Quartzsite, Ariz., Where the Fox Guards the Chickens

Gary Hunt
Outpost of Freedom
July 21, 2011

In a rather interesting, and perhaps, bizarre, action by the Quartzsite Chief of Police, Jeff Gilbert, sanctioned by the Assistant Town Manager, Al Johnson, ten of the fourteen Town policemen have been put on paid leave and confined to their homes, during certain periods of the day.

So, why is this bizarre?  Well, if it were a corporation/business and the CEO (Chief) decided that he wanted to suspend employees, pending firing; he could be serving the best interest of the company and the stockholders.  However, he would also be accountable to the stockholders, and could be dismissed, forthwith, absent the consent of those “owners” of the corporation.

However, when we look at a Police Department, whose purpose is to serve the citizens of that town, we should have an entirely different standard.  If the town requires 14 policemen to maintain control of the town and provide for the safety of the citizens, how can it be in the best interest of the town (and its citizens) to dispense with 71% of the force that was argued as necessary to provide that protection?  At least, this should lead to some serious questions about the Police Department’s budget — as a necessity — since the Chief has arbitrarily found that he can do with four, what he used to need fourteen to do.  This is especially true when you consider that recently the Town Council determined that the safety of the public warranted a special meeting and emergency measures (see The Emergency that Warranted an Emergency Meeting of the Quartzsite Town Council) be taken to provide for that safety.  How does that possibly justify the presumption that only 35% of the force can provide such safety?

Think about it, you have four officers who must serve a town of 3800 people, 24 hours a day.  That amounts to 1.3 officers on duty, for all shifts, seven days a week, with no time off.

Understand that Quartzsite sits astride Interstate Highway 10, the primary corridor from Phoenix (and points east) to Los Angeles.  With its truck stops and eateries, and the last significant town before entering California, it is a 24-hour town.  Parts of the town bustle all day, and all night.  How, then, can adequate protection be provided?

Well, the answer is quite simple.  Don Lowery, Sheriff of La Paz County, Arizona, and Chief Gilbert, worked together as officers on the Colorado River Indian Reservation.  Coincidently, they both ended up back in La Paz County.  One as Sheriff; the other as Chief of Police in Quartzsite.  Can there be any wonder why the investigation called for by the ten officers (No Confidence in Quartzsite Chief of Police Jeff Gilbert) ended up being dismissed?

The dismissal of the complaint has resulted in the current activity that imposes the following on the ten officers (only some of what is imposed by the “Notice of Investigation and Intent to Interview“):

• You have the right to have a representative with you during the interview
• Your representative may not participate in the interview
• Your representative must either be an employee of the Quartzsite Police Department who is not a subject of this investigation or a member of your professional membership organization
• Your representative cannot be an attorney

Let’s take a breather here.  A representative is one who represents you, but, in this case, cannot represent (participate) you in the interview.  And, in an even more surprising proclamation, he cannot be an attorney.  It appears that the right to counsel in proceedings that can result in disciplinary action, including termination, does not allow what has been considered a mainstay of the judicial process in this country.

The officers are then placed on “administrative leave”, with the proviso that they are “required to remain in at [their] place of residence (house arrest?) between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and Noon and between the hours of 1:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday.”

It continues, “Failure to be present at your residence during those hours without express prior approval from the investigator, Assistant Town Manager Al Johnson, shall be considered dereliction of duty and may result in additional disciplinary action, including dismissal”.

This pretty much displaces the concept of justice, the judicial branch of government, which the law enforcement agencies are an extension of, as officers of the court.  And ironically, it is contrary to what occurred when the investigation of Chief Gilbert was conducted.

At the June 16, 2011 Town Council meeting, John Stairs, vice president, Arizona Conference of Police and Sheriffs (AZCOPS), specifically suggested, in his recommendation to the Town Council that “AZCOPS believes it is wise and prudent to place Chief Gilbert on paid administrative leave so these allegations can be thoroughly and impartially investigated by DPS.”  At that meeting, however, the Town Council rejected the recommendation, leaving Chief Gilbert in full control of the Police Department.

Now comes the emergency meeting (link, above) that places Chief Gilbert and Assistant Town Manager Al Johnson in total control, and they decide that ten officers should be placed on administrative leave, leaving the town with a very meager staff to maintain “law and order” (and, I use that phrase loosely), while the decision rests, for all intents and purposes, in the hands of Jeff Gilbert.

Can there be any better example of the fox guarding the chickens?

[Note: Do not construe this article to imply that the citizens of Quartzsite are the chickens referred to, rather, that the chickens referred to herein are the entire Town Council and administrative staff, with the sole exception of Mayor Ed Foster.]

Previous articles on Quartzsite:

Illegal Town Council meeting in Quartzsite, Arizona

No Confidence in Quartzsite Chief of Police Jeff Gilbert

Quartzsite Mayor declares meeting illegal, Town Council proceeds without the Mayor

The Emergency that Warranted an Emergency Meeting of the Quartzsite Town Council

“We the People”, but, Who are We? – Part III

Gary Hunt
Outpost of Freedom
July 20, 2011

So, we have established that “rights” were not conveyed by the Fourteenth Amendment, only “privileges and immunities”.  Or, have we?  Of course, to this point, it is only words and omission of words that can lead us to that conclusion.

Understand, however, that the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and early legislation was written so that all could understand what was being required.  After all, as James Madison said (Federalist Papers #62), “Law is defined to be a rule of action”.  If it is a rule of action, then it must be written so that anybody can understand it.

Let’s see if we can determine whether the premise that rights were not conveyed is properly construed, as presented.  To do so, we must, once again, return to the past — to those who lived the times and understood what the intention of the 14th Amendment really was.

Our answer can be found in another Supreme Court decision, decided just 7 years after the ratification of the 14th Amendment.  The case is Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1874).

At issue was whether the Fourteenth Amendment conveyed the right to vote to a woman, since she was made “a citizen of the United States” by that Amendment.  Understand that many states did not recognize woman as being full citizens and they were denied the right to vote, own land, sue in court, inherit property, or hold office; or portions of some of these restrictions, depending on the state.

Understand that this case was heard just seven years after the ratification of the 14th Amendment, and all parties were fully aware of the Amendment, its interpretation and ramifications.  They lived the times, unlike those of us who have to search back to find the intent of laws and amendments.

The case introduces the problem with the following statement of facts:

The fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, in its first section, thus ordains:

‘All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States, and of the State wherein they reside.  No State shall make or enforce any law, which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.  Nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction, the equal protection of the laws.’

And the constitution of the State of Missouri thus ordains:

‘Every male citizen of the United States shall be entitled to vote.’

Minor, as described by the Court, set forth the following arguments:

1st. As a citizen of the United States, the plaintiff was entitled to any and all the ‘privileges and immunities’ that belong to such position however defined; and as are held, exercised, and enjoyed by other citizens of the United States.

2d. The elective franchise is a ‘privilege’ of citizenship, in the highest sense of the word.  It is the privilege preservative of all rights and privileges; and especially of the right of the citizen to participate in his or her government.

3d. The denial or abridgment of this privilege, if it exist at all, must be sought only in the fundamental charter of government,-the Constitution of the United States.  If not found there, no inferior power or jurisdiction can legally claim the right to exercise it.

4th. But the Constitution of the United States, so far from recognizing or permitting any denial or abridgment of the privileges of its citizens, expressly declares that ‘no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.’

5th. It follows that the provisions of the Missouri constitution and registry law before recited, are in conflict with and must yield to the paramount authority of the Constitution of the United States.

The Court (in the decision) then posed the question:

The question is presented in this case, whether, since the adoption of the fourteenth amendment, a woman, who is a citizen of the United States and of the State of Missouri, is a voter in that State, notwithstanding the provision of the constitution and laws of the State, which confine the right of suffrage to men alone.

In providing an answer to the question, we find:

Looking at the Constitution itself we find that it was ordained and established by ‘the people of the United States [Preamble to the Constitution],’ and then going further back, we find that these were the people of the several States that had before dissolved the political bonds which connected them with Great Britain, and assumed a separate and equal station among the powers of the earth [Declaration of Independence], and that had by Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, in which they took the name of ‘the United States of America,’ entered into a firm league of friendship with each other for their common defence, the security of their liberties and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other against all force offered to or attack made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretence whatever [Articles of Confederation].

Whoever, then, was one of the people of either of these States when the Constitution of the United States was adopted, became ipso facto a citizen-a member of the nation created by its adoption.  He was one of the persons associating together to form the nation, and was, consequently, one of its original citizens.  As to this there has never been a doubt.  Disputes have arisen as to whether or not certain persons or certain classes of persons were part of the people at the time, but never as to their citizenship if they were.

* * *

Other proof of like character might be found, but certainly more cannot be necessary to establish the fact that sex has never been made one of the elements of citizenship in the United States.  In this respect men have never had an advantage over women.  The same laws precisely apply to both.  The fourteenth amendment did not affect the citizenship of women any more than it did of men.  In this particular, therefore, the rights of Mrs. Minor do not depend upon the amendment.  She has always been a citizen from her birth, and entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizenship.  The amendment prohibited the State, of which she is a citizen, from abridging any of her privileges and immunities as a citizen of the United States; but it did not confer citizenship on her, that she had before its adoption.

* * *

It is clear, therefore, we think, that the Constitution has not added the right of suffrage to the privileges and immunities of citizenship as they existed at the time it was adopted.  This makes it proper to inquire whether suffrage was coextensive with the citizenship of the States at the time of its adoption.  If it was, then it may with force be argued that suffrage was one of the rights which belonged to citizenship, and in the enjoyment of which every citizen must be protected.  But if it was not, the contrary may with propriety be assumed.

When the Federal Constitution was adopted, all the States, with the exception of Rhode Island and Connecticut, had constitutions of their own.  These two continued to act under their charters from the Crown.  Upon an examination of those constitutions we find that in no State were all citizens permitted to vote.  Each State determined for itself who should have that power.  Thus, in New Hampshire, ‘every male inhabitant of each town and parish with town privileges, and places unincorporated in the State, of twenty-one years of age and upwards, excepting paupers and persons excused from paying taxes at their own request,’ were its voters; in Massachusetts ‘every male inhabitant of twenty-one years of age and upwards, having a freehold estate within the commonwealth of the annual income of three pounds, or any estate of the value of sixty pounds;’ in Rhode Island ‘such as are admitted free of the company and society’ of the colony; in Connecticut such persons as had ‘maturity in years, quiet and peaceable behavior, a civil conversation, and forty shillings freehold or forty pounds personal estate,’ if so certified by the selectmen; in New York ‘every male inhabitant of full age who shall have personally resided within one of the counties of the State for six months immediately preceding the day of election . . . if during the time aforesaid he shall have been a freeholder, possessing a freehold of the value of twenty pounds within the county, or have rented a tenement therein of the yearly value of forty shillings, and been rated and actually paid taxes to the State;’ in New Jersey ‘all inhabitants . . . of full age who are worth fifty pounds, proclamation-money, clear estate in the same, and have resided in the county in which they claim a vote for twelve months immediately preceding the election;’ in Pennsylvania ‘every freeman of the age of twenty-one years, having resided in the State two years next before the election, and within that time paid a State or county tax which shall have been assessed at least six months before the election;’ in Delaware and Virginia ‘as exercised by law at present;’ in Maryland ‘all freemen above twenty-one years of age having a freehold of fifty acres of land in the county in which they offer to vote and residing therein, and all freemen having property in the State above the value of thirty pounds current money, and having resided in the county in which they offer to vote one whole year next preceding the election;’ in North Carolina, for senators, ‘all freemen of the age of twenty-one years who have been inhabitants of any one county within the State twelve months immediately preceding the day of election, and possessed of a freehold within the same county of fifty acres of land for six months next before and at the day of election,’ and for members of the house of commons ‘all freemen of the age of twenty-one years who have been inhabitants in any one county within the State twelve months immediately preceding the day of any election, and shall have paid public taxes;’ in South Carolina ‘every free white man of the age of twenty-one years, being a citizen of the State and having resided therein two years previous to the day of election, and who hath a freehold of fifty acres of land, or a town lot of which he hath been legally seized and possessed at least six months before such election, or ( not having such freehold or town lot), hath been a resident within the election district in which he offers to give his vote six months before said election, and hath paid a tax the preceding year of three shillings sterling towards the support of the government;’ and in Georgia such ‘citizens and inhabitants of the State as shall have attained to the age of twenty-one years, and shall have paid tax for the year next preceding the election, and shall have resided six months within the county.’

[Note: you may want to review the list of voter qualifications, above, and consider that we were strong and building our country into the greatest nation in the world, when the voters had to be above debt to vote — rather than able to vote themselves “a chicken in every pot”.]

* * *

And still again, after the adoption of the fourteenth amendment, it was deemed necessary to adopt a fifteenth, as follows: ‘The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any State, on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.’  The fourteenth amendment had already provided that no State should make or enforce any law which should abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.  If suffrage was one of these privileges or immunities, why amend the Constitution to prevent its being denied on account of race, &c.?  Nothing is more evident than that the greater must include the less, and if all were already protected why go through with the form of amending the Constitution to protect a part?

* * *

… Women were excluded from suffrage in nearly all the States by the express provision of their constitutions and laws. If that had been equivalent to a bill of attainder, certainly its abrogation would not have been left to implication. Nothing less than express language would have been employed to effect so radical a change. So also of the amendment which declares that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, adopted as it was as early as 1791. If suffrage was intended to be included within its obligations, language better adapted to express that intent would most certainly have been employed. The right of suffrage, when granted, will be protected. He who has it can only be deprived of it by due process of law, but in order to claim protection he must first show that he has the right.

So, clearly, from this decision, rendered shortly after the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified, we see that there is a distinction between “rights” and “privileges and immunities”, and that any grant of right would require a constitutional amendment to confer it on any other than “We the People”.

This does beg the question of whether the Fifteenth Amendment confers more than the right to vote.  Does it also confer the right to hold office, when the requisite for that office is “Citizen of the United State” [Art. I. Section 2, clause 2, and, Art. I, Section 3, clause 3, Constitution], and, “a natural born Citizen of the United States” [Art. II, Section 1, clause 5, Constitution], unless such “right” is specifically conferred?

Part I can be found at “We the People”, but, Who are We? – Part I

Part II can be found at “We the People”, but, Who are We? – Part II

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Part IV can be found at “We the People”, but, Who are We? — Part IV

Part V can be found at “We the People”, but, Who are We? — Part V 

“We the People”, but, Who are We? – Part II

Gary Hunt
Outpost of Freedom
July 19, 2011

In the first part, Justice Taney [Chief Justice of the Supreme Court who delivered the Decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1856)], speaking from the past, explained who was, and, who was not of that class of people known as “We the People.  Recapping that post:

We think they [descendents of slaves, whether free, or not] are not, and that they are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word ‘citizens’ in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States.  On the contrary, they were at that time considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings, who had been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the Government might choose to grant them.

* * *

It is true, every person, and every class and description of persons, who were at the time of the adoption of the Constitution recognised as citizens in the several States, became also citizens of this new political body; but none other; it was formed by them, and for them and their posterity, but for no one else.  And the personal rights and privileges guaranteed to citizens of this new sovereignty were intended to embrace those only who were then members of the several State communities, or who should afterwards by birthright or otherwise become members, according to the provisions of the Constitution and the principles on which it was founded.  It was the union of those who were at that time members of distinct and separate political communities into one political family, whose power, for certain specified purposes, was to extend over the whole territory of the United States.  And it gave to each citizen rights and privileges outside of his State which he did not before possess, and placed him in every other State upon a perfect equality with its own citizens as to rights of person and rights of property; it made him a citizen of the United States.

So, the rights and privileges were not conferred upon those who were not citizens at the time of adoption of the Constitution, and their descendents and others.  Those rights, too, are defined as inclusive, regardless of whether he is in his state or another state.

So, in 1867, the 14th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified.  However, it did not convey rights, only privileges and immunities, to wit [Fourteenth Amendment]:

Section 1–All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.  No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

However, this Amendment did not change or undo that which Taney had described as the “citizens of the United States”, though a new class was created by the 14th Amendment.

Now, I know a lot of people don’t see it that way.  They believe that the 14th Amendment merged the ex-slaves and their descendents into the same class of people that had previously held the title of “citizens of the United States”, or, “We the People”.  However, if you will note the wording of the 14th Amendment, you will see that “rights” were not conveyed, only “privileges and immunities”.  Now, this may seem small, or insignificant, though that is because we have been subjected to “political correctness” and mountains of legislation establishing “civil rights”.  However, the Framers never referred to the rights protected by the Constitution as civil, since civil implies granted by government — which is exactly what the legislature has done — enact laws granting civil rights.  These fundamental rights granted by God are not granted by government, and, they are not civil rights.  They were the object and goal of the colonists from April 19, 1775 to the ratification of the Constitution, 14 years later.

What is very important to understand is that when a law is enacted, or a constitution or amendment ratified, the intent at the time of enactment or ratification is, and must be, what was intended — at that time.  To think otherwise is to allow the legislation, or even the Constitution, to mean what was not intended by the sleight of redefining words, concepts, or even enforcement.  If that is how we are to operate, we are not a nation of laws rather, of man, and that man who sits in Washington; Member of Congress, President,. Justice or Administrative Agency head is free to promulgate what he wants the law to be and applies not what was intended to be, rather, what he desires it to be.

As James Madison said, in Federalist Papers #62:

It poisons the blessing of liberty itself. 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?

So, as you contemplate what is said in this Part, understand that only the words of those who were alive at the time of these activities can tell is what they meant.  It is only their words, not what some ACLU lawyer might try to make them out to be, that we must be obedient to.  To be obedient to any other interpretation is, at best, disobedience to the Constitution.

We have seen the affect of the 14th Amendment on the right, privileges and immunities of those who were and were not of the class known as “We the People”.  Now the question arises as to whether the 14th Amendment changed who “We the People” are, and, if so, what proof do we have that only “privileges and immunities, not rights, were conveyed by that Amendment.  That will be the subject of the Part III.

Part I can be found at “We the People”, but, Who are We? – Part I

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Part III can be found at “We the People”, but, Who are We? — Part III

Part IV can be found at “We the People”, but, Who are We? — Part IV

Part V can be found at “We the People”, but, Who are We? — Part V 

“We the People”, but, Who are We? – Part I

Gary Hunt
Outpost of Freedom
July 18, 2011

In some research for another article (The Fourteenth Article in Amendment to the Constitution), I ran across a rather enlightening revelation.  It was, just 60 years after the Constitution, a clear and concise definition of just (and only) who the “We the People”, in the Preamble to the Constitution, really are.

Now, most of us will assume that any citizen of the United States is one of, “We the People”.  I must admit that until recently, I, too, believed this to be the case.

Regardless of the (political) correctness of this assumption, we must understand that the law is what it was intended to be, not what we might want it to be.  There is only one means by which that can be changed, and that is the amendment process defined in Article V, of the Constitution.

So, here is what was revealed to us, by the Supreme Court of the United States, with regard to a definitive answer to the question.  The case is Dred Scott v. Sandford  –  60 U.S. 393 (1856)

As recently as ten years before the Fourteenth Amendment was submitted to the States by the Congress, an historical, and often referred to, case was heard by the Supreme Court.

Scott was born a slave, in Missouri.  As such, he was not a citizen.  His “owner” laid hands on Scott, his wife and 2 children.  Scott sued Sandford for assault.  Scott was awarded his freedom by a Saint Louis County, Missouri, Circuit Court.  The case was appealed to the State Supreme Court and reversed.  The Circuit Court then reheard the case.  Scott made exception to the instructions to the jury.  The jury then ruled against Scott.  Based upon the “Exception”.

The case eventually ended up in the Supreme Court.  In its decision (below), the Court pointed out that Scott had claimed to be a citizen of Missouri, which would give him standing to sue Sandford.  It found that though Scott was not a citizen of Missouri, or, of the United States, that standing for the Court to hear the case was based upon the Courts acting on the fact that the question of citizenship was not in the plea that brought the matter before the Court.

You will see that even though Scott had no standing, the Court decided to hear the case, anyway.  If you do not challenge jurisdiction (Sandford’s obligation), the Court may assume jurisdiction, the laws of the land notwithstanding..

Chief Justice Taney delivered the opinion of the Court.  Excerpts are from that decision.

“That plea denies the right of the plaintiff to sue in a court of the United States, for the reasons therein stated.  If the question raised by it is legally before us, and the court should be of opinion that the facts stated in it disqualify the plaintiff from becoming a citizen, in the sense in which that word is used in the Constitution of the United States, then the judgment of the Circuit Court is erroneous, and must be reversed.  It is suggested, however, that this plea is not before us; and that as the judgment in the court below on this plea was in favor of the plaintiff, he does not seek to reverse it, or bring it before the court for revision by his writ of error; and also that the defendant waived this defence by pleading over, and thereby admitted the jurisdiction of the court.“

Since the matter of citizenship was not in the plea that brought the matter before the Court, the Court will not rule on Scott’s standing.

However, the Court now finds that it has a forum to define just what a citizen is — a point that had only been addressed in rather ambiguous terms in the Constitution, and not since addressed by the Congress, or the Court.

Taney goes on to ask this important question:

Can a negro, whose ancestors were imported into this country, and sold as slaves, become a member of the political community formed and brought into existence by the Constitution of the United States, and as such become entitled to all the rights, and privileges, and immunities, guaranteed by that instrument to the citizen? “

Further defining the question, he says:

The only matter in issue before the court, therefore, is, whether the descendants of such slaves, when they shall be emancipated, or who are born of parents who had become free before their birth, are citizens of a State, in the sense in which the word citizen is used in the Constitution of the United States.

While the decision covers many aspects, and many ways, of addressing the question, I will provide only those that are concise and indicative of the sense of the Court and the decision held to.  Remember, as you read, that this decision predates the 14th Amendment.

The words ‘people of the United States’ and ‘citizens’ are synonymous terms, and mean the same thing.  They both describe the political body who, according to our republican institutions, form the sovereignty, and who hold the power and conduct the Government through their representatives.  They are what we familiarly call the ‘sovereign people,’ and every citizen is one of this people, and a constituent member of this sovereignty.  The question before us is, whether the class of persons described in the plea in abatement compose a portion of this people, and are constituent members of this sovereignty?  We think they are not, and that they are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word ‘citizens’ in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States.  On the contrary, they were at that time considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings, who had been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the Government might choose to grant them.

Well, there is an interesting phrase, used in the discussion of the Fourteenth Amendment by the Senate, “remained subject to their authority”.

In discussing this question, we must not confound the rights of citizenship which a State may confer within its own limits, and the rights of citizenship as a member of the Union.  It does not by any means follow, because he has all the rights and privileges of a citizen of a State, that he must be a citizen of the United States.  He may have all of the rights and privileges of the citizen of a State, and yet not be entitled to the rights and privileges of a citizen in any other State.  For, previous to the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, every State had the undoubted right to confer on whomsoever it pleased the character of citizen, and to endow him with all its rights.  But this character of course was confined to the boundaries of the State, and gave him no rights or privileges in other States beyond those secured to him by the laws of nations and the comity of States.  Nor have the several States surrendered the power of conferring these rights and privileges by adopting the Constitution of the United States.  Each State may still confer them upon an alien, or any one it thinks proper, or upon any class or description of persons; yet he would not be a citizen in the sense in which that word is used in the Constitution of the United States, nor entitled to sue as such in one of its courts, nor to the privileges and immunities of a citizen in the other States.  The rights which he would acquire would be restricted to the State which gave them.  The Constitution has conferred on Congress the right to establish an uniform rule of naturalization, and this right is evidently exclusive, and has always been held by this court to be so.  Consequently, no State, since the adoption of the Constitution, can by naturalizing an alien invest him with the rights and privileges secured to a citizen of a State under the Federal Government, although, so far as the State alone was concerned, he would undoubtedly be entitled to the rights of a citizen, and clothed with all the rights and immunities which the Constitution and laws of the State attached to that character.

It is very clear, therefore, that no State can, by any act or law of its own, passed since the adoption of the Constitution, introduce a new member into the political community created by the Constitution of the United States.  It cannot make him a member of this community by making him a member of its own.  And for the same reason it cannot introduce any person, or description of persons, who were not intended to be embraced in this new political family, which the Constitution brought into existence, but were intended to be excluded from it.

The question then arises, whether the provisions of the Constitution, in relation to the personal rights and privileges to which the citizen of a State should be entitled, embraced the negro African race, at that time in this country, or who might afterwards be imported, who had then or should afterwards be made free in any State; and to put it in the power of a single State to make him a citizen of the United States, and endow him with the full rights of citizenship in every other State without their consent? Does the Constitution of the United States act upon him whenever he shall be made free under the laws of a State, and raised there to the rank of a citizen, and immediately clothe him with all the privileges of a citizen in every other State, and in its own courts?

The court think the affirmative of these propositions cannot be maintained.  And if it cannot, the plaintiff in error could not be a citizen of the State of Missouri, within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States, and, consequently, was not entitled to sue in its courts.”

It is true, every person, and every class and description of persons, who were at the time of the adoption of the Constitution recognised as citizens in the several States, became also citizens of this new political body; but none other; it was formed by them, and for them and their posterity, but for no one else.  And the personal rights and privileges guaranteed to citizens of this new sovereignty were intended to embrace those only who were then members of the several State communities, or who should afterwards by birthright or otherwise become members, according to the provisions of the Constitution and the principles on which it was founded.  It was the union of those who were at that time members of distinct and separate political communities into one political family, whose power, for certain specified purposes, was to extend over the whole territory of the United States.  And it gave to each citizen rights and privileges outside of his State which he did not before possess, and placed him in every other State upon a perfect equality with its own citizens as to rights of person and rights of property; it made him a citizen of the United States.

Well, that makes pretty clear who could not be a “citizen of the United States”.  So, let us look, from the other side, at who was a “citizen of the United States”.

“It becomes necessary, therefore, to determine who were citizens of the several States when the Constitution was adopted.  And in order to do this, we must recur to the Governments and institutions of the thirteen colonies, when they separated from Great Britain and formed new sovereignties, and took their places in the family of independent nations.  We must inquire who, at that time, were recognised as the people or citizens of a State, whose rights and liberties had been outraged by the English Government; and who declared their independence, and assumed the powers of Government to defend their rights by force of arms.

In the opinion of the court, the legislation and histories of the times, and the language used in the Declaration of Independence, show, that neither the class of persons who had been imported as slaves, nor their descendants, whether they had become free or not, were then acknowledged as a part of the people, nor intended to be included in the general words used in that memorable instrument.

Now, clearly, it is those who initiated the fight for independence that are of the class recognized by the Constitution as “citizens of the United States”.  Many have pointed out that one of the first to “die for the cause” was a negro named Crispus Attucks, who was shot to death in the “Boston Massacre”, in 1770.  This, however, in the eyes of the Court, does not qualify him as one of the people — for which the country was intended.

Though the decision of the Court continues to give examples of just how the Court perceived this relationship, I would prefer to not include too many more of the over one-hundred and ten thousand words in the Decision.  There are some words, however, that warrant our attention in fully understanding what was intended by the founding of this nation, and so I will provide these few additional paragraphs:

“The language of the Declaration of Independence is equally conclusive:

It begins by declaring that, ‘when in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect for the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.’

It then proceeds to say: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among them is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.‘

The general words above quoted would seem to embrace the whole human family, and if they were used in a similar instrument at this day would be so understood.  But it is too clear for dispute, that the enslaved African race were not intended to be included, and formed no part of the people who framed and adopted this declaration; for if the language, as understood in that day, would embrace them, the conduct of the distinguished men who framed the Declaration of Independence would have been utterly and flagrantly inconsistent with the principles they asserted; and instead of the sympathy of mankind, to which they so confidently appealed, they would have deserved and received universal rebuke and reprobation.

Yet the men who framed this declaration were great men-high in literary acquirements-high in their sense of honor, and incapable of asserting principles inconsistent with those on which they were acting.  They perfectly understood the meaning of the language they used, and how it would be understood by others; and they knew that it would not in any part of the civilized world be supposed to embrace the negro race, which, by common consent, had been excluded from civilized Governments and the family of nations, and doomed to slavery.  They spoke and acted according to the then established doctrines and principles, and in the ordinary language of the day, and no one misunderstood them.  The unhappy black race were separated from the white by indelible marks, and laws long before established, and were never thought of or spoken of except as property, and when the claims of the owner or the profit of the trader were supposed to need protection.

This state of public opinion had undergone no change when the Constitution was adopted, as is equally evident from its provisions and language.

The brief preamble sets forth by whom it was formed, for what purposes, and for whose benefit and protection.  It declares that it is formed by the people of the United States; that is to say, by those who were members of the different political communities in the several States; and its great object is declared to be to secure the blessings of liberty to themselves and their posterity.  It speaks in general terms of the people of the United States, and of citizens of the several States, when it is providing for the exercise of the powers granted or the privileges secured to the citizen.  It does not define what description of persons are intended to be included under these terms, or who shall be regarded as a citizen and one of the people.  It uses them as terms so well understood, that no further description or definition was necessary.

Therefore, an attempt to apply the standards upon which this nation was founded to the morality of today, or, even, of 1856, when this case was heard, would be to deny the intention of the founders.  This does not preclude the utilization of the Fifth Article (Amendment Process) of the Constitution to effect change, which was to be partially achieved eleven years later.  It simply explains what a “citizen of the United States” was, prior to the Fourteenth Amendment.

Now the question arises as to whether the 14th Amendment changed who “We the People” are, or not. That will be the subject of the Part II.

* * * * *

Part II can be found at “We the People”, but, Who are We? – Part II

Part III can be found at “We the People”, but, Who are We? — Part III

Part IV can be found at “We the People”, but, Who are We? — Part IV

Part V can be found at “We the People”, but, Who are We? — Part V

The Emergency that Warranted an Emergency Meeting of the Quartzsite Town Council

Gary Hunt
Outpost of Freedom
July 14, 2011

On July 10, 2011, the Quartzsite Town Council held an Emergency Meeting (see Illegal Town Council meeting in Quartzsite, Arizona).  The minutes of that meeting have been found (transcription of minutes and PDF links of minutes at bottom of this article) and show that the Council took 6 actions at that meeting:

First, they declare that there was an emergency “requiring the Council to meet without prior public notice”, though the “emergency is not stated within that declaration.  Reference is made to A.R.S. (Arizona Revised Statutes) 38-341.02(D) – Notice of Meetings, which states:

D. In case of an actual emergency, a meeting, including an executive session, may be held on such notice as is appropriate to the circumstances.  If this subsection is utilized for conduct of an emergency session or the consideration of an emergency measure at a previously scheduled meeting the public body must post a public notice within twenty-four hours declaring that an emergency session has been held and setting forth the information required in subsections H and I of this section.

***

H. Agendas required under this section shall list the specific matters to be discussed, considered, or decided at the meeting.  The public body may discuss, consider, or make decisions only on matters listed on the agenda and other matters related thereto.

I. Notwithstanding the other provisions of this section, notice of executive sessions shall be required to include only a general description of the matters to be considered.  The agenda shall provide more than just a recital of the statutory provisions authorizing the executive session, but need not contain information that would defeat the purpose of the executive session, compromise the legitimate privacy interests of a public officer, appointee or employee or compromise the attorney-client privilege.

We have not been able to obtain a copy of the Agenda required, and, in a conversation with Mayor Foster, he was not aware of the meeting until the police arrived at his door, shortly before the meeting began.

Next, they suspended “Town Council Procedure Policy Section III.1, setting regular Council meetings for second and fourth Tuesdays of each month at 7:00 p.m., until the second Tuesday in September or until two-thirds of the Council determines that an emergent circumstances[sic] no longer exist which create an imminent risk to public safety and the safety of elective and appointed town officials.”

So, here, we begin to understand the nature of the “emergency”; “emergent circumstances … which create an imminent risk to public safety and the safety of elective and appointed town officials.”

Then, they suspended both the “Citizen’s Comments” and the “call to the public” provisions of the Town Council Procedure Policy.  They have disallowed any public comment at the meetings.

Now, they will proceed to change the meeting from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 a.m., as if this will cure the problem, or reduce the threat.

At this point, we must wonder if we have alleviated any threat that creates “an imminent risk to public safety and the safety of elective and appointed town officials.”  Based upon the actions, the threat either comes from having the meetings in the evening, when working people are more easily able to attend, or, they fear that what the public has to say creates a threat, by their very words.

So, just how does this constitute an emergency?  How does this provide protection to the public and/or officials?  Is there any logical reasoning behind these decisions, at all?

So, let us continue.  The next act is “to direct Town Manager and Chief of Police to implement procedures to ensure the safety of public attendees at future Council meetings.”  This is, to say the least, a bit ambiguous, and, perhaps, quite broad in its scope.  It might cause us to wonder what “procedures” might be necessary to “ensure the safety of public attendees” at Council meetings.  Since the public forum has been closed, we can only surmise that arresting any of the public who try to speak at a Town Council meeting would be all that can be derived from the decisions made at this “emergency meeting”.

In a final act of gracious consideration to the Town staff, they move the next Tuesday’s meeting to 10:00 a.m. to allow staff to properly prepare the required 24-hour notice.

Darn, now I have more questions than I had before I was able to read the minutes of the secret meeting.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Transcription from the PDF images of the July 10, 2011, Quartzsite Town Council meeting:

PUBLIC NOTICE
EMERGENCY MEETING

Notice of Emergency Meeting

Town of Quartzsite Common Council

Sunday, July 10, 2011 11:45 a.m.

IN ACCORDANCE WITH TOWN CODE SECTION 2-4-1 AND ARIZONA REVISED STATUTES SECTION § 38-431.02.

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN TO ALL MEMBERS OF THE QUARTZSITE COMMON COUNCIL AND TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC THAT THE COMMON COUNCIL OF THE TOWN OF QUARTZSITE, ARIZONA, DID HOLD AN EMERGENCY MEETING ON SUNDAY, JULY 10 AT 11:45 AM.  AT THE QUARTZSITE MUNICIPAL CENTER, 465 N. PLYMOUTH AVE., 1/4 MILE NORTH OF MAIN STREET (B-10).  SEE MINUTES WHICH ARE ATTACHED HERETO AND INCORPORATED HEREIN.  MEMBERS OF THE COMMON COUNCIL ATTENDED IN PERSON.

/s/ Karen Norris        
Karen Norris, Town Clerk  

DATE POSTED:     July 11, 2011

TIME POSTED:       Noon

COUNCIL MAY NOT ACT ON ITEMS NOT ON THE AGENDA

{page 2}

MINUTES

TOWN OF QUARTZSITE
EMERGENCY MEETING OF THE COMMON COUNCIL
SUNDAY, JULY 10, 2011 11:45 AM

CALL TO ORDER:    Vice Mayor Cowell 11:45 a.m.

ROLL CALL: Vice Mayor Cowell, Council Members Anderson, Kelley, Lukkasson and Winslow

ABSENT: Mayor Foster

STAFF PRESENT: Town Manager Alex Taft, Town Attorney Brannan, Town Clerk Karen Norris, Assistant Town Manager Al Johnson and Police Chief Jeff Gilbert.

APPROVAL OF AGENDA:
Council Member Winslow motioned to approve the agenda as written.  Motion seconded by Council Member Lukkasson.  Vice Mayor Cowell calls for the vote.  Vote — 5 in favor, 1 member absent and 1 vacancy.  MOTION CARRIED.

REPORTS & ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Report from Town Manager and Chief of Police concerning emergent circumstances involving an imminent risk to public safety and the safety of elective and appointive town officers.

Mayor Foster arrives during the reports and refused to come into the meeting at 11:57 a.m.

NEW BUSINESS:
1. Declare the existence of an emergency requiring Council to meet without prior public notice pursuant to A.R.S. § 38-431.02(D).

Council Member Lukkasson motioned to declare the existence of an emergency requiring the Council to meet without prior public notice pursuant to A.R.S. 38-431.02(D).  Motion seconded by Council Member Kelley.  Vice Mayor Cowell calls for the vote.  Vote — 5 in favor, 1 member absent and 1 vacancy.  MOTION CARRIED.

2. Suspend Town Council Procedure Policy Section III.1, setting regular Council meetings for second and fourth Tuesdays of each month at 7:00 p.m., until [date] or until two-thirds of the Council determines that emergent circumstances no longer exist which create an imminent risk to public safety and the safety of elective and appointive town officials, whichever occurs first.

Council Member Anderson motioned to suspend Town Council Procedure Policy Section III.1, setting regular Council meetings for second and fourth Tuesdays of each month at 7:00 p.m., until the second Tuesday in September or until two-thirds of the Council determines that an emergent circumstances no longer exist which create an imminent risk to public safety and the safety of elective and appointive town officials.

{possible missing text in PDF file}

{page 3}

whichever occurs first.  Motion seconded by Council Member Lukkasson.  Vice Mayor Cowell calls for the vote.  Vote — 5 in favor, 1 member absent and 1 vacancy.  MOTION CARRIED.

3. Suspend that portion of Town Council Procedure Policy Section V.1 relating to placing “CITIZENS COMMENTS” (call to the public) in the Order of Business and Agenda until [DATE] or until two-thirds of the Council determines that an emergent circumstances no longer exist which create an imminent risk to public safety and the safety of elective and appointive officials, whichever occurs first.

Council Member Kelley motioned to Suspend that portion of Town Council Procedure Policy Section V.1 relating to placing “CITIZENS COMMENTS” (call to the public) in the Order of Business and Agenda until the second meeting in September or until two-thirds of the Council determines that an emergent circumstances no longer exist which create an imminent risk to public safety and the safety of elective and appointive officials, whichever occurs first.  Motion seconded by Council Member Winslow.  Town Manager Taft asks Council Member Kelley to clarify which date in September, Council Member Kelley stated he wanted the same date as the previous motion, which is the second Tuesday in September.  Vice Mayor Cowell calls for the vote.  Vote — 5 in favor, 1 member absent and 1 vacancy.  MOTION CARRIED.

4. Suspend that portion of Town Council Procedure Policy Section VII.1 setting forth procedures for “call to the public,” until [DATE] or until two-thirds of the Council determines that an emergent circumstances no longer exist which create an imminent risk to public safety and the safety of elective and appointive officials, whichever occurs first.

Council Member Kelley motioned to suspend Town Council Procedure Policy Section VII.1, setting forth procedures for “call to the public,” until the second meeting in September or until two-thirds of the Council determines that an emergent circumstances no longer exist which create an imminent risk to public safety and the safety of elective and appointive officials, whichever occurs first.  Motion seconded by Council Member Winslow.  Vice Mayor Cowell calls for the vote.  Vote — 5 in favor, 1 member absent and 1 vacancy.  MOTION CARRIED.

5. Schedule regular Town Council Meeting for [dates and times] until [DATE] or until two-thirds of the Council determines that an emergent circumstances no longer exist which create an imminent risk to public safety and the safety of elective and appointive officials, whichever occurs first.

Council Member Lukkasson motioned to schedule regular Town Council Meeting for 9:00 a.m. on normal meeting Tuesdays until the second Tuesday in September or until two-thirds of the Council determines that an emergent circumstances no longer exist which create an imminent risk to public safety and the safety of elective and appointive officials, whichever occurs first.  Motion seconded by Council Member Winslow.  Discussion regarding this next coming up meeting.  Need to give 24 hour notice of that meeting.  Council Member Lukkasson amends his motion to state this coming Tuesdays meeting will be at 10:00 a.m. to give staff an opportunity to distribute the notice.  Council Member Winslow seconds the amendment.  Vice Mayor Cowell calls for the vote on the amendment.  Vote — 5 in favor, 1 member absent and 1 vacancy.  AMENDMENT

{page 4}

CARRIED.  Vice Mayor Cowell calls for the vote on the original motion.  Vote — 5 in favor, 1 member absent and 1 vacancy.  MOTION CARRIED.

6. Direct Town Manager and Chief of Police to implement procedures to ensure the safety of public attendees at future Council meetings.

Council Member Kelley motioned to direct Town Manager and Chief of Police to implement procedures to ensure the safety of public attendees at future Council meetings.  Motion seconded by Council Member Lukkasson.  Vice Mayor Cowell calls for the vote on the amendment.  Vote — 5 in favor, 1 member absent and 1 vacancy.  MOTION CARRIED.

ADJOURNMENT:
12:41 p.m.

CERTIFICATION:
I hereby certify that the foregoing minutes are a true and correct copy of the minutes of the Emergency Meeting of the Town Council of Quartzsite, Arizona, held on the 10th day of July 2011.
I further certify that the meeting was duly called by emergency and held and that a quorum was present.
DATED this 12^th day of July 2011.

{unsigned}      
Karen Norris, Town Clerk

APPROVED:

{unsigned}
Ed Foster, Mayor

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

PDF images of the minutes:

Page 1 – Notice

Page 2 – minutes

Page 3 – minute

Page 4 – minutes

Quartzsite Mayor declares meeting illegal, Town Council proceeds without the Mayor

Gary Hunt
Outpost of Freedom
July 13, 2011

An on again, off again, meeting was held in Quartzsite, Arizona, on Tuesday, July 12, 2011, at 10:00 AM. The meeting, according to sources, was called during an illegal meeting, as declared by the Mayor, on Sunday, July 10. This July 10 meeting was the subject of an early posting (Illegal Town Council meeting in Quartzsite, Arizona).

Mayor Ed Foster, at the beginning of the Tuesday meeting, pointed out that the Arizona State Attorney General had not declared the Sunday meeting to be illegal, since he had received no formal complaints regarding the illegality. The Mayor then encouraged all to file such complaints (complaint link contained in Illegal Town Council…).

The Mayor then declared that this (Tuesday) meeting was, also, illegal, since it was scheduled during the illegal meeting of Sunday, and is not being held at the normal 7:00 PM meeting time, as stipulated in Town Code. He further stated that Arizona Revised Statutes requires that “all persons shall be allowed to attend public meetings”, after pointing out that there were a number of people outside, who had not been allowed entry to the meeting. 

He then stated that he had directed the Town Clerk to arrange for a larger facility for subsequent meetings and that the non-meeting then being held would be rescheduled within 24 hours.  Mayor Foster then left the building.

The City Attorney then explained that the Sunday meeting was, “presumptively,” legal, since “there has been no judicial finding that it was illegal”.  The council, absent the Mayor, continued the meeting with Vice Mayor Barbara Cowell presiding over the meeting.

The first order of business, then, was to decide whether they should continue the current meeting, to which the Council voted, unanimously, to continue.  The audience, however, appeared to, resoundingly, vote “Nay”.

The meeting was then called to order by the Vice Mayor. An invocation and the Pledge of Allegiance were held, and then a roll call indicated that all were present, except Mayor Foster.

A consent agenda (three items, unstated) was approved and then discussion began on the tentative budget for 2011-2012. It was decided that the tentative budget would be published, another special meeting be held prior to approval, and then the meeting for the approval be held, approved unanimously.

The meeting was then adjourned about 11 minutes after Mayor Foster’s first statement. Nothing controversial, at all, was discussed, with the exceptions noted above.

* * *

Outside of the meeting, others who had come to visit Quartzsite and get an idea of what is going on in this little town of about 3800 full time residents, report that they were told that there was no copy of the “meeting rules” available. The “meeting rules” came to prominence when Jennifer “Jade” Jones was forcibly removed from the building after stating that the rules had never been adopted by the Council (see Arrest Jennifer Jade Jones June 28 Quartzsite Arizona Council Meeting Viral), though she was not arrested, only removed from the meeting).

It was also noted that the ten Quartzsite Police Officers who had signed a request for an investigation (No Confidence in Quartzsite Chief of Police Jeff Gilbert) were at the grounds outside of the meeting wearing red tee-shirts, while the on-duty officers were not signatories to the request. Quite a coincidence!

Channels 3, 5, 12 and 15 (Phoenix) were present, along with numerous reporters from other locations, including Blythe, California, just twenty miles west along Interstate 10.  Channel 3, a late arrival, chose only to interview Chief of Police Jeff Gilbert, who explained that he did not really know all that happened when he ordered the removal of Jennifer Jones on June 28.  It appears that they had no interested in what the Mayor of Quartzsite had to say about Tuesday’s events.

No Confidence in Quartzsite Chief of Police Jeff Gilbert

Gary Hunt
Outpost of Freedom
July 12, 2011

The following is an unsigned, undated letter to the Mayor, Town Council, and Citizens of Quartzsite, Arizona.  Being unsigned and undated, it has a questionable background and source; however, it is simply a short version of a complaint — a vote of No Confidence — in the Chief of Police that is supported by 10 of the police officers (80%).

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Mr. Mayor, Members of the Council, and citizens of Quartzsite, Members of the Quartzsite Police Officers Association, representing approximately 80% of the department, met with AZPOST to make a formal complaint against Police Chief Jeff Gilbert.  These officers provided a detailed letter, outlining years of management abuses, misconduct, EEO violations, and political and criminal behavior against Chief Gilbert.  The Quartzsite Police Officers Association notified AZCOPS, who have also requested of AZPOST an immediate investigation of Chief Gilbert.

Some of the allegations against Chief Gilbert:

•  “White-out” the town manager’s signature on their leave request forms, giving the appearance the town manager had not previously approved the initial request.
•  Violating medical privacy acts under federal law.
•  Uses his authority as the Chief to intimidate both officers and members of the community if they disagree with his methodology and political affiliation
•  Chief Gilbert uses, or orders members of the Department to use NCIC to find “dirt” on political candidates or citizens supporting candidates the Chief Dislikes
•  “Friends” of the Chief who have warrants for their arrests are not placed in Custody
•  Officers are ordered to make traffic stops and arrest/cite citizens who the Chief believes are against him
•  Disciplines members of the Department on how “loyal” they are to him; not on the merit of the investigation
•  Ridicules and humiliates members of the Department he deems are “unfit” in front of others
•  Promotes those who are loyal/friends of his in violation of Department/HR rules and policies

In the past few weeks, members of the Quartzsite Police Officers Association made it known to members of the Town Council and other agencies our concerns involving the conduct of Chief Gilbert.

We advised the Town Council not only of policy violations, but criminal violations against citizens as well.  We notified the Town Council that we have a vote of “No Confidence” in his leadership.

In the interest of town unity we did our duty, and reported our concerns to the Town leaders, with offers of supporting evidence, in an effort to allow them to take this matter into their own hands and away from ours.

We have realized that the Town Manager, Alex Taft, continually attempted to delay, stall or prevent this investigation from taking place.  Alex Taft and Chief Gilbert approached his own known associates at other agencies in an attempt to direct the investigation in his favor.  We believe her personal friendship with the Chief has blinded her to her responsibilities to the citizens of this community, keeping her from doing her duty to the Town of Quartzsite, and to the employees under Chief Gilbert’s direct supervision.

As an example, over the Memorial Day weekend, Town Manager Taft scheduled interviews with the employees of the police department to be conducted by an outside firm.  These interviews are being conducted by a law firm hired by the Town Manager to determine the reasons for a morale problem in the police department, and does not involve an investigation into the criminal allegations reported by your police officers.

The Town Manager and Council do not appear to take these allegations seriously.  Alex Taft has failed to follow the Town’s Personnel Policy, which would be to place Chief Gilbert on administrative leave pending the results of an investigation of the allegations.  Department policy requires an impartial investigator from the Department of Public Safety to conduct a fair and honest investigation.  Again this policy was disregarded by the Town Manager.

To those Town Council members that did listen and take the concerns to the Town Manager, the Quartzsite Police Officers Association thanks you for your efforts.  You have tried, as is your duty, to have an honest and thorough investigation of Chief Gilbert’s actions initiated.

We would like to assure the Town Council and the citizens of Quartzsite that, despite claims to the contrary, the members of the Association stand behind their allegations concerning Chief Gilbert’s conduct.  These employees of your town have continued to do their duty and protect the public safety.

Since the allegations were reported, the officers who made the report have been threatened and intimidated.  The officers have been told that the Town Council and the citizens of Quartzsite would demand the termination of all the individuals that have made this stand and signed the complaint.  When these threats were brought to the attention of the Town Manager, no actions were taken again in violation of Town Policy.

Left with little other choice, it is the duty of the Quartzsite Police Officers Association to inform the citizens of this community and the rest of the public that we do not stand behind Chief Gilbert, or condone any of his criminal actions, nor will we jeopardize our own careers by following orders we know are unconstitutional and by not reporting his criminal behavior.

It is apparent that a vote of No Confidence in Chief Gilbert is not enough to ask for his resignation with cause.  This issue is not a popularity contest, and neither the officers nor Chief Gilbert are running for election.  This is not about personal friendships or politics.  We that stand before you are reporting years of management abuses, misconduct, EEO violations, and political and criminal behavior by Chief Gilbert against employees of your town and your fellow citizens.  A criminal investigation by the Department of Public Safety is called for, not only by policy, but in fairness to all involved.

The Quartzsite Police Officers Association has always stood behind the Town of Quartzsite and its citizens, and we will continue to do so.  We are asking for two things: an immediate investigation of Chief Gilbert’s conduct by D.P.S. and, if the allegations against him prove true, demand his immediate termination.  We would request that the Town Policy be followed and Chief Gilbert be placed on administrative leave until the investigation is concluded.

Sincerely,

Quartzsite Police Officers Association

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Now, you may be wondering why I would even consider posting such an unsigned, undated letter.  Well, because it is just the short version of what is included in a signed (by ten officers) and dated (May 10, 2011) letter in PDF format.  To read the longer letter and request for an investigation, QPD.PDF.

[Thanks to http://www.quartzsitenews.tv for the above and the PDF file]

Illegal Town Council meeting in Quartzsite, Arizona

Gary Hunt
Outpost of Freedom
July 11, 2011

[Note: There have been many rumors flying around about the request for Mayor Ed Foster’s attendance at an illegal Town Council meeting, on Sunday, July 10, 2011.  To assure that what is occurring in Quartzsite, Arizona, doesn’t get blown out of proportion with rumors, speculation and falsehood, I contacted Mayor Foster, this afternoon, to make sure that the truth does come out, and unfounded rumors return to whence they came.  GH]

Mayor Ed Foster, of Quartzsite, Arizona, was invited to a meeting.  He chose to go to that meeting and felt that there was no duress involved in making him attend.

When he arrived at the Town Council chambers, he was standing just inside of the doorway when he heard the door shut and the lock click.  A photographer who had wanted to attend the meeting was barred by that action.

Dozens of Town residents held their ears to the door in an effort to hear what was transpiring in a meeting that the Mayor described as an illegal meeting, meeting only the quorum criteria, under state law, for a meeting.  No prior notice; closed meeting; no agenda — all of the normal requisites for openness in government had been dispensed with.

The results of the meeting, under the watchful eye of the Town Manager, Alex Taft, and Chief of Police, Jeff Gilbert, was that those two appointed entities have superseded the elected officials (people’s choice), and placed the Chief of Police in charge of the Town, as an emergency measure.

The nature of the emergency is said to be fear, based upon threats received by various members of the Council, Town employees, and officials.  When asked if any of the threats came from Quartzsite citizens, the answer was that the threats were coming from all over the country, and from other countries.  There were, apparently, no threats at all received from any local people.

Why, then, does the emergency warrant a change in Town government from elected officials to appointed, and, presumably, unable to be recalled, only fired?  But, then, if they are in charge, who can fire them?

The attention that the recent incident involving the ‘arrest’ of Jennifer Jones has gone viral.  It appears that the politicians in the capitol, Phoenix, in both the Governor’s and the State attorney’s offices are beginning to listen to what they had refused to acknowledge, in the past.  This may also be true of the La Paz County Sheriff, who had sent officers to Quartzsite, with instructions to not get involved.

Now, if we are, truly, a nation of self-governed people, then it behooves the rest of us to understand that if it can happen in Quartzsite, it can happen where you are — just as those in Virginia realized that what was happening in Massachusetts could also happen to them, 236 years ago.

So, in light of the Founder’s willingness to participate in support of others who found themselves under the yoke of despotic government, lend what you can by calling, or, at least, emailing, those involved in this charade of government tyranny.

(For some information regarding recent activity, see http://www.quartzsitemineshaft.com/)

Government officials with the capacity to support the citizens of Quartzsite – Ask them to aid Mayor Foster:

Governor Jan Brewer: (602) 542-4331
online email link: http://azgovernor.gov/contact.asp

State Attorney General: Tom Horne (602) 542-5025 — Media Contact for SAG: amy.rezzonico@azag.gov
Also, Open Meeting Law Complaint Form  If you feel you have been the victim of or have information of Violations of the Open Meeting Law please file a complaint with our office.

La Paz County Sheriff, Don Lowery: (928) 669-6141 email: dlowery@lapazsheriff.org

* * * *

Bad guys – let them know what you think:

Chief of Police, Jeff Gilbert: (928) 927-3889

Town Manager: Alexandra Taft:  (928) 927-3889

[Article on line at Illegal Town Council meeting in Quartzsite, Arizona]

Manifesto of a Dead Man

Gary Hunt
Outpost of Freedom
June 20, 2011

Tom Ball chose to “Live Free, or Die”. Since the system did not allow him to “Live Free”, he chose to “Die” free.

On June 16, 2011, Tom Ball self-immolated at the door of the Cheshire County Courthouse in Keene, New Hampshire.  Preceding his act of defiance against a system, well, he will tell you about that system, he sent his Last Statement” to the Sentinel. The Statement (Manifesto) is given, below, with only two redactions (removing reference to the name of his mother and children).

After you have finished reading his “Statement”, you may wish to read “About Ashwander v. TVA” and “Who Makes the Laws?“, to understand how what Tom Ball calls “The Second Set of Books”, came into existence, contrary to the Constitution and the laws of the United States.   You may also want to read “Asset Forfeiture to fund expansion of Police State” to understand why local police departments comply with “policies” sent down from the Department of Justice.

Last Statement

by Tom Ball

A man walks up to the main door of the Keene N.H. County Courthouse, douses himself with gasoline and lights a match. And everyone wants to know why.

Apparently the old general was right. Death is not the worst of evil.

I am due in court the end of the month. The ex-wife lawyer wants me jailed for back child support. The amount ranges from $2,200. to $3,000. depending on who you ask. Not big money after being separated over ten years and unemployed for the last two. But I do owe it. If I show up for court without the money and the lawyer say jail, then the judge will have the bailiff take me into custody. There really are no surprises on how the system works once you know how it actually works. And it does not work anything like they taught you in high school history or civics class.

I could have made a phone call or two and borrowed the money. But I am done being bullied for being a man. I cannot believe these people in Washington are so stupid to think they can govern Americans with an iron fist. Twenty-five years ago, the federal government declared war on men. It is time now to see how committed they are to their cause. It is time, boys, to give them a taste of war.

There are two kinds of bureaucrats you need to know; the ones that say and the ones that do. The bridge between them is something I call The Second Set of Books. I have some figures of the success of their labors. You and I are in these numbers, as well as our spouses and children. But first let me tell you how I ended up in this rabbit hole.

My story starts with the infamous slapping incident of April 2001. While putting my four year old daughter to bed, she began licking my hand. After giving her three verbal warnings I slapped her. She got a cut lip. My wife asked me to leave to calm things down.

When I returned hours later, my wife said the police were by and said I could not stay there that night. The next day the police came by my work and arrested me, booked me, and then returned me to work. Later on Peter, the parts manager, asked me if I and the old lady would be able to work this out. I told him no. I could not figure out why she had called the police. And bail condition prevented me from asking her. So I no longer trusted her judgment.

After six months of me not lifting a finger to save this marriage, she filed for divorce. Almost two years after the incident, I was talking with her on the phone. She told me that night she had called a mental health provider we had for one of the kids. Wendy, the counselor told my then wife that if she did not call the police on me, then she too would be arrested.

Suddenly, everything made sense. She is the type that believes that people in authority actually know what they are talking about. If both she and I were arrested, what would happen to our three children, ages 7,4 and 1? They would end up in State custody. So my wife called the police on her husband to protect the children. And who was she protecting the kids from? Not her husband, the father of these children. She was protecting them from the State of New Hampshire.

This country is run by idiots.

The police sergeant Freyer screwed this up from the get go. When I got the Court Complaint form the box was checked that said Domestic Violence Related. I could not believe that slapping your child was domestic violence. So I looked up the law. Minor custodial children are exempted. Apparently, 93% of American parents still spank, slap or pinch their children. To this day I still wonder if Freyer would have made this arrest if it had been the mother that had slapped the child.

Labeling someone’s action as domestic violence in American in the 21st century is akin to labeling someone a Jew in Germany in the 1930’s. The entire legal weight of the state is coming down on him. But I consider myself lucky. My family was destroyed. But that poor bastard in Germany had his family literally annihilated.

Arrests are mandatory for the police in New Hampshire for domestic violence. That is not law. That is police department policy. Laws come from the Legislature and the Governor’s office together. God only knows where these policies come from. The State’s Attorney General also has a mandatory arrest protocol for domestic violence. I call these policies, procedures and protocols The Second Set of Books. You never cover the Second Set of Books your junior year in high school. That because we are not suppose to have a Second Set of Books. This is America-we have the rule of law.

I am a regular guy, a coffee and cheeseburger type of fellow. As remarkable as my life has been, I figure that what happens to me must be happening to others as well. I was 48 years old when I got arrested here for my first time. So I went looking for the arrest numbers for domestic violence, this new group that I had unwilling joined. I could not find anything. So I wrote the U.S. Dept. of Justice in Washington. They wrote back that they did not keep track of domestic violence arrests. The FBI keeps track of all other crimes. How come not domestic violence? I thought some low level clerk was blowing me off.

At the time, I had mailing addresses in both New Hampshire and Massachusetts. So I wrote to all six Congressional offices, the two Senators from each state and the two Congressman. They like doing favors for constituents hoping you will favorably remember their name in the voting booth. All six offices reported back the same thing. They do not know how many arrests for domestic violence have been made. I immediately knew something was wrong. And I also knew this was not going to be good.

Improvise, adapt and overcome. The Army teaches that to every soldier it trains. They say that no battle plan survives the first five minutes of combat. So your people on the ground had better be able to think for themselves. Taking casualties in war is just an occupational hazard. Taking casualties and not accomplishing your mission is a disaster. After 21 years of Army service, I am pretty good at improvising.

The first thing I found was a study not of domestic violence arrests but of domestic violence injuries for 18 unnamed states and the D.C. in the year 2000. In the study 51% of the injuries were ‘no injuries’. So I knew I had a study of police reports. Who else but a police officer would record no injuries? I populated that out to the 50 states and came up with 874,000 arrest in the year 2000.

I had originally populated the number back to 1994 when the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was enacted into law. I would later find out these arrests stated with the U.S. Attorney General’s Task Force of Domestic Violence ten years earlier in 1984. As individual states data became available for various years and states, I would incorporated in to my informal study. The number I have now in 2011 is 36 million adults have been arrested for domestic violence. I have a gut feeling this number could be as high as 55 million. But I only have data to 36 million. So 36 million it stays. And there is a really cool trick you can do once you have this number. You can find out how many American men. women and children ended up homeless because of these arrests.

Most of the domestic violence statistics I have seen break down with 75% male and 25% female being arrested. So I am going to used the male pronoun for the one arrested spouse and the female pronoun for the victim spouse. That should make the domestic violence feminists ecstatic-man bad, woman good. But that is okay because that is probably the last nice thing I am going to do for them today.

When then a man is arrested for domestic violence, one of two things can happen. If they are only dating and have separate apartments, then he can head home. But if they are living together, then this fellow has a real problem. Bail conditions and then a possible protective or restraining order prevent him from being with her. So he needs to find a new place to live, at least until the charges are resolved. The King of his Castle is no longer allowed into his castle. A feminist name Pence who wrote that was absolutely giddy at that outcome. So he can get his own place if he has enough money. Or he can move in with his mother, his sister or another relative. He might have a girl friend who would let him stay with her. And if none of this is possible, well then I guess he is sleeping in his car down by the river.

If he has minor children, money will soon turn into an issue. Most men I know do not mind paying child support. They want their kids to have food on their plates, clothes on their backs, and a roof over their heads. But it does stress that man’s finances. Child support is usually 33% of the man’s gross income. Withholding for taxes, social security and health insurance can range up to 28% of his gross paycheck. So a man making $500 a week gross has only $825 monthly left over after withholding and child support. That is not enough money for an apartment here in Central Massachusetts. That does not include other expenses like heating, electric, gas, groceries, telephone, cable, car payment and car insurance. So he is in a financial hole. Estimates of homeless men run 82% to 94%. I am going to round that down to 80%.

After the King has left his castle, his wife runs into a problem. She was use to getting his whole paycheck for the household. Now she get a third for child support. Figure they both work and made the same money, her budget went from 100% down to 66%. If she was running the house on $3,045. a month when the King was home, now without him she only has $2,220. Most households in America cannot withstand a 27% hit on the household account. She’ll juggle the bills but eventually most wives figure out that they can pay all the smaller bills if they just does not pay the big bill. That would be the rent or the mortgage. So six to nine months after the King is out of the castle, the Queen, the Princes and the Princesses are also on the street. Domestic violence feminists state that 50% of victim spouses of domestic violence end up homeless at some time in their lives.

The last group of homeless from these arrests are children. The domestic violence feminists state that 70% of domestic violence couple have children. So 50% female times 70% children equals 35%. But children is plural. So we will double to 70%.

(Odd isn’t it? They know that 50% of victim spouses end up homeless and that 70% of them have children. How can they know the percentages when they do not know how many total arrests were made? Those people at the U.S. Justice Dept. cannot even pull off a credible cover-up. )

Men are 0.8, women are 0.5, and children are 0.7 for a grand total of 2.0 homeless Americans for every domestic violence arrest. Multiply that by 36 million and you get 72 million men, women and children ending up homeless at some point in their lives over the last 25 years because of these domestic violence arrests.

That is a really large number even by Washington standards. That is almost 25% of the entire population of the U.S. using 2010 census figures. Which begs the question did these homeless people contribute to this latest economic meltdown, or did they cause it? Because if they did cause it then the recovery will not be measure in months or years but in decades.

Some of the boys in the Father’s Movement think Congress might have shot themselves in the foot over this one. Personally, I think they shot themselves some place anatomically higher. No wonder the Speaker of the House is always crying. The Dummies on the Potomac.

Twenty-five years ago the federal government start pushing these arrests on state’s legal systems. Now, we have an economy on the rope. They have thrown a huge amount of money at banks, big business and local and states government. And we are still in the mud. But no economist either at the Treasury Dept., Federal Reserve, universities or think tanks are even looking at the impact of all these broken families. If that 36 million arrest is correct, then 72 million men and women, have been throw out of the middle class into subsistence living. Or is the number 55 million and 110 million? No one knows and no one is even looking. But why should look? According to the Attorney General, we do not know how many arrests we have made.

And if the Tea Party is any indication, insurrection is brewing in the land. Just a coincident? Not likely. This is what happens when the government wipes out the middle class.

The idea for these arrests came from something called the Minneapolis Police Experiment (MPE) of 1981-82. In the experiment police officers were given pads with one of three words written on them; counsel, send or arrest. Counsel meant the officer was to try to mediate the couple’s spat. Send was to send one of the spouses out of the house for eight hours as a cooling off period. Arrest was arrest one of the two spouses. The officer was to do as the top paper on the pad said to do. The experiment was set up by the Police Foundation and Lawrence W. Sherman was the lead researcher. The results show counseling resulted in a future assault in 24% cases, send was 19%, and the arrest option resulted in a future assault in only 10% of the cases. Perhaps a cheap way of cutting down future domestic violence.

In 1984 The U. S. Attorney General’s Task Force of Domestic Violence recommended arrest as the primary weapon in domestic violence assault. Lawrence W. Sherman recommend not using the arrests because the MPE was just one study and it could be wrong. They ignored him. And by 1992, 93% of the police departments in the nation had adopted some form of mandatory arrest in domestic violence cases.

But by 1992 five more addition studies similar to the MPE became available. Lawrence W. Sherman reviewed all five studies. Then once again he wrote that the police should not use arrest. In two of the five studies, they found the same result as they did in the MPE, that an arrest cut down the odds of a future assault. But in the other three studies an arrest actually increase the odds of a future assault. So arresting someone in a domestic violence situation to cut down on future assaults did not work any better than just flipping a coin. I do not know if Lawrence W. Sherman is still alive. But fortunately he wrote a book call Policing Domestic Violence that was published in 1992.

So we have 800,000 American police officers arresting one in every six adults in the country and throwing 25% of the men, women and children out on the streets in an effort to enforce a policy that they knew did not work back in 1992. And I had always assumed that you needed a man to really screw something up. Oh well, there goes another glass ceiling.

Why would they push an arrest policy that does not work? There are two schools of thought on the reason why. The first comes from Lawrence W. Sherman. He calls it the Law of Just Desserts. Revenge for slights and offenses, real or imagined. I am sure there are some that would argue that women are not vengeful. But what is that old saying? Hell hath no fury…..

The second idea comes from the mother of the second wave of feminism. I do speak of the brilliant Betty Friedan. In the Epilogue Chapter of the 20th Anniversary Edition of her book The Feminine Mystique, Betty relayed why she resigned as the first president of the National Organization of Women in 1970. Betty wrote that she, “was unable to openly fight the man haters and unwilling to front for them anymore…” So man hating bigots not only existed 40 years ago, they were also grabbing power. Now Washington is funding them. Makes you wonder what bigots they will fund next. Maybe the Klan?

Feminists had always claimed that when women took over, we would have a kinder, gentler, more nurturing world. After 36 million arrests and 72 million evictions what we got was Joe Stalin.

The third wave of feminists do not like to call themselves feminists. The word feminist could be perceived as gender oppression. These third wave of whatever-we-call-you got that right The treachery of our legal system over the last 25 years may end up giving all feminists a bad name. Which would make us as bigoted as the man-hating feminists who got us into this mess to begin with.

So let us talk about those bureaucrats that do. These are the ones that actually carry out the evil deeds. I like call them the do-bies.

Any one swept up into legal mess is usually astonished at what they see. They cannot believe what the police, prosecutors and judges are doing. It is so blatantly wrong. Well, I can assure you that everything they do is logical and by the book. The confusion you have with them is you both are using different sets of books. You are using the old First Set of Books- the Constitution, the general laws or statutes and the court ruling sometime call Common Law. They are using the newer Second Set of Books. That is the collection of the policy, procedures and protocols. Once you know what set of books everyone is using, then everything they do looks logical and upright. And do not bother trying to argue with me that there is no Second Set of Books. I have my own copies at home. Or at least a good hunk of the important part of it.

I got my Second Set of Books when I sued the Jaffrey NH police department. Under the discovery rule, I write them with the material I wanted and it would arrive in the mail a few weeks later. I got the Police Academy Training Manual. I got the Department’s Policy and Procedure Manual. I got the no-drop protocol that the attorney general sent to all his or her prosecutors. I even got the domestic violence protocols for the court system, one hundred pages worth. Once you read the material, then you will know what the police, prosecutors and judges will do. They are completely predictable once you know what set of books they are using.

The police academy training manual states that an arrest in a domestic violence call is the preferred response. They cite the Minneapolis Police Experiment (MPE) as its justification. But the author of the MPE, Lawrence Sherman, said do not use arrest because five follow up studies show that it did not work. The would be a violation of the 4th Amendment in the First Set of Books against unreasonable search and seizure. Then there is that whole issue of whether the police have the right to arrest for any reason other than they believe a crime was committed.

The Jaffrey Police Department Policy and Procedures Manual states that if a wife says she does not want her husband arrested, the police are to ignore her, arrest the husband, and get with the prosecutor to see what they can work out. In other words, make the arrest and then see if you can Mickey Mouse it. The wife is eligible for spousal immunity. If she invokes it, then no statement she makes, written or oral, are admissible because she cannot be cross examined about it under oath. ( Did you say that? What did you mean when you said that?) With no statements the police have no probable cause in most cases to make an arrest. Also a violation of the 4th amendment in the First Set of Books.

The actor Nickolas Cage was drunk in New Orleans with his wife. Everyone else is drunk in New Orleans, so why should Nick be any different. He and his wife were arguing over which house they rented for their stay. Nick grab his wife’s arm and started to lead her to his house. The police arrested Nick for domestic violence. His wife was stunned. That was not domestic violence. “Nothing we can do,” the police explained to her. “Just following orders.”

That is an accurate explanation for victims, even if they do not think of themselves as victims. The police have a zero tolerance towards any physical contact. Things might get worse in the future is the feminist logical for this present iron fist approach to domestic relations. I would have to agree with them. After all the arrests, poverty, homelessness and misery, I can assure you-things are going to get worse.

But that nothing we can do, just following orders the officers explain always sounds so timid and lame. The police need to punch their explanation up a bit, make it more authoritarian. And there is a quick, low cost way of doing it. The police officers only need to say it in its original German.

The state Constitution in NH said the prosecutors job is to promote justice. The Attorney Generals protocols said that domestic violence case are no-drop cases. (Unless, of course, they take the Deal. Continue the case for a year, go to counseling, and everything falls off the books after the year. They did after all find some way of getting rid of all these cases.)

The Attorney General can hire, fire, layoff, promote, demote, commend or award bonuses. The constitution is some old, quaint, dusty document up in the Statehouse somewhere. So which one do you think is going to get obeyed?

Prosecutors are funny. Some, maybe most, have egos the size of Cape Cod. But of the three, police, prosecutor and judges, prosecutors have the least protection. Micheal Nifong, the prosecutor in the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case, was fired, disbarred, convicted of a crime, and actually jailed for trying to enforce the no-drop prosecution protocol for sexual assault in the Duke case.

The prosecutor in my criminal case fared a little better. I filed a complaint with his boss for summoning my two daughters, ages 7 and 4, to court. I had already conceded that the facts were not in dispute. The trial would be about the law. No witness were needed much less a couple of toddlers. He still summoned them. (The Second Set of Books tells the prosecutors to get a sympathetic face in front of the judge or jury. What’s more sympathetic than toddlers.) The prosecutor could not refute my allegation because I enclosed a copy of the trial transcript. I had to pay for the transcript. When the prosecutor read it, he gave his two weeks notice and then blew town. That transcript was the best $46 I had ever spent in this life.

There is a name for what happens when a bureaucrat is destroyed by the First Set of Books for attempting to enforce the Second Set of Books. It is called the Abu Ghraib Syndrome. The people within the law enforcement community no longer seem to know the difference between the law, with its checks and balances, and the policies, procedure and protocols that constitute The Second Set of Books. In some cases you do not even know who wrote the policy, procedure or protocol. It could have been the local high school gym teacher for all anyone knows. Many of these bureaucrats are eventually going to learn the different between the First and the Second Set of Books. And my guess is that many of them are going to learn it the hard way. Because the only checks and balances in The Second Set of Books is The First Set of Books.

Judges routinely use our children as bargaining chips. Get the adult into counseling, continue the case for a year, and then drop it. This will open up the docket for the new arrests coming in next week. These judges that use our children are not honorable. Which is why I never use the term ‘Your Honor’ any more. I just call them judge.

Alex Baldwin, the actor, wrote that you have never seen a coward until you have seen a Los Angeles County judge. I call my judges-Sullivan, Arnold and even Runyon-cowards, too. When I first started observing them, nothing made sense. Arnold was completely infuriated when he was maneuvered into ruling not guilty. He verbally went up and down at me so many times I lost count. What was the big deal? If I was not guilty just say and then we could all go home. But that was back in the days before I knew about The Second Set of Books.

I lost visitation with my two daughters when I got arrested. One was the victim-the other was the witness. After a not guilty, I expected to get visitation with my girls. But the divorce judge, Sullivan, decreed that counseling was in order and they would decide when we would reunite. I told the judge that the decision on whether these two girls had a father or a fatherless childhood was not leaving this courthouse. There would be a couple of reason for that decision.

First, by then I knew of the Second Set of Books. As much as I had prayed for the return of my children, I knew that this counseling might get thrown in the way. Judges are addicted to counseling like a meth-head is addict to crystal meth. Sullivan wrote in the divorce decree that he envisioned only one or two meetings with the counselor. There is no counseling done in the first meeting or two. It is intake-who’s the players and what are the issues. But Sullivan was not interested in counseling. He merely wanted to unload the decision out of habit. And if we do not shut them down now, they will be doing it to our kids in twenty years from now when they have little ones running around the house.

Second, just exactly where does the buck stop with our legal system? Police have to make an arrest. The prosecutor has to pursue the case. Judges now also walk a away without rendering a verdict, and passing the buck does not constitute a decision. Can those mental health counselors slide the decision over to someone else? Just where does this end? Who is responsible? Who is accountable?

The mental health crowd is the third reason I said no. Some people think they are geniuses with their Masters and PH D’s. Others think they are so wacky that they call them fruit loops. Well, I have a third name for them. Suckers. They did not get hired for their medical ability. They got these because they were willing to take these cases off the judge’s hands. Which has done nothing for the credibility for their profession. We are not here to help-we are here to unload. And they created a liability that did not previously existed. If a judge releases a defendant and he goes and kills someone, that judge or the judiciary cannot be sued. But a mental health worker, and their employer certainly can be held liable. Our judiciary is now using the mental health field like a ten dollar whore.

I sued Monadnock Family Services to make them go away. I told their lawyer Byron that they were a legitimate target for men. We settled for no money. They would have nothing to do with this reconciliation. The counselor was released. And they would no longer get involved in any domestic violence cases.

Every time we ended back in court over whatever squabbles, I would ask Judge Sullivan for my children back. The decision belong to the counselors he would tell me. But he knew he had screwed up. I could see it in his face. But he would not fix it. He would not step out of that box those domestic violence/sexual assault advocates had built for him. After five years, he retired to a part time position at the Littleton courthouse 120 miles away.

So when guys like Alex Baldwin and I call judges cowards, we have legitimate reasons for doing so. It is not good for judges to be called coward. It is unlikely that it is good for the rest of us.

I do not claim to have all The Second Set of Book. I know of one book that I do not have. And I would have loved to read that one. That would be the seminar that the domestic violence and sexual assault advocates put on periodically for legal personnel including judges. These advocates are camped outside every state, and federal, courthouse in America. The U.S. Dept of Justice provides 50-100% of their funding depending on the program. They have three day seminars at resorts where everything is paid for except the liquor. Judges in NH are ordered to attend. Neither Sullivan or Arnold would confirm or deny they had attended. They actually said nothing. It must be like the Masons where they will not say anything about the organization until you show them the secret hand sign.

Supreme Court Judge Louis Brandeis once wrote that the best description of a judge is the impartial guardian of the rule of law. How does three days of wine, women and song contribute to impartiality? It does not. So it should not have been any surprise that they would not answer me. After all, they were not on trial. I was. But they are going to be. They were suppose to protect to rule of law not collaborate in its demise. They have failed miserably.

A guardian ad litem is an attorney appointed for a child. The attorney solely represents the child. I got one when I was first separated to get a neutral pair of eyes and ears on the family. I was disappointed in his findings.

A few years later, another guardian was appointed for one of the kids. A regular report filed with the Court painted me as some sort violent psychopath. I thought that was uncalled for seeing as we had never met. It start a flurry of nasty letters between us until we both came to the conclusion that this was not about us. We ended on a friendly note.

At a Court hearing later on I approached him. I asked him if he had had any domestic violence training. He said yes, that it was required to become certified as a guardian ad litem. Another chapter for The Second Set of Books that I never managed to acquire.. So men, if you were thinking about getting a guardian ad litem for an unbiased assessment, then you should ask for the domestic violence material that certified the guardian. And do not worry that you are not sure what you are looking for. It will stand right out.

There are more sections of The Second Set of Books. Medical personnel are supposed to report suspected domestic violence. The college professor Angela Davis has a story of a Latino couple in California getting in trouble feeding the dog his liver for dinner. Mental health employees are also required. Think of Wendy threatening our kids with foster care. Teachers, day care providers, the list just goes on and on. The East German secret police, the Stazi, had 25% of the population on record as informers. The United States is not that high yet, but we are still growing.

These people-police, prosecutors and judges-are suppose to protect us. They are checks and balances to prevent injustice. That is why we spend so much money of police training. But if the police screw it up, the prosecutor can catch it. If the prosecutor misses it then the judge can step in to fix it. But if all three have been compromised, then what does one need to do to get justice? Go to the appeals court or the Supreme Court? That seem a little ridiculous particularly when the zero tolerance has arrests for something as trivial as touching.

On one hand we have the law. On the other hand we have what we are really going to do-the policies, procedures and protocols. The rule of law is dead. Now we have 50 states with legal systems as good as any third world banana republic. Men are demonized and the women and children end up as suffering as well.

So boys, we need to start burning down police stations and courthouses. The Second Set of Books originated in Washington. But the dirty deeds are being carried out by our local police, prosecutors and judges. These are the people we pay good money to protect us and our families. And what do we get for our tax money? Collaborators who are no different than the Vichy of France or the Quislings of Norway during the Second World War. All because they go along to get along. They are an embarrassment, the whole lot of them. And they need to be held accountable. So burn them out.

In the last 25 years they have arrested one in six adults in this country and forced 25% of the men, women and children into homelessness. In 50 years it will be one in three adults arrested and 50% of the men, women and children ending up homeless. Most of our kids will live to the age of 68 years old. As bad as it was for you, your children will have twice the odds of it happening to them.

Some of you will say that 50% homelessness sounds absurd. But 25% is absurd and that is already here. There is no evidence that the police, courts, or government is planning to do anything different in the immediate future. And they will not do anything different until we make it so uncomfortable that they must change. Bureaucracy at its worst. So burn them out. This is too important to be using that touchy-feeling coaching that is so popular with business these days. You need to flatten them, like Wile E. Coyote. They need to be taught never to replace the rule of law. BURN-THEM-OUT!

Most of the police stations built in New England over the last 20 years are stone or brick. Fortunately, the roofs are still wood. The advantage of fire on the roof is that it is above the sprinklers. But even the sprinklers going off work to our advantage. There is no way they can work in a building with six inches of water. And I am certain we will disrupt their momentum once they start working out of a FEMA trailers. If they still do not get the message, then burn down the trailers.

The easiest way of burning a building is with the Molotov cocktail. It was invented by the Finns when the Soviets invaded in 1939. You fill a bottle with gasoline and stuff a rag in the end for a wick. You light the wick and throw bottle, It shatters on impact spraying gas everywhere and the wick ignites the gas. Simple, readily available, and effective. And only two things to remember.

First, use a glass bottle. Thinner glass is better than thicker glass. You want it to shatter on impact. When I was teaching a kid at the high school on the West Side Worcester, MA. threw a Molotov cocktail into his school. Fortunately, he used a plastic bottle. It burned about three square inches of carpeting. I had to laugh when I said to myself, “Thank God for dumb kids.”

Second, you need to tie the rag to the bottle. Nothing worse that throwing a Molotov cocktail, landing where you wanted it, and having it shatter perfectly. Then you noticed the wick had fallen out on the way to the target. No wick-no fire.

Some of these building will have brick faces and metal roofs. Just break a window and throw the Molotov cocktail inside. Carpets, furniture, computer plastic, even paint on the walls will burn. It is okay if the sprinkler goes off. I wonder if you can get hip waders over a gun belt?

We had a kid in my hometown that burned down the old junior high school. He walked up to the front door one night with a can of lighter fluid. The applicator on the end squirts the lighter fluid out. He squirted under the door and along the seams and lit a match. The kid took out the entire old part of the building. Why are kids so competent when it is something they should not be doing?

There will be some casualties in this war. Some killed, some wounded, some captured. Some of them will be theirs. Some of the casualties will be ours.

Now, nobody wants to get killed. But let us look at your life. You are broke after paying child support. She and the kids are not doing any better. None of you are middle class any more. You have no say in the kids’ education, their health treatment, you may not even have visitation with your sons and daughters. And everything you thought you knew to be true-the rule of law, the sanctity of the of the family, the belief that government was there to nurture your brood-all turned out to be a lie. Face it boys, we are no longer fathers. We are just piggy banks.

So you are not losing anything by picking up the Molotov cocktail. It may be too late for us. But without something changing, your kids will have double the odds of it happening to them. That will knock them out of the middle class again, providing they ever get back in. And their kids, your grandchildren, will end up damaged goods before it is over. So it is okay to run. You just need to turn around and run at them. They are no way as imposing as they seem. They only do what they do for a paycheck.

Television would make us believe that people get arrested because of fingerprints, DNA, facial recognition, and instruments that can tell where a substance was made and here is the local distributors. It is Hollywood crap. Most of the people in prison are there for one key reason. They could not keep their mouths shut. They told someone. That someone told others. The cops hear it and start looking at them for a suspect. That how it works in real life.

This need to confess seems to be primeval. Just human nature. But if you cannot keep a secret, do not expect the one you tell to keep their mouth shut. There is only three people I know for certain they will keep their mouths shut. That would be Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

I only managed to get the main door of the Cheshire County Courthouse in Keene, NH. I would appreciate it if some of you boys would finish the job for me. They harmed my children. The place is evil. So take it out

Somewhere along the line I picked up the crazy notion that it is better to be dead as a free man than to live as a serf. The government needs to be a little more careful about what they teach in our schools.

And bring a can of spray paint to these fires. Paint the word COLLABORATORS ( two L’s with an S on the end) on the building before you burn it. Maybe we can shame them back to the rule of law. And we do want the police to know exactly who burned the building. Then the police can start interviewing the usually suspects, all 36 million of us.

We have covered the do-bies. Now let us look at the bureaucrats that say-ers.

The Second Set of Books originated in Office of Violence Against Women (OVW) which is part of the United States Department of Justice. Some of these policies, procedures and protocol were developed locally. But the local results would be sent up to OVW and, if approved, would disperse it out to all 50 states. They are smart, clever, bigoted and able to lie as well as any politician that ever called Washington home. In other words, they have now become Washington insiders.

But what makes them so uniques is their anger towards men, any man. They are so twisted in their hatred of men that they are positively scary. And it is not what they are doing to men that makes them frightening. You would expect that. No, it is what they are doing to the women and children that makes them so twisted.

When the Pentagon drops a bomb on innocent civilians the military calls it Collateral Damage. It sounds better than, “Yeah, we killed a bunch of women and children.” Those poor, innocent, stupid civilians have always been caught in the middle since the time we were fighting with rocks.. Your wife and kids are Collateral Damage in the war against you, the man in the family. For 25 years these feminists at OVAW have been willing to sacrifice the women and children to get you. And they cannot claim ignorance about what they are doing. Under the VAWA the federal government is funding at least 1,800 homeless shelters. As long as the Office for Violence Against Women exists in the U.S. Department Justice , no American man, women or child will be safe in their own home.

If you ask these feminists why are the shelters all full, they will not say because of all the arrests. The shelters are full because of men. But they knew from the beginning that this was not man bad-woman good thing. The year was 1976. Two things would happen that year.

First, someone at the U.S. Dept of Justice decided to count the dead bodies. In 1975 there were 1522 women killed in domestic violence. And for men killed in 1975? The dead for men was 1506. Statistically equal a friend tells me so.

If you had asked me before the study, I would have assumed that women were getting the worst of it. But I would be looking at it by genders. What I should have been looking at was species, homo-sapiens, human beings. Men are human-women are human. Being the same species you would expect the same results from both genders. And that is exactly what the dead bodies told us.

The second thing that happened in 1976 was the first domestic violence survey was released. It was so new the time that they called it family violence. Murray Straus of UNH and Richard Gellars from a school in RI were the researchers. They did not find two perpetrators of domestic violence, but three. Men initiated violence 25.7% of the time: women 25.2%, and the other 49.1% was the two going after each at the same time. These two people going after each other at the same time is well recognized in law. The law in NH calls that mutual combat. Men are human. Women are human. And once again we found both genders acting the same manner.

So how did we end up with the theory of man bad-woman good that the government at all levels is using? The feminist writer Susan Brownmiller wrote In Our Time that,” the way you get funding and church donations is to talk about the pure victims. If you talk about the impurity of the victim, the sympathy vanishes.” If women get to be good then men get what is left-bad. Man bad-woman good was originally a funding raising technique. After 35 years, it has turned into official government dogma at all levels, from the local cop on the beat to the White House. Men need to be punished, restrained and retrained. Your wives and children are, unfortunately, just collateral damage in this effort to punish men. So you were not dreaming it. There really is a government pogrom against men.

When a man batters or kills, there is no excuse. When a woman commits the same act, there is nothing but excuses. Simple though inaccurate. But there is one redeeming aspect to men being demonized. Now we men can act like devils. And we do not even need to apologize for it. Men are going to start acting just like they made us out to be. As an old high school semi-punk I can assure you boys of one thing. This is going to be fun. You guys are going to end up laughing like hyenas.

The money funded under the VAWA is split in two when it leaves the Treasury. Part goes the Health and Human Services for funding these domestic violence homeless shelters. If that 36 million number is correct, and it is all that we have, then the 1.44 million arrests a year will be made producing 2.88 million homeless Americans each year. Women and children constitute 60% of these homeless people, 1.7 million Americans a year. Shutting down these shelters would be cruel. What would these women and children do then? Go live under a bridge. No, we are stuck with these shelters for a while. But there is one thing that Congress needs to fix when they fund them again.

These shelters do not allow men on the property let alone inside the residences. Why is it against the law to use federal money on organizations that discriminate against black, Jews, gays or even women but it is okay to do so against men? Men contributed half that tax money. Eight years ago a man in California fled with his children after the police warned him to get out after they had arrested the wife and mother. None of the shelters would take him and the kids in because he was a man. I wonder if this would survive a legal gender discrimination challenge in a federal court?

A society without men is freakier than a world without blacks or Jews. That is not to say blacks or Jews are any less worthy. It just that there are more men in the world than blacks or Jews even if you combined them. If these feminist had to deal with men on a regular basis, then maybe the country would not be in the pickle we are in now.

There is a third reason to end this discrimination, something of a more practical nature. Apparently, some women like to have sex with men. But men are barred from the property. Suddenly, that 15 year boy two doors down starts looking real good. It might even be fun breaking in this new meat. So this woman driven into insolvency by the push for domestic violence arrests now finds herself charged as a pedophile because someone barred men from her world. With domestic violence advocates as friends, who needs enemies.

This shelters came up with a novel approach to fixing the pedophile problem. Male children over the age of thirteen are barred from staying there. Too troublesome. The family broke up when the father was thrown out of the house. Now a second break up is happening with the teenage boys. Perhaps a relative has one bed available. Maybe the family of a high school friend would take him in their home. If neither option works then that is okay. He can move in with his father. Then they will both be sleeping in the car down by the river.

Children of these parents also suffer. They used to have their own bedroom in a safe town with good schools. First they have a shelter, then Section 8 public housing. An urban school. Maybe good-maybe not. Kids learn how to be tough in an urban environment. The kids might go bad or they could come out just fine. But there will be no clunky car as a teenager. There will be no saving fund for college. There will be no monetary gift to use as a down payment for a starter home. This tradition of the older generation giving the younger generation a financial leg up has been ruined due to the older generation’s lack of money. Financially, the older generation is merely treading water. It will take generations after these present two generations to repair the economic damage to these families.

So we are stuck with funding these shelters for a while. These women and children have no place left to go. Some of you guys may think that these feminist caused the problem and then created the solution. But homeless shelters are not a solution. They are just barely a band aid.

The remaining money under VAWA goes to the United States Department of Justice for the Office of Violence Against Women (OVW). As long as OVW exists then the government is at war with men. As long as there is a pogrom against men, then women and children are going to end up as collateral damage. So there is no need for discussion about OVW going. The only thing we need to figure out is which of the two ways we can use to get rid of them-the easy way or the hard way.

And boys, do not try to burn down Washington’s Dept. of Justice Building in an effort to get rid of the Office of Violence Against Women. Their offices are over at N Street.

The easy way is using Congress. The VAWA comes up for funding every five to seven years. Next time it comes up, Congress votes no and everyone at the OVW gets a pink slip in late September. Nice and simple except nothing is simple in Washington. We, the people out here in the sticks, do not always know what the dynamics are in Washington. There might be one method of getting Congress on course. Have Congress demand that the Attorney General get, and release the arrests figures. Or have the President order it. He is usually fearless after he makes up his mind. And this is too large and too well known to continue the Washington plausible deniable routine. Then they will know how much trouble they are in because of these arrests.

There are 220 million adults 18 or older in this country of both sexes. If my figure of 36 million is correct, then that is 16.4% of the adults have been arrested. It could be as high as 55 million or 25%. It might be as low as 22 million or 10%. Whatever the number there are two things that Congress should know. First, is the fellow who discovered the arrests in Minneapolis back in 1992 said do not use it because it does not work. And second, the people arrested now constitute a Fifth Column here in the United States. Our loyalty to Washington is gone. But what did these geniuses on the Potomac expect? They have harmed our children. If they think Al Qaeda is a pain in the ass, wait to they see what Americans can do once their fuse is lit.

I am certain the Attorney General will sit for months on the request for the number of domestic violence arrests. Then he will explain that they do not readily have the number and that some sort of Manhattan Project effort will be needed in time and money. Nonsense. When Washington started these arrests in 1984 over 6.3 personal computers were sold here in the U.S. That figure does not include all the mini’s, midi’s and mainframe computers sold that year. There is no way they can pretend that this data does not exist in electronic storage. A request to Ohio for the arrests 1984-2010 would tie up a state clerk for an hour, including their 15 minute coffee break. Time for the truth boys and girls. Because this is not going away.

The hard way is more time consuming, cost more money and is full of headaches. Because the only way of removing a department from the federal government without the consent of Congress is to take out the entire federal government.

The first time I heard that, I said that is ridiculous. We cannot run this country without a federal government. But we will replace the old government with something new and improved. The new government would honor the debts incurred by the old government. There are a lot of useful reasons for starting with a clean slate.

The bipartisan debt commission released their recommendation for cleaning up the $14 trillion we have borrowed over the years. Convention wisdom has it that Congress has no stomach for any of the recommendations.

But a new government could install those recommendation on day one. Three years later, most Americans will not remember that anything is different. The old government laid off its employees when it closed. The new government is hiring. But instead of 65,000 employees at the Dept. of Education, the new government is only hiring 45,000. Instead of an average federal wage of $70,000 a year, the new average will be $52,000. The new government will have to write a tax code. Everyone pays 15% with no deductions. How many IRS employees could you get rid of if there were no more deductions? Anything is possible with a new government.

Normally over-throwing a elected government is considered treason. Treason is punishable by death here in the United States. But there is one way of over throwing the government. That is through the ballot box. Then it is not treason but democracy. Allegedly, Washington is in favor of democracy, particularly if their candidate wins.

There is no legal mechanism in the Constitution or the Federal code of the United States for dissolving the government of the United States. So that is what we need first. Congress would need to write it. We get them to do it through the ballot initiative.

A ballot initiative is when enough registered voters sign a petition to get a question on the ballot for the next election. The following would be a sample of what the question would look like in New Hampshire.

That all elected representatives from the state of New Hampshire to both houses of the United States Congress are to propose and advance a bill that would set up a legal mechanism to dissolve the United States government should the people decide to do so in a general election by a simple majority.

If this initiative passes in all 50 states then Congress will be stuck. They will have to write the law to dissolve. If they do not I suspect within ten years they will be standing in a stairwell at the British or French embassy with a suitcase in hand waiting to get to a rooftop helicopter. I doubt if they will be thinking about the humiliation of being thrown out of the country. They will be far too busy worrying about what will happen if the mob gets their hands on them.

Washington has not got a friend in the world. Even the British and Israelis loath them now. Kind of a bad time to be losing domestic support. And what they done over the last 25 years? They have wiped out the middle class pandering to a special interest group of bigots. And in typical Washington fashion, they did not even know they did it.

This Ivy League inbreeding in Washington has produced an elite that knows what best. Everyone else-husbands, wives, police officers, prosecutors, judges, attorney generals and guardian ad litems-are to shut up and do what they are told. The rule of law is gone, replaced by the policies, procedures and protocols of The Second Set of Books. Which means the federal government will be going shortly. For the government being unable to deliver the rule of law is like an auto mechanic who claims he does not know how to change the engine oil. A certain minimum competency is required. So it looks like the parents of the Washington elite were right. One can be too smart for their own good.

Betty Friedan wrote that the feminist revolution, like any revolution, would have its excesses. Losing the rule of law is too great to call it a mere excess. It is a catastrophe. It is the heart, mind and soul between the people and their government. These feelings of betrayal by losing it may be permanent. I have 21 years of Army service going back to the Vietnam War. My loyalty to the government should be a given. It is gone. I am certain it will never return regardless of how long I might have lived.

It was another woman that lead us in to this decision to clean house inside the beltway. Something she taught us fifty years ago. You simply look at those folks in Washington and then ask yourself the old Ann Landers question, “Am I better off with them, or without them? Are my children better off with them, or without them?” They are sinking like stones.

Washington, DC was chosen as the capital because it was the geographical center or the old Colonies. Today, the geographical center of the country is just west of St. Louis Missouri. The new government can set the capital anywhere in the United States it wants. Imagine how many rodents, insects and parasites they could lose by moving 1500 miles west.

Whether you replace the federal government or not, men are still going to need a legal defense center for men. Something like the NAACP used to get black people their rights. The only checks and balances in the Second Set of Books is the First Set of Books. Which means lawsuits. Now I know you guys are broke. Some of you have had your wives and kids thrown into homelessness. So I completely understand when you tell me that you are broke. But if everyone who has been arrested throws in $10.00 a year then the legal defense center will have a war chest of $360 million. You can buy a whole bunch of lawsuit with that kind of money.

The Ball family has been supplying sergeants to the Army since at least the Revolutionary War. Elijah served as a sergeant in Cushing’s Regiment at the Battle of Bennington. His commanding officer was a general from NH with a name of John Stark. General Stark was a clever warrior. He was responsible for the bulk of the heavy casualties the British suffered at their victory at Bunker Hill. His orderly, fighting withdrawal allowed the other units on the hill to not only retreat but collect their wounded on the way out.

General Stark would repeat this performance on three hill tops outside the village of Bennington VT one hot August day in 1777. At the end of the battle, the British lost over 900 men killed or captured. The Colonists suffered 30 dead. Two months later, the depleted British army would surrender at Saratoga. That victory at Saratoga would bring the French into the war. John Stark was the most competent general this country ever produced. For that reason alone his men loved him.

But as brilliant as he was on the battlefield, General Stark would become even more famous for something he said. In 1809 the veterans of Bennington decided to have one last reunion. A delegation called on the General with his invitation. But the General was old and frail. He could not attend. But he did send a message, “You tell the boys I said live free or die. That death is not the worst of evil.” Since 1945 the State of New Hampshire has stamped Live Free or Die on every pen, coffee mug, license plate and highway sign that they have gotten their hands on.

I think the General and his sergeant would be please that his words have elevated from the novelties and bric-a-brac to something more dignified like a courthouse door. Neither of them would give a second thought to the mess left over after the fire was extinguished. War has always been a grim business. Civil wars are usually worse.

But they would be trouble by the new enemy. Oh, they understood when a government betrays it people. They took up arms against the super power of their day to get relief for their grievances. But the enemy we face now is the government that these men birthed at places like Bennington, Saratoga and Bunker Hill. Government is no different than the food in a refrigerator. Given enough time both will go bad.

The smartest person I knew in this life was my mother. Perhaps that is true of all of us. Maybe I just got lucky. She was a nurse by trade. She worked in a time when Western medicine made that final transition from butchery to science. But it would not be her nursing skills that made her extraordinary. No, it would be this one incredible knack she had that I had only modest success at mimicking in my life. If she had something important to say to you, she would say and then never mention it again. She would talk about it if you raised the issue. But she never mentioned it twice on her own. And, oddly, you always heard her.

But she did have one favorite saying. I must have heard in a thousand times in the eighteen years I lived under her roof. It always came at the end of the conversation as she peeled away to see if it was time for Perry Mason or Lawrence Welk. She would turn her head to the side, and over her shoulder she would say, “And the only thing you really have in this world is your family.” Now, thanks to the United States Government, neither we nor our children have that.

I have three things to say to my children. First, Daddy loves you. Second, you are my three most favorite people in the world. And last, that you are to stick together no matter how old you get or how far apart you live. Because it is like Grandma always said. The only thing you really have in this world is your family.

***end***

Tom Ball

Picture of Tom Ball, thanks to Abusive Power by the State.

The
Fourteenth Article
in Amendment to the Constitution

From the Ratification of the Constitution through today

What affect has it had on the concept of government intended by the Framers of the Constitution; on our Liberties and our Lives; and, is it really what we believe it to be?

A study of the history of the Fourteenth Amendment
and its effects

By
Gary Hunt

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

For nearly thirty years, I have attempted to resolve a series of questions that are common to the patriot, or constitutionalist, community.  These questions relate to what has happened to the legal system that we were supposed to have adopted, at the time of the formation of this country, based upon both the Common Law of England, as it existed on July 4, 1776, and, a concept of justice that removed us from the arbitrary control of government.

Over the years, I have listened to what others had to say I have watched their actions to see the results.  I have read cases that seemed to bear on the subject, and, I have “experimented”, when the opportunity to do so arose.

Over time, as will be explained in the following, the pieces seem to fit a pattern.  Rather than trying to wrap the facts around a theory, I developed a theory that fit all of the facts that I could find.  However, in finding that some of the facts were, inexplicably, unwilling to fit any theory, I realized that there must be two theories, and it was a matter, then, of determining which theory fit which facts.

The two outstanding theories, neither of which will recognize the other, are:

• We are subject to all laws enacted by the government, unless the Supreme Court overrules them.
• We are subject to no laws enacted by the Congress; instead, we are only subject to the common law.

The two sides (theories) have advocates who faced off with the other side, each insisting that they are right and the other is wrong.  While, in fact, both sides are partially right, and, partially wrong.

* * *

It does, however, appear that many of the intermediate jurisdictions (other than courts), institutions, and even private corporations, believe that the nexus is there, and, that they are bound by such laws they are told to abide by.  They assume that you, too, are bound by such laws.  To argue the point with them is fruitless, and, at best, will only create dissension.  They, too, have been duped, along with most of the people in this country, into believing that which is not true.

It is for the purpose of exposing that deception that the following has been prepared, for your consideration.

* * *

This Essay will provide insight into the beliefs of the Framers of the Constitution; the effect that the Civil War and Lincoln’s assassination; Court decisions and Congressional enactments have had on our relationship with the government.

You may be sorry after you have read it, but you will understand how the subversion of the Constitution has been achieved.

The entire Essay can be found on line at: http://www.outpost-of-freedom.com/hh04.htm

The PDF file can be download from The Fourteenth Article in Amendment to the Constitution – Essay (PDF)