Gov. Bill Lee has abrogated constitutional government in Tennessee by executive fiat. He has controlled the people in the state with fear and threat, created an economic depression; he’s thrown at least half a million people out of work, wrecked tens of thousands of small businesses, militarized social relations with “six-foot” requirements, created a police state — in a manner typical of American chief executives.
By David Tulis / NoogaRadio 92.7 FM
Coercion against the people is at the had of a church-going practitioner of Christianity, an entrepreneurial non-insider Republican conservative who hesitated to impose a “lockdown” because of his desire to respect the people and personal liberty.
He drew back amid the early CV-19 clamor, but did as Davy Crockett advises: “First be sure you’re right, then go ahead.”
Gov. Lee’s actions and those executive government worldwide are a test for future boldness. Nine-eleven was a government project to bring the Patriot act, Mideast adventures and mass surveillance. The Boston Marathon bombing was an exercise to bring mass warrantless searches and civilian lockdowns — they occurred and the people consented with no clawback. CV-19 is in the same vein. Mike Pompeo, secretary of state, said, “We’re in a live exercise here,” to which President Trump muttered, under his breath but audibly, “You should have let me know. You should have let me know.” The public largely agrees with the sufferings imposed upon its members by high officials.
A live exercise, according to Wikipedia, is a “military exercise or war game is the employment of military resources in training for military operations, either exploring the effects of warfare or testing strategies without actual combat. This also serves the purpose of ensuring the combat readiness of garrisoned or deployable forces prior to deployment from a home base.”
One-branch state
The governor is operating a unicameral government with the legislature and the judiciary shut down. That means he has operated without a check. The American form of government has a measure of strength by having three branches that mutually stymie the ambitions and overreach of the other two. The liberties of the people and the free market are secured, in the American system, by the branches respecting the rule of law and being limited one by the other.
In Tennessee we have grand juries that are supposed to be government spoilers. Judges and district attorneys control grand juries, and the evils of the past 100 years of unconstitutional indictments should be reformed so that grand juries once again work to shield people from abuse and check state power. My efforts to invoke the power of the Hamilton County grand jury have gotten nowhere, despite attempts to get a hearing defending the people from violations of due process. I have given local authorities administrative notice of the guarantees in the constitution and put fresh eyes on Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-7-103, grounds for arrest by officer without warrant. Mine are efforts to restore lost God-given and constitutionally guaranteed unalienable and inherent rights.
Since 1933, a U.S. emergency
Gov. Lee’s activities are similar to those of the federal presidents, who are largely today imperial and absolutist. Since March 9, 1933, the United States and the people have been under emergency decrees emanating from Washington. The exercise of these powers has been unchecked by congress or by the courts.
Frank Church, Charles Mathias and other federal senators in 1973 published a study, senate report No. 93-549, as they sought to end the state of emergency.
The executive powers taken up by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and others give the national government’s chief executive dictatorial power. The people are ignorant about this matter, so scarce a soul has applied to the courts for redress.
“A majority of the people of the United States have lived all of their lives under emergency rule,” the report says. “For 40 years, freedoms and governmental procedures guaranteed by the Constitution have, in varying degrees, been abridged by laws brought into force by states of national emergency. The problem of how a constitutional democracy reacts to great crises, however, far antedates the Great Depression. As a philosophical issue, its origins reach back to the Greek city-states and the Roman Republic. And, in the United States, actions taken by the Government in times of great crises have — from, at least, the Civil War — in important ways, shaped the present phenomenon of a permanent state of national emergency. *** (Page 3)
“This vast range of powers, taken together, confer enough authority to rule the country without reference to normal Constitutional processes,” the report says (Page 1).
“Over the course of at least the last 40 years, then, Presidents have had available an enormous-seemingly expanding and never-ending -range of emergency powers. Indeed, at their fullest extent and during the height of a crisis, these ‘prerogative’ powers appear to be virtually unlimited, confirming Locke’s perceptions. Because Congress and the public are unaware of the extent of emergency powers, there has never been any notable congressional or public objection made to this state of affairs. Nor have the courts imposed significant limitations.” (Page 6)
A citizen’s lament
Among the key elements of executive government are violation of the longstanding ban on arbitrary and capricious distinctions in law. Law is supposed to operate on individuals, with probable cause protections and due process guaranteed. It is not supposed to operate on the private citizenry en masse.
An anonymous comment from a protester shows how that works.
My best friend is the electrical pro at Lowe’s in Jeff City and he’s been there over twenty years. His wife owns a hair salon. On a normal day before this shutdown he might be in close contact with a hundred people and she might normally be close to twenty. Every time I drive by Lowe’s now the parking lot is completely full. Cars parked all the way to the end of the lot near the highway.
He told me that everyday since this started has been like Black Friday, their busiest day of the year. So now he’s in contact with five hundred or more while his wife sits at home worrying about going bankrupt and losing the business she has worked so hard to make very successful for more than two decades. They are not safer because of these mandates. He’s exposed to more danger because of them and she’s being ruined because of them.
She’s not afraid to open because of the virus. She’s afraid to open because of the government! Because of threats of fines or even having her license taken away! I cannot believe what has happened to our country in such a short amount of time. The government arbitrarily deciding who can survive and who can’t. This is tyranny! It’s absolutely outrageous!
I don’t think that I can go along with your ideas that corporate government has risen, while the Law has fallen.
I might be convinced that the People have laid down, to allow corporations to stand on them. It is good though that you are recognizing that corporate government is stepping on the People, with no Lawful authority to do so. In the hope that the People might be growing weary of the Tyranny of the situation, this seems a good spot for an excerpt from the LibertyLetter:
The officers you are serving it on have a duty to inform you, should you be incorrect or unlawful. This enables you to find / establish / and know the truth for yourself. Should the next elected corporate Lackey want to question your standing.
In the decades since I made these filings, I have just been sitting here minding my own business and waiting for the corporate government to impose on me lawfully. What could possibly be wrong or illegal about that? In the meantime, I am paying all of the taxes that are required of me by law. I have heard from a great many people about how wrong I am about all of the points I’ve stated so far. And, I assume that if I am indeed wrong, it should be a very simple matter for the government to make a lawful determination and set me straight.
But, with all of the people I have heard from, few of them are associated with government and none of them have Lawful authority higher than mine. Should I think that I am right because the “powerful” people are silent, or, should I think that I am wrong because I am just an “ordinary” man?
Even though I am just an ordinary man, I tend to believe that I am right when no one in government is willing to cite any lawful authority that would say that I am wrong.
There is often a difference in what we may think or believe and actual reality. It seems such a shame to see so many millions of productive people coerced into such an unreal belief as federal supremacy in America. But, knowing actual reality will require your determination, you will have to challenge what you are told in order to know it as true or false.
If you should decide to make these filings, all that you are doing is returning to your original Lawful status and challenging the corporate government to hold with the Declaration and Constitution. This is the quickest, simplest, and above all, most powerful way to regain and retain your Liberty.
This is only my opinion, but it seems to me that for as long as you are convinced that permission is needed from some great higher authority, American Liberty will be in peril. Our foundation is that we are the authority, it seems that we need to re-learn that and explain it to our hired help in Washington D.C. In my experience with this subject, it seems that there are two things that no one wants to do, regardless of their corporate position.
One is to give permission, and the other is to make a determination. It appears to me that if the Congress really had the great authority that they are credited with, they would not be so dependent on OUR determination.
It only demonstrates that we, are the authority. This is what it comes down to, each must make their own decision and determination, it is nothing different from what you are already doing. It’s just that the determination you are already making is probably costing your future.
It makes me sick to hear a politician make a statement along the lines of “we can’t let people provide for their own retirement”. We elect a representative and all of a sudden we have an expert/daddy deciding what is best for us concerning our own lives. When did the role change? It changed when “We the People” abdicated our responsibility for self governance.
See, that is the way that it works, if you don’t make the determinations for your own life, some self-interested politician will be glad to do it for you, or coerce you to yield your authority. And if you let it go on long enough, you then are hearing about what else they can’t “let” you, in regard to your own life… because they know best.
But, our determination seems to be very much needed.
The USA has, from the very beginning, stood in defiance of a world that would withhold permission. It seems ironic that we, the children of rebellion, would now put so much into asking or seeking permission for what we should be able to determine on our own. Our forefathers held with what they determined to be right as individuals, and they collectively stayed the course to base our Republic on a foundation of self governance by law of the people.
Both their brilliance and humility are evidenced in the perfection that they left in our Constitution. The only thing that they could not fix would be our determination to keep it. Maybe that is as it should be.
The spirit of the times may alter, will alter. Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless. A single zealot may become persecutor, and better men be his victims. It can never be too often repeated, that the time for fixing every essential right, on a legal basis, is while our rulers are honest, and ourselves united. From the conclusion of this war (revolution) we shall be going down hill. It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves, but in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights. The shackles, therefore, which shall not be knocked off at the conclusion of the war, will remain on us long, will be made heavier and heavier, till our rights shall revive or expire in a convulsion.
There are two subjects which I shall claim a right to further as long as I have breath: the public education and the subdivision of the counties into wards (townships). I consider the continuance of Republican government as absolutely hanging on these two hooks. Where every man is a sharer in the direction of his ward republic or of some of the higher ones, and feels that he is a participator in the government of affairs, not merely at an election one day in the year, but every day; when there shall not be a man in the State who shall not be a member of some one of its councils, great or small, he will let the heart be torn out of his body sooner then his power be wrested from him by a Caesar or Bonaparte.
Thomas Jefferson
If you are afraid, stop and feel the fear as much as you can. While it is with you, ask yourself if it could possibly be right that you are living in a country founded on the principles of freedom, Liberty, and the Sovereign rights/authority of the people, yet you bow in fear of its government. While so many gave their very lives to secure these unalienable rights to this great nation, you have only to stand up to secure them to yourself and your posterity. If you will, you will learn that fear is a powerless jailer.