Kill the Bill, Invoke the 10th

by Brian Roberts

[Originally posted on TenthAmendmentCenter.com, reprinted with permission.]

The federal government takeover of the health care industry and your loss of medical freedom only lacks a Presidential signature to become a federal law. We the people know that this cannot stand if America is to remain a free country. Keep your head up, it is time to invoke the 10th and kill this bill and the others soon to follow once and for all.

Lenin said:

“Medicine is the keystone of the arch of socialism” and “The goal of socialism is communism.”

Thomas Jefferson said:

“Whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force”

Ignore Washington D.C.
They are ignoring you, return the favor. In his speech on Saturday, Obama referred to you as “astroturf”. In political terminology that insinuates that you were paid for your phone calls and someone picked up your travel expenses and bought your dinner for your troubles. That’s one way they ignore you. Another way they ignore you is to use an unscrupulous process to pass an unconstitutional health care bill that changes the foundation of your country overnight.

If you’re like me, when you call representatives, write letters or attend tea parties, you pick up the tab and sacrifice your own personal time in hopes that someone will listen. I’d much rather spend my time and money with my family, business or hobbies than hoping my actions will result in my federal representatives actually representing. And anyone that could have done anything about the health care bill is in Washington D.C., you can’t meet with them, you don’t know them and you cannot reasonably hold them accountable. How can you really expect them to feel any pressure to represent you? Yes, morally your expectations are valid because they should do the will of the people. Unfortunately, the reality is without the power to exert an opposing force, you will continue to be disregarded as a mere annoyance.

Own your State
Last year, I wrote a series of articles for Tenth Amendment Center entitled, “Crossing the Chasm to Freedom”. Using business experience as a template, I argued that the best way to enter a market (in this case a political market) is to dominate a small market, own it and then expand from there. This is a well-known marketing strategy among early stage technology companies. The reason this works is that your limited resources can be used to exert a dominant influence on an identified target and you can expand from there. This is the same strategy that the allies used in World War II to captured the beachhead in Normandy and from there liberate the entire continent of Europe. Imagine the level of failure that the allies would have experienced if the same brave soldiers that took the beach were airdropped all across the countryside. It would have been a complete failure.

In our case, the small market that we can dominate quickly is our state government. From here we can team with other like-minded states and form a block of resistance that has real legal possibilities, much more powerful than rallies, letters and phone calls. Owning our state governments is an absolute necessity.

Ignore the Feds, Empower the States

We have state governments for a reason. Regardless of what today’s media would have you believe, state representatives are not elected state paper-shufflers or federal mandates. State governments share power with the federal government as equal partners in a system designed to decentralize power and protect “we the people” from foreign and domestic threats.

Ignoring D.C. actually means that we must use state governments to defy unconstitutional federal laws, starting with the health care bill today. The federal government itself must be identified as the threat and we must use the legal power of our state governments under the 10th amendment to eliminate the threat, and formally ignore unconstitutional mandates.

Jefferson described the 10th as “the foundation of the Constitution” and added, “to take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn … is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition.”

The feds took that step today.

States have many constitutional options when dealing with the federal government including court challenges, nullification and interposition to name a few. Individually, you do not have these, so you must focus on using your influence to make sure your state representatives know about and are willing to use these tools. The first steps are already moving forward as 37 states have introduced Health Care Freedom legislation. In addition, state attorney generals have already stated their intention to challenge these federal bills as unconstitutional.

Individually, “we the people” have a very important role too. We must influence our state representatives, and then encourage them. And, when the going gets tough we must stand shoulder to shoulder with them in defiance of what will be an intimidating federal response. “Ignore the feds, empower the states” must be our mantra.

Expect a Federal Response

Ghandi had it nailed:

“First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win. “

For the most part, the federal government has ignored any resistance to the health care bill. Tea Parties have been ridiculed as radicals of all varieties such as “tea baggers”, “astroturf”, “racists”, and “domestic terrorists”. But, they have never formally acknowledged the existence of this movement. Once we begin to focus our attention on the state governments, everything changes. The media will be unable to ignore a block of defiant states. Personally, you will be ridiculed as a “tenther” (I think this is pretty cool) but once states exhibit defiance it will not be long before the federal government shifts it’s focus to the states not the individuals. That’s when you will know that you are not being ignored anymore.

At a minimum, your state will be ridiculed as out of touch with reality, as constitutional rogues, racists, and more. The governor of your state and your state representatives will be positioned as little more than common rabble rousers and will be the target of incredible pressure to compromise. But this must be overcome before we can win and we must solidly stand with state representatives. Federal funds will be used to coerce states to comply as has been common practice for some time. This will be specifically painful with health care because defiant state’s federal funds will be used to finance compliant state’s health care. However, this cannot be allowed to stand for any significant amount of time so states must be influenced to pass state legislation that denies the federal government what they covet most, tax revenue.

From here on, resolve will be the key. Not just your resolve, but the resolve of the rest of the citizens in your state. So it’s our responsibility to educate neighbors and make sure the right state representatives are in place.

Win
In order for us to reset this country and return to spending time with our businesses, families and hobbies; we must again in no uncertain terms confirm the revolutionary message that the people are the source of power. The federal government must fear the people, and the state governments are the legal method in which to achieve this goal. Jefferson clarified the goal:

“When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”

Ignore the Feds, Empower the States.

Brian Roberts is the State Chapter Coordinator for the Texas Tenth Amendment Center

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