We the Jury...

Commentary

We the Jury...

Doug Fiedor

Ask any public servant if our Constitution is the "law of the land" and they will reply in the affirmative. However, if one mentions to anyone in government that any action, law, rule, or regulation performed or proposed that is contrary to the Constitution must then be a violation of the law of the land, one would get a blank stare --- and an angry bureaucrat.

The sorry fact is that all public servants must swear an oath to God to support the Constitution, but few even know or understand it. There-fore, they violate the law of the land regularly. And often intentionally.

One maxim in the law many lawmakers like to use to admonish citizens with is that ignorance of the law is no excuse. The problem is, none of us can know the law anymore because there is too darn much of it. So, as citizens, we much prefer James Madison's (The Federalist Papers No. 62) admonishment to those in government:

It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is today, can guess what it will be tomorrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?

Many of our laws, rules and regulations today are not even close to being Constitutional. Alexander Hamilton (The Federalist Papers No. 78) admonishes both the American people and their public servants on that:

There is no position which depends on clearer principles than that every act of a delegated authority, contrary to the tenor of the commission under which it is exercised, is void. No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid. To deny this would be to affirm that the deputy is greater than his principal; that the servant is above his master; that the representatives of the people are superior to the people themselves; that men acting by virtue of powers may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid.

The United States Supreme Court agreed with Hamilton. In Norton v. Shelby (118 US 423), the Supreme Court said that: "An unconstitutional act is not law. It confers no rights, it imposes no duty, it affords no protection, it creates no office."

There is no Constitutional authority for the federal government to pass laws concerning our personal arms, our local environment, personal vehicles, food, toilets, water, drugs, farming, and a few hundred other things they are involved in regulating. They wrongly assumed their own authority.

Even when the Supreme Court tells Congress and the administration they have no authority to do certain things, they disregard the Court's order and continue on anyway. In so doing, they also violate our Constitutional rights.

18 USC 241 states that "if two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States...They shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, they shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death."

More tuned to Congress, the administration and law enforcement is 18 USC 242: "Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or to different punishments, pains, or penalties, on account of such person being an alien, or by reason of his color, or race, than are prescribed for the punishment of citizens, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if bodily injury results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include the use, attempted use, or threatened use of a dangerous weapon, explosives, or fire, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death."

So, on our side we have the Constitution. We have the legal explanation of the Constitution in The Federalist Papers. We have a few Court cases on our side. And, we even have some statutory law with which to use to prosecute those in government who violate the above.

All we need now is a citizen's grand jury and a prosecutor and judge willing to do their duty.

Any volunteers for jury duty?

Mr. Fiedor publishes a newsletter Heads Up --- A Weekly View from the Foothills of Appalachia that is free to all at http://209.15.142.23/reports/headsup/list-hu.html. His e-mail is [email protected].