"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." ~ H.L. Mencken
Martial Law vs. 'Let Us Separate'
Column by Scott Lazarowitz.
Exclusive to STR
It seems that President Obama, Congress and especially Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke are determined to cause economic collapse in America. Some people, such as economist and investment analyst Peter Schiff and trend forecaster Gerald Celente, have been predicting that, because of Washington’s spending sprees, debts, perpetual wars and monetary printing, America is indeed headed for that economic collapse.
But one aspect of that inevitable economic collapse that really concerns me is the possibility of martial law. Celente has stated that by 2012 there will be civil unrest, looting and food riots.
If there is going to be an economic collapse along with the complete destruction of the dollar, then there probably will be rioting, looting, robberies, burglaries, muggings, vandalism and murders, which will mean that federal martial law will follow. Even the Wall Street yuppies will turn to violence, as they will need to support their addictions to Prozac and Xanax, or whatever the hell it is the Wall Street yuppies take these days.
If martial law is inevitable, then nullification and secession are in order. Thomas Jefferson sided with those who believe in the right of nullification and secession, and said that if the people of the states find secession necessary, then, by all means, “let us separate.”
Thanks to a post-9/11 panicked America and a federal government not hesitant to take advantage of a crisis situation as a means of expanding its size and power, we now have a stronger federal State apparatus in place to further encroach our Liberty and trespass our property.
Militarizing “Public Safety”
In a martial law situation, “law enforcement” and “public safety” duties are usurped by the federal military, which also includes the suspension of civil liberties.
Now, one of the most important documents in American history, the Declaration of Independence, notes that we are all equal under the law and have inherent, inalienable rights to life and liberty. My interpretation of those rights is that each individual has the inherent right to one’s own life and has a right to be free from the aggression of others. And that means that everyone has a right to be left alone and a right to presumption of innocence, unless and until someone suspects an actual individual of some actual violation against some other individual’s life, person or property. These are “inalienable” rights in that no one may take them away.
However, the whole concept of martial law is based on the suspension of these inherent rights, in which one’s rights to freedom of movement, speech and presumption of innocence and so on are suspended, without actual suspicion of crimes, without due process. That means that, if individuals’ rights to life and liberty are inalienable, then any government-imposed suspension of those inalienable rights would be crimes committed by agents of the State.
We are unfortunately experiencing the culmination of the “perfect storm” for totalitarianism in America. The buildup of decades of state-worshipping indoctrination in our schools to the point of developing a prevalent police state mentality is not helpful to liberty, to say the least.
In this day and age of TSA porn Nazis and molestation sickos, which is a federal government policy run amok now at America’s airports, and which is a policy primarily to empower agents of the State to remind us mere subjects of the State’s supreme superiority, the real (albeit unstated) reason for any martial law will not be to “protect the public,” but to further empower the State. The real purpose of martial law would be to stifle political dissent and for the federal State to remind the sheeple who’s the boss, just like the TSA is doing.
And we have seen over the years from this “War on Terror” started by George W. Bush, the kinds of people who have been appointed to be our “protectors” of society, in the TSA.
Additionally, the possibility of a military martial law should be of serious concern to Americans, especially given the character of many who join the military, especially in recent years. There are groups such as the “Thrill Kill” unit in Afghanistan, in which a young soldier had testified that members of his unit had committed acts of murder for the “thrill” of it. Incidents of sexual assault against female soldiers have been on the increase, and we have an increase in crimes by and mental illness of soldiers returning from Afghanistan and Iraq. Because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that President George W. Bush started, the military has been stretched and had by 2006 lowered its standards, including accepting recruits with criminal backgrounds.
Our society is now one in which the rich and powerful have been getting away with actual criminal behavior, while the common man, woman and child are constantly victimized with intrusions by the Authorities into their private lives, homes and businesses. This is seen in every aspect of daily life, from the cops harassing people in private businesses and pulling over innocent drivers for no good reason except to collect money for the State, to people being harassed by the IRS for making tiny errors in complicated tax forms, while the Wall Street fat cats and the big banks are now getting away with egregious acts of fraud and theft as though they are in competition with organized crime syndicates (and winning).
With those who are either in power or close to it in Washington, from the unions and ACORN on the left to the militarist warmongers on the right, it’s enough to scare the bejesus out of anyone who has read any history of what happens when groups based on force and intimidation grab the reins of power. The federal government has increased its control and intrusiveness into our lives with the passage of ObamaCare and the passage of the Dodd financial regulations, with hundreds of new bureaucracies, thousands of new IRS bloodhounds and plenty of armed flatfoots to enforce all these intrusions and dictates.
Are branches of the U.S. military already preparing to run America’s cities? Who knows. But there are very good reasons to oppose a fusion between military and local law enforcement, given Hurricane Katrina and the BP fiasco. A martial law situation in America now will be one in which it will be difficult to distinguish the “officials” from the criminals.
Now, one solution to prevent a police state with martial law would be to undo the federal economic and monetary policies that have led the U.S. to the point of possible economic collapse: repeal ObamaCare and DoddCare, repeal all the existing costly medical and financial bureaucratic intrusions, refuse bailouts for the banks and financial firms and require them to follow the rule of law, and get rid of the Federal Reserve and repeal legal tender laws and allow for competing currencies and a return to the Gold Standard.
But will that happen any time soon? Nope. We can’t rely on the same nincompoops and scoundrels in Washington who are committing these acts against our liberty to actually reverse themselves. As Perry Como would say, “It’s just impossible.”
Nullification and Secession
A much more practical solution would be for the people of the states to nullify all federal laws and policies, police state dictates and mandates, a “de facto secession,” as Congressman Ron Paul had described. And not just any federal martial law that might be imposed, and ObamaCare, but especially the banking and legal tender laws that restrict competition in money and banking, and allow for competing currencies in the states and a return to the Gold Standard. (And don’t forget the important recognition of the individual’s right to bear arms.)
Each state needs to do these things.
And the states do have a right to nullify federal laws, whether the statists of the left and the right like it or not. Thomas Woods, author of Nullification: How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century, noted on his blog recently regarding the relationship between the states and the federal government:
“If you and I give a third person (call him Person C) a limited power of attorney to help govern our affairs, and that person oversteps the boundaries outlined in the contract we signed, who gets to decide if Person C is in violation of the contract? Is it Person C himself? Or is it you and I, the people who wrote and signed the limited power of attorney in the first place? Likewise, the states, as the principals to the constitutional compact, have a far better logical claim to be the judges of constitutionality than their agent, the federal government.”
The people of the states have a right to nullify federal laws that violate their rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, period. And they also have a right to fully secede from the “Union” as well. No one has a right to force someone else to be a part of an association against one’s will. The federal government has no moral right and no legal authority to force the people of any state to be a part of a “Union,” in which that union’s government is destructive of their liberty, prosperity and security.
As the Declaration of Independence notes: “…That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive…it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it…”
This is a time in the life of the United States of America to recognize that, while creating America was a relatively good idea, the Founders’ creating a centralized, federal government with a monopoly in territorial protection and a monopoly in the administration of law and justice was utterly misguided, and has led to all the trouble we now face. Economically, when people are given a monopoly of some kind in which competitive interests are restricted by law and the population are compelled by law to use the monopolists’ services, then without competition and profit-or-loss motivations, the monopolist lacks the incentive to actually serve the needs of his “clients,” and in fact will use the armed power he is given for his own advantage. The monopolist’s main motivation becomes not the “protection of the public,” but the expansion of the federal State, and the monopolist’s power and control.
Because of this aspect of human nature, the institution of centralized monopolies just doesn’t work, as centralism is not only counter-productive, it naturally begets totalitarianism.
When the Soviet Union experienced an economic collapse, the people there did the right thing: they decentralized and broke up the “Union.”
Americans had better not allow the DC Leviathan federal government to inflict martial law on us. So, to save our liberty, prosperity and our security, as Thomas Jefferson said, “Let us separate.”
(1 vote)
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"Americans had better not allow the DC Leviathan federal government to inflict martial law on us."
Well, Americans don't have any say in the matter! It's coming whether you want it or not. It's a slow-motion train wreck, something you can only stand aside and watch.
I'm not particularly fearful of martial law. For one thing, you said it yourself, "A martial law situation in America now will be one in which it will be difficult to distinguish the 'officials' from the criminals." Martial law will be difficult for us, but it will also be difficult for the ruling class. Some irate "peons" may well decide to retaliate against the ruling class, and nobody will care when one or another of them gets cut down. "Good riddance!" The violence goes both ways; not just from them to us.
I also don't worry about the military too much. You write as if you'd never been in it. For every sadist in the military, there are 10 men and women who know the government has screwed them. Even the Soviet Union couldn't keep all its military units in line at the end; how much less will the American ruling class? And think of all the ex-military who can handle a rifle just fine...
Secession is a good thing, but don't put too much hope in state governments. They are slimebags only moderately less objectionable than the federal slimebags. The really important secession should be that of individuals, escaping from their own mental cages. They should stop believing in government, or imagining that government protects them. There will be de-facto secession, but it will come from the bottom up. The state governments might eventually get around to it, but they will be following the crowd, not leading it. Nope, writing a letter to your state legiscritter will not do any good.
The real difficulty, post-crash, will not be martial law, but keeping economic life going. The way to do that is form associations with the more worthy of your neighbors, business associates and relatives.
Paul:
"...The really important secession should be that of individuals, escaping from their own mental cages. They should stop believing in government, or imagining that government protects them. There will be de-facto secession, but it will come from the bottom up. The state governments might eventually get around to it, but they will be following the crowd, not leading it. Nope, writing a letter to your state legiscritter will not do any good..."
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Absolutely. Good comment!
I often get the feeling many "anarchists" and "libertarians" who post and/or write essays are implying that "we" ("anarchists"???) must somehow figure out a way to "bring about" anarchy, which further implies "we" must be accessory to imposing our beliefs upon everyone within our "community" ("state"???).
Not.
I am sovereign -- a "sovereign state", if you will. I have not attempted to impose my statehood upon family members or neighbors or friends.
I'm freely and openly declaring my sovereignty to you right now, but you need not take any action to "join my community" if you feel my style of anarchy is not compatible with your lifestyle. I believe the fact you're here reading STR is a likely sign that you and I can be good neighbors even if you adamantly disagree that I can truly be a sovereign state. And when push comes to shove we can trade amicably without aggressive acts toward each other.
Anarchistic and libertarian communities will truly come into being from the bottom up.
Sam
As an Anarchist, your impression of Anarchists is completely wrong, although I'll admit there are a lot of wannabe Che Guevaras whose heads are up their asses. What you expressed in the last paragraphs here is completely compatible with Anarchist philosophy, and could just as easily have been written by an Anarchist with maybe a few cosmetic differences. 19th century-style Revolutionary anarchism has largely been replaced by a strategy of gradual transition and individual liberation rather than class-based action. In fact in my opinion it's gone overboard and become so individualist that it's disorganized and therefore invisible; there are many, many more anarchists than there appear to be, but they have largely decided to stay hidden.
Good comment, Paul. I would make a couple of corrections, however.
You wrote, "The really important secession should be that of individuals, escaping from their own mental cages."
I totally agree that "the really important secession should be that of individuals", and although I concur that individuals must first "[escape] their own mental cages", "escaping [one's] own mental cage" is not, in any way, shape, or form, secession. Secession is "the act of withdrawing from membership in a group".[1]
Also, you state, "There will be de-facto secession, but it will come from the bottom up."
De facto implies illegality or unlawfulness.
A de facto action is one that "must be accepted for all practical purposes, but is illegal or illegitimate. ... In this sense it is the contrary of de jure, which means rightful, legitimate, just, or constitutional."[2] [Emphasis added]
There is nothing wrongful, illegitimate, unjust, or unconstitutional about individual secession, at least I have never found anything even remotely suggesting that there is, therefore individual secession is, very much, (IMO), a de jure action.
[1] Black's Law Dictionary, Sixth Edition (c.1991), page 1351
[2] Ibid., page 416
Good article. I do hope people develop independent cooperative networks to help wean themselves from the government/corporate baby-bottle.
Under your solution to "prevent a police state with martial law", I would add ending the foreign wars / military bases and prohibition. These are the roots of "terrorism", which is the excuse for the martial law to begin with.
Granted, you were speaking of a "food riot" scenario but, with the budget-savings from those two items alone, covering food-stamps while a better infrastructure is developed shouldn't be a problem.
As Paul said: "...The real difficulty, post-crash, will not be martial law, but keeping economic life going. The way to do that is form associations with the more worthy of your neighbors, business associates and relatives."
For those interested in HOW such associations MIGHT be created, I recommend the Covenant of Unanimous Consent.
tinyurl.com/Galts-Oath-and-the-Covenant
For more detail regarding the Covenant, see articles at
tinyurl.com/Covenant-of-Unanimous-Consent
Dennis