Constitutional Oversight Posse
Following is a letter, currently in the draft phase, to be sent to Speaker of the House John Boehner on the occasion that our membership count reaches one million prior to the November election. Anyone with carefully thought out ideas regarding this letter is welcome to send the ideas to us at luchadora41@gmail.com - we cannot guarantee a response to every message, but we will try not to neglect any ideas that are succinctly stated and particularly noteworthy.
August 2, 2012
Honorable Speaker of the United States House of Representatives John Andrew Boehner:
This letter was approved by United States citizens, numbering over one million, who are voting members of the rapidly growing Constitutional Oversight Posse (COP). We, along with millions of people who are not yet members, have observed that the federal government as a whole has become an outlaw. All three branches of the federal government have become complicit in twisting the interpretation of the Constitution far beyond what was ratified in the original document and in its various amendments. Through step-by-step encroachment on the rights of the states and of the people, the federal government has grown to assume numerous powers that would never have been ratified under the amendment process. Yet, the amendment process, requiring ratification by three quarters of the states, is the only method that the Constitution allows for changing the law under which the government operates. It follows that the federal government is, and has been for many decades, breaking the law, the Supreme Law of the Land. In a nation in which the government as well as the people are, in order to maintain a civil and fair society, ruled by law, the law-breaking activities of the federal government cannot be tolerated.
The Constitution codifies the wishes of the ratifiers—the states and the people who voted to ratify the Constitution as they understood it at the time of ratification. The Constitution was understood to limit the government, not to allow government to unilaterally alter what was ratified. What the ratifiers enacted permitted changes to what they understood as the meaning of the code only through an amendment process in which the changes are likewise ratified by the states and the people. The original ratifiers said to us, in essence, “You may change our minds only if you, the states and the people of the future, also become ratifiers by following the ratification process that our document has prescribed. The government may not by themselves change our minds. Only the prescribed ratification process involving the states and the people may change our minds.” How, in human nature, could they have possibly meant otherwise? As the Declaration of Independence says, the government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed.
Who is responsible for enforcing the Constitution? Many have assumed that the enforcement of the Constitution is the responsibility of the Supreme Court. However, the Supreme Court, composed of people appointed by power-hungry presidents and approved by government-loving legislators, has time-and-again aided and abetted the commission of high crime by twisting the words of the Constitution completely away from their ratified meanings. The Wickard versus Filburn case of 1942, in which the Supreme Court allowed the federal government to reach into the states and regulate the non-commerce of a farmer growing wheat for his own use, is a case in point. Another is the failure of the Supreme Court to nullify the entirety of the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010. In both cases the Supreme Court allowed the government to exercise power that the people and the states that ratified the Commerce Clause did not intend to allow. Had these aberrations been written explicitly into the Constitution, the Constitution would never have been ratified. Obviously, the Supreme Court cannot be counted on to enforce the Constitution.
Then, who can enforce the Constitution? Next in line would be the Legislature. The Constitution gives the House of Representatives the power to impeach and, together with the Senate, to expel or conduct quo warranto actions against any official in the judicial branch or the executive branch who fails to honor the oath of office. It also gives the House and the Senate each the power to expel any of its members who fail to honor the oath of office.
We find, however, that neither the House nor the Senate has sought to exercise its enforcement responsibility except begrudgingly and in very few cases. The members of the House and of the Senate are therefore complicit in the crime. Who is left to enforce the Constitution but the states and the people?
The states, governed by people whose ambition and lust for control is surpassed only by that of members of the federal government, have become so subject to federal subsidies and favors and so intimate with federal enforcement actions, most of which are unconstitutional, that they, with a few exceptions, have become complicit with the federal government in usurping the Constitution. That leaves the people, who are the victims of the government’s violations of the Constitution.
Normally, we would expect that the people could rid the government of oath violators through the election process. However, a large portion of the electorate is now dependent on big government. The government employees are dependent on big government for employment. The welfare recipients are dependent on the government for hand-outs. The unions are dependent on big government for undeserved legislative advantages. The crony capitalists and crony socialists are dependent on the exercise of unconstitutional powers by the government to help secure them against free-enterprise competition. The federal government has done an excellent job at focusing the gain and diffusing the pain, and the elections are now consistently swung by those who benefit from big government at the expense of the remaining individuals in this country. Incumbents in the House win reelection with a 90% probability, and incumbents in the Senate win reelection with an 80% probability, despite the fact that most of these legislators are regularly violating their oaths of office. This explains why the election process no longer enforces the Constitution.
How else may the people put the government back under constitutional control? The Declaration of Independence would have us overthrow the government at the cost of blood, if necessary. We did this once, and we would rather not have to do it again. Ayn Rand would have the productive members of our society abandon the country and let the lawless leeches that remain suffer the consequences. This is what happened in China after the Maoists took over, and four decades of strife and deprivation followed. We seek another solution.
We are the Constitutional Oversight Posse (COP). Our mission is to hold to account any representative or senator, executive branch officer, or federal judge who violates the oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. We intend to accomplish this mission by way of the least damaging course available. We will not act on our own to forcibly remove from office those officials who have violated their oaths of office. Instead, we will convince you, Honorable Speaker, to carry out your constitutional duties in regard to prosecuting violators of the oath of office.
Your first act will be to use the power granted to you by the Constitution to bring about the expulsion of Attorney General Eric Holder by whatever means will result, to as great an extent as possible within the stated time limit, in the nullification of the unconstitutional actions Mr. Holder and his charges have taken while in office. You will complete the expulsion within two months of the date of this letter. Should you fail to take all necessary steps to achieve this objective within the given timeline, you will, in the opinion of the COP, be liable for arrest for violation of your oath of office and for your complicity as part of a rogue government allowing violations of the Constitution to continue unpunished. Arrangements for this contingency are currently being made with appropriate state and local law enforcement authorities.
To assist you in convincing the members of the House and the Senate to follow your lead, we will alert any such members you may designate of our opinion of their liability for arrest in the case that they should act to hinder this process of expelling Mr. Holder. Arrest for the high crime of aiding and abetting the violation of the oath of office is a serious issue, and all who may be arrested will be judged in courts of law by their actions and not by their words.
Should you fail to faithfully do your part toward achieving the objectives, you will not be excused by an inability to convince the members of the House and of the Senate to follow through. The multi-million-strong COP will provide all of the backup that you will need. Use it.
Attorney General Holder is our choice as the first violator to be prosecuted, because his acts have been among the most egregious. A few of Mr. Holder’s actions that would not have been condoned by the ratifiers of the Constitution or by the ratifiers of the amendments to the Constitution are the following:
1. Mr. Holder’s refusal to comply with congressional subpoenas.
2. Mr. Holder’s selective enforcement of laws concerning voter intimidation, with a clear intention on Mr. Holder’s part to base enforcement on race.
3. Mr. Holder’s support of a lawsuit by the Attorney General’s office in complicity with the government of Mexico, against Arizona for passing legislation intended to protect Arizona from an invasion by illegal aliens, including Mexican nationals, Hezbollah operatives, and others.
4. Mr. Holder’s support of lawsuits against states, including Florida, seeking to prevent these states from passing legislation, as is their right, to ensure the integrity of elections.
Two days of hearings on each of these issues should be all that you need to pull together the overwhelming evidence of Mr. Holder’s disregard for the Constitution.
Honorable Speaker Boehner, over one million people are putting themselves at risk to convince you and the people you must lead to stop the violations of the Constitution by members of our government. The determination of these patriots and the many who will support them must not be underestimated. We trust that you will do what is right, and we now give you the backing that you need to overcome the obstacles in your path.
Respectfully,
The Constitutional Oversight Posse
August 2, 2012
Honorable Speaker of the United States House of Representatives John Andrew Boehner:
This letter was approved by United States citizens, numbering over one million, who are voting members of the rapidly growing Constitutional Oversight Posse (COP). We, along with millions of people who are not yet members, have observed that the federal government as a whole has become an outlaw. All three branches of the federal government have become complicit in twisting the interpretation of the Constitution far beyond what was ratified in the original document and in its various amendments. Through step-by-step encroachment on the rights of the states and of the people, the federal government has grown to assume numerous powers that would never have been ratified under the amendment process. Yet, the amendment process, requiring ratification by three quarters of the states, is the only method that the Constitution allows for changing the law under which the government operates. It follows that the federal government is, and has been for many decades, breaking the law, the Supreme Law of the Land. In a nation in which the government as well as the people are, in order to maintain a civil and fair society, ruled by law, the law-breaking activities of the federal government cannot be tolerated.
The Constitution codifies the wishes of the ratifiers—the states and the people who voted to ratify the Constitution as they understood it at the time of ratification. The Constitution was understood to limit the government, not to allow government to unilaterally alter what was ratified. What the ratifiers enacted permitted changes to what they understood as the meaning of the code only through an amendment process in which the changes are likewise ratified by the states and the people. The original ratifiers said to us, in essence, “You may change our minds only if you, the states and the people of the future, also become ratifiers by following the ratification process that our document has prescribed. The government may not by themselves change our minds. Only the prescribed ratification process involving the states and the people may change our minds.” How, in human nature, could they have possibly meant otherwise? As the Declaration of Independence says, the government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed.
Who is responsible for enforcing the Constitution? Many have assumed that the enforcement of the Constitution is the responsibility of the Supreme Court. However, the Supreme Court, composed of people appointed by power-hungry presidents and approved by government-loving legislators, has time-and-again aided and abetted the commission of high crime by twisting the words of the Constitution completely away from their ratified meanings. The Wickard versus Filburn case of 1942, in which the Supreme Court allowed the federal government to reach into the states and regulate the non-commerce of a farmer growing wheat for his own use, is a case in point. Another is the failure of the Supreme Court to nullify the entirety of the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010. In both cases the Supreme Court allowed the government to exercise power that the people and the states that ratified the Commerce Clause did not intend to allow. Had these aberrations been written explicitly into the Constitution, the Constitution would never have been ratified. Obviously, the Supreme Court cannot be counted on to enforce the Constitution.
Then, who can enforce the Constitution? Next in line would be the Legislature. The Constitution gives the House of Representatives the power to impeach and, together with the Senate, to expel or conduct quo warranto actions against any official in the judicial branch or the executive branch who fails to honor the oath of office. It also gives the House and the Senate each the power to expel any of its members who fail to honor the oath of office.
We find, however, that neither the House nor the Senate has sought to exercise its enforcement responsibility except begrudgingly and in very few cases. The members of the House and of the Senate are therefore complicit in the crime. Who is left to enforce the Constitution but the states and the people?
The states, governed by people whose ambition and lust for control is surpassed only by that of members of the federal government, have become so subject to federal subsidies and favors and so intimate with federal enforcement actions, most of which are unconstitutional, that they, with a few exceptions, have become complicit with the federal government in usurping the Constitution. That leaves the people, who are the victims of the government’s violations of the Constitution.
Normally, we would expect that the people could rid the government of oath violators through the election process. However, a large portion of the electorate is now dependent on big government. The government employees are dependent on big government for employment. The welfare recipients are dependent on the government for hand-outs. The unions are dependent on big government for undeserved legislative advantages. The crony capitalists and crony socialists are dependent on the exercise of unconstitutional powers by the government to help secure them against free-enterprise competition. The federal government has done an excellent job at focusing the gain and diffusing the pain, and the elections are now consistently swung by those who benefit from big government at the expense of the remaining individuals in this country. Incumbents in the House win reelection with a 90% probability, and incumbents in the Senate win reelection with an 80% probability, despite the fact that most of these legislators are regularly violating their oaths of office. This explains why the election process no longer enforces the Constitution.
How else may the people put the government back under constitutional control? The Declaration of Independence would have us overthrow the government at the cost of blood, if necessary. We did this once, and we would rather not have to do it again. Ayn Rand would have the productive members of our society abandon the country and let the lawless leeches that remain suffer the consequences. This is what happened in China after the Maoists took over, and four decades of strife and deprivation followed. We seek another solution.
We are the Constitutional Oversight Posse (COP). Our mission is to hold to account any representative or senator, executive branch officer, or federal judge who violates the oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. We intend to accomplish this mission by way of the least damaging course available. We will not act on our own to forcibly remove from office those officials who have violated their oaths of office. Instead, we will convince you, Honorable Speaker, to carry out your constitutional duties in regard to prosecuting violators of the oath of office.
Your first act will be to use the power granted to you by the Constitution to bring about the expulsion of Attorney General Eric Holder by whatever means will result, to as great an extent as possible within the stated time limit, in the nullification of the unconstitutional actions Mr. Holder and his charges have taken while in office. You will complete the expulsion within two months of the date of this letter. Should you fail to take all necessary steps to achieve this objective within the given timeline, you will, in the opinion of the COP, be liable for arrest for violation of your oath of office and for your complicity as part of a rogue government allowing violations of the Constitution to continue unpunished. Arrangements for this contingency are currently being made with appropriate state and local law enforcement authorities.
To assist you in convincing the members of the House and the Senate to follow your lead, we will alert any such members you may designate of our opinion of their liability for arrest in the case that they should act to hinder this process of expelling Mr. Holder. Arrest for the high crime of aiding and abetting the violation of the oath of office is a serious issue, and all who may be arrested will be judged in courts of law by their actions and not by their words.
Should you fail to faithfully do your part toward achieving the objectives, you will not be excused by an inability to convince the members of the House and of the Senate to follow through. The multi-million-strong COP will provide all of the backup that you will need. Use it.
Attorney General Holder is our choice as the first violator to be prosecuted, because his acts have been among the most egregious. A few of Mr. Holder’s actions that would not have been condoned by the ratifiers of the Constitution or by the ratifiers of the amendments to the Constitution are the following:
1. Mr. Holder’s refusal to comply with congressional subpoenas.
2. Mr. Holder’s selective enforcement of laws concerning voter intimidation, with a clear intention on Mr. Holder’s part to base enforcement on race.
3. Mr. Holder’s support of a lawsuit by the Attorney General’s office in complicity with the government of Mexico, against Arizona for passing legislation intended to protect Arizona from an invasion by illegal aliens, including Mexican nationals, Hezbollah operatives, and others.
4. Mr. Holder’s support of lawsuits against states, including Florida, seeking to prevent these states from passing legislation, as is their right, to ensure the integrity of elections.
Two days of hearings on each of these issues should be all that you need to pull together the overwhelming evidence of Mr. Holder’s disregard for the Constitution.
Honorable Speaker Boehner, over one million people are putting themselves at risk to convince you and the people you must lead to stop the violations of the Constitution by members of our government. The determination of these patriots and the many who will support them must not be underestimated. We trust that you will do what is right, and we now give you the backing that you need to overcome the obstacles in your path.
Respectfully,
The Constitutional Oversight Posse