An early survey by Chattanoogan.com readers indicates Weston Wamp trails Matt Hullander and Sabrena Smedley for Hamilton County mayor.
By David Tulis / NoogaRadio 96.9 FM
Of the three candidates, Mr. Wamp appears the most articulate defender of what it might fairly be called “conservative values” or “conservative” or “constitutional” ideals. For this reason, he appears to be the best candidate for those who care to exercise the residency franchise of voting.
Each candidate is a conservative. They are churchgoers and professing Christians. Mr. Hullander is a businessman, son of the county trustee Bill Hullander with generations hailing from the county. Mrs. Smedley is a real estate agent and county commissioner. Mr. Wamp has been active at Lamp Post Group (local investment capitalism) and in a group opposed to the growth of the national debt.
Mr. Hullander says hurray for Mayor Jim Coppinger. Says Mrs. Smedley, “I am so proud of all the great things the mayor and county commission have achieved together.” Mr. Wamp hails Mr. Coppinger’s “three terms of outstanding public service.”
The candidates promise to run in the same stream of government as did Mr. Coppinger, pretending that in his term the county did not overflow its banks and did not flood shops, industrial districts, retail outlets, homes, neighborhoods, churches and public offices at least knee deep.
That slopping over the banks was the refusal of the Coppinger administration to obey state law regarding epidemics, and to cooperate with an oath-breaking and church-going conservative governor, Bill Lee, in violating the health law at Tenn. Code Ann. § 68-5-104, which has been the subject of litigation in Hamilton County 436 days.
Mrs. Smedley evidently experienced the CV-19 mass house arrest differently than many of her consituents. Either it was mild, or she flushes the “conservative” Lee and Coppinger overthrow of constitutional government down a memory hole. She will focus on “critical issues” which are in “education, public safety, infrastructure and economic development.”
Mrs. Smedley sees a lot of good government in Hamilton County. “Good government is imperative for the prosperity of its citizens,” she says. “Hamilton County residents have experienced good government over the last eight years and they can rest assured that with me as their next mayor they will continue to enjoy the quality of life they deserve and will be presented with many new opportunities.”
Mr. Wamp in a brief vision statement says “we’ll need a bold, conservative vision for the next generation. The future of our country isn’t in Washington, it’s in communities like ours.”
Missed boat
The candidates are — all three, thus far — entirely conventional.
For all his work in conservative politics, and for all his connections, Mr. Wamp seems unable to operate as a cross-current to the Coppinger stream — or as a countercurrent. He appears unwilling to apprise voters of their true political and economic situation. If he did that, it would show conditions entirely out of his hands, and that would require him to take a much more defensive position against bad acts by government and a more militant rhetoric than that with which he may be comfortable. It’s safe to be belligerent about government debt, which is the engorged project among the friends of credit and paper money who are unwilling to believe their enterprise is near crashing.
Belligerency is needed in a county mayor not on the growing national disaster. But upon the abuses within the county administration, with the county attorney’s office harassing businesses over mask mandates and fighting my petition for writ of mandamus to compel obedience to state law (and demanding I pay the county F$11,000 for its trouble).
The occupiers of government office have made war against the people in Hamilton County and the state for many years. Some wrongs have churned for years — false arrests, misuse of the state trucking law upon nontrucking users of the public right of way, use of bills of attainder (defended by Mr. Wamp’s sister, Coty, who is running for DA), public schools, rejection of the warrantless arrest statute, scamming members of the public by recordation taxes on the privilege of using the register’s office.
The most shocking and easily identifiable abuse has been the Covid-19 fraud, exposed as a for-profit rent-seeking exercise in disaster capitalism based on junk science and clear violations of bioweapons treaties and anti-terror laws.
Belligerency is what the hour needs, perhaps. Not passive and quiet enthusing about county growth, McDonald Farm “investments” and public schools.
Mr. Wamp, the most articulate of the three candidates, believes it is best to be safe — to share with voters a line of lax, conventional thinking and make that his report.
Militant lococentrism, interposition
Rather, it is time for militant localism and militant interposition of local governing authorities against law breaking here and afar. Lawbreaking in our day is scarcely that of violators of the state criminal code in Title 39 (thieves, rapists, burglars). We suffer a surplus of violence and crime by people in elected and in public office, often takers of the oath. By, in other words, Mr. Wamp’s class of people.
If Mr. Wamp wants to succeed, his pitch for office should tell people that the government is in breach of covenant with the people, in breach of state law, and in violation of the Tennessee constitution on many provisions of the bill of rights.
The campaign should recognize what has happened in the relationship between the public servant and the master. The servants have become neo-feudal lords. The people, thanks perhaps to fluoride, bad preaching and public education, have been sheeplike, docile, group-thinking and willing to believe their betters in public office. The violations of law have exacerbated this passivity. The people have in many ways lost their will to fight after two years of infectious propaganda.
Many will be sickened by the county’s shots, and many will die. The jab is far more dangerous than the weaponized coronavirus and its variants, according to numerous authorities ranging from Steve Kirsch to Dr. Peter McCullough.
‘Never again’
Are there any “never agains” Mr. Wamp might propose, any promises to steer clear of deceit, harm, manipulation and greed that have swallowed Hamilton County mayor’s office and the commission?
If it were me, I would try these five:
➤ Never again will county government overthrow the health law at T.C.A. § 68-5-104 that requires a determination be made of an agent of contagion. The county’s health department, led by Becky Barnes and now headed by Sabrina Novak, rejected black-letter law under the pretense of the exercise of discretion. District attorney should prosecute Mrs. Barnes for felony official misconduct under Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-16-401 (“A public servant commits an offense w ho, with intent to obtain a benefit or to harm another, intentionally or knowingly: (1) Commits an act relating to the public servant’s office or employment that constitutes an unauthorized exercise of official power; (2) Commits an act under color of office or employment that exceeds the public servant’s official power; (3) Refrains from performing a duty that is imposed by law.”)
➤ Never again in Hamilton County will there be any pretense of police power being made operative against the whole of the people through “directives” that purport to require the wearing of “masks,” social distancing or isolation of healthy people, as happened here following Gov. Lee Lee’s March 12, 2020, executive order and his April 2 “safer at home” order of house arrest for millions of Tennesseans. County Attorney Rheubin Taylor should have prevented a state of emergency lacking a nonfraudulent exigency or warrant, as required under law.
➤ Never again will Hamilton County fund or participate in any experimental and inoculation program, which in process today has lethal consequences for thousands of county residents, which harm has passed unobserved by all members of the media but one. Members of the bar have been slow to launch litigation to stop the damage because their masters in the judicial department — starting with then-chief Justice Jeff Bivins — have done a joint venture in the fraud. But at some point the lawsuits will come, especially for immune deficiency illnesses and death caused by the shots. Hamilton County will be bankrupted. It has no defense because it knowingly and intentionally committed the harm while under notice of state law and under notice of lawsuit.
➤ Never again will Hamilton County operate under bills of attainder or general warrants as it did amid the crisis. Under a system of general warrants people are subject to arrest as members of a class, not upon individual suspicion, complaint or warrant. Such was the pretended authority Mr. Coppinger and other mayors exercised under cause of the chemical attack of SARS-CoV-2. The county is experienced in bills of attainder from long usage and custom. And that is upon the weak and the poor, and upon African-Americans in the ultra vires use of Titles 55 and 65, the motor vehicle and trucking laws that Sheriff Hammond exploits, as if to keep up the jail population for purposes of commercial government and payroll. I have worked since March 2018 to halt these abuses by administrative notice.
➤ Never again will the county mayor put country before county. Mr. Coppinger justified violation of law and the constitution because he was swayed by the Times Free Press, local outlets and the national media to join in a panic and to ignore the clear obligations of state law at T.C.A. § 68-5-104. Obedience to that law would have put the entire fraud into perspective, and given honest grounds for rejection of threats and importunities by other state actors.
The law would have required a stiff upper lip, and use of the word “No.”
Needed: Resistance, interposition
Mr. Wamp might be wise to examine the Christian doctrine of the lesser magistrate, ably expounded by Matt Trewhella in his 2013 book Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrates, subtitled “A proper resistance to tyranny and a repudiation of unlimited obedience to civil government.” This book shows a theology of Christian resistance developed throughout the scripture and rediscovered during the Reformation. An expounder from that era is Philippe de Mornay, seigneur du Plessis-Marly, writing in 1579 under the name Junius Brutus a lively exposition A Defense of Liberty Against Tyrants. The text is available online.
Mr. Wamp should recognize that if he is running for mayor, his campaign should be one of repentance on behalf of the office he seeks to fill. He should be lamenting what Mr. Coppinger did wrong, and promise not to follow his steps and flow out over the banks of his authority. He should recognize how state actors, in violation of the constitution and their oaths to God, ate out the liberties of the people and have refused to see anything for which to be sorry.
Mrs. Barnes and Gov. Lee admit they violated the law in court filings. But legal admissions are not repentance. They justify their breaches — saying they are under no duty to obey the law, and demanding, “Who are you to call me out on it?” This spirit of self-justification by Hamilton County officials, if not condemned on the campaign trail, will visit us again under the next mayor. If the campaign for county mayor fails to account for the wickedness, complicity, misprison and criminal acts of government employees since March 2020, we can expect more of the same. The elite abuser classes aren’t done yet. Virus scares, pandemics, economic collapses, internment camps and states of emergency are Great Reset essentials.
Would Mr. Wamp be with this in-crowd, pursuing “policies” of vaccinations and control? Or would he stand with us, the people?
