The American Contract is Broken - we are now free

[mikelewis]

14th Amendment
"But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State. "

15th Amendment
Section. 1. 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.

Section. 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.


If I enter into a contract with a company and they fail to comply with the requirements of that contract, isn't that contract considered null and void?

If they choose to violate this contract then what is our resposibility to uphold our end of the agreement?

Why pay taxes? Why obey their rules? They have asked for anarchy and I think they should get it.

[jimshoes]

1. bushinc has a way

of contorting the law to suit their needs, why shouldn't we? Any lawyers out there?

[sui generis]

2. they want you to not pay your taxes

that way the prison lobby gets subsidized to warehouse you while the gummint prepares to harvest your organs and claim your property and human children for medical experiments.

Uncle Sam REALLY Wants YOU!

Sarcasm aside -- they want a serf system. Like other authoritarian countries, you probably won't be able to leave the country (or state) if you owe taxes or are behind on credit card payments. Sounds kind of like the serf system to me.

[Pathwalker]

3. But, but....in Bush V. Gore Scalia said there is NO

constitutional right to a vote. Who am I to believe - Tony The Bad, or the Constitution? ;-)

[roenyc]

4. anarback (sp) said he would use this on

the Randi Rhodes show yesterday. he was talking to Thom Hartman on the phone and said the 14 and 15th amendment would be called up into play if it needed too. he is ready. this guy is serious. and yes he is using it.

[GetTheRightVote]

5. Agree, without fair elections there is no legal contract between us

and the country or its representatives, they do not represent me or my family until my vote is counted in a fair election process.

:kick:

[redacted]

6. Good Point--See this Article

http://www.redefeatbush.com/downloads/insurrection.pdf

I think David Lytel talks about how the 14th Amendment is relevant here also.

[EC]

7. Well, how I read it

it is saying that representation should be reduced to be equal to the percentage of people not allowed to vote, but were eligible. So Ohio should lose a Congressman or two. Same with Florida, N Mexico, Nevada and other states where there were allot of people denied their rights...

[mikelewis]

8. Yes but they are refusing to adhere to this law... thus we are not

obliged to hold up our end of the contract.

[Peace Patriot]

9. First of all, it's not over yet.

It's hanging by a thin thread, true--our democracy--but I'm waiting to see if we have any allies at all in the Democratic Party, and to assess the chances of restoring our right to vote. I think we will be able to assess in 3 to 4 weeks.

Second, if there is no defense of our right to vote, then we must decide what course of action to take to restore "consent of the governed."

Third, pure anarchy is not a bad thing at all. It's a philosophy of no leaders. It does NOT mean chaos and disorder. In fact, it presumes that if there is no domination of one over another (including a tyranny of the majority), a far more orderly and sane society will result.

Fourth, I believe with all my heart and soul that our models for action must be Martin Luther King and Gandhi. There is no other way to rebel that does not endanger innocent people, and that does not eventually lead to a cycle of dreadful violence in which all ideals and human feeling are lost.

Both of these men led economic protests--King the bus boycott and the garbage workers strike, Gandhi the salt march and other such protests. I think this is the path to take. More on this in a moment.

Violence presumes an enemy worthy of death. It also presumes that an enemy is not redeemable. I cannot subscribe to either thing. Revolution must be transformative and non-violent or it will fail--even if it seems temporarily victorious--by planting the seeds of its own demise. This is true even of the American Revolution, which ended up with the slaughter of the Native American population, and now...the slaughter of Iraqis. Violence breeds violence. I revere some of the Founders, especially Jefferson and Madison. Their ideas are immortal. And what happened happened. They could see no other way. But we have a lot more history to learn from than they did. Russian Revolution--Stalinism. Chinese Revolution--Red Guard, Maoism. French Revolution--the guillotine, drenched in blood, eventually Napoleon. Furthermore, strategically, non-violence is the only way to go when the other side has all the tanks and planes and EM weapons and God knows what all.

"Why obey their rules? They have asked for anarchy and I think they should get it."

You seem to define anarchy as chaos and defiance (with violence lurking behind them)--you mean what you are saying as a threat. It need not be so. I think that whatever we do should be very well thought out, methodical, orderly and probably not "in the streets" (they have too much of an advantage there), and it should be peacefully done and quite pointed--perhaps at financial institutions, or the news media.

Perhaps some form of divestiture (as brought down the Apartheid government in South Africa). Or perhaps rolling strikes, in which one group supports another (so that people don't starve or lose their homes). Possibly a "don't vote" movement--no more voting until our voting rights are restored (--into Boston Harbor with the Diebold machines), combined with a campaign to deny all donations and support to the Democratic Party, until they become OUR party again. (Or a big "vote Green" movement--but I myself am not inclined to ever vote again, after some 40 years of faithfully doing so, because I am convinced that it is meaningless and worthless, given Diebold et al.)

A tax revolt leaves people vulnerable (to forfeiture and prison). It would have to be very large and well organized.

The powers that be have controlling street protests down to a science, and almost all protests are Iron Curtained by the MSM. They didn't happen. They don't count. (I'm not against the Jan. 6 and 20 protests--not at all--I'm speaking long term here, what we do AFTER those dates.) We have to think of something new.

What we don't want to have happen is diffuse energy--people left on their own, to do some lonely act of protest, or some small protest that gets marginalized. We want it to be big, noticeable, completely effective, highly focused--and completely peaceful.

[mikelewis]

10. It's not a threat, it's a fact...

They have lost the consent of the governed by breaking the contract with America. They have all taken oaths to uphold the constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic and they have not only failed but facilitated the means by which this contract was usurped. How are we liable for meeting our end of the bargain when they choose break thier deal? Anarchy doesn't necessarily mean violence, it means lack of government. By the definition of thier own charter they have ruled themselves inviolate. Any act of force that they employ is now being perpetrated without proper authority to do so. Who do you think is going to be the first to use violence? What they can't take with consent they will take with force. This is their way. Look at 9/11, without 9/11 we would not be in Iraq. They resorted to violence to push an agenda. They seek to rule instead of govern. I, for one, will not live in fear of them. I, for one, will not bow to tyrrany. When I was a child my father used to beat me pretty bad. When I was 12, he came after me. I ran and grabbed a bat from the hall closet and smashed him right in the face. He never hit me again and his false teeth serve as a reminder that I WILL NOT BOW DOWN TO A TYRANT! There was a juckyard dog who used to terrorize me on my way to my freinds house, I stabbed in the eye with an ink pen as he tried to bite me. I will not be afraid of animals. Fuck these guys. They seek to rob me and you speak of law and order. There is no law without representation. I do not wish to fight them but they will fight me. They know no other way. You know what this is leading to. 20% of the people know there is a disease in this country and that number is growing everyday. How many know about 9/11? How many know about Iraq? How many are willing to simply bow down to oppression? Ghandi was successful because if the government hurt him the country would have crushed them. Martin was successful because there was violence and he was reigning it in. Look at how Malcolm rose in prominence. He was all about violence and never relenting. He was all about the fight. It wasn't until he realized that the people who were leading the violence were using it as a means to power and self-indulgence that he changed to peace. He was betrayed by those who use violence to their own end. It was acquiensence that lead to the Holocaust. It was acquiesence that led to the death of 6 million people. I will not go silently to a gas chamber or a prison simply because someone thinks God has given them divine providence. Fuck that.

[Fiendish Thingy]

12. I'm all for a general strike on Jan. 6, 20 and afterwards...

But aside from emigrating elsewhere, how else can one safely and completely opt out of a corrupt, war-making system of taxation without representation?

[anaxarchos]

11. This would be "The Social Contract", no?

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, 1762

http://www.constitution.org/jjr/socon_02.htm

It should be seen from the foregoing that what makes the will general is less the number of voters than the common interest uniting them; for, under this system, each necessarily submits to the conditions he imposes on others: and this admirable agreement between interest and justice gives to the common deliberations an equitable character which at once vanishes when any particular question is discussed, in the absence of a common interest to unite and identify the ruling of the judge with that of the party.

From whatever side we approach our principle, we reach the same conclusion, that the social compact sets up among the citizens an equality of such a kind, that they all bind themselves to observe the same conditions and should therefore all enjoy the same rights. Thus, from the very nature of the compact, every act of Sovereignty, i.e., every authentic act of the general will, binds or favours all the citizens equally; so that the Sovereign recognises only the body of the nation, and draws no distinctions between those of whom it is made up. What, then, strictly speaking, is an act of Sovereignty? It is not a convention between a superior and an inferior, but a convention between the body and each of its members. It is legitimate, because based on the social contract, and equitable, because common to all; useful, because it can have no other object than the general good, and stable, because guaranteed by the public force and the supreme power. So long as the subjects have to submit only to conventions of this sort, they obey no-one but their own will; and to ask how far the respective rights of the Sovereign and the citizens extend, is to ask up to what point the latter can enter into undertakings with themselves, each with all, and all with each.