The recent passage of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and the reaction–or better, lack of reaction–by the GOP’s Presidential candidates is a perfect example of how it will not matter to a Tinker’s Dam which Republican candidate wins the nomination, unless that candidate is Congressman Ron Paul. This is what so many people within the so-called Religious Right and establishment GOP just do not understand: they do not understand the fact that America is in the throes of a burgeoning police state. They have buried their heads in the sand for so long that they wouldn’t know what tyranny looked like if it came up and bit them on their blessed assurance! They have totally drunk the propaganda Kool Aid that purports that the biggest threat to our liberties comes from the Sand People. Our Founding Fathers were a much wiser lot, of course. They understood perfectly that the biggest threat to our liberties comes from Washington, D.C., not Baghdad, or Tehran, or any other foreign entity.
Listen to Daniel Webster: “There is no nation on earth powerful enough to accomplish our overthrow. Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from another quarter. From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence. I must confess that I do apprehend some danger. I fear that they may place too implicit a confidence in their public servants and fail properly to scrutinize their conduct; that in this way they may be made the dupes of designing men and become the instruments of their own undoing.”
Yet, except for Ron Paul, not a single Republican Presidential candidate has issued the slightest warning regarding the draconian components of the NDAA that literally turns America’s homeland into a war zone and, with the stroke of a pen, effectively eviscerates the Bill of Rights. Why is that? Because, except for Ron Paul, none of them get it. Bachman, Gingrich, Perry, Romney, Santorum. None of them!
The day after Christmas, TheHill.com posted this report quoting Dr. Paul. “GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul warned that the National Defense Authorization Act, which was passed by Congress this month, will accelerate the country’s ‘slip into tyranny’ and virtually assures ‘our descent into totalitarianism.’
“‘The founders wanted to set a high bar for the government to overcome in order to deprive an individual of life or liberty,’ Paul, the libertarian congressman from Texas, said Monday in a weekly phone message to supporters. ‘To lower that bar is to endanger everyone. When the bar is low enough to include political enemies, our descent into totalitarianism is virtually assured. The Patriot Act, as bad as its violations against the Fourth Amendment was, was just one step down the slippery slope. The recently passed National Defense Authorization Act continues that slip into tyranny, and in fact, accelerates it significantly.’”
The Hill report continued quoting Dr. Paul, “‘The Fifth Amendment is about much more than the right to remain silent in the face of government questioning,’ Paul continued. ‘It contains very basic and very critical stipulations about the due process of law. The government cannot imprison a person for no reason and with no evidence presented and without access to legal council. The danger of the NDAA is its alarmingly vague, undefined criteria for who can be indefinitely detained by the U.S. government without trial.’”
The report also quoted Congressman Paul as saying, “‘The president’s widely expanded view of his own authority to detain Americans indefinitely even on American soil is for the first time in this legislation codified in law,’ Paul said. ‘That should chill all of us to our cores.’
“‘The Bill of Rights has no exceptions for really bad people or terrorists or even non-citizens. It is a key check on government power against any person. That is not a weakness in our legal system, it is the very strength of our legal system. The NDAA attempts to justify abridging the Bill of Rights on the theory that rights are suspended in a time of war, and the entire United States is a battlefield in the war on terror. This is a very dangerous development, indeed. Beware.’”
See TheHill report at:
Then again, not only are these pathetic Presidential pretenders not aware of this fast erosion of our liberties being orchestrated by these miserable miscreants inside the Beltway, how many of you folks who go to church every Sunday hear your pastor say a peep about the totalitarian elements contained within the NDAA? Yep! That’s what I thought! They don’t get it, either!
For that matter, where is the first State Governor, Lieutenant Governor, or Attorney General to say, “Not in my State!”? Where are the county sheriffs to say, “Not in my county!”? (I can promise you this, if Bob Fanning and Chuck Baldwin are elected Montana Governor and Lieutenant Governor in 2012, we will say it! And we will say it loudly enough that everyone in Washington D.C., will be able to hear it!)
And speaking of Montana, it is extremely encouraging to learn that my friend and Oathkeepers founder, attorney Stewart Rhodes, is leading a recall petition against the two US senators from Montana who both supported NDAA. Salem-News.com has the story: “Moving quickly on Christmas Day after the US Senate voted 86-14 to pass the National Defense Authorization Act of 2011 (NDAA) which allows for the indefinite military detention of American citizens without charge or trial, Montanans have announced the launch of recall campaigns against Senators Max Baucus and Jonathan Tester, who voted for the bill.
“Montana is one of nine states with provisions that say that the right of recall extends to recalling members of its federal congressional delegation, pursuant to Montana Code 2-16-603, on the grounds of physical or mental lack of fitness, incompetence, violation of oath of office, official misconduct, or conviction of certain felony offenses.”
The Salem-News report continued saying, “Montana law requires grounds for recall to be stated which show conformity to the allowed grounds for recall. The draft language of the Montana petitions, ‘reason for recall’ reads:
“The Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees all U.S. citizens:
“‘a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed…’
“[NDAA] permanently abolishes the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial, ‘for the duration of hostilities’ in the War on Terror, which was defined by President George W. Bush as ‘task which does not end’ to a joint session of Congress on September 20, 2011.
“Those who voted Aye on December 15, 2011, Bill of Rights Day, for NDAA 2011 have attempted to grant powers which cannot be granted, which violate both the spirit and the letter of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
“The Montana Recall Act stipulates that officials including US senators can only be recalled for physical or mental lack of fitness, incompetence, violation of the oath of office, official misconduct, or conviction of a felony offense. We the undersigned call for a recall election to be held for Senator Max S. Baucus [and Senator Jonathan Tester] and charge that he has violated his oath of office, to protect and defend the United States Constitution.”
The report goes on to quote Rhodes (a Yale Law School graduate) as saying, “These politicians from both parties betrayed our trust, and violated the oath they took to defend the Constitution. It’s not about the left or the right, it’s about our Bill of Rights. Without the Bill of Rights, there is no America. It is the Crown Jewel of our Constitution, and the high-water mark of Western Civilization.” Amen, Stewart! Amen!
See the Salem-News report at:
NDAA should be to Americans in 2011 what the Boston Massacre was to the colonists in 1770, because this Act literally massacres the Bill of Rights. (And risking the charge that I’m tooting my own horn, when Montanans elect Bob Fanning Governor and Chuck Baldwin Lieutenant Governor in 2012, it will be the second “shot heard ’round the world.”) And of all the Presidential hopefuls, Ron Paul is only one who gets it!
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© Chuck Baldwin
