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We are Looking for Local Coordinators in Colorado

The Colorado Tenth Amendment Center (CO-TAC) is looking for Coloradoans who are passionate about liberty and freedom to help lead the Tenth Amendment movement by becoming a local chapter coordinator.  This is a long-term commitment to help build the movement in your local county and/or city.  Our goal at CO-TAC is to have a local coordinator in every county and major city in Colorado to help promote constitutional government.

For more information about the Local Coordinator Program and the application, click here.

If you’re interested in other volunteer opportunities, there are a lot of supporting roles that need to be filled.  Please click here to contact us with more info about your interests.

The U.S. Health Care Crisis: Conscience vs. Force

I watched with dismay during last year’s health reform debates as the principles of natural health and wellness were not only trampled upon, but decimated. This is after many months of testimony from highly qualified physicians that integrating natural health and wellness into the current health care system would reduce chronic health costs by over 78%! We need to go no further to solve the U.S. health care crisis, yet government agencies-and policies- have all but criminalized the use of natural health products and services- yes, including the nutritional supplements you buy at your local health food store.

And you expect me to trust government run health care?

And what of the entanglements between government, political  lobbies and corporate profits? What if, on the basis of ethics alone, I make decisions to chose products and services other than those that are sponsored or run by the government?

Does that place me at risk for being profiled by the government? For making conscientious, ethical choices and decisions about my health care?

In all my years, I have never fathomed witnessing such insanity in our nation today.

I remember during the health reform debates the public outcry by Physicians for a National Health Program. I may remind you, I have agreed to disagree with these docs for years, as they do not yet, anyway, support the use of natural health products and services as a solution to health reform. However, I do highly respect these doctors as colleagues who are totally committed to the care and well-being of their patients. Here from their website is Dr Margaret Flowers:

Frontline Fronts for Corporations, Not the PublicApril 16, 2010
By Margaret Flowers, M.D. |
Counterpunch
It was with a sense of déjà vu that I watched the latest Frontline documentary about health care. “Obama’s Deal” endeavored to reveal the significant influence of health industry dollars on our political process……..

Yes, there are those corporate entanglements again. And our recently passed Health Reform Bill is full of them. Now we Americans are mandated to purchase private health insurance- with the Internal Revenue Service appointed the watchdogs to make sure we have purchased insurance ‘acceptable’ to government standards- frankly, what does that mean and who, exactly, in the government defines these standards?

Given that no two people are alike, and certainly their health care needs will vary exponentially, can we really expect an impersonal government agency to know what is best for us as individuals? What about these entanglements with corporate profit making at the expense of the American public?

Sorry, the Founding Fathers risked their lives so that this would never happen in this country. And We the People had better stand up and overturn this- before it is too late.

In reality, millions of Americans do a fairly good job of keeping themselves healthy by integrating natural health and wellness along with their conventional health regimes. And with all this drama about health reform, natural health is dying a fairly rapid demise at the hands of federal regulators like the FDA and the FTC. We, the people, must affirm our Sovereignty- within our states and as individuals- and fight for the freedoms to make our own decisions about keeping ourselves healthy- before it is too late.

Many Americans have become comfortable expecting some form of government run health care. This is one of our greatest liabilities as a free people. We have, carte blanche, accepted the false security of government run services such as health care.

In years past, our ancestors relied on themselves and they relied on Our Creator for health and healing. They believed that Our Creator provided everything we need to get healthy and stay healthy.

I can assure you; this outlook is so outside our comfort zones as Americans. Yet, it will likely be our primary recourse if we value our freedom vs. mandated government run health care and standards.

No one is suggesting this is an easy position to take. I will be honest; I work on this attitude towards my own health and healing daily. I look forward to the day when I can be free of any health insurance and am secure, in my own faith, that everything I need for my own health and healing is available to me.

This is but one example where I consider myself a ‘conscientious objector’ to a government policy. 

What of the conscientious objector today? I base my choices on ethics, integrity and my right as an individual to make my own decisions under the guidance and direction of My Sovereign God. I wholeheartedly believe this right was granted to me under the U.S. Constitution and understood by our Founding Fathers.

In 1948, the issue of the right to “conscience” was dealt with by the United Nations General Assembly in Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It reads: “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.” And where is the United Nations in protecting my rights as a conscientious objector to current government policies? No where to be found. And it that is true of me, it is true of many millions of Americans whose human rights are being violated daily by oppressive, restrictive and forceful government policies such as those found in the latest government health reform debacle.

I say, No More!

State Sovereignty- and the Sovereign Rights of the Individual- today and every day.

Let’s start engaging in this dialogue, get past our left-right biases and limitations and move forward as a nation, and as a people. I’m ready, are you?

Principles of Self-Governance

I don’t know about you, but I like being free to make my own decisions. I like being in charge of my own life. I might even be so bold as to say I don’t like people telling me what to do!

No surprise, then, that the concept of sovereignty is very appealing to me.

In reality, I value weighing the pros and cons of various issues and then thoughtfully and responsibly making informed choices. I truly consider this process essential to sovereignty or self-governance.

Not only do I really value the principle of sovereignty, I try hard to foster it in others. I work with people all day long. I see people from all walks of life and situations. I work in an acute care mental health treatment center. We care for adults dealing with some sort of significant mental/emotional pain. I’ve been a practicing psychiatrist for almost ½ of my life and in the field for the past 28 years.

I can tell you, first and foremost, that no 2 people are alike. In fact, people are so complex, they respond to similar circumstances very differently. And most people know themselves fairly well.

When I ask a person what they think about their treatment, including a particular medication or dose, many initially seem surprised that I would ask, saying, ‘You’re the doctor, just tell me what to do’. Most, however, when realizing they are being invited to partner in their own treatment and outcome, welcome the dialogue, and proceed to engage in a meaningful discussion. These conversations seem to genuinely help the person feel validated, listened to, and an active participant in improving the quality of his or her life.

The same is true when I worked with parents. Believe me, no one knows their child better than caring concerned parents. Back to sovereignty, people having the authority and the ability to choose what is best for them. I for one, have faith that most individuals have the capacity for self rule. Not that they do, and not that many even consider that they can, or are capable of making decisions that are right for them.

But we need to start having the dialogue. In fact, in recent years there have been many more threats to our rights as individuals to self govern. We must, as a people, dialogue about these issues- our freedoms, our right to chose for ourselves- before it is too late.

I will take this issue one step further. Who am I, or any other person or agency, to have the authority to make highly personal decisions for anyone else?

I believe we, as a nation, have spent so much energy attacking one another for our beliefs, we have failed miserably to listen to one another, communicate with one another and respect our individual decisions about our own lives.

This is equally true of the ‘left’ as well as the ‘right’ wing political proponents. How do I say this, you ask?

Rick Montes, in “What is a Tenther?” clearly articulates the issues for the average conservative right wing voter.

The people on the left, on the other hand, like to portray themselves as caring ‘for the people’. But I will challenge the left (and I have many friends left of center on the political spectrum) to consider how government run programs and policies support our individual rights- and our freedoms- to chose what we believe is best for ourselves and our families.  Regrettably, our rights to chose freely have been trampled upon for many decades, under the often well-intentioned guise of caring for people.

Let us, we the people, affirm our sovereign right to self-govern before it is too late.

 

The Case against Case Law

Understanding the Constitution part III: Misinterpreting the text

Today when you hear the term Constitutional Scholar or Constitutional Expert you get the image of someone who has studied the Constitution and perhaps the Ratification Debates as well as the federalist papers.  Someone who has studied the philosophers whose opinions were crucial to how our nation was to be governed like Blackstone, Cicero and Montesquieu and understands the context the Constitution was written in. 

You would be wrong, Constitutional Law as it is today is really Case Law and it has very little to do with what the text says and everything to do with reinventing that text to make it say what it needs to say to allow the expansion of the central government through the practice of precedents.  This comes from a philosophy called “Legal Realism”, where the law is whatever the Judges say it is.

 Our opponents say;  How can we expect a document written two hundred years ago by back woods farmers, who rode in horse drawn buggies, to govern our society today?  Besides, they owned slaves and did not allow women to vote, is that what you think we should go back to?  All of you tea partiers with your pocket constitutions are out of line when you question the Federal Government because original intent is no longer important in Constitutional Case law.  Our society has progressed, and our understanding of the Constitution must progress with it.  It is a “living” document that must evolve with the times. 

But we agree with historian Kevin Gutzman, author of “The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution” who has said those that would give us a “living” constitution are really giving us a dead one, since such a thing is completely unable to protect us from the encroachments of Government power.  Furthermore, a Government without “strict” limits is tyranny.  Here is a warning from Thomas Jefferson in the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 talking about the how the powers of the Federal Government were to be defined:

That the several States composing, the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government; but that, by a compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a general government for special purposes — delegated to that government certain definite powers, reserving, each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force: that to this compact each State acceded as a State, and is an integral part, its co-States forming, as to itself, the other party: that the government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers; but that, as in all other cases of compact among powers having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress.”

Case Law has set up a system where the final word on the power of the Federal Government is left to the Federal Government.  Instead of a Government of “We the People”, we have a central government that tells us how to live because we are not smart enough to do this for ourselves.  Has the time come where we start to take back our Country from the political class, and reclaim the ideals of Popular Sovereignty so we can pass that freedom to our Children?  I hope so.

Five for Freedom Resolution #4

“Resolution #4 covers the extension of efforts already underway in the legislature
and elsewhere to begin the move to asset-backed “honest money” exchanges for state
operations.  Digital Gold Currency (DGC) Exchanges and other similar asset-based
exchanges are the future source of competitive currencies as the dollar continues
its long term decline.  Setting up such facilities through state tax collection
operations has already been signed into law in Idaho and is under consideration in
several other states.  The Resolution directs elected officials at all levels to
continue to develop similar efforts here in Colorado.

“Five for Freedom” Proposed Resolution 4- Regarding Honest Money Exchange

 

Whereas, The 10th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States reads as follows:

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people,” and

Whereas, through various entreaties and Resolutions already submitted, the People of Colorado and the State General Assembly have both pleaded and demanded the federal government and its agencies cease and desist its un-Constitutional activities in mandating and imposing upon the State those federal mandates, programs, fiscal and odious financial obligations that have no Constitutional authority; and

Whereas,  the US Congress enacted, through the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 the private Bank known as the Federal Reserve Corporation (FRC), a corporate central-bank scheme, granting un-Constitutional and unprecedented monopoly power and policy administration over the money of the United States, and

Whereas, the FRC proceeded over the next 96 years to debase the value of the dollar by 95%, thereby directly contravening its principal granted charter of price stability, and

Whereas, most recently, through vile and reprehensible monetary policy the FRC has previously increased the Monetary Base ~120% through these policies, guaranteeing future massive inflation; created out-of-thin-air and loaned, on obligation of the United States ~$1 Trillion dollars to foreign and domestic Primary Dealer/Money Center banks without disclosure of terms, identification of the borrowers or independent audit of the loan status, and

Whereas, the FRC has aided and abetted the US Congress and successive Executive Administrations through further debasement of both the Federal Reserve Note, known as the ‘dollar,’ and  of US Treasury Bills, Bonds and Notes by creating out-of thin-air more dollars to directly purchase those Bills, Bonds and Notes further guaranteeing the massive inflation of the dollar, and now,

Therefore, Be It Resolved that, the ___________________ County Republican Party, its elected officials and candidates shall, in order to protect the People of Colorado at each and every opportunity presented in their capacity as current and future elected officials:

 

l        Introduce, support and assist the enactment, by all available and possible means, the passage of legislation that enacts into law and directs the use of private electronic Digital Gold Currency (DGC) exchange and/or other Colorado-based, protected and audited storage and exchange similar or equivalent to that specified by HB09-1206 introduced in the last (2009) legislative session and  HB10-1155, introduced in the 2010 session.

l        Introduce, support and assist the enactment, by all available and possible means, the passage of legislation that enacts into law and directs/allows the use of private Digital Gold Currency (DGC) exchange facilities and/or other Colorado-based, protected and audited storage and exchange, by the State Treasurer, any city and county financial director, or other political subdivision of the State for the payment or refund of any taxes to the State or any of its political subdivisions, to be implemented during a period not to exceed 3 years.

Votes Yea_____________Votes Nay_____________

County_______________Precinct #____________    Precinct Sec._____________________________