Montana Threatens To Secede If Supreme Court Rules Against Individual Gun Rights | KXNet.com North Dakota News |
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SayAnything Montana Threatens To Secede If Supreme Court Rules Against Individual Gun RightsDisclaimer: This article is a blog post and does not represent the views
or opinions of Reiten Television, KXNet.com, its staff and associates and is wholly owned by
the user who posted this content.
Feb 25 2008 12:00AM
http://sayanythingblog.com/index.php A letter sent by Montana’s Secretary of State to the Washington Times:
As radical as it may seem to talk about secession in the modern era of American politics, it’s worth noting that Montana has a point. The Constitution is a contract drawn up between the federal government and the various, sovereign state governments. We’ve come a long distance away from that founding ideal of federalism what with the federal government using tortured court rulings and the power of the purse to regulate everything from labor regulations to traffic laws in the various states, but that doesn’t mean we should ignore states’ rights
One of the conditions of Montana joining the United States was that the individual right to keep and bear arms be preserved. If a federal court rules that there is no such right after all, even after such a right was asserted when Montana and other states joined the union, it would represent a fantastic and foolhardy departure from the original intent of our nation’s founding documents, not to mention the laws of many states in this union 
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Disclaimer: This article is a blog post and does not represent the views or opinions of Reiten Television, KXNet.com, its staff and associates and is wholly owned by the user who posted this content.
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As a Virginian and a US citizen, I would fully support the Federal government in squashing in attempts at breaking the union. It has been tried before and our country is much better off for secession failing.
The federal goverment as it was ment to be is nothing more than a criminal our founding fathers wanted to get away from. Oppressive income tax, entangling alliances, and pre-emptive war. These are all things our founding fathers fought AGAINST. Maybe you need to read up a little more on your history. Each time a government decides to oppress it's people it must first disarm them. Governments of past have done so every single time as to not allow the people to defend agains their oppressive rule. Go read a little about Thomas Jefferson and what the 2nd amendment was ment to be.
"The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it. "
Thomas Jefferson
"An elective despotism was not the government we fought for. "
Thomas Jefferson
Jimbob
I have read of political thimble-riggers during the so-called "Civil War" braying about "preserving our Glorious Union, while saving the National Honor," as though there could be a Union Glorious or otherwise that wasn't completely voluntary.
The Constitution is a body of law that THE GOVERNMENT is supposed to abide by, and the Constitution was ratified by a number of States only on the condition that a number of changes were made to it. Those changes are collectively known as the Bill of Rights.
Bill of Rights is a bad name; it confuses a careless mind. The first ten amendments to the Constitution are in reality, a Bill of Prohibitions! A list of actions that are forbidden to the federal government!
If the federal government decides to break the law then why should a State or any of them be held in subjection?
Remember they're the federal gov't not the national gov't. The federal gov't isn't supose to be this big. Its was to consit of 3 branches. Not all these ABC departments.
Anybody who hasn't read the Declaration of Independence or Bill of Rights latley should go do it right now while you're on the computer. I bet most people haven't read it since high school. Go read it again.... before its gone.
Remember they're the federal gov't not the national gov't. The federal gov't isn't supose to be this big. Its was to consit of 3 branches. Not all these ABC departments.
Anybody who hasn't read the Declaration of Independence or Bill of Rights latley should go do it right now while you're on the computer. I bet most people haven't read it since high school. Go read it again.... before its gone.
Patriot wrote:
"The federal gov't is becoming VERY opressive. It controlls states with money. The money they illegaly tax from labor. If states don't do what the federal gov't wants, the federal gov't won't give the state money."
Pretty close. As I see it, what the gummymint does is to manipulate state governments by taking monies from those states in the form of taxes, and effectively saying that; "We'll return some of that money to you under the following conditions."
Patriot continued:
"Remember they're the federal gov't not the national gov't. The federal gov't isn't supose to be this big. Its was to consist of 3 branches. Not all these ABC departments."
Actually, the federal government HAS BECOME a national government.
Before the end of the War of Northern Oppression, the phrase was, "These United States are . . ." This is how the country was described when it had a Federal Government. After the end of the war, that phrase changed to; "The United States is . . ." At that point this country changed from a confederation of States, into a country with a strong central government.
But you're right about the government especially a government under the Constitution not being intended to be as big and overpowering as it has become.
In a sense, it was intended to be four branches sorta. That is, if you consider that the Legislative Branch was effectively split into two sections: The House of Representatives, who were democratically elected, and were supposed to represent the people of the country, and the Senate; the members of which were appointed by the State Legislatures, and had the job of protecting the powers of the States from Federal encroachment. Encroachment by the House of Representatives as well as the Executive Branch.
Article 1, Section 8, of the Constitution described the legislative powers of the Congress. Always keep in mind that most of the powers in that part of the Constitution were not granted to Congress exclusively the power to do a thing, and the power to forbid anyone else from doing the same thing are separate and distinct powers. And in most of that Article, the powers are not granted to Congress in an exclusive manner. One notable example of this is: "Congress shall have power to establish Post Offices and Post Roads." This means Post Offices and Post Roads of their own. It does not either implicitly or explicitly forbid the States or the people from doing the same thing. If it had, Russell Majors and Wadell would have been committing a crime when they established their Pony Express. Furthermore, the Constitution was created as an improvement upon the Articles of Confederation (which is what was meant in the Preamble by the phrase "in order to form a more perfect Union") and the words in the Articles stated: "The United Stated in Congress assembled shall have the sole and exclusive Right and Power to establish and regulate Post Offices and Post Roads throughout the several States." The Constitution changed what had been an exclusive power to a simple (non-exclusive) power.
One example of an exclusive power is: "The Congress shall have Power To . . . Coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;" But the exclusive part here is in the word "fix," what precedes that word is NOT exclusive to Congress however, it IS made an exclusive power by Article 1, Section 10: which states; "No State shall . . . coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; . . ."
In short, if the Constitution does not specifically state that the government can do a thing, then it cannot do it, and the power it HAS to do that thing is also limited by the words of the grant.
It's true what you say about the Declaration and the Bill of Rights. The Declaration is a Statement of Principles; the reason why the thirteen Colonies seceded from the British Empire, and the Bill of rights is a list of actions which are prohibited to American government.
As you say, everybody should read and understand them both.
If one does not know ones rights and exercise them then those rights will be lost!
Best,
Ken
If the Court rules against the clearly-defined right of individuals to keep and bear arms, and Montana follows through with it's threat, then I'm packing up up the family and heading north-west!
This government has demonstrated time and again of circumventing our Constitution to gain more power over the People and to suppress, not exapnd the freedoms here.
This 'union' is not a suicide pact against our rights as free men and women.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=58788
Take the "American Revolution" itself as an example: it was actually a war of secession the thirteen Colonies were seceding from the British Empire it was the REASONS that were revolutionary. The Declaration of Independence (as you have shown) was a statement of principles, as well as an elaboration of reasons for seceding from the Empire.
The Federal Government was not to "govern," as all old world governments had always done, it seems to have been intended to be more of a mutual protection agency as well as a sort of mini-United Nations, acting between the several States.
Although it was never (to my knowledge) explicitely stated, it was assumed that if a State joined the Union, it could if it desired also leave the Union. In fact, for a number of years before the war of Northern oppression, a number on New England states were considering doing just that leaving the Union. They consideded the subject for a number of years. The interesting thing is that what they were considering was not their RIGHT to secede, but the advisability of it.
And as an amusing side note, Fernando Wood (who was Mayor of New York City when the first of the Southern States had seceded) tried to agitate for New York City to secede as well to secede not only from the Union, but from New York State to boot.
The reasons for this was because NYC could then declare itselg a "Free City" and eliminate the heavy protective tariff which was the real cause of the Southern States acting to secede.
The Southern States at that time were paying around 84 percent of all federal revenues, and almost all of that money was being spent in the North.
Consider this:
"Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit."
Abraham Lincoln, January 12, 1848
Lincoln seems to have changed his mind about secession for two reasons:
(1) Because it was a repudiation of him and the new Republican Party, which had increased the protective tariff with their Morrill Tariff,
(2) HE WANTED THAT TAX MONEY!
(I'm paraphrasing here,) but in his first inaugural address, Lincoln said, "There will be no invasion, no using of force except as necessary to collect taxes."
Best,
Ken