Those who have not seen Judge Andrew Napolitano's new program on Fox Business, Freedom Watch, should tune in. It is a great program––maybe the best in many, many year, and greatly needed as the nation teeters on the brink of all out tyranny.
The first four programs have been outstanding. That is not to say certain issues have not engendered disputes––not just with democrats, neocons, radical liberals and republicans, but among Libertarians themselves.
This Saturday morning was one of those instances. Judge Napolitano disappointingly and, I believe, incorrectly criticized the Arizona Law as one that would profile and take the rights and liberties of Mexican Americans––even though the law expressly forbids such action four times–– and usurp the Federal Government's Constitutionally assigned task of defending US borders.
The following is a letter I sent to the Judge in response to that segment on his program. I leave Armadillo readers to it with one small closing remark: Judge Napolitano is a great man, a generous man, a passionate and courageous man and worthy of all our admiration and respect for his unswerving and uncompromising stance for American Liberty and his categorical opposition to tyranny. He is, like Dr. Ron Paul, the real deal.
Our dispute here shows only one thing: what Liberty is and what Tyranny is, though in most cases is clear, is sometimes a difficult and complex thing to discern and something about which men honestly seeking the truth can passionately content.
With that I enter the ring with my superior, but with many more questions begging for satisfactory resolution than claims or conjectures to make. I invite a response and will publish it on my site if given or hope for further clarification on a future program.
Judge Napolitano,
I am a Libertarian because of you, Tom Woods, DiLorenzo, Rockwell and Dr. Paul. I am a big fan and supporter of your work--but I object to you presenting your position on this matter as THE Constitutional one and THE Libertarian one.
Please consider these IMPORTANT issues, none of which you brought up or even remotely touched upon as meaningful in this debate.
––Doesn't it bother you that you are reading things into the AZ law that aren't there and basing some of your objections on hypotheticals rather than actual facts and actions? It seems to me your whole argument is not based upon reality but simply a priori conjecture.
How is that Constitutional?
Without even bringing up the fact that your objections to the law are also objected to in the AZ law and expressly and repeatedly forbidden, considering the following things about "carrying your papers" and reconsider: the Third Reich is already here!
1. I am a citizen of the great Freestate and Sovereign Republic of Texas. Every time I'm stopped by a Texas highway patrolman, even for a tail light being out, I have to produce identification––papers, if you will. If the officer is suspicious he will also ask anyone riding with me for ID (papers).
1. I am a citizen of the great Freestate and Sovereign Republic of Texas. Every time I'm stopped by a Texas highway patrolman, even for a tail light being out, I have to produce identification––papers, if you will. If the officer is suspicious he will also ask anyone riding with me for ID (papers).
And if I do not produce said documents post haste, including up to date insurance, I'll be put in jail and fined (at the very least).
I realize the patrolman uses the excuse that "driving isn't a right" to check me out.
But, in effect, when he asks for my license and insurance he is not just checking IF I have a valid license, but WHO I AM, What my police record is, what other violations I might have had (for which he could also arrest me), if my car is stolen, if I have outstanding local warrants, my registration, if I'm wanted in Texas or other states, how much I owe the local public library for outstanding books, and God knows what all else about me.
He's not just concerned with my tail light or if I have valid license to operate a vehicle. He's doing a whole background check. He could probably get my grade school records back in 1955 at Ages, Kentucky if he wanted and find out I'm not very smart––and futher take advantage of me.
All of this indignity I must bear; simply because I have a freaking tail light out I have to go through a complete background check on the spot, without any recourse to defense or objection!!!!!!!
If he were just checking for my license he could just do that standing at my car.
"Yes, I have a license and, yes, it's valid and up to date. I am a licensed driver, now what seems to be the problem, officer?" But that is the least of what he is interested in.
What he really wants is to
a) see what he can find in order to confiscate what little $$ the government has been gracious enough to leave me after their relentless forced tribute called "taxes" and to
b) exert the absolute police power the government holds over me––to keep me afraid of them and in servile obedience to their slightest whim and every demand, no matter how invasive, absurd or draconian. THAT, to me, is a LOT more offensive and invasive than simply seeing if someone actually has a legal right to be in the country. Yet, US citizens put up with it and are unjustly fined and jailed by the thousands because of it––and there's not a pip or a squeak from anyone in our defense.
Yet, you defend illegals but are silent on this matter–you gulp down a camel but choke on a gnat!
Now let's get somewhat less personal and existential and speak a little more broadly about the consequences of your reading of this law.
2. Doesn't the result of your misreading of the Az. law render the state of Az. absolutely helpless in defending itself when the Feds fail and/or refuse to do the job the Sovereign State of Az. has commissioned its mere agent, the Fed. govt., to do?
If so this brings up the following questions:
––Was the Constitution written so the entities that signed the Compact are rendered helpless and stripped of all means of just defense when the delegated Agent fails in its constitutionally assigned duty?
––Must the assigned duty simply go undone because it benefits the few in America and those with no legal rights while gravely harming the states and the great mass of citizens?
How is this not tyranny of the minority? How is this not a lawless and anarchic interpretation of the Constitution?
Under your reading such seems to be some of the noxious effects.
Where is the Liberty in that?
Further:
––Did the framers ever conceive that the Agent of the states would (or could) shirk said Constitutional duty to defend the border and the Sovereigns would be judged (by Federal judges exclusively) powerless to do anything whatsoever in lieu of said failure and/or refusal?
––Did the Framers ever imagine that the Agent could practice GROSS disobedience to the Constitution while at the same time demanding the Sovereigns kowtow to its every jot and tittle, as interpreted exclusively by the Agent?
Your interpretation seems to say, "Yes."
If so, I get it. I understand you now: implicit in your interpretation, the Sovereign States cannot refuse their Agent's demands, but the Agent can thumb the nose at the Sovereigns with impunity––the deck is stacked, and it is stacked with your assistance because you accept the judgement of Federal courts over those of analogous state courts, (even though that is Marshall's mere theory and NOT in the Constitution.) Thus, the states enter the ring with both hands tied behind them, facing a vicious opponent and a referee who lacks impartiality.
Is that your reading of the Constitution? That the Constitution renders the Sovereigns without resources of any kind, even forbidding them to use their own means and making them helpless to their mere Agent's intents and purposes, no matter how arcane, obscure, injurious---and treasonous?
Does the Constitution restrain the Agent or the Sovereigns---Does the dog wag the tail or the tail the dog?
Under your reading it seems the tail not only wags the dog, it exerts absolute power over it. I see exactly what you're saying: the Constitution was not written to protect, strengthen and empower the states and the people against possible Federal encroachment, abuse and usurpation, but to render them helpless against BOTH Federal ACTION and INACTION?––the sword of Government, according to your interpretation of this law, cuts both ways, but it's the States and the people who receive both wounds while the Feds remain untouched and unscathed.
Is that what you believe? For that is what seems to be implied in your reading of this law?
If so, does your reading not actually utterly contradict the statement you make at the opening of every Freedom Watch: that the Constitution was written to restrain the Agent and protect the people?
What the Hell happened to the "Sovereign" in Sovereign States? Did it go the way of the Dodo bird and the bomp in the bomp a bomp a bomp or vanish with the hoola hoop?
––We know that the Feds, as the agent of the states, are charged with the duty to control the borders. But nothing is said about what the Sovereigns may or may NOT do when the Agent fails and/or refuses to fulfill its Constitutional Commission. Does not the 10th amendment makes it clear that the States can do what ever they please, because their powers are not limited and innumerated. Or does the Constitution contradict itself on this one point and must, therefore, be judged as incoherent and inconsistent?
––Did the states surrender their power to defend their borders in the Constitution or only delegate that power?
––If that power is delegated and not surrendered cannot it be recalled when the Agent fails or refuses its duty?
3. Doesn't your objection extend Citizen rights to non-Citizens, and does so by robbing the rights of Citizens?
Where is that in the Constitution?
––Isn't it a lot less offensive for a non-Citizen here legally to produce proper identification, than the background check I, a citizen, must presently go through every time I have a tail light out in Texas––or any other state?
4. Doesn't it bother you that your objections make it essentially illegal for law officers to determine if anyone is here legally (even a terrorist who is planning to detonate a nuclear device---like the nut who was going to blow up downtown Dallas a few months ago), and that is it the illegal non-citizens (who are without constitutional rights) who really benefit from your argument?
By your argument are you not, in reality, sacrificing the rights of citizens on the altar of non-citizens? How is this not a legal version of the welfare state? Redistribution of rights--that's all we need, don't you think? To those who have not from those who have. Legislated Marxism in the field of citizen rights. Let's share. Why have borders? After all, are we not citizens of the world?....and therefore, subject to INTERNATIONAL courts and tribunals!?!
In summary:
It's an imperfect world but I find your position based upon hypotheticals and conjecture rather than facts, lacking common sense and, frankly, Utopian---Utopianism is neither reason, nor common sense, nor is it oriented to Liberty––it is, in fact, quite the opposite in each case. Utopianism in all its forms seems to me to be a mood, a bad mood if you will, commonly identified with our intellectual enemies on the left.
Your arguments in this instance, in my view, lack common sense and basic human understanding. To wit, if I must choose between living under:
a) the dread of bearing a full background check for a broken tail light or
b) the dread of myself, my family here in Dallas and Dallas itself being largely destroyed by a nuclear devise because the police were helpless to find out who a terrorist was due to the fact that Utopian laws tied their hands to "protect and defend the innocent"–––
I will take the dread of that ID check after a broken tail light as opposed to the high probability of nuclear annihilation each and every time---after all, unlike illegals under your reading of the AZ law, I, as a citizen, must even now undergo that background check, even as your precious illegals go scott free so that some hypothetical citizens of Mexican heritage may not be offended.
I guess, I, as an American citizen of non-Mexican heritage am the only one who has no right to be protected from offense and no right to be physically safe in my own land and the land of my fathers, in order that the Utopian view of a few Libertarians (and a great mass of radical liberals) might be blindly and ubiquitously implemented, and implemented based upon what? The slavish obedience to the Hamiltonian disciple John Marshall's mere theory of ubiquitous Federal Judicial supremacy.
Nonsense. No state would have signed the Compact with that understanding.
I WANT MY CONSTITUTION BACK WITHOUT THE POISON OF JOHN MARSHALL'S CENTRALIZING THEORIES that Federal courts have repeatedly used to nullify the express will of We the People and destroy our rights and the Sovereignty of our States!
Address these objection and I'll see if I can't regain at least a shred of respect for your position on this issue. Many thanks for taking the time to consider my objections.
sincerely,
Tom Ridenour (wm ridenour)
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