Remember "Nullification?"

by: Lucy Edwards

Mon Dec 12, 2011 at 09:12:48 AM EST

Inflating the Bubble

by: Dean Barker

Wed Jun 01, 2011 at 05:26:09 AM EDT

But yesterday he and self-styled constitutional expert Dan Itse soaked up attention from Michelle Bachmann on the same topic.

The story contained in this tweet is a prime example of how the POTUS primary circus keeps the bubble inflated for the radical right-wingers in control of the New Hampshire House.

It will become ever harder for the House of O'Brien to realize it has an Bill O'Brien problem when the more demagogic of the presidential hopefuls come by to flatter them for support. This, in turn, will ensconce them even deeper in the bunker of their "Rightness" when it comes time to work with the Senate or Governor.  Which, in turn, means that future policy battles will make the Right-to-Work fiasco look like a preview before the main event.

(find me > 140 on birch paper; on Twitter < 140)

150 Years Ago...

by: cblodg

Tue Apr 12, 2011 at 09:53:09 AM EDT

When the Boys of '61 returned home, they weren't boys anymore. Indeed, they were hardened men. They had seen the worst of human nature in their struggle to re-unite a battered and broken country. Almost instantly memorials would spring up across the country (in some states it was law that each town had to have a monument to the Civil War soldiers). Many of these were erected with the money raised by the soldiers themselves. Clearly, they wanted to be remembered for what they had done.

Now, time has passed. The once hardened Boys of '61 are gone, their voices silent. No more can they tell the story of what they did. It is up to us, those who have prospered from their sacrifice, to carry on their legacy. What's more, we know this. We have been told to remember them by one of our nation's leaders:

We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain...

That is the mission statement given to us, the living, to remember. Remember their sacrifice. Remember their struggle. Most of all, remember them.

NH House Too Extreme for Gingrich and Union Leader

by: William Tucker

Wed Apr 06, 2011 at 17:14:58 PM EDT

Last week, the New Hampshire House passed HCR 19, a Tea Party-backed resolution asserting the state’s authority to nullify federal laws it deems unconstitutional. Yesterday, the bill that 242 New Hampshire state reps supported was disavowed by Newt Gingrich and a Union Leader editorial.

Newt Gingrich:

“I think Andrew Jackson dealt with that” during the nullification crisis, he said, adding that Lincoln dealt with it in a more profound way a few decades later.

State politicians who think the federal government is acting unconstitutionally can sue the federal government or direct their delegation in Washington to oppose the unconstitutional actions, he said.

“It would strike me as very implausible that states could actually nullify,” he said.

Union Leader:

[T]hey are wrong that the State of New Hampshire can simply declare those actions null and void. If states had that authority, the union would collapse, as every state nullified whatever federal laws it disliked. This question was settled in the 19th century. It should remain there.

Somewhere Daniel Webster is Smiling

by: Dean Barker

Mon Mar 21, 2011 at 05:47:43 AM EDT

But they bailed.

I'm pessimistic that the state political press will report out on this fringe gathering, which is a shame, given how truly dangerous a concept it is to the stability of the United States. I'm even less confident that O'Brien and Kimball's expected presence - and then absence - will get explained satisfactorily.

That said, this is a success story, and each and every one of you who rang the bell loudly on this deserves praise. Your sunlight was the needed disinfectant. Somewhere, Daniel Webster is smiling.

This is yet another chapter in the same lesson we have been learning since January: that Bill O'Brien cannot handle the public scrutiny of his fringe allegiances and radical agenda items, that he is basically a middleman for AFP's and Cornerstone's to-do lists, that it is a mistake to think that by doing policy battle with him you are going up against a coherent set of core principles.

Rather, the daily arrogance displayed by the O'Brien statehouse is a byproduct of its inherent weakness.  Those Republicans outside of Representatives Hall who have been around longer in this state and who do not yet have their attention wholly wrapped around the courtly rituals of the First-in-the-Nation primary, I believe, are worried that the Speaker will cost them dearly in 2012.

I'm not sure that the New Hampshire press has noticed yet that the entire grassroots machinery of the left in this state has turned away from federal races, issue activism, the POTUS primary, the upcoming gov race, and focused - like a laser beam - on the frightening raft of legislation coming out of Concord.  But there is no doubt in my mind that the House GOP leadership has.

(birched, in lilac for Spring; on Twitter @deanbarker)

When the Boys in Blue Are Gone

by: cblodg

Sat Mar 12, 2011 at 19:49:58 PM EST

When the comrades have departed,
When the veterans are no more,
When the bugle call is sounded
On that everlasting shore.
When life's weary march is ended,
When campfires slumber long;
Who will tell the world the story,
When the boys in Blue are gone?

Who will tell about their marching,
From Atlanta to the Sea?
Who will halt, and wait, and listen,
When they hear the reveille?
Who will join to swell the chorus,
Of some old, Grand Army song?
Who will tell the world the story,
When the boys in Blue are gone?

Sons and daughters of this nation,
You must tell of triumphs won;
When on earth our work is ended,
And the Veteran claims his own.
You must all cherish Old Glory,
And its teachings pass along.
You must tell the world the story,
When the boys in Blue are gone.

To that flag, our country's emblem,
You must pledge allegiance, too.
To that flag, our nation's emblem,
May your hearts be ever true.
That the nation be protected,
'Gainst injustice, and all wrong;
You must tell the world the story,
When the boys in Blue are gone.

You must keep your country's honor,
From each stripe withhold all stain;
You must take the Veteran's places,
And repeat the roll of fame.
You must keep your country's honor,
And your flag above all wrong,
Then we'll trust you with the story,
When the boys in Blue are gone.

Nullify Now Makes the Papers

by: Lucy Edwards

Mon Mar 07, 2011 at 14:41:54 PM EST

And Michelle Bachmann, also a proponent of "liberty," is coming to visit.  

And did you know that the Koch Brothers funded the guy who wrote the proposal for the Free State Project that Chaz diaried today?

Jason Soren's Free State Vision. Now it's a reality in the making.

by: Chaz Proulx

Mon Mar 07, 2011 at 11:05:24 AM EST

Announcement:
The Free State Project

by Jason Sorens
jason.sorens@yale.edu

Special to TLE

Note from the author (7/2/04): This article was the first exploration of the idea of a "free state strategy." Needless to say, the present-day Free State Project differs from the proposals of this article in some respects. In particular, the article overemphasizes the possibility of secession. Nevertheless, I think it's still of historical interest.

Libertarian activists need to face a somber reality: nothing's working.

Partisan politics has clearly failed: Libertarian presidential candidates consistently fail to break the one per cent barrier, while no Libertarian candidate has ever won election to a federal office. What is the chance that a Libertarian presidential candidate will get even 5% of the presidential vote in the next, say, 20 years? Virtually zero; I'd be willing to bet the farm on that. And what about the chance that Libertarians will take over the Presidency, Congress, and Supreme Court and enact their entire program? One would have to be utterly delusional to consider this a possibility so long as the United States' political system exists in its current form.

Noting the massive failure of partisan politics, some activists have argued that what we need is education. Unfortunately, the successes of education have come and gone. In academia, free-market ideas (though even then, not radical libertarian ones) were fresh and exciting in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Today there is a backlash against libertarian ideas (caricatured as "neoliberalism") in all disciplines. Political scientists view neoclassical economics as politically naïve, while even economists have become bored with perfect-market models and have gone back to thinking up new exceptions to the rule.

In response to this argument, Chris Tame of the British Libertarian Alliance believes that we should take a very long-run view. The victory of liberty will take centuries to complete, and we should not be too hasty to abandon the project of remaking intellectual and popular culture. There are several problems with this view. First, it is very depressing for those of who would like to see some measure of freedom in our lifetimes. Second, what's to prevent the welfare state from winning in the long-run? It has the advantage of fulfilling the interests of elites in government. Reinstating freedom would require repeated large sacrifices by these people. Since people act in self-interest most of the time, the most sensible prediction is that elites will never give up their power; rather, they will reinforce it whenever possible.

Third, the long-run perspective ignores the fact that world affairs are currently at the cusp of a new direction. Freedom can still win out, at least in some areas, but if it does not the prospects are dire. One doesn't have to see black helicopters everywhere to note that ad hoc world governance structures are already in place. NATO, the OSCE, the practice of economic sanctions, and UN peacekeeping are just a few institutions and policies that effectively prevent nominally independent countries from pursuing policies that conflict in any substantial fashion from the will of Washington, D.C. The OECD is currently pursuing measures to punish so-called "tax havens."(1) Their low tax rates are draining capital from Western welfare states, and the welfare states want to cut off the spigot. The proposed method of extortion is familiar: economic sanctions. The vaunted benefits of capital mobility and encryption technology thus have failed to materialize, and governments continue to grow, even relative to the private economy. The implications should be clear: if we do not carve out a sphere for freedom now, freedom will be lost for a long time to come.

Some individuals have noted the hopelessness of both mass-based party politics and mass-based education. They have advocated instead the creation of a new libertarian nation. These ideas have tended to be on the fringe of the libertarian movement, simply due to their impracticality, not to mention the fraudulent nature of many of them. They invariably are run by one or two decidedly eccentric individuals who ask for substantial "investments" so that they can start work on the "infrastructure," typically of some floating island. I have to note that I think the Awdal Roads Project (www.awdal.com) is legitimate, but there are not many American libertarians I know who would be willing to move to Somalia. What we need is a libertarian project that we can undertake right here in the U.S.

Some activism of this sort has been tried, involving "monkey-wrenching" à la Claire Wolfe, "dropping out," not using government services, etc. The problem with these strategies is that: 1) they are small-scale and unlikely to make a noticeable difference; 2) the more radical projects require abandoning family and friends and leading a lone wolf lifestyle; 3) refraining from using government services in many cases hurts us (financially) and helps them, by making it cheaper for them to provide government services.(2)

I would like to propose a solution based both on my dissertation research and suggestions from commentators whom I respect: secession (or at least the threat of it). Walter Williams recently wrote in WorldNetDaily:

Americans who wish to live free have two options: We can resist, fight and risk bloodshed to force America's tyrants to respect our liberties and human rights, or we can seek a peaceful resolution of our irreconcilable differences by separating. That can be done by peopling several states, say Texas and Louisiana, controlling their legislatures and then issuing a unilateral declaration of independence just as the Founders did in 1776.(3)

Other well-known libertarians have been advocating similar measures. The pro-secession views of lewrockwell.com and the Ludwig von Mises Institute are well known. Jim Peron told me he advocates peopling New Zealand with libertarians and making it into a libertarian country. Unfortunately, his immigration visa was denied for political reasons. Perhaps he will come to the U.S. and help us.

What I propose is a Free State Project, in which freedom-minded people of all stripes (libertarians, anarcho-capitalists, pacifists, even people who just call themselves liberals or conservatives - the only requirement is that you pledge that you will work to reducing government to the minimal functions of protecting life, liberty, and property), establish residence in a small state and take over the state government. I have been running some figures to see how plausible this strategy would be. There are about 40,000 paid Libertarian party members, and the number of dedicated freedom-minded people out there is undoubtedly at least twice that. In the last election the Libertarian Party won 3.2 million unique votes, 400,000 for President; 80 for every LP member in the former case, 10 in the latter. If even half of the LP membership moves to a particular state, we can expect 200,000 votes for the LP presidential candidate just from that state. Furthermore, LP vote percentages are higher for state offices: typically on the order of 2-3%, compared to 0.5% for President. If we multiply 200,000 by 4, we get 800,000 votes for governor and state legislature each. This figure is far in excess of that needed to take over some small states. For example, in Wyoming, the smallest state in the Union, there were 213,659 valid ballots cast in the 2000 U.S. Senate race. (Of course, it's mathematically impossible to get 800,000 votes in a state like Wyoming, but the point is that even 20,000 hardcore libertarian activists can go a long way in a small state.)

Once we've taken over the state government, we can slash state and local budgets, which make up a sizeable proportion of the tax and regulatory burden we face every day. Furthermore, we can eliminate substantial federal interference by refusing to take highway funds and the strings attached to them. Once we've accomplished these things, we can bargain with the national government over reducing the role of the national government in our state. We can use the threat of secession as leverage to do this.

But didn't we fight a war over secession almost 150 years ago? Wouldn't the feds just send in the troops to crush our little experiment? The answer, in short, is no. In "modern, democratic" countries the use of violence against legal secessionist movements is out of the question. For example, no one advocates using force to prevent Quebec from leaving Canada if it so decides. The assumption underlying their recent referendum on secession was that if secession achieved a majority vote, negotiations would immediately begin toward a peaceful separation. The same holds for independence movements in Scotland, Wales, Flanders, Padania, Catalonia, and elsewhere. Indeed, the U.S. has militarily attacked countries for the way in which they treated separatist insurgencies. If the fedgov tried to go Milosevic on us free-staters, how would that look? The key is that we need to pursue secession within the political system, electorally. Attempting it extra-legally is a recipe for disaster, as the Republic of Texas fiasco has demonstrated.

There is another advantage to the strategy of secession. It is a sort of "stealth-libertarian" strategy. Most people have a lot of state pride. I used to live in Texas, and it was the general assumption among Texans that we could easily go it alone and become independent, but we stayed in the U.S. merely out of a sense of graciousness and condescension. In other words, people might well vote for a general secessionist party even if they wouldn't vote for an overtly libertarian party. Of course, once secession is achieved, libertarianism is the likely outcome if we've concentrated our forces. Furthermore, independent small states are forced to follow relatively libertarian policies to remain economically viable.

Even if we don't actually secede, we can force the federal government to compromise with us and grant us substantial liberties. Scotland and Quebec have both used the threat of secession to get large subsidies and concessions from their respective national governments. We could use our leverage for liberty.

This strategy seems eminently workable within the next decade. The only difficulty is what game theorists refer to as a "coordination problem." If I know that other libertarians will join me in moving to a certain state, it's in my interests to move there too, but if I think others won't join me, I might as well stay where I friends and a good job. Everyone else thinks the same way, and no one moves. For that reason, I think we do need a formal organizational structure. We need a sort of pledge to which we can get freedom-minded people to sign their names, similar to the Separation of School and State pledge. We would pledge to move to any state which is decided on by a majority of the members of the "Free State Society." (The details of how the voting would ensue could be worked out. My current idea is that we could have a list of states with less than 1 million population. Once the "Free State Society" reaches 20,000 members we could vote on these sequentially, with the lowest vote getters being eliminated in each round. Votes would be made public each time to forestall fears of manipulation.) Since as libertarians we respect contracts, we would rightly feel duty bound to honor our pledges. The coordination problem would be solved.

Unfortunately, I am neither an "organizer" type nor a well-known libertarian "personality." I'm an aspiring political scientist, a thinker; I don't know the first thing about leading, and my name doesn't have cache. But if luminaries like, perhaps, Walter Williams and L. Neil Smith sign onto this project, and other motivated people join to help along with the leg work, we can really get this project off the ground. We have to start a snowball effect.

It is exciting to me that we might have a real shot at true freedom in our lifetimes. Certainly, there will be inconveniences. We might have to move away from friends and family; there might be spells of unemployment; we might have to take careers that are not our first choice. But I can't believe that we've gone so soft that we won't tolerate these inconveniences for a possibility at attaining true liberty. Our forefathers bled and died - because of the Stamp Tax! The Free State Project requires nothing of that kind, and the stakes are so much higher. How much is liberty worth to you?

If you are interested in joining this project, please e-mail me at freestateproject_com@yahoo.com and give me your address. I've already met some others who are interested. I am going to draw up a simple pledge and some straightforward bylaws for the Free State Society and start collecting signatures. I'm open to all kinds of feedback; again, I'm hoping this project really becomes a decentralized affair - I don't want to be a dictator of my own little club, and I don't want your money.

NullifyNow! comes to NH

by: Mike Emm

Sun Mar 06, 2011 at 12:08:44 PM EST

But Nullification comes of age on March 19 at the Nullify Now! conference at SNHU, where speakers will give "the  logical, moral, and constitutionally sound case for nullification".

They sponsors, who include the Koch Brother's Americans for Prosperity, are promising an interesting cast of speakers for the conference. There will be Dan Itse, chair of the NH House's Constitutional review committee. He was a given. Also,  Jack Kimball, GOP chair. And wonder of wonder, Speaker O'Brien will be taking time off from focusing on the budget and state deficit to speak about the joys of telling Washington to go to hell. A wild time is promised for all.

There ought to be a price paid for this sort of misbehavior, but with the state's newspapers essentially ignoring it, there doesn't appear to be any.  

Today's Republican Party and the History of the GOP

by: Jennifer Daler

Tue Aug 10, 2010 at 15:15:33 PM EDT

Politico'sScott Wong writes of a split in the party .

"The 14th Amendment is a great legacy of the Republican party. It is a shame and an embarrassment that the GOP now wants to amend it for starkly political reasons," McKinnon [media advisor to Bush's two presidential campaigns] told POLITICO. "Initially Republicans rallied around the amendment to welcome more citizens to this country. Now it is being used to drive people away."

The thing that would be funny if it weren't so horrible is the lack of knowledge on the part of many of today's GOPers. The Fourteenth Amendment is part of the proud anti-slavery legacy of the Republican Party. It was enacted to counter the infamous   Dredd Scott decision.

It is this same a-historical outlook that allowed a Republican state representative to put forward a floor amendment to nullify health insurance reform and make it a felony for any official to administer it in New Hampshire. Apparently this rep and those who voted with him are unaware or don't care that the man whose statue stands in front of the State House, Daniel Webster, fought against South Carolina's Calhoun on this very topic, with Calhoun being for nullification.

Are the Republicans calling for nullification and for amending the Fourteenth Amendment this unaware of history, both that of New Hampshire and of their own party? If so, that is very, very sad, and not a little bit scary.

The Georgia Senate is even crazier than NH Republican state reps

by: Michael Marsh

Fri May 08, 2009 at 15:51:43 PM EDT

A couple of months ago there was a minor kerfluffle in Concord about a bit of legislative inanity called HCR6. This was a bill introduced by Rep. Itse and supported by a few other assorted whackadoodles that would give our  state the right to nullify any and all federal legislation should we deem it not in our state's interests or contrary to our personal interpretation of the US Constitution. Here is the text if you didn't have a chance to read the bill. If you can get all the way through without shaking your head in disbelief at least once, you are doing better than I. And remember HCR6 the next time you hear NH GOP chair Sununu complaining about the legislature wasting time on frivolous bills.