Judge Andrew P. Napolitano: The Myth of American Freedom
Please give Lew some hits – read this at LewRockwell.com, eh? Thanks!
http://lewrockwell.com/napolitano/napolitano24.1.html
Judge Andrew Napolitano
The Myth of American Freedom
by Andrew P. Napolitano
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Does the government work for us or do we work for the government? Is freedom in America a myth or a reality? Tonight, what if we didn’t live in a free country?
What if the Constitution were written not to limit government, but to expand it? What if the Constitution didn’t fulfill the promise of the Declaration of Independence, but betrayed it? What if the Constitution actually permitted the government to limit and constrict freedom? What if the Bill of Rights was just a paper promise, that the government could avoid whenever it claimed the need to do so? What if the same generation – in some cases the same people – that drafted the U.S. Constitution enacted laws that violated it? What if the merchants and bankers who financed the American Revolution bought their way into the new government and got it to enact laws that stifled their competition? What if the civil war that was fought in the name of freedom actually advanced the cause of tyranny?
What if the federal government were the product of 150 years of stealing power and liberty and property from the people and the states? What if our political elites spent the 20th century importing the socialist ideas of big government Statism from Europe? What if our political class was adopting the European political culture from which our founding fathers fought so hard to break free?
What if our political leaders no longer acknowledged that our rights come from our humanity, but insisted instead that they come from the government? What if you had to produce your papers to get out of or into our once-free country? What if you couldn’t board a plane, a train, or a long-distance bus without providing documentation telling the government who you are and where you’re going, without paying the government, and without risking sexual assault? What if your local police department could shoot down a plane? What if government agents could write their own search warrants, declare their own enemies, and seize whatever property they want? What if the feds could detain you indefinitely, with no visitors, no lawyer, no judge, and no jury? What if they could make you just disappear? What if the government broke its own laws in order to enforce them? What if the government broke down your front door in the middle of the night and shot your dog, and claimed it was a mistake?
What if you were required to purchase a product that you didn’t need, didn’t want, and couldn’t afford, from a company you never heard of, just as a condition of living in the United States? What if the government told you what not to put in your body as well as what to put into it; and how much? What if the government claimed that since it will be paying your medical bills, it can tell you what to eat, when to sleep, and how to live? What if the government tried to cajole and coax and compel you into behaviors and attitudes it considered socially acceptable? What if the government spent your tax money to advertise to you how great the services are that it provides? What if the government kept promising to make you safe while it kept stripping you of your liberties and committing crimes in your name that made you a target of more violence?
What if you didn’t have a right to every dollar you earned? What if the government decided how much of your earnings it will keep and how much it will permit you to have? What if the government took money from you and gave it away to its rich banking and corporate friends whose businesses were failing? What if the government thought it knew better than you did how to lead your life and had no problem telling you so? What if the government took the credit for every success your own human actions helped you achieve? What if the government told you that only it could build roads, run schools, keep you safe, and collect trash even though it’s never been able to do so efficiently before? What if the government spent nearly twice as much as it took in? What if it couldn’t pass a budget on a timely basis and funded itself just weeks at a time? And what if the government kept borrowing money against the wealth of future generations to pay for wasteful programs today?
What if you worked for the government and the government didn’t work for you? What if freedom were a myth? What if we don’t live in a free country? What do we do about it?
From New York, defending freedom; so-long America.
September 30, 2011
Andrew P. Napolitano, a former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, is the senior judicial analyst at the Fox News Channel, and the host of “FreedomWatch” on the Fox Business Network. His latest book is Lies the Government Told You: Myth, Power, and Deception in American History, (Nelson, 2010). His next book is It is Dangerous to be Right When the Government is Wrong: The Case for Personal Freedom, coming in September.
Copyright © 2011 Andrew P. Napolitano
Please donate and support Oath Keepers mission, every little bit helps!
September 30th, 2011 at 2:34 pm
The following message was sent to the Oath Keeper’s Board of Directors. Since I’m not aware of any way to post a general message to the entire organization I am submitting it here.
Dear Oath Keeper’s Board of Directors,
What does Oath Keepers have to say about Occupy Wall Street???
There has been media reports of peaceful protesters being targeted indiscriminately and violently by NYPD.
Everything Oath Keeper’s has promoted over the past 2-3 yrs is being played out right now in NY and coming to other major cities in the U.S. and around the world.
“Occupy Wall Street is leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%.”
Oath Keeper’s are part of the 99%, so shouldn’t they respond to this movement positively and join? Imagine the visibility of an Oath Keeper’s march in solidarity with the other 99%!!!
This organization could be overlooking one of the best opportunities since it’s founding. It would be inspiring to see Oath Keeper’s join a peaceful revolutionary movement to help counter the global agenda of the 1%. It would also provoke me to renew my membership… I wonder how many others would do so too???
October 1st, 2011 at 12:53 am
The only coment i gotta leave is this: Whether you beleive in God or NOT, our founding fathers specifically wrote in the declaration of independence “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are CREATED equal, that they are endowed by their CREATOR with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Judge Napolitano may have been trying to be politically correct by excluding any correlation to the God of Isael, but the fact remains that he specifically misquoted the constitution and could not have been the result of a bad teleprompter.
I hold a deep respect to Judge Napolitano in his efforts to remind us all of the fight for freedon that is waging on. Its just that fascist/communist countries do not care for humanity, and neither does the New World Order. Humanism is irrelevant in a state where human life is cheap and expendable. The 100+ billion dollar abortion industry for example.
October 1st, 2011 at 4:24 pm
I met an Oath Keeper today, at the AZCDL annual meeting. It did not occur to me to ask this till after I returned home, but how many of your members are retired or about to do so, and how many are still active duty police and military who might make a difference if and when the shit actually does hit the fan?
October 3rd, 2011 at 7:50 am
This is something Oathkeepers should be very concerned about
http://theintelhub.com/2011/09/28/military-to-collaborate-with-wyoming-cops-in-drunk-driving-crackdown/
This is a boiling frog alert.
Best,
LGore
October 6th, 2011 at 10:21 am
View from a different angle:
http://www.originalintent.org/edu/citizenship.php
Black’s Law Dictionary (6th Ed.) defines the 14th Amendment this way:
The Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, ratified in 1868, creates or at least recognizes for the first time a citizenship of the United States, as distinct from that of the states;…
The Poor Stepchild “citizen”
If the Citizens of the states of the Union have their “unalienable rights”, what then do “citizens of the United States” have? Frankly, not much of value. For the balance of this section, we will use the term “federal citizen” to denote a “citizen of the United States”.
A federal citizen has only those rights that have been granted to him by Congress by way of the numerous and various civil rights acts, and such rights as may have been invested in him by an activist US Supreme Court that felt it could legislate from the bench.
Let’s be clear – the “rights” of federal citizens are not given to them by God, as are our unalienable rights. Their rights are given to them by Congress alone, and the most significant point to understand and keep in mind is that, “What Congress giveth, Congress may taketh away”. It has always been this way and it will always be this way. The only thing that may be surprising in all of this is that this is the first time you’re hearing it! Most Americans have no idea that there are two “classes of citizenship”, nor do they understand the vast distinction between the two, and what it means in their lives.
Let’s look at what the courts have said about federal citizenship:
“A ‘civil right’ is considered a right given and protected by law, and a person’s enjoyment thereof is regulated entirely by the law that creates it.”
82 CA 369. 373, 255, P 760.
“The persons declared to be citizens are, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” The evident meaning of these last words is not merely subject in some respect or degree to the jurisdiction of the United States, but completely subject…”
Elk v. Wilkins, 112 US 94, 101, 102 (1884)
While Elk v. Wilkins is a 14th Amendment case, the concept is still true concerning all federal citizens. In other words, all federal citizens must be, by their very definition, a person who is “completely subject” to the jurisdiction of the federal government (such as a citizen of Washington DC). Virtually any legal concept stated by the courts concerning a 14th Amendment citizen is operative upon all federal citizens.
“The privileges and immunities clause of the 14th Amendment protects very few rights because it neither incorporates the Bill of Rights nor protects all rights of individual citizens. (See Slaughter House cases, 83 US (16 Wall.) 36, 21 L. Ed. 394 (1873)). Instead this provision protects only those rights peculiar to being a citizen of the federal government; it does not protect those rights which relate to state citizenship.”
Jones v. Temmer, 839 F. Supp. 1226
“…the first eight amendments have uniformly been held not to be protected from state action by the privilege and immunities clause [of the 14th Amendment].”
Hague v. CIO, 307 US 496, 520
“The right to trial by jury in civil cases, guaranteed by the 7th Amendment…and the right to bear arms guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment…have been distinctly held not to be privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States guaranteed by the 14th Amendment…and in effect the same decision was made in respect of the guarantee against prosecution, except by indictment of a grand jury, contained in the 5th Amendment…and in respect of the right to be confronted with witnesses, contained in the 6th Amendment…it was held that the indictment, made indispensable by the 5th Amendment, and trial by jury guaranteed by the 6th Amendment, were not privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States, as those words were used in the 14th Amendment. We conclude, therefore, that the exemption from compulsory self-incrimination is not a privilege or immunity of National citizenship guaranteed by this clause of the 14th Amendment.”
Twining v. New Jersey, 211 US 78, 98-99
“There are, then, under our republican form of government, two classes of citizens, one of the United States and one of the state”.
Gardina v. Board of Registrars of Jefferson County, 160 Ala. 155; 48 So. 788 (1909)
“The governments of the United States and of each state of the several states are distinct from one another. The rights of a citizen under one may be quite different from those which he has under the other”.
Colgate v. Harvey, 296 U.S. 404; 56 S.Ct. 252 (1935)
“…rights of national citizenship as distinct from the fundamental or natural rights inherent in state citizenship”.
Madden v. Kentucky, 309 U.S. 83: 84 L.Ed. 590 (1940)
“There is a difference between privileges and immunities belonging to the citizens of the United States as such, and those belonging to the citizens of each state as such”.
Ruhstrat v. People, 57 N.E. 41 (1900)
“We have in our political system a government of the United States and a government of each of the several States. Each one of these governments is distinct from the others, and each has citizens of it’s own…”
United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1875)
“It is quite clear, then, that there is a citizenship of the United States, and a citizenship of a state, which are distinct from each other and which depend upon different characteristics or circumstances in the individual”.
Slaughter-House Cases, 83 U.S. (16 Wall.) 36; 21 L.Ed. 394 (1873)
It should be noted that many of the rights not attributed to federal citizens in the cases above have since been granted to them either by Congress or by the courts. These early decisions simply clarify and solidify the reality that federal citizens are not the same “class of citizen” as state Citizens.
Like so many areas in which the federal government has tread, it has unbalanced the equation. Where at one time there was no real problem with there being different classes of citizenship, with the ratification of the 14th Amendment, Congress went into overdrive with civil rights legislation. The result was a labyrinth of “rights” and protections for federal citizens. Some of these have even found their way into additional Constitutional amendments. Because the state Citizen is a member of The People; the people in whom the sovereignty of the states, and by association, the national government resides, such a Citizen is left to protect his own rights, with no special process to help him accomplish that end. In short, he must defend his rights with all his will, his energy, his money, and passion in the courts for as long as it takes to reach a final outcome.
Conversely, the federal citizen need only lodge a complaint with the appropriate federal agency and the power of the federal government moves to punish the person who has allegedly violated that federal citizen’s rights. Of course this is legally appropriate since a federal citizen is little more than a ward of the national government. Such second-class citizens must be cared for by the government as they are not the masters of their government, but mere servants to it, and it is the master’s responsibility to care for his servants.
Mike
October 8th, 2011 at 11:33 am
the oath needs to be changed , I will not obey a president that is bringing our Country down…
[the remainder of this sentence has been deleted by Elias Alias]
October 12th, 2011 at 3:55 pm
I can’t help but remember the poor Jewish souls who so willingly walked to their deaths during the Nazis occupation of Europe. It was hard for me to see a people do such a thing to give in to death instead of resiting and fighting the Nazis. I hope and pray that the American people do not go willingly into the night by the tyranny government coming to power in D.C. I pray that we as a people and a Nation can educate our Military not to go against us when the time comes when we must fight and if need be shed blood for our natural born Rights and our freedom. The will of Freedom is so powerful and so strong that it will completely decimate an enemy in order to preserve Freedom.
October 26th, 2011 at 1:56 pm
Future Attribute Screening Technology (FAST) Project FOIA Request
http://epic.org/privacy/fastproject/
October 29th, 2011 at 10:08 pm
Our freedoms have been eroded by government since the Civil War. It has been a slow process that has been kicked into warp speed over the last decade and especially since the election of Obama. I had hope that the Republicans we sent to Washington after the elections of 2010 would have done what they promised they would do but that hope has been dashed by their unwillingness to stand up and do the right thing. Our country is falling apart and I fear the only solution might be a second civil war. The second time around will alomost certainly be bloodier than the first. I pray it doesn’t come to that but I can’t see anything changing that leads me to believe otherwise.