(Analyst's note: Here is evidence that "We the People" still have what it takes to maintain our freedom. You absolutely must read this well written letter. Please note that the highlighting is mine and not that of the author. Thanks to my many friends for sharing such material for posting here. Your actons are an invaluable service to America. Thank you!)
The Honorable John Roberts
Chief Justice
United States Supreme Court
United States Supreme Court Building
〓One First Street N.E.〓
Washington, DC 20543
Dear Chief Justice Roberts:
I am writing as Amicus Curiae, in the matter of the use of the Presidential Executive Order, and Constitutionally subversive legislation.
So that you might better have an understanding of who I am, I would introduce myself by telling you, that first of all, I am not an attorney, but rather a Patriotic citizen, and supporter of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, as they were written, and of their Original Intent. I have no Law Degree, but I hold a Baccalaureate of Science in Criminal Justice, from the University of Baltimore, I am an Alumnus of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Academy, at the FBI Academy in Quantico Virginia, and the Southern Police Institute, at the University of Louisville, in Louisville Kentucky. I am also a retired, career, Command Level, Police Executive Officer!
I believe that my situation as a concerned citizen, fortified by my education and background in Law Enforcement, establishes standing to address The Court relative to my serious apprehension of the potential for a grievous breach of Constitutional Authority, facilitated by an administrative process, the sole prerogative of which is that of the President of the United States, or the legislative process of the Congress! It is my contention that I am aggrieved and harmed to the extent that as a citizen of The United States, I am entitled to those rights specifically enumerated, guaranteed, and protected under The Constitution as amended, and suffer when they are impeded, infringed or denied!
In District of Columbia v. Heller, The Court ruled that The Second Amendment protects the individual right to keep and bear arms, and the traditional use of those arms, such as for self-defense within the home.
The wording of the Second Amendment is quite clear in its intent; first of all, it acknowledges the pre-existence of the right of the people to keep and bear arms, and asserts no claim to the creation of that right, nor does it acknowledge, yield, or surrender a similar claim to its creation, by either The President of The United States, or the Congress of The United States! It goes on to state that the right “shall not be infringed.” The most powerful operative words in that phrase are “shall not”, there is an intended force behind those two words, they represent a determination on the part of the Founders to convey their intent, that that right is inviolate, and therefore impervious to infringement! The use of the specific word “infringe” similarly alludes to the power that the Fathers infused into this proscription. Infringe means to fail to obey a law or regulation [the Constitution itself being “The Supreme Law of the Land”], or an encroachment on land, rights, privileges or activities that belong to someone else, especially in a minor or gradual way.
Once identified by the Constitution and Bill of Rights, those enumerated rights assume the full force and protection of those documents, and the executors of those Constitutional protections, The Justices of The Supreme Court of The United States, as was the case in the finding of The Court in Heller. However, due to a “timidity” on the part of The Court to clarify beyond all contention, the extent of the meaning of “shall not be infringed”, the door was left wide open to the interpretation that a degree of infringement might be “allowable” under the guise of either The Presidential Executive Order; or misguided “official” legislative action by The Congress of The United States. It would be to torture logic, to assume that the Founding Fathers intended to “allow” infringement upon those rights, by any degree whatsoever; the very words: “Shall not be infringed”, certainly provide for no latitude in that infringement, and in reality, they totally proscribe any infringement at all! The Court however failed to clarify the Founders’ intent, to chisel in stone, the proposition that enumerated rights were to be placed beyond anyone’s authority to tamper with them.
The Court’s reluctance, for whatever reason, to clarify beyond interpretation and inference, and to solidify beyond future challenge, the meaning and intent of the phrase: “Shall not be infringed”, has opened the door to much mischief! I have a question for The Court: “Does the President, by virtue of his power to issue Executive Orders, or the Congress, through its power to legislate, posses the legal authority to, on the one hand mandate, as in the case of the Executive Order, or on the other hand, legislate, as in the case of the Congress, a specifically enumerated and protected Constitutional Right, effectively out of existence, by requiring “compliance”, with official restrictions upon that right? In that case then, might not those mandated or legislated “requirements for participation” be considered infringement, and therefore unconstitutional?
The Court has acknowledged the “individual” interpretation of the second phrase of the Second Amendment; in doing so, it has said that, “We the People, of The United States of America, have an individual right to own and keep, without government interference, [infringement] firearms!
We now have an avid, anti Second Amendment President, and he has appointed an equally avid, anti Second Amendment Attorney General of The United States of America. It is no secret that they would like to see the Second Amendment significantly constrained, or actually rescinded; similarly, they apparently disagree with The Court as to its ruling in Heller.
New, vehemently anti Second Amendment legislation, is being constructed as I write this letter. The tactic will be to subvert the right to keep and bear arms, by interposing administratively excessive, and legislatively restrictive “requirements”, between the right and The People. The very concept of this action creates great difficulty on my part, in attempting to describe my concern to The Court. What the President and Congress will do is to quite effectively insulate the Second Amendment, by putting its protections beyond the reach of The People.
Here is how that will happen: all gun owners will be required to obtain a “license” to own a firearm [privileges are licensable, not rights], quite possibly a separate license will be required, for each weapon owned. These licenses will be costly, restrictive, and restricted! The Attorney General is also contemplating requiring a written “test” for gun ownership [not a test for proficiency in the use of the weapon, but a test that may include knowledge of every law concerning firearms, it may be as “inclusive” as he sees fit], he will undoubtedly make these tests practically impossible to pass, and there will be a fee connected with taking the test! [Once again, a passing grade on a test will be required to exercise a right] There is talk now of imposing a tax upon each firearm, and the taxes will be prohibitive. May the mere exercise of a right incur a tax? There is also talk of requiring a firearms owner to take out a prohibitively expensive one million dollar insurance policy, for coverage of misuse, on each firearm owned! [An insurance that might not exist, thus making this an impossible requirement to meet] In the aggregate, such licenses, fees, tests, and other onerous and burdensome administrative processes, when superimposed upon that Right, quite effectively overwhelm and serve to nullify its intent; might this not then meet the Constitutional test for infringement? In my reading and understanding of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, I cannot, by osmosis, absorption, or mere cognizance, conclude from my understanding of those documents, that Rights are to be subject to tests, taxes, or licenses, whether by Presidential Executive Order, or Legislative intervention. Should I be in error here, please disabuse me of my misunderstanding.
Much legislative mischief is at hand here. One prominent Senator has proclaimed that if he couldn’t take the guns, he would reduce their status to those of bludgeons, by legislating ammunition out of existence! How then would The Court respond to a challenge to his legislation? If he were successful, The Courts’ ruling in Heller on the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is effectively rendered moot; a firearm without ammunition may, or may not be as effective as a bludgeon! Essentially, the Senator would rewrite the second phrase of the Second Amendment to read: “the right of the people to keep and bear arms, [that have legislatively been rendered useless] shall not be infringed.”
By the [unconstitutional] imposition, by either Presidential Executive Order, or Legislative Fiat, of usurious fees, and/or prohibitive regulatory and licensing controls, the Second Amendment will simply be placed beyond the reach of those whom it was acknowledged to protect, for all practical purposes, it will have been destroyed, while still “on the books.” Does the Constitution allow for the erection of an impenetrable wall between The People, and their unalienable Rights, either by the President or the Congress? If the answer to that question were “yes, I then would ask, why do we have a Bill of Rights?
The Bill of Rights has successfully been assaulted in the case of McCain/Feingold, which limits the protection of the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment. At the time of passage, the Congress ignored the obvious inconsistency with the Constitutional Protection of the Right to Speak Freely, leaving Liberty to eventual interpretation by The Court, an interpretation that has yet to be forthcoming.
Another successful breach of the protection of the Bill of Rights exists in the authority of the States to seize personal property, to then convey it to other individuals who are not possessive of the right in law to that property. This is obviously violative of the IV Amendment Protection of the right to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects. The assault upon the Amendment is expanded by the recent introduction of socialist tenets to our governmental philosophy. President Obama’s intention to “redistribute” wealth is in obvious conflict with the guarantees against confiscatory government actions, as specifically proscribed by the IV Amendment.
There is not at this time, nor should there be, a quarrel with the Constitutionally noted [although not specifically titled] Executive Authority of the President to issue “Executive Orders”, pursuant to Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution which grants to the President the "Executive Power." This Executive Process meets the legitimate need for the President to act with exigency, and to communicate his policy and directives in an efficient and expeditious manner, when traditional methods would hamper those actions. An enormous and potentially high degree of force and power resides in the Executive Order; should that immense potential be joined to a propensity to overstep the intent of the authority that is Constitutionally inferred upon that process, there is a possibility of great mischief.
The Court has apparently preferred not to address challenges to some Laws of the United States, as evidenced in legislation to subvert the intention and effect of Federal Immigration Law upon criminal immigrants, under the title of: “McCain/Kennedy”; why is this not an issue for The Court? The deleterious effect of criminal immigration is both obvious, and self-indicting! More citizens of the United States have been murdered, or negligently killed on our streets, by criminal immigrants, than the number of United States Troops who have fallen in Iraq. There is a need for The Court to be heard on this issue.
In the event that these subversions in the actual effect and intent of the First, Second, Fourth, and Sixth Amendments, are allowed to stand without challenge in the interest of The People, might future assaults upon the remaining Amendments not be far a field? Might the Constitution itself not then be similarly exposed to assault?
In the proximate and recent past, The Court established a very dangerous precedent, on which Justice Scalia spoke so eloquently in opposition. I speak of The Court’s finding relative to the Juvenile Death Penalty. The Court’s decision was rendered in that case, predicated upon extra-Constitutional considerations: emerging public mor・’s and world opinion. Essentially, The Court neglected to determine that case in the light of Constitutional Law and Intent; that alone should be the deciding factor. As Justice Scalia so appropriately noted, and I paraphrase: “It might be nice to know what the world thinks, as well as the morality of American Society, but neither of these should guide the hand of The Court, that is the prerogative of the Constitution alone!” For example: the United Nations is vehemently opposed to our Second Amendment. The United Nations has a membership on the order of 190 member states. Most of those member nations are in opposition to the United States. Might not then the “opinion” of the United Nations, represent the “opinion” of “the world”, and thus satisfy the precedent established in the aforementioned case, to have our Supreme Court vacate the Second Amendment, in the interest, not of the Constitution [which is and should be the singular authority] but that of the United Nations?
As our “conversion” to socialism is consummated, some issues become glaringly evident by the obvious conflict they evoke. Socialism does not acknowledge the pre-existence of God-given Rights, it assumes upon itself the creation of rights, and by virtue of its own assumed authority to create whatever rights it acknowledges, it portends the authority inherent in proprietary creation, to limit, license, tax, control, define, deny, or abolish whatever rights it determines, to all of The People.
As I write this, the First Amendment has successfully been abridged and constrained; The Court’s Second Amendment affirmation in Heller v. D.C. is simply being ignored; the Fourth Amendment has similarly been abridged and constrained, in contravention of its protection of rights in property, and it will come under even more violative assault as President Obama redistributes personal wealth! The Sixth Amendment, protecting the individual’s right to trial, and associated appurtenances to that right, are already subject to pernicious mischief, as we move toward the surrender of American Jurisprudence to the authority of the United Nations, and its “International Courts!” How long before the remaining Amendments are challenged, or the Constitution itself?
I have read nothing in the Constitution to proscribe proactive interposition by The Court, in the interest of The People. The Separation of the Powers of the Three Branches of Government does not dictate sterility against Constitutional interaction among them, in fact, the concept of the Balance of Power provides for the violation of that sterility, when appropriate to the operation of each Branch properly, and under Constitutional Authority and Constraint. Certainly the Constitution also affords The Court the Constitutionally legitimate authority to impose itself on occasion, in defense of that interest. Is the survival of the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution itself, of sufficient interest to The Court, to invigorate the application of that authority? Unabated, these challenges may ultimately call into question the very existence of The Court itself!
The President has made no effort to hide his “disagreement” with the Constitution, and has spoken publicly of a need for a second Bill of Rights! I defer to my former explanation as to the difference between our Constitutionally acknowledged and guaranteed, God-given Rights, as opposed to the rights that a socialist state may establish or deny, at its whim, to its citizens!
Do “We the People”, by inherence, transference, inference, or simple rights in heredity and birth, have a choice, as to the replacement of our system of government, and our individual Liberty, with an alien system that suppresses that Liberty, while it contemporaneously scraps the Constitution and Bill of Rights? That ultimately seems to be the question. In the event that a duly elected President of the United States is in adherence to a totally alien form of government, a form of government that, if implemented, is destructive of the form of government that currently exists, does the existing government simply give way? Is the Constitution in fact a suicide pact; or does that government act to preserve itself?
We in this Nation, with particularity, those who have been elected to serve The People, are confronted with a situation of immense importance, unprecedented uniqueness, and potentially dire Constitutional consequence! What we are witnessing today, amounts to the displacement of our traditional and historical form of National Government, by another form that is alien to this Nation and its people, and is ideologically and diametrically in opposition to our own Representative Democracy. The question repeats itself: “Are our Constitution and Bill of Rights, also protective of the very form of this government itself, or, when confronted as they are today, do they then simply allow for their own dissolution?” If the answer to that question is “yes”, then the Founders committed a grievous error! I do not believe that they intended that such powerful contracts with The People, documents so eloquently and carefully constructed, documents with the force of such power, should be so easily vanquished!
How might a President, who is obviously a socialist, and an inordinately intelligent man, who contemporaneously understands the severe confliction of ideologies, then swear an oath to “preserve, protect, and defend” a Constitution that his own ideological belief would compel him to destroy? And yet, he took such an oath! Does then, any attempt by him to significantly alter or diminish the Constitution, equate to his vacating his oath? Also, by the exact wording of that oath, did the Founders not seek to prevent such Presidential attacks, by requiring a “constructive” Oath of Allegiance to the Constitution, and the government that it created, defined, and seeks to protect and preserve?
In summation: The Constitution, and Bill of Rights, and all of the peripheral benefits that devolve to “We the People”, as precipitants of those great documents, are in direct and open conflict with the political ideology of socialism. The idea of Democracy, and ours is a Representative Democracy, inherently is mutually exclusive of the idea of socialism, and communism, which is a logical extension, and demonstrated progression of socialist ideology. Quite simply, one cannot exist in the presence of the other! Success of one, bespeaks the failure of the other, and the failed ideology may eventually be suppressed, quite possibly violently so!
I wrote this with no personal animus toward the President, as a free American, he is entitled to his beliefs, and I would defend that right with my last breath for him! I do however, oppose his ideology, and believe that if implemented, it will quite effectively destroy this Republic, as it was created. I also believe that an informed reading, and learned understanding of The Constitution will satisfy my contention and scholarly belief, that it in fact defends itself against such attack and conversion. I prefer Representative Democracy to socialism, and I am fearful for our Constitution and Bill of Rights. To end this I quote Alexander Hamilton, who wrote in the Federalist Papers in1787: “Every government ought to contain in itself the means of its own preservation.”
PLINY
