VA Constitutional Militia Muster - August 2, 2009

How much longer does the Republic truly have? 230 years ago the founders scripted a basic compact of limited, enumerated federal government and unalienable (some cites “inalienable”) fundamental rights. Having forged a new republic of separate States (capital “S”) united (little “u”) to insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote (not “provide”, notice the difference) the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty.

Rights that they had witnessed abused, abridged, infringed and abrogated by the Imperial British crown.

There were opposing factions. Some wanted a bigger, more encompassing federal structure. Some wanted a very small central government. Compromises were made, but there were numerous items that all of the signators could agree on. The Bill of Rights was borne out of a need to guarantee that this newly-authored rule of law could never again be used to subjugate, enslave or abuse its privilege.

It was begun in 1865 after a brutal, antagonistic and illegal war on a free people whose only wish was that they be left alone to govern themselves in the manner they were once guaranteed under the Constitution.

Since then the American political machine, controlled by banking and special-interests as opposed to the rule of law has most-excellently applied Marx's 10 planks. Let's take a look, shall we?

1. Abolition of private property and the application of all rents of land to public purposes - Successfully applied rubric of "eminent domain" under the 14th Amendment.

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax - Thank you, 16th Amendment.

3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance - Federal Estate Tax (1916)

4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels - Executive order 11490, §1205 and the 1997 Crime/Terrorist Bill

5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly - Federal Reserve Act of 1913

6. Centralization of the means of communication and transportation in the hands of the State - Federal Highway Act of 1916, Communications Act of 1934, Interstate Commerce Commission given authority by Congress to regulate trucking and carriers on inland waterways, 1935-40

7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State, the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan - Desert Entry Act and The Department of Agriculture. As well as the Department of Commerce and Labor, Department of Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, Bureau of Mines, National Park Service... Agriculture Adjustment Act of 1933 paying farmers NOT to plant

8. Equal liability of all to labor. Establishment of Industrial armies, especially for agriculture - Social Security Administration and The Department of Labor, 19th Amendment and Civil Rights Act of 1964, Unions, affirmative action, the Federal Public Works Program and Executive order 11000

9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the population over the country - Planning Reorganization Act of 1949, Executive orders 11647 & 11731

10. Free education for all children in government schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production - Department of Education, the NEA and Outcome Based "Education"

Under the auspices of “national security” the president has secured almost unlimited and unchecked powers using executive orders. Congress approved the passage of the War Powers Act in 1933 which gave Franklin Delano Roosevelt the presumed authority to act swiftly and decisively to prevent extended damage and demoralization from the Great Depression. He swore that once they were no longer necessary, he would return such powers from the office to the legislature. 76 years later presidents still enact unconstitutional mandates and executive legislation (the Patriot Act, for example) in direct defiance of Constitutional law. What is worse is that congress and even the supreme court permit this despotism. That congress had the audacity, the arrogance to enact such blatantly spurious legislation, illegally delegating the authority vested in them and them alone by WE THE PEOPLE from to the executive office is in and of itself an act of, if not questionable ethics, criminal enterprise.

The 2ND Amendment very clearly lays out the course for men of faith, men of reason and rule of law to defend the pre-purposed design of Constitutional law. As the Constitution was written to define, describe and enumerate the limited and ONLY powers that the federal government may make use, it is implied and provided by the 9TH and 10TH Amendments that all other powers are reserved to the individual states and, barring their affect thereon, to the PEOPLE.

Truly, then, a well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

The Militia of the People is recognized as the single defining and controlling body of the rule of law to prevent the egregious and invasive forms of centralized, para-militarized federal interference into the lives of sovereign citizens. Being that the Constitution was formed and ratified by the People, the People are then the ultimate authority on their destinies. Such does not meet with approval by the government in place today.

There has been a steady and precipitous decline in individual rights and a vast increase in federally mandated appointments, apportionments, taxes and jurisdiction which the founders would never have permitted, lest they would have included them in the founding documents.

Any number of federal agencies presently operate extra-Constitutionally. That means they operate outside of the rule of law and without any Constitutional basis for existence. In fact, many of them operate in direct contradiction to and defiance of Constitutional directive. The Internal Revenue Service, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (2ND Amendment violation), Department of Education (9TH and 10TH), Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Communications Commission (1ST Amendment violation), Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), NASA, Federal Bureau of Investigation (national police force), Drug Enforcement Agency, Transportation Safety Administration (TSA), Food and Drug Administration (FDA)… I could go on and on with what the general population may consider “alphabet” agencies and then I could cite thousands of violations each one has made against the liberty of independent sovereigns in this country. One need look no further than the sieges at Waco and Ruby Ridge for evidence of the ability and determination of the federal government to force its will on the people, to coldly and callously murder innocent men, women and children whose only transgression was the imagined crime of rejecting the spurious and invasive policies of the federal leviathan.

Before I go any further I have to take a moment to provide us a safety net, a caveat that protects and indemnifies each and every one of us from suspicion of insurrection or rebellion, which are clearly defined prospects under Constitutional law. While the Militia of the People is recognized and provided for by both the federal and state Constitutions, it is likely that any movement to physically, visibly arm and/or provision such an organization may draw attention from interests or individuals who either have no understanding of Constitutional or historical precedent or would be better served for a body of patriots to be subdued or subverted before they became a reckoning body. We must make it unquestionably evident that we have no interest and no intention of overthrowing the present government, despite its evidenced disregard for its own designated limits.

The primary concern of this muster, this meeting today is to introduce those who are unfamiliar and renew the interest of those who are in the formation, restoration and revitalization of THE ultimate authority under Constitutional law, the Militia of the Several States. I say the Several States because in the beginning there were thirteen independent colonies. Thirteen separate and sovereign self-governing republics who united to break their fealty, their slavery to the British crown and the throne of King George, III.

In essence they were what are known as the three-percenters. There were estimated to be approximately three percent of the population who strongly or actively supported the movement for independence. In all a total of perhaps one third of the population supported separation from the British Empire. Another third was loyal to the crown and strongly opposed such separation (Tories) and the remaining third made no evince of their opinion, content to side with whoever came out victorious, fearful that choosing one side or the other would jeopardize their personal security or not even having a strong enough opinion one way or the other.

Our first exercise of the right of secession under natural law came in 1774 when the delegates to the Constitutional Conventions drafted and ratified their masterpiece of treason to the throne, the Declaration of Independence. Make no mistake, had those men failed, had France’s powerful and capable armada under Admiral Comp de Grasse during the Battle of the Capes and the siege of Yorktown been delayed in joining the fight the united States would never have come to exist. Virginia would possibly still be ruled by a descendant of Lord Cornwallis to this day.

The men that fought for the Colonial Army under General Washington were not army regulars. They were not a standing army of professional soldiers, having been instructed and trained in the art of soldiering by Napoleonic strategists. They were regular men who, in defense of their sovereignty, had determined to secure certain inalienable rights; namely life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – not the guarantee of such happiness, only the right to pursue is – endowed upon them by their creator.

The declaration continues, and I am reading verbatim because I sense that some of you may not have ever heard these words, that you may never have borne witness to the truth or the magnitude of just what these souls were trying to establish for us 230 years ago. Please lend a patient ear and determine for yourselves if any of this sounds familiar, if any of it might be relevant in a contemporary theater:

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed – That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. – Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

Can any of you deny that these selfsame grievances have not been undertaken by the government of Lincoln, of Roosevelt, of Hoover, of Truman, of Carter, Nixon, Bush, Clinton… and now a man who will not even provide tangible, indisputable evidence of his place of birth and who has, in a matter of mere months, indebted ours and untold future generations of our children to the yoke of yet another Marxist, socialist agenda?

Until 1861 there was no pressing argument to provide a catalyst for the Separate States to, once again, be separate. There had been a handful of testings of these waters, but the common good or even common compromise always managed to lead the day and prevail with the several states remaining as, if nothing else, a tentative Union.

Once the Southern states determined that their financial interests were being supplanted for Northern industrial development in a ratio that undermined their own security, private wealth and the very character of their own designs and devices, they, individually and collectively decided to sever their bond with the federal government and forge ahead with a new Confederate nation, one of limited centralized government and the authority they believed was vested in them by the founders returned to them. This can be evidenced by the ordinance of secession of the Commonwealth of Virginia, ratified April 17, 1861 and tendered to the United States. An exerpt:

The people of Virginia, in their ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America, adopted by them in Convention, on the 25th day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eight-eight, having declared that the powers granted them under the said Constitution were derived from the people of the United States, and might be resumed whensoever the same should be perverted to their injury and oppression, and the Federal Government having perverted said powers…

A great number of Southern sovereigns and Virginians (Robert E. Lee among them) were opposed to secession and would have preferred to see the Union preserved. They did, however, also recognize that the very federal government that had been formed out of the wilderness in 1789 was no longer recognizable to them and that they could not argue with their states, which they rightly recognized as being Constitutionally superior to the federal government.

To further illustrate this peculiar paradox, Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Major John Cartwright, of June 5th, 1824 wrote “With respect to our state and federal governments, I do not think their relations correctly understood by foreigners. They generally suppose the former subordinate to the latter. But, this is not the case. They are co-ordinate departments of one simple and integral whole. To the state governments are reserved all legislation administration, in affairs which concern their own citizens only; and to the federal government is given whatever concerns foreigners and citizens of other states; these functions alone being made federal. The one is the domestic, the other the foreign branch of the same government - neither having control over the other, but within its own department.”

The purpose of this long and likely exhausting presentation is to lay the groundwork, a foundation for understanding the necessity of the Constitutional Militia. The federal government has evinced a growing and unceasing desire to control, legislate and mandate its will on the states and independent sovereigns against their will. Through excessive taxation and unwieldy, inefficient and generally socialistic programs and policies they have reduced the private wealth of Virginia to a pittance. They print trillions of dollars of federal reserve notes which are not actual money in the classical sense, but rather debt instruments, promissory notes that have a value not based on a tangible, real product, but on speculation and artificially inflated credit markets. And then they force small businesses, the single largest generators of private wealth and providers of employment in Virginia to pay the greatest corporate income tax in the world – THE WORLD – to provide welfare services, education, business and energy incentives to foreign interests and illegals.

Our founders prepared a protection for us, as citizens, against such tyranny. It is contained in that simple sentence that I issued earlier, most well known as the 2ND Amendment: a well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Being NECESSARY to the security of a FREE STATE. Gentlemen it is not only our right and responsibility, but our duty as Virginians and Southron to demand that our state legislatures adopt and enact statutory law empowering the Militia of the People to act as it was once intended, to be the ultimate authority, under the civil power, to execute the laws of the Commonwealth and the Constitution.

The basic building block of the Militia of the Several States is the Citizens Homeland Security Association, and that is what I am here to represent to you today. The CHSA is a fundamental idea, a stepping stone to regaining our state and individual sovereignty. The illegally created federal Department of Homeland Security is illegitimate in that it pretends to protect this country from “terror” by abrogating and limiting our natural rights and deciding when to grant us permission to perform certain acts or exercise certain rights.

They pretend to protect us from an analogous, indefinable, abstract concept. Terror has no home base, no country of origin. It has no beginning and no end and as such, victory over it can never be achieved. This is not intended to be representative of some gloom-and-doom scenario. The federal government masquerades as a savior, a protector of the people by fostering fear, instilling a sense of doubt and stoking resentment in its citizenry as a means to cull support for their own agenda.

The CHSA is our way to reestablish the rule of law and force government to either accept its citizens as masters, rather than servants, or to be prepared for the likely and precipitous collapse that surely faces us should they choose not to abide by the laws to which they are supposedly bound.

Generally we must start by educating. We must educate our friends, our neighbors and our families about the role of the Militia of the People in the construction and defense of the Commonwealth and of the country. We must be willing and able to lawfully defend our homes and ourselves without fear of retaliation from some federal bureaucracy or a punitive, narcissistic, theatrical court system. We must be able to heed the call to aid and repair of our vital infrastructures in the event of a natural disaster or act of terror.

We must police our own communities and promote order and lawfulness among our fellow citizens. We must jealously defend our sovereignty and our shores from foreign invaders, be they ill-intentioned or otherwise. We must make certain that our children do not bear the burden of a failure to act when action was most needed.

A Citizens Homeland Security Association can be established nearly anywhere. It should at first be comprised of Constitutionally knowledgeable and patriotically motivated citizens. Members need not be exceptionally skilled in all or ANY aspects of military, para-military, para-medical or legal arenas. While it is desirable for members to be able to be lawfully armed and proficient with such arms, this is not an immediate requisite. As I have before stated, our mission is to educate and inform and bring attention to our local and state legislatures that there are patriots, true patriots, not just flag-waving, fair-weather-Fourth-of-July, blindly-loyal, line-towing pseudo-patriots, among their citizenry and we take our Constitutional obligations seriously.

It is of utmost importance for each member of any CHSA, to the best of his ability and as he can afford, to provide and prepare his own materiel as he deems necessary for performing his assigned or initiated tasks. As we are not a governmental agency, but a community group founded and populated by average citizens and without financial investment of government or otherwise, at present any items must be procured on an as-needed basis, starting with the bare essentials and then supplemented as finances permit. Hopefully at some time in the future we may be able to allocate private funds to aid in the provisioning of our members for their posts.

Furthermore, as we move in the direction of encouraging revisions to statutory law that re-vest and strengthen our rightful authority, we must consider the possibility that the government will not agree to our demands, the demands to which we are wholly entitled under the Constitution. We must recognize that Lincoln’s invasion of the South did not decide, lawfully, once and for all the issue of secession as a legal means to separate from the union.

I know that it is probably difficult for some of you to stomach and for some others this may even be the first you have heard of such an idea. Most of you were probably taught in school that Lincoln invaded the South to preserve the union. While on the surface this is true, the reasoning behind it is evident even today and mostly manifested in the passage of 16TH Amendment, where congress was granted the authority to levy a tax on wages and incomes, irrespective of apportionment, census or enumeration.

This, and for many other reasons, the least of which being slavery, and I only mention it because invariably someone is going to bring it up and it might as well be addressed now, as being Constitutionally protected at the time… led to the issuance of ordinances of secession from the Southern “slave holding” states. A simple review of Lincoln’s first inaugural address should supplant any confusion or disillusion of Lincoln’s views on the subject.

I would however prefer to digress from such a subject of antiquity and antebellum interest. While it must be recognized that there are distinct differences in ability, development, culture and even potential of all races, the issue of slavery or even the mere mention of it being relevant to any discussion of individual sovereignty today is circumspect. The only people in this country who could truly be represented as slaves are WE THE PEOPLE as a whole body, forcibly chained to the illegitimate tax structure and wealth-destroying fiscal and foreign policies of the federal government.

So secession, as you may know it, was not necessarily “evil” any more in 1861 than it was in 1774. In fact, it had been specifically reserved as an exercisable option by numerous states in their ratification statements, not the least of which was Virginia:

…in the name and in behalf of the people of Virginia, declare and make known that the powers granted under the Constitution, being derived from the people of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression, and that every power not granted thereby remains with them and at their will: that therefore no right of any denomination, can be cancelled, abridged, restrained or modified, by the Congress, by the Senate or House of Representatives acting in any capacity, by the President or any department or officer of the United States, except in those instances in which power is given by the Constitution for those purposes: and that among other essential rights, the liberty of conscience and of the press cannot be cancelled, abridged, restrained or modified by any authority of the United States.

The so-called “civil” war, because a civil war is two or more opposing factions fighting over a single governmental seat… something we experience a mild form of every four years… rather than a war of northern aggression, a war for southern independence or a war between the states, could not have been decisive of the legality of secession any more than a coerced confession. An action evoked under duress, of which the surrender of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, starving, outmanned and outgunned, to Grant’s Army of the Potomac most assuredly was, is not and CANNOT be a binding accord. Reinstatement to the union, under union terms at the end of a bayonet, is no more valid than should I point a knife, a sword or a gun at your head and force you to perform unconscionable acts against your will.

So I provide that secession cannot be overlooked nor ignored as an option should our efforts of diplomacy and lawful discourse fail to yield sufficient fruit. As citizens of this country either through process of oath of loyalty or consequence of birth (per the 14TH Amendment) and citizens of the Commonwealth of Virginia either by birth or by preference of residence or business, we have a responsibility, a duty and an obligation to restore and revitalize the Militia of the People, to implore our state legislature to honor, empower and submit to the authority of the will of the people and the rule of law and engage them in every effort to effect a return to Constitutional government, complete review of federal policy and interventionism and restoration of the government of this country to its limited, enumerated powers as we have agreed and acceded to.

Further, should we elect to proceed along such a path we must make doubly sure that our ranks are not subverted by influences contrary or questionable to our ends. The Militia of the People must not be enjoined or incorporated into any political party or subdivision nor any domestic or foreign influence, particularly any evincing a design or desire to usurp, overthrow or subvert the government of the Commonwealth of Virginia or that of the united States.

The revitalized Militia of the People should be characterized by honor, honesty and a duty to God, to self, to state and country, in that order. The original founders’ intent was for the federal government to be a servant of the states, performing only such actions as necessary and enumerated in the Constitution. At most it was to be of no more than parallel authority to that of the several states, never higher and most certainly never indivisible. If the several states had known going in that their accession to the rule of law and under the Constitution was going to be permanently binding and not of a voluntary nature (as evinced by numerous ratification statements) then there would have been no Union. In fact, the very formation of the Constitutional union was predicated by the failure of the prior PERPETUAL union scripted under the Articles of Confederation.

Truly, this PERPETUAL union lasted a mere thirteen years and by act of acceding to the Constitutional union, the ratifying states would have had to actively and onerously seceded from that previous union.

So here we have a government that has not once but twice used the act of secession to provide for the betterment of its citizens. There is no rightly reason that secession could not function to liberate the several states from tyranny once again.

In the interim we must concentrate our efforts on educating our communities, encouraging our local and state governments to support and empower the authority of WE THE PEOPLE and work to provide the public at large with REAL SOLUTIONS to homeland security, borne out of Constitutional responsibility and not out of some political, financial or material enterprise.

Our founders brought out of the wilderness a great and powerful nation with noble and honourable intentions. In the years since it was laid down its laws have been ignored, abrogated, obfuscated, re-imagined, redefined, abridged and infringed. That process must not only be stopped but reversed and permanently regressed to its intended basal nature.

I do not profess to be an expert in matters of this magnitude. I do not expect that there are many out there who could consider themselves authorities on this subject, certainly not very many who have taken action to provide for the security of their children’s and their grandchildren’s futures. I recognize and applaud each and every one of you for at least taking the time to attend, entertain and contemplate the concept of restoration and revitalization of the Constitutional Militia. I will do my best to answer any questions or address any concerns you may have about the process or what we may further predict as the progression of such an organization.

If I do not have an immediate answer, I will strive to educate myself further so that I may provide as well-rounded a response on the subject as possible. We should be prepared and perhaps EXPECT hesitation and even derision or contempt from others who either do not understand Constitutional doctrine or who have been so wholly and completely programmed by their government that they honestly believe there is nothing at all wrong with the direction we are not only headed now, but have been for well over a century.

Thank you all for attending and, again, please do not hesitate to bring any comments, questions or concerns to my attention. We must all be willing to maintain an open communication, an open dialogue and cast aside any differences we may have politically, culturally or otherwise as we strive to rebuild and reclaim our birthright, our liberty, our freedom.

For in this day and age, the old sayings seem to carry more weight than ever before. As founder Benjamin Franklin said: We must indeed hang together, or most-assuredly we shall all hang separately.

Patrick Henry, on May 30TH of 1765, barely twenty-nine years old, stood before the assembly of Parliament and gave a visceral criticism of the course that was being laid by the empire: “Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell and George the Third…” At that point he was interrupted by cries of “Treason!” from delegates who easily recognized the reference to assassinated leaders. Henry paused briefly, and then calmly finished his sentence: “...may profit by their example. If this be treason, let us make the most of it.”

This is not to say that I, we or anyone, for that matter is giving any other than precursory and fair warning to the federal government. The judicial, the legislative and the executive have all behaved dishonourably and have maligned their offices. With great tyranny there is always the threat of retribution. We do not offer that guarantee nor even intimate such. We can only here provide notice that we do not take lightly the cause of our own sovereignty and though it is with heavy and hardened hearts that we have come to this place, we have very little recourse available. Our collective disapproval and continued appeals and petitions for redress of grievances have fallen on naught but deaf ears. We have come to our final opportunity to press them into compliance with their oaths and their station. We do not undertake such a task lightly and, like our founders long before us, this comes ONLY after a long train of abuses and usurpations have evinced to reduce us under absolute despotism.

I leave you then with the closing passage from another of this great patriot’s speeches, given before the Virginia Convention on March 23RD, 1775:

It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, "Peace! Peace!" – but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!

Sic Semper Tyrannis