they never will. It’s time to get serious, time to involve our state governments and simply say “no”. (TAKE ACTION HERE)
The problem is Centralization
What we are faced with is a problem of centralized power. This is not a problem that can be solved by asking the central power to limit itself. It’s easy to consider that between 2010 and 2013 the People made every effort possible to sway federal direction.
Since the problem is centralization, it is only solved by decentralization of power. Decentralization begins when states stand in defense of the People and say “no”.
In 1800, Jefferson attempted to dissuade us from the path that would lead to the situation we find ourselves in today when he wrote:
“Our country is too large to have all its affairs directed by a single government. Public servants at such a distance, & from under the eye of their constituents, must, from the circumstance of distance, be unable to administer & overlook all the details necessary for the good government of the citizens, and the same circumstance, by rendering detection impossible to their constituents, will invite the public agents to corruption, plunder & waste. And I do verily believe, that if the principle were to prevail, of a common law being in force in the U S, which principle possesses the general government at once of all the powers of the state governments, and reduces us to a single consolidated government, it would become the most corrupt government on the earth.”
The Prescription from 2010, Still good today!
The day after the “Affordable Care Act” was signed by Obama, the Tenth Amendment Center provided the keys to battling the unconstitutional legislation. Below you will find the cliff notes version. If you would like to read the entire article, you can find it here: http://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2010/03/21/kill-the-bill-invoke-the-10th/
Ignore Washington D.C. – They are ignoring you, return the favor. How can you really expect them to feel any pressure to represent you? Yes, morally your expectations are valid because they should do the will of the people. Unfortunately, the reality is without the power to exert an opposing force, you will continue to be disregarded as a mere annoyance.
Own your State – The best way to enter a market (in this case a political market) is to dominate a small market, own it and then expand from there. The reason this works is that limited resources can be used to exert a dominant influence on an identified target and you can expand from there. In our case, the small market that we can dominate quickly is our state government. From here we can team with other like-minded states and form a block of resistance that has real legal possibilities, much more powerful than rallies, letters and phone calls.
Ignore the Feds, Empower the States – Regardless of what today’s media would have you believe, state representatives are not elected state paper-shufflers of federal mandates. State governments share power with the federal government as equal partners in a system designed to decentralize power and protect the People from foreign and domestic threats. Ignoring D.C. actually means that we must use state governments to defy unconstitutional federal laws. The federal government itself must be identified as the threat and we must use the legal power of our state governments under the 10th amendment to eliminate the threat, and formally ignore unconstitutional mandates.
Expect a Federal Response – For the most part, the federal government has ignored any resistance to the health care bill. Once we begin to focus our attention on the state governments, everything changes. The media will be unable to ignore a block of defiant states. Personally, you will be ridiculed, but once states exhibit defiance the federal government shifts it’s focus to the states not the individuals. That’s when you will know that you are not being ignored anymore.
Become a member and support the TAC!
Win – We must again in no uncertain terms confirm the revolutionary message that the People are the source of power. The federal government must fear the people, and the state governments are the legal method in which to achieve this goal. Jefferson clarified the goal: “When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”
Fortunately, this is still the “rightful remedy.” The bad news is we have wasted three and a half years. The good news is that with all the “begging the feds to limit themselves” nonsense behind us we can get down to business without distractions. Our focus, like a laser, should shift permanently to working with state representatives to draft, promote and pass state-level nullification of all unconstitutional laws.
Ignore the Feds, Empower the States.
TAKE ACTION HERE
- Lesson from the Shutdown: Ignore the Feds and Nullify - October 17, 2013
- A Tenther’s Marketing Plan - August 13, 2013
- Nullification is Superior and the Majority Knows it - May 29, 2013