One issue that I have not covered since the beginning of the year has been the horrendous action by the United States Federal Government in passing the draconian legislation covered under the so called "National Defense Authorization Act" or NDAA for short. By the passage of this criminal act, the US government could potentially arrest and detain any US citizen under just the "suspicion" of being a "terrorist". The passage of the NDAA legislation makes it potentially possible to have anyone who is against the policies of the United States, to be labelled a terrorist, arrested, and detained, without any trial or any justification! I have been asking myself the basic question: How the HELL have the American people allowed their own government to pass such horrific legislation and where is the public outcry?
I was in conversation with my friend, Whitewraithe, the other day, and she told me about an article that she posted in her blog, Pragmatic Witness, at
. After reading this article myself, entitled: "NDAA - Why The Executive May Not Violate The Constitution And Remain In Office", I realized the implications of the facts in her report, and I decided that I would put it up in my own blog for everyone to see for themselves right here. I have some of my own comments to follow:
IT IS NOT JUST A PIECE OF PAPER
When King James I accused Sir Edward Coke (pronounced “Cook”) (1 February 1552 – 3 September 1634), of treason for suggesting that his (James’s) sovereign power might be under (below) the law, Chief Justice Coke replied: “Thus wrote Bracton: the king is under no man but God and the law”.
As Lord Denning points out, this saying has “reverberated down the centuries” to make judges the guardians of the constitution, (What Next in the Law, pp. 311-318).
Today, it is not King James the first, but Barack Obama, who thinks he is under no man and under no law, and who brazenly imposes his attempted personal rule of the USAwithout the Constitution.
Plato wrote:
“Where the law is subject to some other authority and has none of its own, the collapse of the state, in my view, is not far off; but if law is the master of the government and the government is its slave, then the situation is full of promise and men enjoy all the blessings that the gods shower on a state.”
[Source: -- Cooper, John et al. Complete Works By Plato, page 1402 (Hackett Publishing, 1997).]
Likewise, Aristotle endorsed the Rule of Law, writing that “law should govern”, and those in power should be “servants of the laws.” Writing in The Politics 3.16, Aristotle said:
“[I]t is more proper that law should govern than any one of the citizens: upon the same principle, if it is advantageous to place the supreme power in some particular persons, they should be appointed to be only guardians, and the servants of the laws.”
This ancient concept of the Rule of Law is to be distinguished from rule by law, i.e. unconstitutional man-made orders attempting to intimidate the people into allowing the overthrow of the existing Constitution by giving a “politcal mandate” to remain in office when by demonstrable acts those who have voided their oaths of allegiance and office are outside the law, and self-discharged and are merely DETAINING office. That is Obama’s rule BY his law, his personal override of the law, not the Constitutional Rule OF Law.
According to political science professor Li Shuguang: “The difference… is that under the rule of law, the law is preeminent and can serve as a check against the abuse of power. Under rule by law, the law can serve as a mere tool for a government that suppresses in a legalistic fashion.”
[Source: -- Tamanaha, Brian. On the Rule of Law, page 3 (Cambridge University Press, 2004)]
Albert Venn Dicey, writing in The Law of the Constitution, summed up the Rule of Law as supreme above every individual, including the head of state:
“We mean in the second place, when we speak of the ‘rule of law’ as a characteristic of our country [England], not only that with us no man is above the law, but (what is a different thing) that here every man, whatever be his rank or condition, is subject to the ordinary law of the realm and amenable to the jurisdiction of the ordinary tribunals.”
Obama is subject to the law of the realm, he is not above it, as required by this ancient and venerable tradition of the Rule of Law which upholds freedom.
It is also said in regard to a lawful Constitution that “a stream cannot rise above its source”. By stream is meant all those officers occupying temporary posts to which they are elected or appointed in bodies and organs created by the Constitution and through whose ministrations power temporarily flows.
Thomas Aquinas, at Question 97, Article 4 of the Summa Theologica said the same thing in these words:
“For nothing can act beyond its own species; as an effect does not exceed its cause.”
What did he mean? He meant this: the CONSTITUTION IS THE “CAUSE”, it creates the structures of government. Those who fill elected and appointed offices in those structures, by command of constitutional procedures, are “EFFECTS”, not CAUSES.
An EFFECT is created BY a cause; an EFFECT cannot also BE the cause; an elected or appointed officer under a CONSTITUTION who defies the Constitution by pretending to “pass” unconstitutional “laws” is an EFFECT attempting to act like a CAUSE. This is not possible; it is unconstitutional; it is a COUP upon the lawful CAUSE, the CONSTITUTION.
The Constitution is the source, the stream is merely the channel through which the officer fulfills his functions prescribed by that source. And therefore, the officer is required to swear an oath to keep his place, an oath to not rise above the source. For, if he rises above the source of his temporary conditional power, he substitutes himself for the source; he replaces the Constitution with himself, and if in seeking to impose his tyranny he recruits the people, then he fools the people, for he exploits the people to overthrow not only the lawful Constitution, but themselves.
Delivering the judgment of the court in MARBURY v. MADISON, 5 U.S. 137 (1803) 5 U.S. 137 (Cranch), Chief Justice John Marshall said:
The question, whether an act, repugnant to the constitution, can become the law of the land, is a question deeply interesting to the United States; … It seems only necessary to recognise certain principles, supposed to have been long and well established, to decide it.
That the people have an original right to establish, for their future government, such principles as, in their opinion, shall most conduce to their own happiness, is the basis on which the whole American fabric has been erected. … The principles … so established are deemed fundamental. And as the authority, from which they proceed, is supreme, and can seldom act, they are designed to be permanent.
This original and supreme will organizes the government, and assigns to different departments their respective powers. It may either stop here; or establish certain limits not to be transcended by those departments.
The government of the United States is of the latter description. The powers of the legislature are defined and limited; and that those limits may not be mistaken or forgotten, the constitution is written. To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing; if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained? The distinction between a government with limited and unlimited powers is abolished, if those limits do not confine the persons on whom they are imposed, and if acts prohibited and acts allowed are of equal obligation. It is a proposition too plain to be contested, that the constitution controls any legislative act repugnant to it; or, that the legislature may alter the constitution by an ordinary act.
Between these alternatives there is no middle ground. The constitution is either a superior, paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means, or it is on a level with ordinary legislative acts, and like other acts, is alterable when the legislature shall please to alter it.
If the former part of the alternative be true, then a legislative act contrary to the constitution is not law: if the latter part be true, then written constitutions are absurd attempts, on the part of the people, to limit a power in its own nature illimitable.
Certainly all those who have framed written constitutions contemplate them as formingthe fundamental and paramount law of the nation, and consequently the theory of every such government must be, that an act of the legislature repugnant to the constitution is void.
This theory is essentially attached to a written constitution, and is consequently to be considered by this court as one of the fundamental principles of our society. It is not therefore to be lost sight of in the further consideration of this subject.
If an act of the legislature, repugnant to the constitution, is void, does it, notwithstanding its invalidity, bind the courts and oblige them to give it effect? Or, in other words, though it be not law, does it constitute a rule as operative as if it was a law? This would be to overthrow in fact what was established in theory; and would seem, at first view, an absurdity too gross to be insisted on. It shall, however, receive a more attentive consideration.
It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. Those who apply the rule to particular cases, must of necessity expound and interpret that rule. If two laws conflict with each other, the courts must decide on the operation of each. [5 U.S. 137, 178] So if a law be in opposition to the constitution: if both the law and the constitution apply to a particular case, so that the court must either decide that case conformably to the law, disregarding the constitution; or conformably to the constitution, disregarding the law: the court must determine which of these conflicting rules governs the case. This is of the very essence of judicial duty.
If then the courts are to regard the constitution; and he constitution is superior to any ordinary act of the legislature; the constitution, and not such ordinary act, must govern the case to which they both apply.
Those then who controvert the principle that the constitution is to be considered, in court, as a paramount law, are reduced to the necessity of maintaining that courts must close their eyes on the constitution, and see only the law.
This doctrine would subvert the very foundation of all written constitutions. It would declare that an act, which, according to the principles and theory of our government, is entirely void, is yet, in practice, completely obligatory. It would declare, that if the legislature shall do what is expressly forbidden, such act, notwithstanding the express prohibition, is in reality effectual. It would be giving to the legislature a practical and real omnipotence with the same breath which professes to restrict their powers within narrow limits. It is prescribing limits, and declaring that those limits may be passed at pleasure.
That it thus reduces to nothing what we have deemed the greatest improvement on political institutions-a written constitution, would of itself be sufficient, in America where written constitutions have been viewed with so much reverence, for rejecting the construction. But the peculiar expressions of the constitution of the United States furnish additional arguments in favour of its rejection.
The judicial power of the United States is extended to all cases arising under the constitution. Could it be the intention of those who gave this power, to say that, in using it, the constitution should not be looked into? That a case arising under the constitution should be decided without examining the instrument under which it arises?
This is too extravagant to be maintained.
The press and media, and countless politicians, falsely call VOID laws “law” and the “law of the land” and declare that it was “passed” when no such thing is possible under the Constitution. The people hear these things, and are tricked to believe that tyranny is law and that law is “stripped” and that they have lost their rights, and the Constitution, and that nonetheless, they must OBEY these void laws. This is false. This is the opposite to reality, the opposite to truth:
Unconstitutional Official Acts
16 Am Jur 2d, Sec 177 late 2d, Sec 256:
The general misconception is that any statute passed by legislators bearing the appearance of law constitutes the law of the land. The U.S. Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and any statute, to be valid, must be In agreement. It is impossible for both the Constitution and a law violating it to be valid; one must prevail. This is succinctly stated as follows:
The General rule is that an unconstitutional statute, though having the form and name of law is in reality no law, but is wholly void, and ineffective for any purpose; since unconstitutionality dates from the time of it’s enactment and not merely from the date of the decision so branding it. An unconstitutional law, in legal contemplation, is as inoperative as if it had never been passed. Such a statute leaves the question that it purports to settle just as it would be had the statute not been enacted.
Since an unconstitutional law is void, the general principles follow that it imposes no duties, confers no rights, creates no office, bestows no power or authority on anyone, affords no protection, and justifies no acts performed under it…..
A void act cannot be legally consistent with a valid one. An unconstitutional law cannot operate to supersede any existing valid law. Indeed, insofar as a statute runs counter to the fundamental law of the lend, it is superseded thereby.
No one Is bound to obey an unconstitutional law and no courts are bound to enforce it.
Jon Roland:
Strictly speaking, an unconstitutional statute is not a “law”, and should not be called a “law”, even if it is sustained by a court, for a finding that a statute or other official act is constitutional does not make it so, or confer any authority to anyone to enforce it.
All citizens and legal residents of the United States, by their presence on the territory of the United States, are subject to the militia duty, the duty of the social compact that creates the society, which requires that each, alone and in concert with others, not only obey the Constitution and constitutional official acts, but help enforce them, if necessary, at the risk of one’s life.
Any unconstitutional act of an official will at least be a violation of the oath of that official to execute the duties of his office, and therefore grounds for his removal from office. No official immunity or privileges of rank or position survive the commission of unlawful acts. If it violates the rights of individuals, it is also likely to be a crime, and the militia duty obligates anyone aware of such a violation to investigate it, gather evidence for a prosecution, make an arrest, and if necessary, seek an indictment from a grand jury, and if one is obtained, prosecute the offender in a court of law.
Americans have NOT lost their rights. The Constitution has not been “stripped”. However, there have been acts of treason and attempts to overthrow the Constitution by intimidating and deceiving the people that they must obey void “law” and bow to tyranny. The remedy is the COURT, not an “election”. This is criminal, not political. Congress has been self-discharged, how can Americans possibly allow those same people to sit and pretend to pass further “law”. Where is the logic in considering that people who perpetraed treason and are necessarily self-discharged, may sit sit back down again and vote to repeal the “void” and non-existent “law” they pretended to “pass” and which is only the proof of their treason.
Those elected to office under an existing Constitution are required to swear an oath of allegiance which entails non-abuse of powers conferred (LOANED) by that existing Constitution.
A court is bound by the history of the common law to assert its own supremacy over the Executive. To paraphrase Lord Templeton’s words in M. v. Home Office [1994] 1 AC 377 @ 395, to deny this supremacy would, if upheld, establish the proposition that the executive obeys the law as a matter of grace and not as a matter of necessity, a proposition which would reverse the result of the [English] Civil War.
In the United States of America, the matter of judicial control of the Executive has been put in the following way:
“No one, no matter how exalted his public office or how righteous his private motive, can be judge in his own case. That is what courts are for.” (United States v. United Mine Workers, 330 US 258 @ 307-309 (1947)).
For the Courts to maintain the Rule of Law and assert control over the Executive requires steadfastness on the part of the judiciary. As Chief Justice John Marshall of the United States Supreme Court so memorably stated in Marbury v. Madison, 5 US 137 1803:
“It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. … This is of the very essence of judicial duty.”
The supremacy of the judicial branch of government was reaffirmed by the unanimous Supreme Court decision in the landmark desegregation case of Cooper v. Aaron, 358 US 1 (1958), where it was said (@ 25) that:
“The duty to abstain from resistance to “the supreme Law of the Land,” U.S. Const., Art. VI 2, as declared by the organ of our Government for ascertaining it, does not require immediate approval of it nor does it deny the right of dissent. Criticism need not be stilled. Active obstruction or defiance is barred. Our kind of society cannot endure if the controlling authority of the Law as derived from the Constitution is not to be the tribunal specially charged with the duty of ascertaining and declaring what is “the supreme Law of the Land.”
And yet, candidate Ron Paul wants to be that “controlling authority”. He wants to play at “politics” with people who are self-discharged for acts of treason which Paul now pretends these same people have the “legal” power to “repeal”.
The Court’s most basic duty under the common law is to assert its supremacy over all other actors in the body politic. And so, it was also said in Cooper v. Aaron, 358 US 1 (1958) (@ 23) that:
“from their own experience and their deep reading in history, the Founders [of the United States of America] knew that Law alone saves a society from being rent by internecine strife or ruled by mere brute power however disguised. `Civilization involves subjection of force to reason, and the agency of this subjection is law.’ (Pound, The Future of Law (1937) 47 Yale L. J. 1, 13.) “
“The conception of a government by laws dominated the thoughts of those who founded this [358 U.S. 1, 24] Nation [USA] and designed its Constitution, although they knew as well as the belittlers of the conception that laws have to be made, interpreted and enforced by men. To that end, they set apart a body of men, who were to be the depositories of law, who by their disciplined training and character and by withdrawal from the usual temptations of private interest may reasonably be expected to be `as free, impartial, and independent as the lot of humanity will admit.’ So strongly were the framers of the [United States'] Constitution bent on securing A REIGN OF LAW that they endowed the judicial office with extraordinary safeguards and prestige. No one, no matter how exalted his public office or how righteous his private motive, can be judge in his own case. That is what courts are for.”
And yet, Ron Paul is attempting to make that same “Congress” judge in its own case when most of same are self-discharged for high treason by pretending to “pass” “into law” a REIGN OF TYRANNY that is nothing but VOID laws, an attempt to rule by mere brute power in place and instead of THE CONSTITUTION.
A Sitting Executive Can Become an Incipient Coup
As history unequivocally shows, an elected Executive can depart from its oath to become a coup. They do this by deliberately exceeding the limits imposed by the existing Constitution, the sole source of their own power; and by demonstrating intent to exceed those limits (which is equivalent to discarding sworn oaths) by imposing or planning to impose a de facto “new” Constitution of their own devising in place of the existing Constitution under which they were elected and sworn. In the present case of the NDAA, the Patriot Act, etc., the “new” constitution is A POLICE STATE.
A perfect example of a sitting Executive becoming a coup is the 11 November 1965 UDI of Ian Smith, who had served as a duly elected Prime Minister of the British self-governing colony of Southern Rhodesia from 13 April 1964 until his UDI.
That UDI, that Unilateral Declaration of Independence of Southern Rhodesia by a sitting Prime Minister converted Smith and his Executive co-conspirators into traitors to the lawful Constitution. Ian Smith and his Executive rewrote, and replaced the lawful Constitution with one of their own. This is a world-famous COUP.
Therefore, it is clear that an elected and sitting Executive can indeed become a COUP.
It is the high duty of competent courts of the USA to control the Executive, that is, to reign in Executive action to keep it under the existing Constitution and within the Rule of Law. Surely, the American people are running in droves to their courts as this is being written! The Fourth Amendment, the Second Amendment, the Fifth Amendment, all alleged to be “REPEALED”! And it’s a LIE.
It is a very grave situation when those who cover the news are apparently not qualified to cover it when it concerns matters of constitutional law, or constitutional law versus international law, because they MISLEAD the people! NDAA has been “passed” they say, it is “now the law of the land” clamor the broadcasters! And the politicians… in particular those who claim to strictly adhere and uphold the Constitution, all agree! The Constitution’s been “repealed”, you have “no rights”! Vote for me, I’ll return your rights, I’ll “restore” the Constitution. A generous offer: to “restore” what neither he nor his colleagues has any legal ability or power to remove! (Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!)
In addition, the U.N. regime has for decades now encouraged the notion of undistilled “democracy” as superior to everything else, including to lawful constitutions. This is tantamount to upholding insurrection over the Rule of Law, the very equivalent of what Obama and his self-ousted Congress are attempting to accomplish by pretending that it is just everyday election-day “politics” to attempt to impose a police state or maybe the people will vote to have their constitution “back”.
But, in fact it is NOT gone at all, because UNCONSTITUTIONAL LAWS ARE VOID, THEY ARE NOT “LAW” AND SHOULD NOT BE CALLED “LAW” and they have NO POWER TO “REPEAL” HUGE PARTS OF THE CONSTITUTION.
The overthrow of the constitution cannot be “voted” on at an election; TREASON cannot be “voted” on and accepted or rejected “democratically” by the people at an election. ELECTIONS are to determine the will of the people as to constitutionally VALID policy, not to use the people to accept or reject UNCONSTITUTIONAL rule by tyranny.
The citizens of America must make a stand for true democracy, which is not raw democracy, but democracy integrated into a lawfully entrenched constitutional system under the Rule of Law.
The failure of the press and media to exercise a criticial sense, and to discharge their duties objectively is threatening the peace and the lives of the people, most notably those who are innocent or unsophisticated.
This amounts to abuse of power by the press and media, and the consequences of this abuse can all too easily spread to other nations also attempting to uphold the Rule of Law over rule-by-the-law-of-tyrants. If one nation falls before this onslaught, then what of the others?
Obama Self-Discharged by his Void Oath of Office
Perjury is a criminal act; perjury voids the oaths of allegiance and office. If that were not the case, there would be no point taking the oath, you could step into office and do as you please. But the oath binds you to the limitations imposed by the Constitution.
If, once you get in, you attempt to exceed those limits, you have LIED to gain office; the oath which alone allowed you to take your seat as a legislator is VOID as a LIE. How can Obama who has voided his oath by signing NDAA and pretending to “pass” INDEFINITE MILITARY DETENTION into “law” CONTRARY TO THE CONSTITUTION, and who has ordered the cold-blooded murder of American ciizens, now pretend it’s just a “political” option and we can all “vote” on it at the next election?
That is a COUP.
United States President, John F. Kennedy, in The President and the Press: Address Before the American Newspaper Publishers Association on 27 April 1961, said:
“And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment.”
If I were a citizen of the United States, I would wake up now and realize that precisely what President Kennedy warned of has occurred, and it is time to immediately visit a competent court to launch ouster proceedings against Obama and all who pretended to “pass” NDAA into “law” because they are NOW usurping, not exercising office, being self-discharged for treason. Citizens in every State should be running to court right now.
Moreover, those detaining the presidency of the United States of America as proxies for the Council on Foreign Relations, the Bilderberg Group, the Trilateral Commission and other nodes in that supranational network, plan to seize and annex Canada’s land, people and resources to complete a North American Union that is well underway on PRETEXT OF 9/11.
Obama’s unilterally imposed police-state constitution is on the SAME PRETEXT. They both go together: continental union (the hijacking of Canada) and police-state VOID “laws” to control masses in their millions, and which will also spread to Canada as my country is hijacked and reeled in to your USA police state.
We already have so-called Prime Minister Stephen Harper (de facto, not de jure), who is Obama’s best personal friend, illegally funnelling over $5 million in Canadian tax dollars to RADICAL COMMUNISTS IN QUEBEC whom Haperr calls “democratic partners”. Harper is helping to destabilize Canada for dissolution on completion of illegal “deep integration”, which means, he, too, is out of office for HIGH TREASON.
Meanwhile, Mr. Obama is waiting with his arms wide to receive the balkanized remains of Canada into his North American Soviet Police-State Union. I’m not playing the phony “voting” game which only buys time for the COUP to cary out further tyranny. I’m letting the Courts decide. You should do likewise:
[1] JUDICIALLY NULLIFY
[2] IMPEACH
[3] INDICT.
This is CRIME, not POLITICS.
NTS Notes: The information presented here is factual and can be easily researched by everyone.
What we have by the passage of the NDAA and other criminal legislation of the US Federal Government (possibly also the new ACTA agreement) are illegal acts that absolutely violate the laws laid out in the US Constitution.
The facts here are absolute, and what we have in the United States right now is a criminal government passing laws and legislation without Constitutional authority. That means that all of the new laws that we have seen over the last while in the United States are null and void and the American citizens do not have to obey them.
Please take this article and spread it around for everyone to see for themselves, especially my readers living in the United States.
What you have, my American readers, is a Federal Government in Washington that is in direct violation of the US Constitution and it is up to the American people to enforce the law and have it removed from office immediately! But good luck to that... Most American people are too dumbed down or too frightened today to take such an action against their criminal representatives. As a result the United States of America, as what the founding fathers had envisioned, will shortly pass into oblivion, replaced permanently by the tyrannical police state we see unfolding today.
