The 545 People Responsible For All Of U.S. Woes

The 545 People Responsible For All Of U.S. Woes

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, we have deficits? Have you ever wondered why, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does. You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does. You and I don't write the tax code. Congress does. You and I don't set fiscal policy. Congress does. You and I don't control monetary policy. The Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president and nine Supreme Court justices - 545 human beings out of the 235 million - are directly, legally, morally and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered but private central bank.

I excluded all but the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it.

No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislation's responsibility to determine how he votes.

A CONFIDENCE CONSPIRACY

Don't you see how the con game that is played on the people by the politicians? Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of Tip O'Neill, who stood up and criticized Ronald Reagan for creating deficits.

The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it. The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating appropriations and taxes.

O'neill is the speaker of the House. He is the leader of the majority party. He and his fellow Democrats, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetos it, they can pass it over his veto.

REPLACE SCOUNDRELS

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 235 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts - of incompetence and irresponsibility.

I can't think of a single domestic problem, from an unfair tax code to defense overruns, that is not traceable directly to those 545 people.

When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair. If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red. If the Marines are in Lebanon, it's because they want them in Lebanon.

There are no insoluble government problems. Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take it.

Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exist disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation" or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people and they alone are responsible. They and they alone have the power. They and they alone should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses - provided they have the gumption to manage their own employees.

BY Charley Reese

This article was first published by the Orlando Sentinel Star newspaper

How to control people

How To Control People

The difference between true education and vocational training has been cleverly blurred. Here are a few tips on how smart people can control other people. If any of this rings a bell - Well, then wake up!

The first principle of people control is not to let them know you are controlling them. If people knew, this knowledge will breed resentment and possibly rebellion, which would then require brute force and terror, and old fashioned, expensive and not 100 % certain method of control.

It is easier than you think to control people indirectly, to manipulate them into thinking what you want them to think and doing what you want them to do.

One basic technique is to keep them ignorant. Educated people are not as easy to manipulate. Abolishing public education or restricting access to education would be the direct approach. That would spill the beans. The indirect approach is to control the education they receive.

It's possible to be a Ph.D., doctor, lawyer, businessman, journalist, or an accountant, just to name a few examples, and at the same time be an uneducated person. The difference between true education and vocational training has been cleverly blurred in our time so that we have people successfully practicing their vocations while at the same time being totally ignorant of the larger issues of the world in which they live.

The most obvious symptom is their absence of original thought. Ask them a question and they will end up reciting what someone else thinks or thought the answer was. What do they think Well, they never thought about it. Their education consisted of learning how to use the library and cite sources.

That greatly simplifies things for the controller because with lots of money, university endowments, foundations, grants, and ownership of media, it is relatively easy to control who they will think of as authorities to cite in lieu of doing their own thinking.

Another technique is to keep them entertained. Roman emperors did not stage circuses and gladiator contests because they didn't have television. We have television because we don't have circuses and gladiator events. Either way, the purpose is to keep the people's minds focused on entertainment, sports, and peripheral political issues. This way you won't have to worry that they will ever figure out the real issues that allow you to control them.

Just as a truly educated person is difficult to control, so too is an economically independent person. Therefore, you want to create conditions that will produce people who work for wages, since wage earners have little control over their economic destiny. You'll also want to control the monetary, credit, and banking systems. This will allow you to inflate the currency and make it next to impossible for wage earners to accumulate capital. You can also cause periodic deflation to collapse the family businesses, family farms, and entrepreneurs, including independent community banks.

To keep trade unions under control, you just promote a scheme that allows you to shift production jobs out of the country and bring back the products as imports (it is called free trade). This way you will end up with no unions or docile unions.

Another technique is to buy both political parties so that after a while people will feel that no matter whether they vote for Candidate A or Candidate B, they will get the same policies. This will create great apathy and a belief that the political process is useless for effecting real change.

Pretty soon you will have a population that feels completely helpless, and thinks the bad things happening to them are nobody in particulars fault, just a result of global forces or evolution or some other disembodied abstract concept. If necessary, you can offer scapegoats.

Then you can bleed them dry without having to worry overly much that one of them will sneak into your house one night and cut your throat. If you do it right, they won't even know whose throat they are cutting.

By Charley Reese 1-8-01

Economic stimulus? Feds demand your medical records

There is no choice to opt out!! The stimulus plan would impose an electronic health records system on every person in the U.S. without any provision for seeking patient consent or allowing them not to participate. Your electronic health records could be shared – without your consent – with over 600,000 covered entities through the forthcoming nationally linked electronic health-records network.

The measure currently includes plans for:

* An electronic health record "for each person in the United States by 2014."

* A national coordinator to develop a "nationwide health information technology
infrastructure that allows for the electronic use and exchange of information."

The medical privacy rule established under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (Signed into law 1996 by the Clinton administration) already allows personal health information to be passed along without patient consent for treatment, payment and "oversight." The recipients of such information could be any of the people in the 600,000 organizations in the industry.

President Obama has pledged to advance freedom, therefore the freedom to choose not to participate in a national electronic health-records system must be upheld.

Do your realized information such as documentation on abortions, mental health problems, impotence, being labeled as a non-compliant patient, lawsuits against doctors and sexual problems could be shared electronically with, perhaps, millions of people.

Researchers already are looking for genes related to violence, crime and different behaviors. Classifying of people could lead to discrimination and prejudice. … People can look at data about you and make assessments ultimately of who you are. Efforts to study traits and gene factors and classify people would be just the beginning. The government, with information about potential health weaknesses, could say to couples, "We don't want your expensive children."

In England they decided they should have doctors looking for problem children, and have those children reported, and their DNA taken in case they would become criminals. Published reports in Britain note that senior police forensics experts believe genetic samples should be studied, because it may be possible to identify potential criminals AS YOUNG AS AGE 5.

I think people have forgotten about eugenics. The fact of the matter is that the eugenicists have not gone away. Newborn genetic testing is the entry into the 21st Century version of eugenics

Americans MIGHT benefit from an integrated system capable of making our medical records available wherever we may need them, but only if the system is properly used.

Nobody including and especially the government should be allowed to create such extensive profiles.

The medical technology portion of the economic stimulus bill does not sufficiently protect patient privacy, and recent amendments have made this situation worse. Medical privacy must be strengthened before the measure's final passage.
(compiled from http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=87322)

What about people who want to "live off the grid" we're not all criminals, we are law abiding citizens who just want our privacy. We should have that option. We are adults and know that when we opt out, should we travel far from home and need medical attention and having opted out inadvertently caused our own death or the death of our child, then the responsibility on us and Doctors and hospitals can't be sued, and parents can't be prosecuted for trying to have a private life for themselves and their children, but neither should any doctor or hospital be able to withhold care if the person isn't in the system. People sign consent forms now because the doctors and hospitals give the impression that without signing they won't treat you. Also, if someone gives consent then changes their mind they should be able to then opt out and have their info erased from the system.

"The medical privacy rule established under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (Signed into law 1996 by the Clinton administration)."

So Obama is just taking the Clinton era to the next level. Continuing what the Clintons started. Why am I not surprised? Oh, yeah, because I didn't fall for the "change" rhetoric, I knew is was BS because I did my research... because I'm not a sheeple.
______________________________________________________________
UPDATE:
Vote Number: House Vote #46 in 2009
Date: Jan 28, 2009 6:11PM
Result: Passed
Bill: H.R. 1: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
Totals Democrats Republicans Independents

Yea: 244 (56%) 244 0 0
Nay: 188(43%) 11 177 0
Present: 0(0%) 0 0 0
Not Voting: 1(0%) 0 1 0
Required: Simple Majority of 432 votes (=217 votes)

See how your representative voted here
Please note: Patriots /TRAITORS
____________________________________________________
From Associated Press (Update: 1/31/09)
Analysis: Stimulus bill that's not all stimulating

By ANDREW TAYLOR – 12 hours ago

They call it "stimulus" legislation, but the economic measures racing through Congress would devote tens of billions of dollars to causes that have little to do with jolting the country out of recession.

$345 million for Agriculture Department computers
$650 million for TV converter boxes
$15 billion for college scholarships

Yes, there are many billions of dollars in "ready-to-go" job-creating projects in President Barack Obama's economic stimulus bill. But there are also plenty of items that are just unfinished business for Congress' old bulls.

An $800 billion-plus package, it turns out, gives lawmakers plenty of opportunities to rid themselves of nagging headaches left over from the days when running up the government's $10 trillion-plus debt was a bigger concern.

$1 billion to deal with Census problems
$88 million to help move the Public Health Service into a new building next year. $2.1 billion to pay off a looming shortfall in public housing accounts
$870 million to combat the flu
$400 million to slow the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases such as chlamydia.

"I have communicated to the administration that there are parts of this package that don't meet the test that they themselves established of temporary, timely and targeted," said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D. He wants Obama to weigh in to knock out the clunkers during House-Senate negotiations.

But nothing is in the legislation by accident. By including in the Senate stimulus bill such far-ranging ideas lawmakers are able to thin out their in-boxes, even if they aren't doing much to create jobs.

$40 million to convert the way health statistics are collected — from paper to an electronic system
$380 million for a rainy day fund for the Women, Infants and Children program that delivers healthful food to the poor. (WIC got the equivalent of a $1 billion infusion last fall.)

At the same time, putting items in the stimulus bill that really should be handled in annual appropriations bills creates more room in the latter for pet projects and other programs.

It creates "headroom," a top Senate GOP budget aide said, for things senators didn't have room for in the regular process but still want to do.

Some lawmakers are sounding warnings.

"I suggested ... less spending and especially less spending for those items that are not stimulus and should be funded through the regular appropriations process," said Rep. Jerry Lewis of California, top Republican on the Appropriations Committee.

Part of the reason so much non-stimulus spending has made it into the stimulus bill is that there are only so many traditional jobs-heavy public works projects that can get started quickly. As it is, most of the money in the bill for road building, water projects and mass transit probably won't be spent until the economy has turned around and is back on a recovery path.

For example, just one-third of $30 billion proposed by the House for highway construction would reach the economy in the next year and a half, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Democrats are going ahead with Obama's $500 tax credit for most workers and $1,000 for couples even though there's wide agreement that last year's rebate checks weren't effective in sparking recovery.

Defenders of the package said that once experts determined it would take $800 billion to start to pull the country out of recession and emphasized the urgency, details took on less importance.

But some Democrats, like Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, think the $3.5 billion in the stimulus package devoted to health research, or the $14 billion-$15 billion for boosting Pell Grant college scholarships by $400 to $500 would be better spent on additional brick and mortar infrastructure projects.

"You don't want to be against Pell Grants," Nelson said. "But the question is, how many people go to work on Pell Grants? Should it be in this legislation?"

EDITOR'S NOTE _ Andrew Taylor covers Congress and the federal budget for The Associated Press.


Update: 02/13/2009
Read the new stimulus bill as agreed on by the House and Senate

Here are some excerpts from it:

INDIVIDUALLY IDENTIFIABLE HEALTH INFORMATION- The term ‘individually identifiable health information’ has the meaning given such term in section 1171(6) of the Social Security Act.



(3) ACCEPTANCE OF DETAILEES- Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Office may accept detailed personnel from other Federal agencies without regard to whether the agency described under paragraph (1) is reimbursed.

AREAS REQUIRED FOR CONSIDERATION- For purposes of subparagraph (A), the HIT Policy Committee shall make recommendations for at least the following areas:

‘(i) Technologies that protect the privacy of health information and promote security in a qualified electronic health record, including for the segmentation and protection from disclosure of specific and sensitive individually identifiable health information with the goal of minimizing the reluctance of patients to seek care (or disclose information about a condition) because of privacy concerns, in accordance with applicable law, and for the use and disclosure of limited data sets of such information.










OTHER AREAS FOR CONSIDERATION- In making recommendations under subparagraph (A), the HIT Policy Committee may consider the following additional areas:

(ix) Methods, guidelines, and safeguards to facilitate secure access to patient information by a family member, caregiver, or guardian acting on behalf of a patient due to age-related and other disability, cognitive impairment, or dementia that prevents a patient from accessing the patient’s individually identifiable health information.

SEC. 13111. COORDINATION OF FEDERAL ACTIVITIES WITH ADOPTED STANDARDS AND IMPLEMENTATION SPECIFICATIONS.

(a) Spending on Health Information Technology Systems- As each agency (as defined in the Executive Order issued on August 22, 2006, relating to promoting quality and efficient health care in Federal government administered or sponsored health care programs) implements, acquires, or upgrades health information technology systems used for the direct exchange of individually identifiable health information between agencies and with non-Federal entities, it shall utilize, where available, health information technology systems and products that meet standards and implementation specifications adopted under section 3004(b) of the Public Health Service Act, as added by section 13101.

Promotion of technologies and best practices that enhance the protection of health information by all holders of individually identifiable health information.

PERSONAL HEALTH RECORD- The term ‘personal health record’ means an electronic record of individually identifiable health information on an individual that can be drawn from multiple sources and that is managed, shared, and controlled by or for the individual.

PHR IDENTIFIABLE HEALTH INFORMATION- The term ‘PHR identifiable health information’ means individually identifiable health information, as defined in section 1171(6) of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 1320d(6)), and includes, with respect to an individual, information--

(A) that is provided by or on behalf of the individual; and

(B) that identifies the individual or with respect to which there is a reasonable basis to believe that the information can be used to identify the individual.

PERSONAL HEALTH RECORD- The term ‘personal health record’ means an electronic record of individually identifiable health information on an individual that can be drawn from multiple sources and that is managed, shared, and controlled by or for the individual.

VENDOR OF PERSONAL HEALTH RECORDS- The term ‘vendor of personal health records’ means an entity, other than a covered entity (as defined in paragraph (3)), that offers or maintains a personal health record.








AP Article here

Compulsoy Education - Rev. Patrick Francis Quigley 1894

Compulsory Education: The State of Ohio Versus the Rev. Patrick Francis Quigley
by Patrick Francis Quigley 1894 - 598 pages

Introduction:

On the 28th day of April, 1890, a person styling himself a truant officer called on me and demanded a list of the pupils of St. Francis de Sales' School, giving their names, residences, ages, etc. I refused. I was indicted for a violation of the Compulsory Education Law of the State of Ohio, arrested, imprisoned, and criminally prosecuted in the Court of Common Pleas.

The case was carried to the Circuit Court, and thence to the Supreme Court of the State, and a decision rendered on the 10th day of May, A.d. 1892.

A writer in the Educational Review for September, 1892, says:

" This Toledo case was argued and decided on broad constitutional grounds," and "perhaps no decision more important to the future of all compulsory education legislation in this country has ever been rendered by an American court." (Ed. Rev., Henry Holt & Co., I Jew York, Sept.1892.)

As this matter of compulsory education affects every man, woman, and child in the country a report of the most important decision with regard to it ever rendered by any American court must be a matter of very great interest to the American people. That report is now presented to the public. Before proceeding to the consideration of the case itself, it will be well to look a little at the legislation on the subject out of which this case arose.

This legislation has been pushed so quietly that although it has already been slipped into the statutes of twenty-seven States of this Union, the people of those States, while prompt to denounce the law of Ohio, which the agitation in this case has brought to their notice, are often surprised to find that the principle of the law has already been intruded into the legislation of their own State. The mode of procedure is artful, ingenious, plausible, and generally successful. In some places there is an abuse in the matter of truancy. Children run about the streets when they ought to be at school, sometimes because of the neglect, sometimes because of the inability, of parents to control them. There is a great number of people in the country interested in keeping up a full attendance in the schools, some from the best of motives, some from motives of personal interest. The more scholars in school the more need there is of school-buildings, school-furniture, school-supplies, and also school-teachers, and so the legislation is quietly pushed. An apparently innocent and very proper little bill is drafted requiring truant children to attend school. The clause reads, they must attend some school, public or private. It does not seem, therefore, to be in the interest of any particular kind of school. It is simply to keep the children out of the streets; to make them do what the parents generally suppose they are doing—to attend the school to which they have been sent by the parents. The parents, busy at their work, cannot watch the children all day and every day; and it relieves their minds to know that there is a person employed whose special business it is to look after these things and keep the children from loitering by the way or avoiding the school altogether for a part of the day or a whole day or for days together, and thus not only losing the benefit of the school, but, what is much more serious, drifting into bad company and objectionable associations and, possibly, spending the time in a manner more seriously criminal. Every one feels that it would be a good idea to guard against this, and therefore the proposition for a truant law is favorably received, and the law is passed. The people find that without any special care or trouble on their part the children are prevented from straying from the school. The contractors get orders for more buildings ; the furniture-men for more supplies ; the stationers for more books, and more persons receive salaries as teachers. A great number of people is delighted with the new law.

A great many other people are also pleased. To pass this law at all the State has had to begin by practically asserting that it has the right to control the education of all children in the State. It does not alarm parents by distinctly making this assertion in the law; but the assertion is made just as distinctly as if it were put in the plainest possible words, as the people soon began to find out . The mass of the parents are pleased with the law for the reasons stated. Certain others are pleased for other reasons stated. But there is a great power behind all these which is immensely pleased for reasons which it takes very good care not to state—at least, not publicly.

There is a certain kind of people in this country who are professional public-school advocates. Now, we are all public-school advocates in that we are in favor of good and proper schools for the whole general public, for all the people of the country; but these present professional public-school advocates are public-school advocates only in the sense that they are in favor of the public school system as they have got it now organized, and who are bitterly opposed to any other possible public-school system, or any system by which the people may have some other kind of public schools than those which these professionals choose to allow them.

These professional public-school advocates are delighted with the Truant Law because it has given them an opportunity to assert the right of the State to control the education of children in defiance of the wishes of the parents. They state only a little of this principle at first. The first Truant Law is introduced under the title of a law to prevent truancy, and is made as unobjectionable as possible, consistent with saving the vital principle they are seeking to introduce. Then little by little, year by year, the principle is pushed, the Truant Law is expanded, and it finally develops into the complete, full-blown, Compulsory Education Law, wherein the right of the State to have complete control of the whole subject of education is assumed as a fact not to be questioned.

Such has been the history of the law in the State of Ohio; and such, with more or less of variation, has been the case in the twenty-seven States and Territories of this country in which the principle has been already adopted.

They begin by simply forbidding truancy. After awhile they order that children must attend at least eight weeks in the year. Again, after awhile, they raise the amount to ten, to twelve, to sixteen, to twenty, to twenty-four, and last year Massachusetts raised it to thirty weeks in the year. The full public-school term is only about forty weeks. The full possible limit of compulsion as to time in any one year is almost reached already. In the matter of compulsion as to studies they also begin mildly. First, with only three studies—reading, writing, and arithmetic. Ohio already requires reading, writing, arithmetic, grammar, geography, and the effects of alcohol on the human system. The principle is established. The list of studies may be increased at the will of the legislator. Having thus provided for Compulsory Education for nearly the whole of the school year, and for nearly the whole of the possible list of studies, there remained only the question as to how much of the life of a minor must be spent in the public schools. On this point also the advocates of compulsion began cautiously. They at first made attendance obligatory between the age of 8 and 12 years ; then they extended it to 14; then from 7 to 14; then, in some places, they raised it to 16; and already with the aid of the labor unions, who wish to keep minors from competing with them, they are talking of raising it to 18 or 20, and finally to go to the full school age of 21 years. And now they are introducing kindergartens to take the children in at 5 years of age, and talk of taking them at 3. Very little remains now to carry the desired point of taking the children as soon as they may be safely removed from the mother's breast, and caring for them in public-schools until they are old enough to vote ; and from this to making such attendance compulsory is only another step, and as it is only " the first step which costs," and as that and several other steps are already taken, the rest is easy.

It has been shown why those financially and professionally interested are pleased with these proceedings. There is another class which is pleased—those people who are opposed to the Christian Religion. These opponents of Religion are pleased because under this system they can make public-school education compulsory for the whole school year, and make the course of secular studies so extensive and exhausting that no room will be left for any religious instruction, even in private schools, supposing that private schools shall be allowed to exist.

The Socialists are pleased because their doctrine of the entire supremacy of the State is recognized, and already in one great department of action enforced. The principle is established. If the State may take entire control of the business of Education, and conduct it entirely under State management, so may it take control of any and every kind of business, and conduct it entirely under State management, and thus give us the Socialist state in all its theoretical perfection.

The Communists are pleased because the fundamental principle of their doctrine is recognized, and already in one great department of life is applied almost to its last logical development. In the matter of Education there is already furnished at public cost the buildings, the furniture, the teachers, the text-books, and now in Colorado the clothing. One item alone remains—that of food ; but having gone so far, the State, having already begun by providing a luncheon at mid-day, will not halt long at the full demand. Then parents will not be required to either feed, clothe, or educate their children. All they will be needed for is the propagation ; the State will do the rest. There will then be no further need of the family, and consequently no further need of marriage, thereby giving us the ideal Communistic state.

What opposition is there to all this movement ?

There are a great many people in this country who think the whole matter of Compulsory Education quite opposed to the principles of the American Constitution.

Governor Pattison, of Pennsylvania, recently vetoed a Compulsory Education bill in that State, declaring that in his opinion: " Free attendance on free schools most befits a free people." (See pages 326 and 327 of this volume.)

Some of the claims as to Compulsory Education in the Bennett Law were formerly repudiated at the polls by the people of Wisconsin.

In Illinois, after a thorough discussion of the subject, the Compulsory Education Law in that State was repealed. The agitation on this subject of Compulsory Education, violating parental and conscience rights became so general in the United States that, in the recent Presidential election contest, both of the great political parties found it necessary to define their views on the subject.

The Republican party declared as follows: " The ultimate reliance of free popular government is the intelligence of the people and the maintenance of freedom among men. We therefore declare anew our devotion to liberty of thought and conscience, of speech and press, and approve all agencies and instrumentalities which contribute to the education of the children of the land; but, while insisting on the fullest measure of religious liberty, we are opposed to any union of Church and State."

The Democratic party considered that this declaration did not sufficiently meet the case, and so it more distinctly declared for parental liberty and conscience rights in the following words: "Freedom of education being an essential of civil and religious liberty, as well as a necessity for the development of intelligence, must not be interfered with under any pretext whatever. We are opposed to State interference with parental rights and rights of conscience in the education of children as an infringement of the fundamental Democratic doctrine that the largest individual liberty consistent with the rights of others insures the highest type of American citizenship and the best government."

In conclusion the platform says: " Upon this statement of principles and policy the Democratic party asks the intelligent judgment of the American people. It asks a change of administration and a change of system and a change of methods, thus assuring the maintenance unimpaired of institutions under which the Republic has grown great and powerful."

Mr. Cleveland, the candidate of the Democratic party, responding to this pronouncement, declared in his letter of acceptance as follows :

" The assurance to the people of the utmost individual liberty consistent with peace and good order is a cardinal principle of our government. * * * The same principle requires that.the line between the subjects which are properly within governmental control and those which are more fittingly left to parental regulation should be carefully kept in view. An enforced education, wisely deemed a proper preparation for citizenship, should not involve the impairment of wholesome parental authority, nor do violence to the household conscience. Paternalism in government finds no approval in the creed of Democracy. It is a symptom of misrule, whether it is manifested in an unauthorized gift or by an unwarranted control of personal and family affairs.

"Called for the third time to represent the party of my choice in a contest for the supremacy of Democratic principles, my grateful appreciation of its confidences less than ever effaces the solemn sense of my responsibility.

" IF THE ACTION OF THE CONVENTION YOU REPRESENT SHALL BE INDORSED BY THE SUFFRAGES OF MY COUNTRYMEN, I Will assume the duties of the great office for which I have been nominated, knowing full well its labors and perplexities, and with humble reliance upon the Divine Being, infinite in power to aid, and constant in a watchful care over a favored nation."

- The action of that convention was indorsed by the suffrages of the American people, and by one of the greatest majorities known in our history the principles of the Democratic party were adopted as the policy of the American State.

My action in this case, while not a denial of the right of the State to exercise a certain amount of compulsion in education under certain circumstances, was yet in full accord with the principles thus adopted by the American people. But the Republican Judges of the Supreme Court of the State of Ohio refused to decide in accordance with these principles, and by their rulings in this case refused to recognize those parental rights and rights of conscience guaranteed by the American Constitution and confirmed by the vote of the American people.

The history of the contest, the arguments for the people, and the ruling against liberty by the judges will be found fully set forth in the following report of the case.

An appeal was taken in this case from the adverse decision of the lower courts to the judges of the Supreme Court of Ohio. An appeal still lies to the Supreme Court of the United States at Washington, D.C. An appeal is now taken to the sense of justice of the American reading public.

A question which occupied the attention of the American public during the recent Presidential campaign, and the courts of the State of Ohio for the greater part of two years, and the full and complete answer to it, can be found only by a careful perusal of the following pages, which give the report of what took place in those courts on the consideration of that question.

Briefly stated, my objection was that the whole law was based on the first section of it, which assumed that the State had the right to the entire control of the subject of education to the extent of fixing one general standard of knowledge up to which every parent was bound to educate all his children, regardless of age, sex, or condition in life, and to do it in such way, and at such time and place, and to such extent as the State chose to prescribe ; that all the other sections of the law were merely to give effect to that section one, and that if that section was unconstitutional, all the rest fell with it.

This was my real contention, and a perusal of the arguments of my counsel will show that it was not only stated with sufficient clearness, but that it was stated and restated and urged in apparently every possible manner. My objection was that the law was unconstitutional because of the unwarranted invasion of parental rights as to all people, and that as to some people it was also unconstitutional because of its invasion of conscience rights in religious matters specially guaranteed to them by the constitution of the State of Ohio, and also by the Constitution of the United States.

Every American citizen is profoundly interested in the preservation to him of all his natural rights. This being so, he is likewise profoundly interested in the preservation to all his fellow-citizens of all their natural rights. He is so interested for two reasons : first, because justice requires that what he asks for himself he shall be willing to grant to others; second, his personal interest demands it, because if the provisions of the constitution may be disregarded as to one class to-day because of prejudice or profit, they may be disregarded as to others at other times for the same or other reasons.

H.R.45 - Blair Holt's Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act of 2009

111st Congress
H.R. 45:Blair Holt's Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act of 2009

To provide for the implementation of a system of licensing for purchasers of certain firearms and for a record of sale system for those firearms, and for other purposes.

Sponsor: Rep. Bobby Rush [D-IL](no cosponsors)
Introduced: Jan 6, 2009
Last Action: Jan 6, 2009: Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-45

HR 45 threatens individual rights, including those protected by the Second, Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments. In addition, it proposes amendments that remove logical protections that currently exist in the United States Code.

For an explanation of these please read Libertea's review and critique of Blair Holt's Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act of 2009 (H.R. 45) at NolanChart.com HERE: http://www.nolanchart.com/article5821.html

As required by Article 6 of the U.S. Constitution, Members of Congress shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support the Constitution. Representatives, delegates, and the resident commissioner all take the oath of office on the first day of the new Congress, immediately after the House has elected its Speaker. The Speaker of the House administers the oath of office as follows:

"I, (name of Member), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God."

Representatives elected in special elections during the course of a Congress generally take the oath of office on the floor of the House Chamber when the Clerk of the House has received a formal notice of the new Member's election or appointment from State government authorities. On rare occasions, because of illness or other circumstances, a Member-elect has been authorized to take the oath of office at a place other than the House. In those circumstances, the Clerk of the House sees to the proper administration of the oath.

Now lets take a look at the TRAITOR who proposes this piece of treachery...

Rush's district is located principally on the South Side of Chicago.

Common sense tells us that when you take guns from law abiding citizens it just leaves them at the mercy of the criminals who have illegal guns because (DUH) they don't adhere to the law. They won't be the ones paying to register anything. Rush's district is located principally on the South Side of Chicago. Chicago's southside is very high crime especially with guns. So, why would he want to make it easier for the criminals? Maybe he seeks to make the whole of the U.S. as crime ridden as his district?

Rush is a former member and founder of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party. (The Black Panther Party (originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense) was an African-American organization established to promote Black Power and self-defense through acts of social agitation. It was active in the United States from the mid-1960s into the 1970s. It supposedly ultimately condemned black nationalism as "black racism" & became more focused on socialism without racial exclusivity & collapsed in the early 1970s)

Obviously he had no problem with regular citizens owning guns then.

In the 2000 Democratic primary for the U.S. House of Representatives (IL-01), Rush defeated a challenge from then-state senator Barack Obama. During the primary, Rush said: "Barack Obama went to Harvard and became an educated fool. Barack is a person who read about the civil-rights protests and thinks he knows all about it." Rush backed Blair Hull over Barack Obama in 2004. Yet, Rush announced early on that he would support Barack Obama in the 2008 primaries, and later his presidential campaign.

Hypocrite detector dinging wildly

On the appointed to fill Obama's vacant seat in the U.S. Senate, during a press conference, Rush said, "With the resignation of President-elect Obama, we now have no African American in the United States Senate, and we believe it will be a national disgrace to not have this seat filled by one of the many capable African American Illinois politicians."

On December 30, 2008, Blagojevich, Governor of IL, announced his appointment of Roland Burris, an African-American former Attorney General of Illinois. Rush was present at the press conference and spoke in support of Burris. Rush has since commented further on Senate Democrats not seating Burris, telling them "I would ask you to not hang or lynch the appointee as you try to castigate the appointer,"

If Mr Burris or anyone else wants to take president elect Obamas senate seat, then that person should be elected by the people in a special election. Even Obama agrees with that. Supposedly Roland Burris creditals over 40 decades qualify him for the senate seat and yes Bobby Rush and any other political figures should step in and jog the citizens memory of Roland Burris's qualifications, but Rush's Racially charged statements will charge the atmosphere and pit people against each other.

As for Rush, in his interview this morning, he harkened to the days of segregation and the civil rights battles in Little Rock, Ark., and in Alabama in the 1950s and 1960s in warning the U.S. Senate Democratic majority shouldn't try to block Burris.

"You know, the recent history of our nation has shown us that sometimes there could be individuals and there could be situations where schoolchildren -- where you have officials standing in the doorway of schoolchildren," Rush said. "You know, I'm talking about all of us back in 1957 in Little Rock, Ark. I'm talking about George Wallace, Bull Connor and I'm sure that the U.S. Senate don't want to see themselves placed in the same position."

Statements like this show that Rush just can't let go of the past and realize that most of the world has moved on. It is people like this that keep racism (on both sides) alive and kicking. HELLO. We are no longer in the 50's or 60's. This is 2009, and by an over whelming majority of blacks, whites, hispanics, asians, ect.,ect., chose a black man, from Chicago no less, to be the leader of the greatest country in the world.


Rush calls himself a Democrat, but, like most democrats today, can't say with any honesty that he shares the views of the founders of his party or Loyality to the Constitution, this nation, or the small government and individual rights they stood for.

Wisdoms of Religion and Science:

Faith:
R-Faith is the substance reality is framed in. For all reality begins as thought before being manifested in the seen world... Faith is evidence of reality not yet manifested. Faith is more than believing, it is a knowing.
S-The laws are treated as “given” (like the law of gravity) and fixed forevermore. Therefore, to be a scientist, you have to have faith that the universe is governed by dependable, immutable, absolute, universal, mathematical laws of an unspecified origin.

Infinity:
R-Hindu Masters tell us that Brahma contained the infinities and all possibilities in his heart. One of the Seven Wisdoms is that the Infinite nature of God makes all things possible.
S-Quantum Reality is composed of Infinity! Its called the many worlds solution, but it describes our physical universe perfectly by allowing an infinite number of parallel universes to be part of the solution set.

Eternity:
R-All that there is and always will be, is the Eternal Ever Changing Now. All the past is, is the memory of the pattern before and all the future is, is anticipation of the pattern to come. There is no time there is just now.
S-time is an illusion. It is relative to the motion of the observer

Awareness:
R-Master teach that what we call reality is just our awareness choosing one of the infinite paths that lay before us. They teach that all life sprang from the Absolute Awareness and discovers its place in the Infinite.
S-Unless you observe something, it isn't real, it is only a potential set of probabilities that are not resolved unless observed.

Balance:
R-Wisdom begins with balance. All things come from a balance of forces. Yin and Yang energies are not seperate energies; they are one and the same energy with two different charges.
S-All of the material physical universe is a balance of forces. Positive and negative energy in balance in an infinite array of forms and patterns. In fact, all of reality is a zero sum game.

Oneness:
R-There is but one God. All things belong to God and are one with God. It is our destiny to learn to connect and discover our Union with God.
S-At the most basic level of reality there is no separateness. Everything is connected to everything else.

Holyness:
R-Holyness is defined as the presence of God. Only God can make someone or something Holy. To become holy one must draw nearer to God and learn to walk in his ways.


Plese note that the only difference between the wisdoms of science and religion is Holyness.

The one Understanding was split into the 7 Great Wisdoms. Each of these flames are burning among the religions. Understand the 7 Wisdoms and you will have true Understanding. ---Chester

The Quantum AUM/OM

John 1:1 IN THE beginning [before all time] was the Word (Christ), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God Himself.
2 He was present originally with God.
3 All things were made and came into existence through Him; and without Him was not even one thing made that has come into being.
Amplified Bible

These are the very words of Veda.
Prajapatir vai idam asit: In the beginning was Brahman.
Tasya vag dvitya asit; with whom was the Vak (or Sound)...
Vag vai paramam Brahma; and the Vak (Sound) is Brahman"

There is a Yogic Discipline called Shabda Yoga - The Divine Science of Light and Sound. This path helps one to become one with the light and sound of the supreme divine. The Masters of the Discipline teach how all of creation came into being. Creation came into being though the light and sound of the creator. This sound is called OM or AUM. It is part of mantras and chants used by tibetan monks and other meditative schools of thought.

One of the criticisms science has had in the past with religious and spiritual thought is that none of the truths/wisdoms could be verified by experimentation. The mystic significance of OM may be the first spiritual truth to be proven by the penultimate Scientific Grand Theory of Everything.

After Albert Einstein finished his Theory of General Relativity his next project was the Grand Unified Theory. He died with his dreams unfulfilled. The other great theory of Science is the Theory of Quantum Thermodynamics. Einstein's Theory of General Relativity describes the Universe of the very large. Quantum Theory describes the Universe of the very small. Until recently, there was no way to bridge the Theory of Relativity with Quantum Theory. With the discovery of the Superstring Theory of Quantum Reality came a startling yet spiritually correct solution. At the sub-atomic infrastructure of reality, science discovered not points of infinity but incredibly small vibrating strings.

In his book The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory, Brian Greene describes how science discovered the music of reality.

... [Albert Einstein's] dream of a unified theory has become the Holy Grail of modern physics. And a sizeable part of the physics and mathematics community is becoming increasingly convinced that string theory may provide the answer. From one principle-that everything at its most microscopic level consists of combinations of vibrating strands-string theory provides a single explanatory framework capable of encompassing all forces and all matter. String theory proclaims, for instance, that the observed particle properties, ... are a reflection of the various ways in which a string can vibrate. Just as the strings on a violin or on a piano have resonant frequencies at which they prefer to vibrate-patterns that our ears sense as various musical notes and their higher harmonics-the same holds true for the loops of string theory. But we will see that, rather than producing musical notes, each of the preferred patterns of vibration of a string in string theory appears as a particle whose mass and force charges are determined by the string's oscillatory pattern. The electron is a string vibrating one way, the up-quark is a string vibrating another way, and so on. Far from being a collection of chaotic experimental facts, particle properties in string theory are the manifestation of one and the same physical feature: the resonant patterns of vibration-the music, so to speak--Of fundamental loops of string. The same idea applies to the forces of nature as well. We will see that force particles are also associated with particular patterns of string vibration and hence everything, all matter and all forces, is unified under the same rubric of microscopic string oscillations-the "notes" that strings can play. For the first time in the history of physics we therefore have a framework With the capacity to explain every fundamental feature upon which the universe is constructed. For this reason string theory is sometimes described as possibly being the "theory of everything" (T.O.E.) or the "ultimate" or "final" theory. The Elegant Universe, Brian Greene; pp15-16. Vintage Books 1999



Science and ancient Master's agree, each with their own way saying it; All of Reality comes from The Quantum AUM /OM. --- Chester Messenger

"General Welfare" as per the Constitution

There seems to be some disagreement as to what the word "welfare" means with regard to the phrase "general welfare" as it appears in the Constitution. As you presumably know, the Constitution gives Congress the power to impose taxes to “provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States.” But since the New Deal, this clause has been pretty much boiled down to one phrase: “general welfare.” It is now generally assumed that Congress may pass any law it deems in the “general welfare” of the United States.

The “general welfare” clause is mentioned twice in the U.S. Constitution: first, in the preamble and second, it is found in Article 1, Section 8.

The preamble reads:
WE THE PEOPLE of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

The preamble is not a delegation of power to the federal government. It is simply a stated purpose defining the two major functions of government: (1) ensuring justice, personal freedom, and a free society where individuals are protected from domestic lawbreakers and criminals, and; (2) protecting the people of the United States from foreign aggressors.

Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution refers to the “general welfare” thus:
The Congress shall have the Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States. . .”

We all know the meaning of words can change over time. In order to more accurately assess the meaning of the word "welfare", with respect to it's use in the Constitution, Here is how the word "welfare" was defined 40 years after it was written in the Constitution, via the 1828 edition of Noah Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language.

WEL/FARE, n. [well and fare, a good going; G. wohlfahrt; D. welvaart; SW. valfart; Dan. Velfard]
1. Exemption from misfortune, sickness, calamity or evil; the enjoyment of health and the common blessings of life; Prosperity; happiness; applied to persons.
2. Exemption from any unusual evil or calamity; the enjoyment of peace and prosperity, or the ordinary blessings of society and civil government; applied to states.

A clear distinction is made with respect to welfare as applied to persons and states. In the Constitution the word "welfare" is used in the context of states and not persons. The "welfare of the United States" is not congruous with the welfare of individuals, people, or citizens.

The Founding Fathers said in the preamble that one reason for establishing the Constitution was to “promote the general welfare.” What they meant was that the Constitution and powers granted to the federal government were not to favor special interest groups or particular classes of people. There were to be no privileged individuals or groups in society. Neither minorities nor the majority was to be favored. Rather, the Constitution would promote the “general welfare” by ensuring a free society where free, self-responsible individuals - rich and poor, bankers and shopkeepers, employers and employees, farmers and blacksmiths - would enjoy “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” rights expressed in the Declaration of Independence.

Quoting the Tenth Amendment, Jefferson wrote: “I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That ‘all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people.’ To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition.”

The Tenth Amendment states: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Writing about the “general welfare” clause in 1791, Thomas Jefferson saw the danger of misinterpreting the Constitution. The danger in the hands of Senators and Congressmen was “that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and, as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please.” Unlike public officials during Jefferson’s time, our modern-day legislators have a very loose interpretation of the Constitution. The result is that government has mushroomed into a monolithic bureaucracy.

It is NOT the government’s business (constitutionally) to “help” individuals in financial difficulty. Once they undertake to provide those kinds of services, they must do so with limited resources, meaning that some discriminating guidelines must be imposed. (so many who need that kind of help- so little resources to provide it.)

In Federalist No. 41, James Madison asked rhetorically: “For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power? ”

Madison was replying to anti-Federalist writers who had warned that the “general welfare” clause opened the way to unlimited abuse. He haughtily accused those writers of “labour[ing] for objections” by “stooping to such a misconstruction” of the obvious sense of the passage, as defined and limited by those powers explicitly listed immediately after it.

Like so many things the Federalists said could never, ever happen, it happened. The “general welfare” clause is constantly abused in just the way the pessimists predicted. The federal government exceeds its enumerated powers whenever it can assert that other powers would be in the “general welfare.”

The Federalist Papers are one of our soundest guides to what the Constitution actually means. And in No. 84, Alexander Hamilton indirectly confirmed Madison’s point.

Hamilton argued that a bill of rights, which many were clamoring for, would be not only “unnecessary,” but “dangerous.” Since the federal government was given only a few specific powers, there was no need to add prohibitions: it was implicitly prohibited by the listed powers. If a proposed law — a relief act, for instance — wasn’t covered by any of these powers, it was ipso facto unconstitutional.

Adding a bill of rights, said Hamilton, would only confuse matters. It would imply, in many people’s minds, that the federal government was entitled to do anything it wasn’t positively forbidden to do, whereas the principle of the Constitution was that the federal government is forbidden to do anything it isn’t positively authorized to do.

Hamilton too posed some rhetorical questions: “For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why, for instance, should it be said, that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed?” Such a provision “would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible pretence for claiming that power” — that is, a power to regulate the press, short of actually shutting it down.

We now suffer from the sort of confusion Hamilton foresaw. But what interests me about his argument, for today’s purpose, is that he implicitly agreed with Madison about the narrow meaning of “general welfare.”

After all, if the phrase covered every power the federal government might choose to claim under it, the “general welfare” might be invoked to justify government control of the press for the sake of national security in time of war. For that matter, press control might be justified under “common defense.” Come to think of it, the broad reading of “general welfare” would logically include “common defense,” and to speak of “the common defense and general welfare of the United States” would be superfluous, since defense is presumably essential to the general welfare.

So Madison, Hamilton, and — more important — the people they were trying to persuade agreed: the Constitution conferred only a few specific powers on the federal government, all others being denied to it (as the Tenth Amendment would make plain).

John Quincy Adams, sixth President of the United States, once observed: “Our Constitution professedly rests upon the good sense and attachment of the people. This basis, weak as it may appear, has not yet been found to fail.”

Veto of federal public works bill

March 3, 1817

To the House of Representatives of the United States: Having considered the bill this day presented to me entitled "An act to set apart and pledge certain funds for internal improvements," and which sets apart and pledges funds "for constructing roads and canals, and improving the navigation of water courses, in order to facilitate, promote, and give security to internal commerce among the several States, and to render more easy and less expensive the means and provisions for the common defense," I am constrained by the insuperable difficulty I feel in reconciling the bill with the Constitution of the United States to return it with that objection to the House of Representatives, in which it originated.

The legislative powers vested in Congress are specified and enumerated in the eighth section of the first article of the Constitution, and it does not appear that the power proposed to be exercised by the bill is among the enumerated powers, or that it falls by any just interpretation with the power to make laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution those or other powers vested by the Constitution in the Government of the United States.

"The power to regulate commerce among the several States" can not include a power to construct roads and canals, and to improve the navigation of water courses in order to facilitate, promote, and secure such commerce with a latitude of construction departing from the ordinary import of the terms strengthened by the known inconveniences which doubtless led to the grant of this remedial power to Congress.

To refer the power in question to the clause "to provide for common defense and general welfare" would be contrary to the established and consistent rules of interpretation, as rendering the special and careful enumeration of powers which follow the clause nugatory and improper. Such a view of the Constitution would have the effect of giving to Congress a general power of legislation instead of the defined and limited one hitherto understood to belong to them, the terms "common defense and general welfare" embracing every object and act within the purview of a legislative trust. It would have the effect of subjecting both the Constitution and laws of the several States in all cases not specifically exempted to be superseded by laws of Congress, it being expressly declared "that the Constitution of the United States and laws made in pursuance thereof shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges of every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding." Such a view of the Constitution, finally, would have the effect of excluding the judicial authority of the United States from its participation in guarding the boundary between the legislative powers of the General and the State Governments, inasmuch as questions relating to the general welfare, being questions of policy and expediency, are unsusceptible of judicial cognizance and decision.

A restriction of the power "to provide for the common defense and general welfare" to cases which are to be provided for by the expenditure of money would still leave within the legislative power of Congress all the great and most important measures of Government, money being the ordinary and necessary means of carrying them into execution.

If a general power to construct roads and canals, and to improve the navigation of water courses, with the train of powers incident thereto, be not possessed by Congress, the assent of the States in the mode provided in the bill can not confer the power. The only cases in which the consent and cession of particular States can extend the power of Congress are those specified and provided for in the Constitution.

I am not unaware of the great importance of roads and canals and the improved navigation of water courses, and that a power in the National Legislature to provide for them might be exercised with signal advantage to the general prosperity. But seeing that such a power is not expressly given by the Constitution, and believing that it can not be deduced from any part of it without an inadmissible latitude of construction and reliance on insufficient precedents; believing also that the permanent success of the Constitution depends on a definite partition of powers between the General and the State Governments, and that no adequate landmarks would be left by the constructive extension of the powers of Congress as proposed in the bill, I have no option but to withhold my signature from it, and to cherishing the hope that its beneficial objects may be attained by a resort for the necessary powers to the same wisdom and virtue in the nation which established the Constitution in its actual form and providently marked out in the instrument itself a safe and practicable mode of improving it as experience might suggest.

James Madison,
President of the United States

"If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions. " - James Madison, Letter to Edmund Pendleton, January 21, 1792 _Madison_ 1865, I, page 546

"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constitutents. " - James Madison, regarding an appropriations bill for French refugees, 1794

"With respect to the words general welfare, I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators. " - James Madison, Letter to James Robertson, April 20, 1831 _Madison_ 1865, IV, pages 171-172

"Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated. " - Thomas Jefferson

“Our tenet ever was, and, indeed, it is almost the only landmark which now divides the federalists from the republicans, that Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but were to those specifically enumerated; and that, as it was never meant they should raise money for purposes which the enumeration did not place under their action; consequently, that the specification of powers is a limitation of the purposes for which they may raise money."
Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin (June 16, 1817)

"[We] disavow and declare to be most false and unfounded, the doctrine that the compact, in authorizing its federal branch to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States, has given them thereby a power to do whatever they may think or pretend would promote the general welfare, which construction would make that, of itself, a complete government, without limitation of powers; but that the plain sense and obvious meaning were, that they might levy the taxes necessary to provide for the general welfare by the various acts of power therein specified and delegated to them, and by no others." --Thomas Jefferson: Declaration and Protest of Virginia, 1825. ME 17:444

It appears that, contrary to the claims by many, Congress does not have broad and sweeping powers. Nor was it the intention of the founders to give Congress any.

Once the government opens its arms (and bank accounts), it divides the citizens into two groups: those who receive direct (personal, individual) benefit from the government, and those who do not. That is why the founders designed a FEDERAL system of government that provided only for the “GENERAL” (meaning- non-specific) WELFARE of the people by confining its services to things like “national defense” and “interstate commerce”. It leaves to the states the issues of HOW or WHEN other services are provided to specific sub-groups. HOWEVER (This is critical) the new government must represent the BEST INTERESTS of all the people, which logically means that it MUST be limited in scope, for the MORE a government undertakes, the more oppressive it becomes. Government MUST be ANCHORED in fundamental principles.

If you advocate for federal spending on social welfare programs, you are describing a redistribution of income (MY income) for the benefit of Specific individual citizens INSTEAD of (for example) a strong national defense. Which of those activities is the government LEGALLY REQUIRED to perform? (hint: Art. I, Sec. 8, U.S. Constitution.)

If the Federal government MUST do certain things, and something is NOT EXPRESSLY STATED in the constitution as a duty of Federal Government, then HOW (or WHOM) should any other services be provided? (Hint: Tenth Amendment)

Unfortunately, only a tiny fraction of the U.S. population today can grasp such nuances. Too bad. The Constitution wasn’t meant to be a brain-twister.

Put another way...
There's absolutely NOTHING wrong with helping out the poor and/or less fortunate, BUT in America the founders believed that that task should rightly fall to individuals and private charities, not government. When you voluntarily donate time goods or cash to private charity you do so from the heart. When government forces you to give to its "charities" you become a slave.

Americans give enormously to private charities even while government confiscates a good chunk of our income for no other reason than to give it to someone else.

My post on "Our Views: Creationists show clout" by 2theadvocate.com, baton rouge

OPINION

Our Views: Creationists show clout

Advocate Opinion page staff
Published: Jan 17, 2009 - Page: 6B - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.
http://www.2theadvocate.com/opinion/37752504.html

First of all this pinioned article is a perfect example of either uneducated or mis-educated people who shouldn't be reporting on anything, however this could be said of most of the U.S. population, especially those that were educated---oops, I mean indoctrinated---in the U.S. Compulsory "Education" system.

Science is the attempt to reach demonstrable, duplicable, conclusions about the natural world, however, the conclusions reached have to be demonstrable to others with physical evidence. Some people assume that scientists have generated a body of knowledge that is sure to be true. Some ideas, after all, are known with enough certainty that most of us take them for granted. An example is our common assumption that the earth orbits the sun. Much scientific evidence supports that idea, which is the heliocentric theory of the solar system, and most of us take it as "true". However, no human has observed the solar system from outside the system and seen the earth traveling in an orbit around the sun. It's just a theory, if a nearly inescapable one.

In that sense, most scientists will concede that, although they seek Truth, they don't know or generate Truth. They propose and test theories, knowing that future evidence may cause refinement, revision, or even rejection of today's theories. Ask a scientist about an issue that's not directly observable, and you probably hear an answer that starts with something like "The evidence suggests that . . ." or "Our current understanding is . . .". You're not hearing waffling or indecision. You're hearing a reasoned recognition that we can't know many things with absolute certainty - we only know the observable evidence.

It's worth remembering that a person's admission of uncertainty doesn't mean they're wrong, whether the issue is in politics, economics, religion, or science. In fact, a person who admits some uncertainty in their thinking is often closer to the truth, or at least understands the issues better, than someone who claims absolute certainty.

Consider the question "How did the world begin?". A scientist's answer will begin with the evidence that they've gleaned from astronomical study, which includes several lines of evidence about the motions of galaxies. It will conclude with a THEORY that fits the accumulated evidence. There won't be, or at least shouldn't be, any statement about absolute truth. Science seeks to explain the origin, nature, and processes of the physically detectable universe. Science uses physical evidence to answer its questions and relies on modern humans to make inferences from that evidence. Thus theories, the large-scale concepts that are based on huge amounts of data and try to explain and predict large bodies of phenomena, may be powerful ideas, but they are constantly subject to revision or even rejection as new knowledge emerges.

The only reason science clashes with religion is because there are people who believe science is complete truth or that religion is complete truth and neither wish to believe that the other might be true or partly true to any degree. They refuse to open their minds. Teachers tend to pass evolution/big bang science as irrefutable truth and if a student contradicts or says they don't completely believe it but instead believes we were created by a higher power (whether or not it is God or some other entity/entities) then they are chastised by the teacher and/or told that they are breaking the law.

Then there are those few of us who always try to keep an open mind and are willing to re-examine what we thought to be "true". Even if you take everything back to the Big Bang there are still unanswerable questions like... what caused it, where did the "ingredients" come from, etc. The fact is that no scientist can ever be 100% certain because they weren't there to observe it and they can't replicate it to the full extent.

The term "Big Bang" generally refers to the idea that the universe has expanded from a primordial hot and dense initial condition at some time in the past, and continues to expand to this day based on the assumption (FAITH) that if the distance between galaxy clusters is increasing today, everything must have been closer together in the past. It comes down to either believing that everything was accidental or purposeful.

Creationism is as conclusively dis proven as much as Evolution is conclusively proven true. Meaning... to prove creationism false, you must prove God does not exist and disproving an intangible to not exist is well problematic on all logic levels. In the same manner, Evolution implies evolving from something prior, but gives no indication to the original point of origin other than by pure guess ... which is faith.

I'll get back to the Science and Religion in another post for now lets move on to something else the article says. They say that teaching creationism is breaking the "Rule of law". The constitution is the law of the land (at least it's suppose to be and for now we still claim to use it), and Louisiana's Constitution pretty much mirrors the U.S. Constitution.

The First Amendment to the Constitution plainly states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion ..."
Since there can be no federal law on the subject, there appears to be no lawful basis for any element of the federal government – including the courts – to act in this area.

Moreover, the 10th Amendment to the Constitution plainly states that "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
This means that the power to make laws respecting an establishment of religion, having been explicitly withheld from the United States, is reserved to the states or to the people.

Taken together, therefore, the First and 10th Amendments reserve the power to address issues of religious establishment and free exercise thereof to the different states and their people.

In the Louisiana Constitution...

Article 1, Section 8 repeats the religion/religious part of the First amendment of the U.S. Constitution "No law shall be enacted respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
So this means since there can be no state law on the subject, there appears to be no lawful basis for any element of the state government – including the courts – to act in this area.

And Article 1, Section 26 says "The people of this state have the sole and exclusive right of governing themselves as a free and sovereign state; and do, and forever hereafter shall, exercise and enjoy every power, jurisdiction, and right, pertaining thereto, which is not, or may not hereafter be, by them expressly delegated to the United States of America in congress assembled."
This means that the power to make laws respecting an establishment of religion, having been explicitly withheld from the United States, and in Art.1 sec8 of the LA Constitution withheld from the State is reserved to the people.

I'll admit that the Founders wanted "separation of Church and state" but neither was the gov. (especially the fed. gov.) meant to be so entangled in/controlling of education and peoples daily lives. From the very beginning a well-educated citizenry was thought to be essential to protect liberty, i.e. educating the basics of reading, writing, math, and geography, but reading included History.

"The reading in the first stage, where [the people] will receive their whole education, is proposed.. to be chiefly historical. History by apprising them of the past will enable them to judge of the future; it will avail them of the experience of other times and other nations; it will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of men; it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume; and knowing it, to defeat its views." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XIV, 1782. ME 2:106

'Education for liberty' meant preparation to exercise and protect the basic freedoms of religion, press, assembly, trial by jury, security of person, due process and other guarantees of the Bill of Rights of 1791 and to understand why they chose a Republic form of government. That was the only reason Jefferson advocated for compulsory attendance. It was also not their intention to FORCE the mockery of todays "education" system, that forces upon even the youngest in our society a low self-esteem, and a stifling of individual, independent thought, on anyone.


Compulsory-attendance laws imply that government has to force parents to educate their children. Common sense and history prove this notion false. Up to the 1850s, when we didn't have public schools, the average literacy rate was almost 90 percent (excluding slaves of course, because it was a crime to teach a slave to read because, as Madison put it, "A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people"). Yet most parents taught their children to read at home. They did not need town officials to force them to educate their children. Compulsory-attendance laws also imply that some parents are too ignorant or indifferent to their children's welfare to educate their kids. If this was not the case, then why compel parents at all? Local governments therefore believe they have to force these "bad" parents to deposit their kids in public schools, for the alleged good of the children.

In effect, local governments and public-school authorities don't trust average parents to have the decency and common sense to educate their kids unless school authorities force them to. That notion is as absurd as claiming that parents would not feed their children unless government authorities forced them to. Compulsory-attendance laws create, in effect, an education prison system. Prisons get their prisoners because the police drag them in. Public schools get their students because compulsory-attendance laws let school authorities drag children into their schools, with or without parent's consent.

Compulsory education was not part of early American society, which relied instead on private schools that mostly charged tuition or education at home. The spread of compulsory education in the tradition of threatening to take children away throughout America, especially for Native Americans, has been credited to General Richard Henry Pratt. Pratt used techniques developed on Native Americans in a prisoner of war camp in Fort Marion, Augustine, Florida, to force demographic minorities across America into government schools. His prototype was the Carlisle School in Pennsylvania.

We have gone from giving the public the OPPORTUNITY to be educated for their liberty to forcing them into a type of prison system that conditions and indoctrinates them to become "good workers for the government" and "good surrenders or advocates for collectivism/socialism" and charging parents with child "abuse" if their child doesn't attend school for 180 (or whatever) days no matter what illness (unless excused by a doctor) or calamity might prevent/hinder it.

Just like everything else we've gone from Quality to quantity and/or given up one for the other altogether almost since the beginning of government involvement. First they lengthened the school year. I'm still searching for reason. 1905 - 7mths for whites and 4&1/2 mths for blacks, including the holidays. Then they lengthened the school day. 1906 - 5-6 hours including recesses and lunch, from 9am to 2pm or 3pm... one hour (or 1&1/4 hr) for each subject. The various reasons I could find: give children more time to learn the 4 subjects, especially for those slower learners, and to more reflect the average business day. Only just like everything else that is suppose to "give more time" they started teaching more subjects and this is something they continue to do to this day while shortening recess and lunch. And yet more and more stories of Obesity in children, well that's what happens when you "train" them to wolf down food in about 15 minutes which is what the average time the elementary child gets to actually sit and eat plus taking away recess time which actually exercise for the average child. Can we say DUH!

So, back to the article. It is not against the rule of law unless you are someone who takes a very liberal view of both the U.S. Constitution and the LA Constitution which, if you do your research and educate yourself, you will find was NEVER intended. (psst. look for my upcoming post on "General Welfare" as an example)

As to teaching creationism vs. evolution it should be either both, giving the children all the information and letting them make their own choices, or Neither, leave out any part of evolution teaching that assumes that we came from nothing. IF teaching both you would have to have someone very well educated in all the various religions plus evolution, not likely. If neither you might stifle important parts of science. so then there is compromise, which I believe is what they are trying to here. Teach evolution without the assumption that we came from nothing. There are still missing links and many questions about the origin of the universe and man that science hasn't, and possibly can't, answer. That needs to be left for the child to conclude without being told they are wrong or unlawful.

For people like myself there is no conflict between Science and Religion ("The Quantum AUM/OM") and more people would see this if they opened their minds. People don't really think about how much more there is to learn on their own. They're so busy that there isn't room for them to learn new information about the important things. Their mind is made up (or made up for them), they don't want to be confused with more information that doesn't fit what they think they know, which coincidently coincides with their indoctrination!

Constitution of the United States of America

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Article I

Section 1. All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

Section 2. The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.

No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New-York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three.

When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies.

The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.

Section 3. The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote.

Immediately after they shall be assembled in Consequence of the first Election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into three Classes. The Seats of the Senators of the first Class shall be vacated at the Expiration of the second Year, of the second Class at the Expiration of the fourth Year, and the third Class at the Expiration of the sixth Year, so that one third may be chosen every second Year; and if Vacancies happen by Resignation, or otherwise, during the Recess of the Legislature of any State, the Executive thereof may make temporary Appointments until the next Meeting of the Legislature, which shall then fill such Vacancies.

No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.

The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.

The Senate shall chuse their other Officers, and also a President pro tempore, in the Absence of the Vice President, or when he shall exercise the Office of President of the United States.

The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.

Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of Honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.

Section 4. The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.

The Congress shall assemble at least once in every Year, and such Meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall by Law appoint a different Day.

Section 5. Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members, and a Majority of each shall constitute a Quorum to do Business; but a smaller Number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the Attendance of absent Members, in such Manner, and under such Penalties as each House may provide.

Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.

Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such Parts as may in their Judgment require Secrecy; and the Yeas and Nays of the Members of either House on any question shall, at the Desire of one fifth of those Present, be entered on the Journal.

Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other Place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting.

Section 6. The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.

No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been encreased during such time: and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office.

Section 7. All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.

Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; if he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law. But in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by Yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively. If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law.

Every Order, Resolution, or Vote to which the Concurrence of the Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary (except on a question of Adjournment) shall be presented to the President of the United States; and before the Same shall take Effect, shall be approved by him, or being disapproved by him, shall be repassed by two thirds of the Senate and House of Representatives, according to the Rules and Limitations prescribed in the Case of a Bill.

Section 8. The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

To establish Post Offices and post Roads;

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;--And

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

Section 9. The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.

The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.

No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.

No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.

No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State.

No Preference shall be given by any Regulation of Commerce or Revenue to the Ports of one State over those of another: nor shall Vessels bound to, or from, one State, be obliged to enter, clear or pay Duties in another.

No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.

No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.

Section 10. No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.

No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it's inspection Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the Treasury of the United States; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Controul of the Congress.

No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.
Article II

Section 1. The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows:

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of the Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted. The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such Majority, and have an equal Number of Votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately chuse by Ballot one of them for President; and if no Person have a Majority, then from the five highest on the List the said House shall in like Manner chuse the President. But in chusing the President, the Votes shall be taken by States, the Representation from each State having one Vote; A quorum for this Purpose shall consist of a Member or Members from two thirds of the States, and a Majority of all the States shall be necessary to a Choice. In every Case, after the Choice of the President, the Person having the greatest Number of Votes of the Electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal Votes, the Senate shall chuse from them by Ballot the Vice President.

The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.

No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the Same shall devolve on the Vice President, and the Congress may by Law provide for the Case of Removal, Death, Resignation or Inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what Officer shall then act as President, and such Officer shall act accordingly, until the Disability be removed, or a President shall be elected.

The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compensation, which shall neither be encreased nor diminished during the Period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them.

Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:--"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Section 2. The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.

Section 3. He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.

Section 4. The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.
Article III

Section 1. The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.

Section 2. The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;--to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;--to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;--to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;--to Controversies between two or more States;--between a State and Citizens of another State;--between Citizens of different States;--between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.

In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.

The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury; and such Trial shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the Trial shall be at such Place or Places as the Congress may by Law have directed.

Section 3. Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.
Article IV

Section 1. Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records, and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.

Section 2. The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.

A Person charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who shall flee from Justice, and be found in another State, shall on Demand of the executive Authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having Jurisdiction of the Crime.

No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.

Section 3. New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new States shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.

The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State.

Section 4. The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.
Article V

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.
Article VI

All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwith-standing.

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.
Article VII

The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same.

Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth

In witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our Names,

George Washington--President and deputy from Virginia

New Hampshire: John Langdon, Nicholas Gilman

Massachusetts: Nathaniel Gorham, Rufus King

Connecticut: William Samuel Johnson, Roger Sherman

New York: Alexander Hamilton

New Jersey: William Livingston, David Brearly, William Paterson, Jonathan Dayton

Pennsylvania: Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Mifflin, Robert Morris, George Clymer, Thomas FitzSimons, Jared Ingersoll, James Wilson, Gouverneur Morris

Delaware: George Read, Gunning Bedford, Jr., John Dickinson, Richard Bassett, Jacob Broom

Maryland: James McHenry, Daniel of Saint Thomas Jenifer, Daniel Carroll

Virginia: John Blair, James Madison, Jr.

North Carolina: William Blount, Richard Dobbs Spaight, Hugh Williamson

South Carolina: John Rutledge, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Charles Pinckney, Pierce Butler

Georgia: William Few, Abraham Baldwin

__________________________________________________________________

The original spelling and capitalization have been retained.

Source: The Pennsylvania Packet, September 19, 1787