7-20-03
 

Message To Bush, Frist, Hastert And Hyde:

Prepare Yourselves. You Are In For An Awakening.


You will soon be called to account for your acts before you make further mockery of our Constitution. 

Be forewarned, we are not talking about Election Day.  We are wiser now. 

While the government entities under your leadership have been on a nationwide Reign of Terror against the People, abusing the limited legal authorities that have been delegated to you, infringing upon the constitutionally protected Rights of the People and seeking to suppress even the People’s Right to public discourse concerning such abuses – we have been doing our “homework”. 

We are a small, but committed group of ordinary Americans.  Over the years, we have become dedicated students of history, law, political philosophy, the nature of our Constitutional Republic and the nature of men that are drawn to influence and control governments.  We have sought solutions for what ails our nation.

As the recent course of events has played out across our country, we have learned much.  As we have prepared to peacefully repel your acts of tyranny by public examination of the law of the land and our Constitution, we have come to rediscover knowledge that, for whatever reasons, has been systemically suppressed, hidden and virtually eradicated from the public discourse of high school civics classes, college history courses, law school text books, daily newspapers, the debate floors of our representative government and our courtrooms of justice.

Here’s what we’ve learned:

According to our Constitution, we now know the People have two Fundamental instruments to hold you, our government officials, directly accountable:

The Right To Vote and the Right to Petition for a Redress of Grievances. 

While we know that the Right to Vote is used by the majority to hold you accountable to public opinion on matters regarding political questions, now we can irrefutably establish that the 1st Amendment Right to Petition is the Constitutional instrument that empowers individuals and the minority to hold you accountable to Constitutional principles and individual Rights. 

We have documented the historical evolution and sheer power of this “forgotten” Right, and have now come to understand why in modern times those in power have quietly -- and very deliberately, let the last ten words penned in the First Amendment come to be disdained, ignored, misconstrued and otherwise shunned.  

It is now time to breathe life into this forgotten ancient Right and to fully exercise the Sovereign power it brings voice to – for in it, the future of both our nation and our freedom lives. 

Last fall, the People served you with Petitions for Redress of Grievances regarding the government’s abuse of its war-making, police, taxing and debt-creating powers.   YOU HAVE IGNORED OUR PETITIONS.

We will shortly file a class action lawsuit against you for a declaration of our Rights and for injunctive relief.

We will also make public a significant body of academic and legal research documenting the true nature and power of this relatively unknown Right.  We will spread this knowledge across our land.

We will seek to establish, as our Founding Fathers irrefutably intended, that the Right of Petition is the “capstone” Right that protects all other Rights and enables, and facilitates, the direct exercise of popular sovereignty. As history shows, the abuse of this Right was the pivotal and final rationale for the Declaration of Independence and the establishment of a new form of government.

This Right is the cornerstone of popular sovereignty. It insures that those that seek protection of their unalienable Rights as a disadvantaged minority – or as an Individual – will be heard and will enjoy their Sovereignty over their servant government without resorting to violence. 

Make no mistake.  Regardless of how this lawsuit ends, there can be only one of two possible outcomes:
1) The court will uphold the Right of popular sovereignty as embodied within the Right to Petition or,
2) We no longer have a Constitutional Republic. 

There is no middle ground that the courts or the government can stand upon. 

On November 14, 2002, at the culmination of Freedom Drive 2002, nearly one thousand People from all states of the Union gathered on the National Mall across from the Capitol, to await a response to our four Petitions for Redress of Grievances. Not one representative from the 535 member Congress or from the Executive bothered to respond. 

As you will recall, last November 8th, you and every other member of Congress were formally served a copy of our PETITION FOR REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES RELATING TO THE APPLICATION OF THE ARMED FORCES OF THE UNITED STATES IN HOSTILITIES IN IRAQ WITHOUT A CONGRESSIONAL DECLARATION OF WAR.  

That Petition, signed by thousands of individuals, sought answers to questions regarding the Iraq Resolution, by which Congress, in October, at Mr. Bush’s request, committed no less than an illegal delegation of the Constitution’s war-declaring power to the Executive. The Iraq Resolution did not declare that a state of war existed between Iraq and the United States. Instead, the President was authorized to decide and discern when, and if, a state of war exists. 

Mr. Bush, you did not inform Congress that a state of war existed between Iraq and the United States. You did not detail Iraq’s hostile acts against the United States (of which there were none). 

Mr. Hyde, as Chairman of the Committee that adopted and recommended Congressional approval of the President’s Iraq Resolution, you said it is not necessary to follow the Constitution’s war powers clauses, which, you said, were “anachronistic“ and unnecessary because the Constitution was outdated. 

Messrs Frist and Hastert, your Houses did not recognize an existing state of war. You did not even hold an open hearing to question the President’s motives or the nature and extent of any threat posed by Iraq against the security of the United States. Had you done so, you potentially could have revealed the truth about Iraq’s non-possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction, about Iraq’s non-purchase of uranium from Niger, about Iraqi’s inability to launch chemical and biological weapons “in 45 minutes,” about Iraq’s lack of Al-Quaeda connections, about the true nature and extent of conflicts of interest and undue influence by Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney and others in power regarding Iraq’s oil, and so on.

Instead, you turned a blind eye to the Constitution and allowed Congress to improperly delegate its constitutional responsibility to Mr. Bush, as if to say: “You decide when and if there is a state of war. You decide what to do about it.” 

A deaf ear was then turned to our Petition for Redress, which was served on the President and every member of Congress within 30 days of the adoption of the Iraq Resolution and four months before our military invasion of Iraq.

Mr. Bush, having colluded with the leaders of Congress to violate the Constitution’s war making clauses, you then proceeded to cover the People with a blanket of lies and deceitful propaganda to garner support for your decision to invade Iraq, all while ignoring our Petition for Redress. 

Had you Messrs Frist and Hastert followed the plain language of the Constitution, the People’s elected representatives in Congress would have discovered what is now painfully clear: Iraq had not committed any hostile acts against the United States and was NOT an immediate threat to our national security.  

As all of you will recall, last November 8th you and every other member of Congress were also served with three other Petitions for Redress of Grievances regarding 1) the U.S.A Patriot Act and Constitutional limitations on your police powers; 2) the Federal Reserve System and Constitutional limitations on your money-making and debt creation powers; and 3) the income tax and Constitutional limitations on your power to tax the people directly. 

Those three Petitions have also fallen on deaf ears. 

We find your response woefully inadequate and alarming.  With each passing day, the risks and costs arising from these abuses of authority increase for our nation, our economy and our very Liberty.  Even, perhaps, with the best of intentions, you have disregarded our Founding Document and the principles for which it stands. 

We know that the Right to Petition is the cornerstone -- the “Holy Grail” -- of popular sovereignty.  

To be reduced to only the vote is to be reduced from our Constitutional Republic to a mere democracy,
with no hope for the minority to protect their individual, unalienable Rights, Freedoms and Liberties against
the will of the majority. 

What is now clear is that the federal government is committing wrongful, unconstitutional acts resulting in injuries, loss and damage to millions of American citizens and directly threatening our Freedom and our Constitutional Republic. 

In spite of Constitutional prohibitions, the Executive branch has applied the armed forces in hostilities in Iraq
without a Congressional declaration of war and -- without lawful authority -- taxed the labor of the People
to pay for the mischief -- and the Congress has acquiesced. 

In spite of Constitutional prohibitions, the Executive branch is printing paper money without regard to any
stockpile of gold or silver, then selling that paper money to a cartel of private banks for the cost of the ink
and paper, then borrowing back that paper money from that cartel with principal equal to the face amount
printed on the paper money and at an interest rate determined by the cartel, then taxing the labor of citizens
to pay the interest on that “debt” -- and the Congress has acquiesced.

In spite of Constitutional prohibitions, the Executive branch is directly taxing the labor of the working men
and women of America, forcing companies to withhold that direct tax from the wages and earnings of their
 workers -- and the Congress has acquiesced. 

In spite of Constitutional guarantees, the Executive is – without legal authority --collecting its tax on labor
through a nationwide campaign of fear, intimidation and coercion and by the use of swarms of armed
agents to search and seize the private property of working Americans -- and the Congress has acquiesced. 

In spite of Constitutional guarantees, the Executive and the Congress have refused to hear the citizens’
Petitions for Redress of these grievances. 

In spite of Constitutional guarantees, the Executive is harassing and penalizing those citizens whose Petitions for Redress have gone unanswered and who now are acting to stop the withholding and payment of the illegal direct tax on labor, and tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court are cooperating in this abuse of government power. 

The Constitution is hanging by a thread – the First Amendment Right to Petition, which includes the Right of Redress “BEFORE TAXES”, is the only non-violent means by which the American people can directly confront unlawful government conduct.

This Right to Petition is essential to the protection and preservation of individual liberty and equal justice under the law.  The American People are being systematically denied this unalienable Right by the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches of the federal government. 

We The People have Petitioned the Executive and the Legislative branches. They have unlawfully ignored our Petitions. We will now Petition to test the attitude of the Judiciary. We seek a declaration of our Rights and injunctive relief.
 
We either live in a nation bound by a written Constitution that binds government to limited authority delegated by the People -- or we don’t.  We shall soon see which one it is. 


”Nothing is more certain than that beneficent aims however great or well directed can never serve in lieu of constitutional power.”

CARTER v. CARTER COAL CO., 298 U.S. 238 (1936)


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