The truth as I see it™

Contrary to the wishes of Congress, the Supreme Court and the lower courts, "we the people" in our capacity as jurors and state legislators have the power to nullify laws we find unconstitutional.

Did the founding fathers opine on this power?  In 1790, James Wilson, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and one of the original six Supreme Court justices said, "Suppose . . . a difference of sentiment takes place between the judges and the jury with regard to a point of law . . . . What must the jury do?  The jury must do their duty . . . . They must decide the law as well as the fact."

In 1794, the Supreme Court agreed with Wilson, when John Jay, the first chief justice, clarified the juror's duty saying, "You (have) a right to take upon yourselves to judge of both, and to determine the law as well as the fact in controversy . . . . Both objects are lawfully within your power of decision."

Once again, a law degree is not needed to understand these words.  Unfortunately, in 1895, the Supreme Court ruled that even though jurors had the "physical power" to nullify, a trial judge does not have to tell them about their power.  In essence, the court told judges to lie to jurors, omitting what they did not want them to know.  This is the ethic of our Supreme Court?

But in the courtroom "we the people," the jurors, judge not only the case, but the law.  The judge may offer directions to the jury; but the judge is just another witness, testifying as to the law.  It is the jury that decides what to accept and what to reject.  John Adams, second president of the United States, summarized: "It is not only (the juror's) right, but his duty . . . to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court."

Can "we the people" use nullification to prevent the United States Congress from enforcing unconstitutional law, and the Supreme Court from illegally "interpreting" the Constitution?  Absolutely.

Nullification is alive and well and flourishing, not only in jury rooms, but in state legislatures across America.  "We the people" are fed up with the federal government unconstitutionally placing itself above the states, using extortion to coerce the states into doing its bidding.

As early as 1798, the Virginia Resolution said, "that in the case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the states who are parties thereto, have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil . . . ."  Further, in 1799, the Kentucky resolutions also identified the states' right to nullify federal law they found unconstitutional.
Today, the state of Montana has nullified federal ammunition and firearm laws with about 15 states following its lead.  Several states, by their actions and statutes, have nullified federal marijuana laws.  Nearly half the states have resolutions nullifying the Bush-era federal "real ID" law.  More states than not are passing "10th Amendment" resolutions, serving "notice and demand" to the federal government to "cease and desist" activities beyond its constitutional powers.  Some states are even preparing laws to nullify nationalized health care, should it happen.

This country belongs to "we the people," not "we the Justices of the Supreme Court," not "we the United States Congress."  The Supreme Court and Congress have supplanted the Constitution, but we can take it back.  Congress may refuse to put forth a constitutional amendment, but we do not need Congress.  The legislatures of two-thirds of the states can bypass Congress and propose a constitutional amendment, which would then need approval of three-fourths of the states to become law.  Further, state legislatures can continue nullifying federal law they find unconstitutional.

The only caution?  Those working to return the sanctity of the United States Constitution must not adopt the methods of the Supreme Court and Congress, dismissing and violating the very Constitution they swore to protect.  Rather, they need to continue the difficult, slow, cumbersome, awkward process of returning this country to the Constitution peacefully and legally--one nullification at a time, one state at a time, one amendment at a time.

Does the  Supreme Court submit to the authority of the United States Constitution, as it should?  Or, is it complicit with Congress, functioning beyond its constitutional powers?

In 1803, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Marshall, trying to preserve the checks and balances in the Constitution, said, "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."  He was addressing Congress, explaining that Congress could not decide if a law it passed was constitutional, that checking power reserved for the Supreme Court.

Sadly, subsequent justices used this process of judicial review to place themselves above the Constitution, and unlike their ruling on Congress, seeing no need for checks and balances on themselves.  Is this unlimited, unchecked power constitutional?

How do judges and justices view the United States Constitution?  Do they revere it as they should?  Do they defend it as they should?  Or do they perceive themselves superior to the Constitution, the Supreme Court becoming the American equivalent of the Iranian Guardian Council, a supreme oligarchy deciding all law?

In 1920, Associate Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes may have violated the Constitution when he said, "The case before us must be considered in the light of our whole experience and not merely in that of what was said a hundred years ago.  We must consider what this country has become in deciding what (the Tenth Amendment) has reserved."  Where does the Constitution grant the court this intuitive power?  Can a Supreme Court justice continue to serve if he or she seeks constitutional rulings outside the Constitution?

In 1949 Associate Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter insulted our intelligence when he said, "The words of the Constitution . . . are so unrestricted by their intrinsic meaning or by their history or by tradition or by prior decisions that they leave the individual justice free . . . to gather meaning not from reading the Constitution but from reading life."  Should a justice who claims the United States Constitution is immaterial be impeached and removed from the court?

In 1992 Judge Richard Posner of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit said, "We find it reassuring to think that the courts stand between us and legislative tyranny even if a particular form of tyranny was not foreseen and expressly forbidden by the framers of the Constitution."  Could he not recall his oath was to uphold the Constitution, not to fix it?

Were the framers of the Constitution so flawed they failed to foresee it not addressing all that it should, needing judges and justices to fill in the gaps?  No.  Fully aware of this probability, they addressed changing the Constitution in Article V, allowing us to amend it when needed.

The unacceptable rub for the courts?  "We the people" must approve amendments to the Constitution.  Nowhere in it is the Supreme Court granted the power to rule based on it "reading life" rather than "reading the Constitution."  Only "we the people" decide changes.  And this is as it should be.

Justices can be impeached; yet Congress continues to turn a blind eye to its constitutional responsibility to impeach justices who fail to "hold their Office during good Behavior."

The Supreme Court has become the American version of the Iranian Guardian Council, the Constitution subservient to its supreme power, just as in Iran.  The only difference?  The Iranian Council has six theologians and six jurists who each serve six-year terms; we have nine near-deities who serve for life.

Is it time to take back the unconstitutional powers the justices have usurped?  Is it time to demand the Supreme Court and Congress submit to the United States Constitution?  The justices and Congress have claimed powers not theirs.  Is there a power above the Supreme Court?  If so, what should happen?

The Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments to the United States Constitution, was ratified by three-fourths of the states in 1791. The Constitution was ratified four years earlier in 1787.

Our Bill of Rights came into existence amid debate and deliberation. Many anti-federalists who supported it previously opposed ratification of the Constitution because that document did not provide many of the individual protections that would be guaranteed in the Bill of Rights.

But the federalists, voiced by Alexander Hamilton, considered the Bill of Rights unnecessary, believing "the people surrender nothing" in the Constitution, and offering protections of specific rights would imply that any unmentioned rights were not protected.

With obvious disagreements, the Bill of Rights, proponed by Thomas Jefferson, was introduced by James Madison during the First United States Congress in 1789.  Near-prophetically, these anti-federalists feared the Constitution created too strong a national government which was a threat to individual rights and would lead to the President becoming a King.  Thomas Jefferson offered this resigned assessment:  "Half a loaf is better than no bread.  If we cannot secure all our rights, let us secure what we can."

So was born the Bill of Rights, our constitutionally guaranteed rights protecting us from the government.  And there lies the problem.  Which government?  Until the early 1900s, the Supreme Court held the view that the Bill of Rights only applied to the federal government, a fact supported by the failure of Madison to get any specific mention of state governments into the Bill of Rights.

The high court did not change its interpretation until decades after ratification of the 14th Amendment in 1868. Rep. John Bingham, the framer of the 14th Amendment, argued that it applied the first eight amendments of the Bill of Rights to the states, the ninth and tenth not referring to specific individual rights.

He believed the first eight amendments to the Constitution, ratified by the states, better represented the people's wishes than case-by-case rulings of the Supreme Court. He did not want the justices arbitrarily deciding how to apply the 14th Amendment to the states, contending the needed individual "due process" protections of the 14th Amendment were already present in the first eight amendments.

The Supreme Court disagreed.  Justice Felix Frankfurter said the court would decide which sections of the Bill of Rights should apply to the states by determining if abridgment of the right would "shock the conscience," meaning the court would decide, case-by-case, if the Bill of Rights applied to the states.

The first real application of the Bill of Rights to the states occurred in 1925, when the Supreme Court ruled that states must uphold the First Amendment right of "freedom of speech."  And so started an ongoing application of parts of the Bill of Rights to the states; most cases using the "Due Process Clause" of the 14th Amendment as the basis for the new application of the Bill of Rights.

The process continues today, the justices deciding our constitutional rights, injecting personal biases of what they want the Constitution to say.  The court is currently hearing the case of McDonald v. Chicago, which asks the court if the Second Amendment "right of the individual to keep and bear arms" applies to states rather than just federal enclaves like Washington, D.C.

Some 218 years after the Bill of Rights was ratified, we continue going before the Supreme Court, trying to regain our rights.  We the people "plead our case," hoping the court will return to us constitutionally guaranteed rights--constitutional rights that are to protect us as citizens of the United States, regardless of our state of residence.

Perhaps I was too hard on President Clinton.  Perhaps he was truthful when he expressed confusion over "what the meaning of the word 'is' is."  As it turns out, the Supreme Court can rule "is" to mean almost anything.  Look no further than our Bill of Privileges.

On Christmas day, a Nigerian man boarded Northwest Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit with a bomb he planned to detonate over the United States, his success prevented more by luck than skill.

The President responded saying there were "human and system failures" and the United States will do "whatever it takes" to defeat the terrorists, a few days ago adding that we need more body scanners in airports.

Could the President be focusing on the wrong solution to the right problem?  Is he correct assuming we need more scanners, more technology and more congressional appropriations?  We react to each new threat with purchases of ever-more expensive technology, determined if we spend enough money and buy enough equipment we can find anything. 

Perhaps our military Special Forces teams understand something we and our President do not; "humans are more important than hardware."  Israel figured this out over 30 years ago and started using trained personnel at their airports to profile people.  Yes, profiling; even though the ACLU and the politically correct would have us believe any type of profiling is unconstitutional. 

Although correct that racial or religious profiling is unconstitutional, behavioral profiling is not; and that is what Israel has mastered.  Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport has not had a serious terrorist threat for more than 30 years.  Why?  Rafi Ron, the former head of security at Ben Gurion, says Israel profiles people by their behavior; "passengers with illegitimate, violent agendas, don't act normally."  And that's the key to security success. 

He explains that our country feels "comfortable with the use of technology which is politically safe for everybody," but fails to provide a good level of security.  And we do so at the risk of American lives.

Israel is not foolish enough to rely on racial or religious profiling, knowing the terrorists would simply alter their recruiting efforts to individuals who would not fit those profiles.  They understand the need to behaviorally profile all passengers.

An excellent example occurred in 1986 when a young pregnant Irish woman was flying from London to Israel.  An Israeli security agent engaged her in pleasant conversation.  The reason?  Pregnant women usually do not travel long distances alone.  Her inconsistent and evasive answers led to a more detailed interrogation, revealing a bomb in her luggage.  Behavioral profiling found what neither racial nor religious profiling could.

Mr. Ron points out we need to screen passengers more than we need to screen for the weapons they use.  A TSA analyst watching the video of the 9/11 terrorists going through security lines at Dulles airport, pointed out that they avoided direct eye contact with security personnel, keeping their head and gazes down.  But TSA personnel could not have engaged these men in conversation to determine if further evaluation was needed, falsely claiming that would be discriminatory, and therefore unconstitutional.

But our Constitution does not prevent behavioral profiling.  Approaching these men based on their behavior would have been neither racial nor religious profiling.  It would have just been common sense.

Behavioral profiling works and the Israelis have proved it works.  So, it's time for the government to train personnel in behavioral analysis; allowing them to approach passengers and engage them in polite, revealing conversation; tastefully, tactfully, and legally. 

The TSA does not need more technology; it needs more personnel appropriately trained to spot behaviors needing further investigation.  Some people will continue to claim that behavioral profiling is discriminatory because a disproportionally small number of children and little old ladies will be searched.  But this actually proves behavioral profiling works because it leads to selecting passengers most appropriate for more interaction.   

Isn't it time to provide real airport security rather than giving us a politically correct false sense of security?  Mr. President, please do not spend more money on a flawed system when a clearly superior, proven system exists.  Learn from your Special Forces.  "Humans are more important than hardware." 

A fact regularly ignored in much of the gun debate - the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution.  In 2008, the Supreme Court revisited the constitutional meaning of the right of the individual to "keep and bear arms," and unequivocally affirmed our constitutional right of individual gun ownership.

That should end the debate because a constitutional right is not the same as a governmental privilege; neither the legislature nor the Supreme Court can change a constitutional right.  Yet, gun control advocates continue discounting this reality with ongoing legislative assaults on our rights.

The diatribe continues with tired and illegal arguments.  One popular "explanation" for limiting gun ownership is that the Founding Fathers intended for citizens to have muskets; therefore, anything beyond a hunting gun is not protected by the Constitution.

False.  First, the Constitution makes no mention of limiting gun ownership in any way, to any type of weapon.  Second, the muskets owned by citizens of the time were the very same muskets carried by the military.  In other words, the Founding Fathers intended the citizens' weapons to be the same as the military's, precisely because the Second Amendment was to arm us to protect ourselves from the government, should that be needed.

Another argument is that the Constitution was intended to be a living document, evolving with the times and needs, reinterpreted by the Supreme Court.
False again.  There is no language in the Constitution suggesting the government or its agent, the Supreme Court, can reinterpret or change the Constitution.  The Founding Fathers clearly stated the only way to change the Constitution is via Article V, an amendment.  The Constitution is amendable, but it is not re-interpretable.

Another popular false argument is that gun control reduces crime.  Even if it were true (which it is not), the government simply does not have the legal authority to take our guns.

I have a proposal.  Let's copy the Swiss.  The Swiss build shooting ranges like we build golf courses.  Those who advocate taking our guns away would cringe at the Swiss, labeling them gun nuts.  Guns are everywhere in Switzerland.

Why?  Because every able-bodied male is required, at the age of 20, to attend the Swiss equivalent of military boot camp and remain in the country's national guard until the age of 30.  During those years they keep in their home their military rifle, similar to our military M-4.

And when they complete their military obligation, they have the option to keep their weapon, once the fully automatic feature is removed, making it similar to our civilian AR-15.

While every able-bodied Swiss male serves in the military, less than 1 percent of United States males ages 18 to 24 serve in our nation's armed forces, according to the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series, a "project dedicated to collecting and distributing United States census data."

Moreover, the Swiss love of guns goes well beyond the military, with the government building gun ranges, sponsoring shooting competitions and holding gun training clinics for all citizens.  Only two nations have more guns per-capita than Switzerland and it has more people trained to use guns per-capita than any place in the world.

And guess what?  It is one of the safest places in the world, although one could argue this does not prove a link between gun ownership and less crime because other factors could be involved.  But Switzerland is an excellent example that gun ownership does not mandate increased crime as we are continually threatened it will.

And there might be an added benefit.  What if we could get Congress as excited about spending money building shooting ranges and providing the citizens with weapons as they are about spending money on water taxis and bridges to nowhere.

Remember, Congress has repeatedly proven its desire to spend huge sums of money, with little concern on how the money is spent.  So let's give them some valuable, useful "pork" to stuff into their legislative bills.  At least we would be getting something of benefit from their determined waste.

The accuracy of environmental science research is critical because decrees by the United States impact the world, along with the consequences of that science.  So, shouldn't we question environmental science?  And, if that science is solid, shouldn't questioning be welcomed, rather than feared?

One of the problems with  environmental science is that it can become politically influenced; leading the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and international organizations to conclusions  and rulings with too little questioning.

Moreover, the likelihood of reversing an erroneous EPA ruling is slim because hell can no longer freeze over now that global warming is "fact."

But this discussion is not about global warming.  No, this is about something that happened in 1972, following decades of questionable science.  The world was saved when the EPA banned the chemical DDT.  Science triumphed over profit.  Or, did political correctness triumph over science?

Just a decade before DDT was banned, the National Academy of Science said, "To only a few chemicals does man owe as great a debt as to DDT."  It's use had prevented over 500 million deaths from malaria.  And conveniently, the United States and most of the industrialized nations of the world did not ban DDT until they had eliminated malaria in their own countries.

What happened following the EPA ruling?  Most public and private donors to Third World countries followed suit, no longer funding DDT use and effectively ending its use in most of these countries.

And the cost to stop using DDT?  Only 50,000,000 lives.  What a great investment for the health of the world, especially since no American or European lives were lost.  We can sleep well knowing we rid the world of DDT -- and millions of children.

Guess what?  The science was bad.  The science was full of half-truths.  The science was politically motivated.  And millions died.  And millions are still dying--over 2,000,000 every year.

Why was DDT banned?  Was it science or was it politics?  In the Oct. 5, 1969, Seattle Times, Charles Wurster, a senior scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund, the activist group behind the ban on DDT, summed it up nicely saying, "If the environmentalists win on DDT, they will achieve a level of authority they have never had before.  In a sense, much more is at stake than DDT."  Impartial scientist or biased activist?

DDT is not responsible for many of the evils claimed.  Of DDT and breast cancer in humans?  Research published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1997 stated that the authors found "no evidence that exposure to DDT and (its metabolite) DDE increases the risk of breast cancer."

And what about DDT and the thinning of egg shells of birds of prey, especially eagles?  In 1968, Joseph J. Hickey and Daniel W. Anderson claimed "increased eggshell fragility" in birds of prey was caused by DDT. Years later they admitted the egg extracts they studied had little or no DDT and they were now pursuing other chemicals as the cause.

What happened?  What went wrong?  What is still going wrong?  The failure of the science was that it set out to prove DDT was the problem; starting with the desired conclusion and then finding only the data that supported it.  Bad science.  Biased science.  Politically motivated science.

More than 20 years later, in 2006, the Wall Street Journal reported that "after 50 million preventable deaths, the World Health Organization (WHO) reversed course and endorsed widespread use of the insecticide DDT to combat malaria."  The WHO stated, "There's no evidence that spraying DDT in the amounts needed to kill mosquitoes imperils crops, animals, or human health."

Sadly, this was a short-lived victory.  Because of well-placed lobbyists, the WHO quietly did an about face, continuing to promote much more expensive, and much less effective, insecticide-treated nets manufactured by those well-placed lobbyists.  DDT, tremendously effective and much less expensive, still mostly sits on the sidelines.

Also ignoring the evidence, the Pesticide Action Network North America in San Francisco still opposes DDT use, claiming it "could" cause premature births and developmental delays in children.  I suggest the most severe developmental delay is death from malaria.  But that's just my opinion.