Sunday, August 23, 2009

Habeas Corpus Hocus Pocus!

Definition of Terms:

the right of a citizen to obtain a writ of habeas corpus as a protection against illegal imprisonment. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/habeas+corpus

It should be noted that the privilege of habeas corpus is not a right against unlawful arrest, but rather a right to be released from imprisonment after such arrest. If you believe the arrest is without legal merit, and subsequently, refuse to come quietly, you are still guilty of resisting arrest, which is a crime in and of itself, even if the initial arrest itself was illegal.

Habeas Corpus Hocus Pocus watch the video!



Innocent until proven guilt in a court of law, not anymore! Locked away based upon your potential to commit a crime, now that's criminal. That makes everyone guilty since we all have the potential to commit crimes. Under Obama's proposed plan if the government deems you a threat regardless of whether you committed an actual crime or not, your guilty! Didn't Obama swear an oath to defend and protect the Constitution? That's right, he screwed that up too!

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Property and Liberty

Property and Liberty are Two Sides of the Same Coin!



"When a portion of wealth is transferred from the person who owns it – without his consent and without compensation, and whether by force or by fraud – to anyone who does not own it, then I say that property is violated; that an act of plunder is committed! "How is the legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply, see if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime…" (Frederic Bastiat, THE LAW, p. 21, 26)

"The difficulty with all governments, and one to which our own has fallen heir, is that the majority, by virtue of its right to place limitations on man's free agency, has undertaken to infringe upon the rights reserved to the individual, for the direct and immediate benefit of law and order. For example: the Constitution expressly prohibits taking of personal property for public purposes without just compensation. Under the guise of taxation, the Constitution is violated and property is taken from one and given to another." (Henry D. Moyle, an LDS Apostle, Relief Society Magazine, 1957.)

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Thursday, August 6, 2009

What is an Inalienable Right?

What is an Inalienable Right as stated in the Declaration of Independence?

Before we go any further lets start with a definition of terms. According to the dictionary inalienable means "....not transferable to another or capable of being repudiated.. .Some synonyms are: inviolable, absolute, unassailable, inherent.

Inalienable rights are not contingent upon the laws, customs, or beliefs of a particular society. In contrast, legal rights (sometimes also called
civil rights or statutory rights) are rights conveyed by a particular polity, codified into legal statutes by some form of legislature, and as such are contingent upon local laws, customs, or beliefs. Natural rights are thus necessarily universal, whereas legal rights are culturally and politically relative. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_and_legal_rights

The first article of the Virginia Declaration of Rights adopted unanimously by the Virginia Convention of Delegates on June 12, 1776 and written by George Mason, is: That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.


The following are some extracts taken from an artictle called the "Proper role of Government" by Ezra T. Benson. He served as Secretary of Agriculture under Dwight D. Eisenhower for 8 years and later became the President of the LDS church. I would highly recommend reading the whole thing it is excellent. The below defines exactly what an Inalienable right is and how socialism violates those rights.

"Each of us has a natural right – from God – to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two. For what are our faculties but the extension of our individuality? And what is property but and extension of our faculties?" (Frédéric Bastiat, The Law, p.6)

"If every person has the right to defend – even by force – his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. Thus the principle of collective right -–its reason for existing, its lawfulness -- is based on individual right." (Frédéric Bastiat, The Law, p. 6)

So far so good. But now we come to the moment of truth. Suppose pioneer “A” wants another horse for his wagon, He doesn't have the money to buy one, but since pioneer “B” has an extra horse, he decides that he is entitled to share in his neighbor’s good fortune, Is he entitled to take his neighbor’s horse? Obviously not! If his neighbor wishes to give it or lend it, that is another question. But so long as pioneer “B” wishes to keep his property, pioneer "A" has no just claim to it. If “A” has no proper power to take “B’s” property, can he delegate any such power to the sheriff? No. Even if everyone in the community desires that “B” give his extra horse to “A”, they have no right individually or collectively to force him to do it. They cannot delegate a power they themselves do not have. This important principle was clearly understood and explained by John Locke nearly 300 years ago: “For nobody can transfer to another more power than he has in himself, and nobody has an absolute arbitrary power over himself, or over any other, to destroy his own life, or take away the life of property of another.” (Two Treatises of Civil Government, II, 135; P.P.N.S. p. 93)

This means, then, that the proper function of government is limited only to those spheres of activity within which the individual citizen has the right to act. By deriving its just powers from the governed, government becomes primarily a mechanism for defense against bodily harm, theft and involuntary servitude. It cannot claim the power to redistribute the wealth or force reluctant citizens to perform acts of charity against their will. Government is created by man. No man possesses such power to delegate. The creature cannot exceed the creator. (The Proper Role of Government by Ezra T. Benson)

Ending Comments: Any civil right or law, which encroaches or limits natural God given rights is suppression and tyranny. History teaches us that a nation of laws isn't necessarily a nation of justice and liberty. Everyone regardless of where they live has inalienable rights even though they are not recognized by their respective governments, but what was so revolutionary about the American system was the framers actually acknowledged these God given rights when creating their government.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

What kind of Government did they Leave us With?

Rule by Law vs. Rule by Majority

Just after the completion and signing of the Constitution, in reply to a woman's inquiry as to the type of government the Founders had created, Benjamin Franklin said,

"A Republic, if you can keep it."

Not only have we failed to keep it, most don't even know what it is. A Republic is representative government ruled by law (the Constitution). A democracy is direct government ruled by the majority (mob rule). A Republic recognizes the inalienable rights of individuals while democracies are only concerned with group wants or needs (the public good). Lawmaking is a slow, deliberate process in our Constitutional Republic requiring approval from the three branches of government, the Legislative, Judicial and Executive. Lawmaking in our unlawful democracy occurs rapidly requiring approval from the whim of the majority as determined by polls and/or voter referendums.... Democracies always self-destruct when the non-productive majority realizes that it can vote itself handouts from the productive minority by electing the candidate promising the most benefits from the public treasury. To maintain their power, these candidates must adopt an ever-increasing tax and spend policy to satisfy the ever-increasing desires of the majority. As taxes increase, incentive to produce decreases, causing many of the once productive to drop out and join the non-productive. When there are no longer enough producers to fund the legitimate functions of government and the socialist programs, the democracy will collapse, always to be followed by a Dictatorship. Even though nearly every politician, teacher, journalist and citizen believes that our Founders created a democracy, it is absolutely not true. The Founders knew full well the differences between a Republic and a Democracy and they repeatedly and emphatically said that they had founded a republic.

Article IV Section 4, of the Constitution "guarantees to every state in this union a Republican form of government".... Conversely, the word Democracy is not mentioned even once in the Constitution. Madison warned us of the dangers of democracies with these words, "Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths...", "We may define a republic to be ... a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people, and is administered by persons holding their offices during pleasure for a limited period, or during good behavior. It is essential to such a government that it be derived from the great body of the society, not from an inconsiderable proportion or a favored class of it; otherwise a handful of tyrannical nobles, exercising their oppressions by a delegation of their powers, might aspire to the rank of republicans and claim for their government the honorable title of republic." James Madison, Federalist No. 10, (1787)
"A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men." Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

Our military training manuals used to contain the correct definitions of Democracy and Republic. The following comes from Training Manual No. 2000-25 published by the War Department, November 30, 1928.
DEMOCRACY:
A government of the masses.
Authority derived through mass meeting or any other form of "direct" expression.
Results in mobocracy. Attitude toward property is communistic--negating property rights.
Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether it be based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences. Results in demogogism, license, agitation, discontent, and anarchy.
REPUBLIC:
Authority is derived through the election by the people of public officials best fitted to represent them. Attitude toward law is the administration of justice in accord with fixed principles and established evidence, with a strict regard to consequences. A greater number of citizens and extent of territory may be brought within its compass. Avoids the dangerous extreme of either tyranny or mobocracy. Results in statesmanship, liberty, reason, justice, contentment, and progress. Is the "standard form" of government throughout the world.

The manuals containing these definitions were ordered destroyed without explanation about the same time that President Franklin D. Roosevelt made private ownership of our lawful money (US Minted Gold Coins) illegal. Shortly after the people turned in their $20 gold coins, the price was increased from $20 per ounce to $35 per ounce. Almost overnight F.D.R., the most popular president this century (elected 4 times) looted almost half of this nation's wealth, while convincing the people that it was for their own good. Many of F.D.R.'s policies were suggested by his right hand man, Harry Hopkins, who said, "Tax and Tax, Spend and Spend, Elect and Elect, because the people are too damn dumb to know the difference". (Written by Gary McLeod, http://www.garymcleod.org/)


Ending Comments: I pledge a allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the REPUBLIC for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.

So why did Jefferson call the American system a democratic-republic? Because the system allows the masses of qualified voters to participate in the election of their officials (democracy) and then the people's elected representatives enact the laws and administer the affairs of the people under majority rule but with the equal protection of individual rights (a republic). Is it a mistake, therefore, to call the United States a democracy? Yes. The only part of the American system which is borrowed from "democracy" is the popular election of government officials. Except for this, the Founders strongly emphasized the republican aspects of the American system. A republic places the responsibility for sound government and decision-making on the people's elected representatives rather than allowing the fluctuating and superficial emotions of the people to override law and order or the rights of minorities. The classical example of government functioning on republican principles and prevailing over "pure democracy" would be the case of a sheriff protecting a prisoner against a lynch mob. In essence a Democracy is two wolves and one lamb trying to decide what’s for super.