Recently I got to sit down with constitutional scholar extraordinaire KrisAnne Hall– a constitutional lawyer, a Russian linguist, an Army vet, wife, mother… the list goes on. She now spends her days going from one corner of the country to another spreading the message of liberty, teaching individuals as well as State legislators how to battle the federal government.
As an enlisted Marine, we swear an oath to uphold and protect the US Constitution. As a young man it only means what we think on the surface, but when you look around us you begin to see a Constitution ignored. The BLM is harassing the militia in Oregon trying to instigate a fight— you would think this would be a HUGE story. But it’s not getting any play from the mainstream media. Instead, we’re busy talking about the highlights from the last debate.
Apart from that, the EPA is basically writing and enforcing its laws on the American public, the IRS is going way overboard with collecting the private information of everyday people, and with Obama’s executive orders targeting our guns, it seems like all constitutional boundaries have been obliterated, there are not borders to rein in Leviathan. KrisAnne discussed a lot about the original intent of our founding fathers. You should definitely check out our interview but the main point of the interview was this: does it even matter anymore? Does anyone in government care about it?
The answer is yes, and the Constitution is striking back with a vengeance the federal government fears most. JSP contributor Shawn Warren recently wrote an incredible article about nullification, a powerful tool for liberty. Shawn states in the article that:
“This is such a powerful tool wielded by not only the states but the people of the states as well. The state legislatures can become a shield, or as James Madison put it, interpose between the federal government and the people. Nullification is simply any action that serves to render a federal act null, void, or simply unenforceable within the borders of a state. Nullification can include anti-commandeering actions, or more aggressive measures to block federal enforcement.
Nullification has proven to be extremely effective in the past. The North used this tactic against the embargo of 1807.Both Connecticut and Massachusetts lead the way in fighting federal tyranny. Nullification was used against the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, the Real ID act of 2005, and, of late, marijuana laws.
Yet another option is for mass non-compliance. This allows the citizens to take a more active, rather than passive, role in helping to fight federal tyranny. Civil disobedience is a tried-and-true American tradition. This worked during the Stamp Act crisis, the Molasses and American Revenue Act, the Townshend duties, and more recently, the civil rights movement, and mass anger against President Obama trying to bomb Syria.
We may need to call on all of these approaches to push back this tyranny of Washington and take back our liberty that was stolen in the night. We must not ask, but demand that our sacred rights be respected. We must hold fast to our principles, our resolve, and march forward to victory in this cause lest we fall to history as the generation who let liberty falter and that great flame extinguish without a fight.
Nullification is a powerful tool to rein in federal powers not defined in our Constitution. Talk of even a possible Convention of the states, or Article 5 convention, are even in the works. All these options are fine and sound great, but KrisAnne states something even simpler in concept, but harsher in practice: follow the laws of the land and respect the natural rights defined by our nation’s drafters.
Our Constitution is battered, but not lost. The time to education yourself is now, and the time to fight for it every time it is threatened is now.
What are you waiting for?
This post was updated January 22, 2016 at 11:32 a.m.