The fuzzy issue of Ron Paul on abortion.

After a somewhat heated debate on the local Ron Paul meet-up group mailing list, I decided it was time to tackle this topic.

This has been one of those grey areas of the Ron Paul campaign for awhile now and I've seen it put in a variety of ways by members of both the Pro-Life and Pro-Choice camps in order to claim support for Ron Paul from both sides of the proverbial fence.

One of the first things I wanted to show was the difference between the way he presents his views in two recent media appearances.

First is his interview on the television talk show The View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbljWBdSW30

And then we have his speech to the Family Research Council: http://www.frcaction.org/get.cfm?i=WX07L05

You'll notice how in the first video he carefully approaches the issue by making it an argument about late term abortions, which are already illegal under Roe v. Wade unless a physician deems it necessary to protect the woman's health. He makes almost no mention of the right of choice for early term abortions, opting to make an obvious emotional plea that doesn't line up with the facts.

The central holding of Roe v. Wade was that abortions are permissible for any reason a woman chooses, up until the "point at which the fetus becomes ‘viable,’ that is, potentially able to live outside the mother's womb, albeit with artificial aid. Viability is usually placed at about seven months (28 weeks) but may occur earlier, even at 24 weeks." The Court also held that abortion after viability must be available when needed to protect a woman's health, which the Court defined broadly in the companion case of Doe v. Bolton.

He opens his argument with the following exchange with Joy Behar:

Joy Behar: What about Roe v. Wade? I don't want the government telling me what to do with my body. How do you justify that?

Ron Paul: Well, I think the question is whether a baby that is unborn that weighs eight pounds, in the seventh, eighth month of gestation has any rights. Is it a person.

Joy Behar: Oh That's... but what about the first month, you know, when you usually get an abortion?

Ron Paul: Ok, so you're not for all abortion?

Joy Behar: I don't know, it would have to come up in a specific case.

Ron Paul: So you thin the line... so you don't want me to do an abortion on somebody that has an 8 pound normal baby.

Joy Behar: No of course not, but the... but if the...

Ron Paul: Ok, So you're not for abortion really.

He tries to establish here a false dichotomy, in almost clear contradiction with what Roe v. Wade actually covers, a point which will become rather relevant in a moment.

In the second video he openly rails against what he calls "one of the most despicable of all court rulings" and calls for the overturning of the Roe v. Wade decision and the removal of the abortion issue from Federal jurisdiction.

Dr. Paul states in this speech:

And for my time that I've spent in politics as well as medicine, I've thought this issue through rather seriously and have written even a booklet on the right-to-life issue and the importance of the unborn. And I frequently tell the story about when I was a resident, that this issue came up. It was in the 1960s, when abortions were still illegal, but my professor was doing abortions and permitting abortions to defy the law. And I accidentally walked into a room where they were doing an abortion, and they delivered a two-pound fetus, an infant that was breathing and crying. And they took this baby and put it over in a basket in the corner, and they waited, pretended they didn't hear it and let it die.

That is an outrage.

And unfortunately, since that time, our Supreme Court has institutionalized that, and that is why I think one of the most despicable of all court rulings has been the Roe versus Wade, and that should be our goal, is to repeal Roe versus Wade.

This latter stance raises a few issues of its own which I'll attempt to address.

First off is the fundamental matter of the Constitutionality of Justice Harry Blackmun's decision.

The opinion of the Roe Court, written by Justice Harry Blackmun, declined to adopt the district court's Ninth Amendment rationale, and instead asserted that the "right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment's reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy." Douglas, in his concurring opinion from the companion case Doe v. Bolton, stated more emphatically that, "The Ninth Amendment obviously does not create federally enforceable rights." Thus, the Roe majority rested its opinion squarely on the Constitution's due process clause.

What this means is that there are certain rights that are fundamental to man and cannot be abridged. Consider the comments of Justice Arthur Goldberg (joined by Chief Justice Warren and Justice Brennan) in their concurring opinion in the case of Griswold v. Connecticut (1965):

[T]he Framers did not intend that the first eight amendments be construed to exhaust the basic and fundamental rights.... I do not mean to imply that the .... Ninth Amendment constitutes an independent source of rights protected from infringement by either the States or the Federal Government....While the Ninth Amendment - and indeed the entire Bill of Rights - originally concerned restrictions upon federal power, the subsequently enacted Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the States as well from abridging fundamental personal liberties. And, the Ninth Amendment, in indicating that not all such liberties are specifically mentioned in the first eight amendments, is surely relevant in showing the existence of other fundamental personal rights, now protected from state, as well as federal, infringement.

The emphasis at the end is mine.

In this vein the Roe v. Wade decision defends those fundamental personal rights, that of a woman's right to privacy and the right to control her own body.

This also relates to the rights covered in the 10th Amendment of the Constitution:

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

What these together illustrate is the principle that a woman has the fundamental natural right to privacy and the right to control her own body, that the founding fathers and the Constitution recognize the principle of these rights and that they defend those rights through several of the Amendments in the Bill of Rights in a manner which precludes infringement upon them by either the state or federal governments.

So in his speech, Paul first makes a case about what he describes as a viable (his implication) fetus that was discarded in a trash can and left to die, before Roe v. Wade ever happened. Roe v. Wade actually moves to prevent such an act by forbidding late term abortions except to protect the mother's health, only allowing the mother the choice of control over her own body and not specifically over that of the fetus. This makes the issue not one of whether or not the mother has the right to kill her own child, but of whether or not she has control of her own body and whether or not to continue a pregnancy. If the child can survive outside of the mother, it is thus protected under Roe v. Wade.

If Paul's intention was truly to prevent late term abortions, he would be attacking Doe v. Bolton, the case that actually allows late term abortions in cases of a physician's decision to protect the health of the mother, not Roe v. Wade which prevents them after viability.

Given these issues, it becomes clear that his intention is not to benevolently remove the federal government from meddling with our right to choose, thus allowing the states to decide for themselves, or even to prevent late term abortions. His intention is specifically to remove the Constitutionally protected status from the issue as recognized by Roe v. Wade in order to facilitate the criminalization of abortions on the state level, something that cannot be done currently because of the Supreme Court's recognition of the natural rights of the woman that are reflected in and protected by the Bill of Rights.

With those points hopefully addressed, I'll move on to a more specific facet of this debate raised on the local meet-up mailing list.

There was a statement made about supporting Ron Paul because he supported a woman's right to choose not to fund abortions with tax dollars. The specific statement was as follows:

Ron Paul supports my pro-choice decision not to be COMPELLED to fund Abortions through TAXATION for women who make their own choice to have one.

This was followed by several other similar statements about sex education, public education, freedom of religion, medical history, border protection, welfare and charity.

The whole statement was meant to be a play on the "Pro-Choice" stance by actually turning it around to mean that Ron Paul gives the woman the choice not to support abortions with her tax dollars etc.

At first glance this may seem like a sound statement and a clever way of showing why she supports Ron Paul. However, this is another case where the issue is not as simple as it may seem at first glance. The actual reality of the issue more likely has the opposite effect of what she and the Pro-Life camp seem to think it would.

Under Paul's plan, he asserts that control of the issue would move out from under Federal control and become a state issue.

Currently federal tax dollars cannot be used to fund abortions since the passage of the Hyde Amendment over 30 years ago (Passed in 1976 with additional wording to allow for exceptions for rape, incest, or the life of the mother in 1977).

However, on the state level 17 of the 50 states currently support the use of state tax dollars to fund abortions. Thus Paul's removal of federal government involvement would not change the issue of tax dollars being spent on abortions because the issue simply does not really exist to begin with. This is a case of smoke and mirrors.

Based on the 10th Amendment of the Constitution, the states would have the right, independent of the federal government, to continue to fund abortions with tax dollars and to keep abortions legal. Based on Paul's own Constitutional platform, the federal government would have no right to intervene in the state choices on the matter.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The only possible recourse Paul would have to fulfill his desire to ban abortion through the abolishment of Roe v. Wade would be to violate the very fundamental tenets of his Constitutional claims of wanting the federal government out of the issue, and thus attempting to pass wholly hypocritical legislation at the federal level to prevent the states from exercising their own Constitutionally protected right to govern themselves and create their own legislation on the matter. This would be acting precisely in the same vein as the Roe v. Wade legislation he decries as the federal government interfering in our person lives.

Thus we're left with quite a conundrum.

Now we could probably take this a few different ways, and from what I've seen that is precisely what people are doing.

On one hand you could argue that Paul is downplaying the issue to most media outlets and actually intends to have Roe v. Wade overturned and thus implement legislation that would abolish the right to have legal abortions by cutting the head off of the proverbial snake at the federal level.

On the other hand you could argue that while he personally might be strongly against abortion, he is simply playing to the desires of his different constituents in an attempt to achieve the larger goal of removing federal involvement in our personal lives and that he really does believe in the Constitutionally protected right of states to govern themselves, whatever ends that may lead to.

Fortunately we have Dr. Paul's own words to give us a clearer idea what his intentions really are.

Now, there's a couple of ways that that can be done. Of course, we could wait until we have our Supreme Court justices appointed for them to, when the time comes, to rehear a case like that and rule differently; that's taking a long time. We've been living with Roe versus Wade since 1973, and it hasn't happened.

My approach -- I certainly support that, but my approach is a little bit more direct, and it could happen much quicker, and that is accepting the principle that we can, as a legislative body and as a president -- we can remove the jurisdiction of this issue from the federal courts.

I have a bill called the We the People Act, and this addresses several subjects -- prayer in school, the marriage issue as well as the abortion issue -- which literally just takes it away from the federal courts, which means any state could pass a law passing a prohibition that could not be heard in the federal courts.

Now, the question I have and something I don't have the answer for is I wonder why we haven't done better with this approach in Washington. I don't get the support that I think we should have. We haven't had the support in the Congress. We had the majority for a good many years, we've had a pro-life president, but we have not moved in that direction, and we say, "Oh, yeah, I'm going to appoint judges, and we'll take care of that." This would go into effect immediately, and it occurs only with majority vote of the Congress.

So don't give up on that method. Make sure that when you're promoting your issues and promoting the cause of life, that you remember that principle. It can be found in my bill called We The People's Act.

He wants to pass legislation that would remove the possibility of these issues being Constitutionally protected at the federal level as the natural rights that they are. This would not only allow the states to pass legislation that would in effect be in violation of the Constitution's protection of natural rights, but would prevent anyone from having any recourse to have their grievances heard at the federal level and thus Constitutionally protected.

This seems to me to be a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of the Constitution in protecting the natural rights, freedoms and liberties of all of us.

This is the second troubling issue I've had with Ron Paul and his comments about roles of state and federal government, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. The first issue was with a series of comments Ron Paul made about Christmas and I wrote an article on it entitled "Ron Paul makes some serious fallacious claims."

I want to be clear that I still definitely support Ron Paul for the 2008 Presidency, but I don't believe any decision to elect a candidate for such an important position should have such fundamental issues overlooked without due diligence and critical assessment.

It reminds me of the words of our 26th President and fellow Republican to Ron Paul, Theodore Roosevelt:

"The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else." -President Theodore Roosevelt - Kansas City Star, May 7th 1918

Should we do any less for a candidate for that position? Given the opportunity to address issues before a candidate might gain that office?

Perhaps in closing we should ponder a few words by the great Thomas Jefferson, who Ron Paul has often been compared to.

Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights. (January 8, 1789)

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. (January 6, 1816)

Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day. (April 24, 1816)

We are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it. (December 27, 1820)

On the willful ignorance of conspiracy theorists.

Earlier today I posted a comment on an article about shots being fired on Ed and Elaine Brown's property.

In the next 7 hours after I posted that comment, which is still "awaiting moderation", 11 other comments have been approved by the site moderator(s).

(It has since been approved. I tip my hat to the moderators for this.)

I would like to share the comment here so that you can read it and then read the rest of the comments on that article to put it in perspective to illustrate how conspiracy theorists like to pick and choose what information they choose to acknowledge in their quest to confirm their own (often mistaken, misinformed or simply uninformed) personal bias about the issue.

I have seen this same type of response on a number of different forums, in relation to a number of different current issues. People seem desperate to confirm their own stance and will intentionally ignore any information to the contrary, even if it is credible and backed up by actual evidence.

http://phreadom.blogspot.com/2007/07/importance-of-ed-and-elaine-brown-and.html

Read the facts.

This isn’t really an issue of legality. The laws are on the books and they are “legal”. Period.

The issue here isn’t one of legality, it’s a matter of principle. The laws themselves stand in violation of the principles of the founding fathers, the constitution and of Freedom and Liberty in general.

That is what the Browns are standing up against. The 16th Amendment was properly ratified. The US Tax Code does plainly state a requirement to file and pay taxes etc.

All these claims I keep hearing are based on the spread of ignorance and misinformation. I’ve done the research and read the issues and the court cases myself.

Again, the issue here isn’t the legality of the current laws… they stand as a part of the system. The problem is with their origins in corruption and their violation of the natural laws of the land, the laws meant to be protected by the Constitution.

You people need to do some actual studying and get a better understanding of the principles involved. Your spread of misinformation and ignorance does not help Ed and Elaine Brown, it simply makes it so much easier for the media to write you off as the ignorant conspiracy nuts you’re being when they show the proof that refutes your ignorant claims. You need to research and strike at the root… expose the underlying principles, the deeper issues at stake… the very core of Freedom and Liberty in the US and the violations of the natural law principles of the US Constitution.

Cogito!

Phreadom - July 29th, 2007 at 9:08 pm

Acknowledging what I wrote would not require a lack of support for Ed and Elaine Brown, but simply a rethinking of the actual issues and a greater understanding of the actual facts and issues involved.

After further browsing of that website, I found an even better example of this phenomenon. An article about a video of the September 11th attack on the World Trade Center claiming to be proof of demolitions use to bring down the towers.

The article states:

There are 2 explosions at 7:52 about 30 floors below the impact. If you pay close attention, you will see two flashes and hear 1 boom, possibly 2. Pay close attention.

The video presented with that claim can be found here: http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=5474006551011489413

And another video linked just below the video, for the context of proving that demolitions were used to bring down the towers can be found here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1951610169657809939

The second video is linked with the words "9/11 Revisited - Were Explosives Used?".

On actually watching the video, the first problem with their claim is clear almost immediately upon seeing the aforementioned spot in the video at 7:52.

I posted the problems as comments on the article (awaiting moderation), and will summarize them below.

Did you think to factor in the speed of sound? Or that if the "boom" you speak of, which is only the tiniest audible click or pop in the video, would have followed with over a full second gap between the flash in the video and the audible click or pop we hear? (Which would have still placed it around a half second after the second flash at best.)

As stated in the intro of the video, given the 500 yard (457.2 meters) distance from the towers, a full 1.32 seconds would have elapsed between the tiny flashes and the sound reaching the camera, given the speed of sound at 344 meters per second.

This is clearly not the case. The “pop”, which is hardly a “boom”, coincides precisely with the timing of the first small flash and could be nothing more than noise in the room or a bump on the camera and certainly does not belong to the almost single pixel sized “flashes” on the video unless the video was doctored to synchronize the audio and video.

Or how about the fact that most of the conspiracy videos state that the "detonations" went off either before the planes ever hit, or as the towers collapsed?

Not only are there a number of disparate claims of the same event happening specifically at very different times, but many of them are easily debunked when you factor in actual science.

I'm not denying government complicity in 9/11, and I do in fact think they were involved in, at the very least, allowing it to happen... but this kind of misinformation or wild speculation only serves to discredit the investigations into the events.

Below are two screenshots from the video showing the intro statement that tells the distance from the towers and a shot of one of the supposed "explosions" that accompany the so called "boom(s)".




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_sound

I'm no fan of the George W. Bush administration and I do think that based on a variety of information that they were involved to some extent in 9/11 through a combination of previously knowledge and intentional inaction at the least, if not more, based on things like the highly improbable collapse of WTC7 given its very minor damage and architectural stability etc. However, even given my stance on those issues, I like to maintain a more fact based, skeptical approach to this issue.

As I stated before, I think that giving into to wild speculation and conspiracy theorist type hysteria, we only serve to distract attention from the real issues involved and the actual credible information that's available.

(Again, I'd like to note that my comments were eventually approved after this article was written. I appreciate that move on the moderators' part. I still think this issue remains for a countless number of other forums, websites etc, so I'll keep this article here in that regard.)

The importance of Ed and Elaine Brown and their stand against Income Tax.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-taxevaders20jul20,0,2090706,full.story

The story of Ed and Elaine Brown is something we should be keeping an eye on.

Many people confuse this issue with simply not paying taxes. The issue here is a bit more complex (as is often the case) and actually centers on one tax specifically, not on all taxes.

The issue has to deal with the perception of Income Tax as a direct tax, and its implementation as a direct, unapportioned tax in regards to Sections 1 and 9 of Article 1, and Amendments 9 and 16 of the US Constitution

Article 1, Section 2:
The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.

No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New-York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three.

When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies.

The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.

Article 1, Section 9:
The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.

The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.

No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.

No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken.

No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State.

No Preference shall be given by any Regulation of Commerce or Revenue to the Ports of one State over those of another; nor shall Vessels bound to, or from, one State, be obliged to enter, clear, or pay Duties in another.

No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.

No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.

9th Amendment:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

16th Amendment:
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

The first two sections of Article 1 meant that any direct Federal tax or Capitation tax would have to be distributed equally among the States of the Union according to their respective populations.

A Capitation tax is basically a direct tax, per person, of a set amount based simply upon being a citizen.

The 16th Amendment removed the apportionment requirement for direct taxes, thus allowing the Federal Government to collect direct taxes and not have to redistribute them to the states.

The 9th Amendment is referred to by more libertarian protesters in arguing that some rights are simply natural rights that are still protected even if not explicitly defined as protected rights in the Constitution. Their argument is that if the Federal government can collect such a tax and not have to equally redistribute it to the states, the government can use this form of extortion as coercion to force states into compliance with the Federal Government's wishes by restricting redistribution of funds by placing conditions on funding, much as was recently done with the Real ID Act and by many other acts in the past, where states were not obligated to conform, but would have their funding cut and face other restrictions if they did not.

Another argument is that the income tax is a form of extortion stating that you must pay under threat of imprisonment, and thus must hand over part of any income in order to maintain your freedom.

There are many arguments on both sides of this issue, and while a number of them simply do not hold water, so to speak, others bear serious consideration.

Some that don't hold water are the argument that the 16th Amendment was not valid either because the draft legislation distributed to the states had minor differences in punctuation (a comma instead of a semicolon), capitalization and the like, or the argument that Ohio was granted statehood in 1803, yet there was no official government proclamation until 1953, and thus Ohio's vote was invalid.

Other arguments center on the word "voluntary" in the IRS Tax Code, or argue that there is no law that explicitly states that a person must pay an income tax. These claims have been refuted time and again in courts of law on the grounds that it is implicitly declared that there are criminal penalties including fines and imprisonment for failure to file, as well as explicitly stated as such in the US Internal Revenue Code.

Some arguments that bear further consideration include those that argue that certain rights and liberties are protected, even if not originally enumerated in the Constitution or subsequent Bill of Rights. This was actually an area of heated contention during the ratification of the Constitution where the Federalists argued that in enumerating certain rights, there could be the implication that any rights not explicitly listed were not protected. This was part of the motivation for the 9th Amendment after the Anti-Federalists won out in their desire for a "Bill of Rights". Others include those mentioned above, such as the danger of the government being able to extort funds from its people or force states to comply with Federal wishes by restricting funds that previously would have been apportioned to the states, having been derived from direct taxes on those states' citizens, if they do not follow the wishes of the Federal Government and so on.

Pro-Income Tax arguments usually focus on the assertion that our government could not survive without the income tax, or are based on the implication that tax protesters want to do away with all taxes etc. I have personally found these arguments to be based on either misinformation or ignorance. The government lasted for well over a century with very little in the way of income taxes, which were generally only implemented during times of war or other exceptional need until the 16th Amendment was ratified in 1913 under the justification that it was impractical to differentiate various forms of income and thus simply removing the need to differentiate by removing the requirement for apportionment of direct income taxation.

Some of the "solutions" to these perceived problems have been the movements to have the 16th Amendment repealed, and implementation of the FairTax legislation, among others.

It is a complex issue that weighs the desires of the government against the desires of the people under the justification of taxation in order for the government to provide services to the people.

Libertarians chafe under what they perceive as extortion of personal property under threat of imprisonment, essentially a "stay out of jail" fee, and the idea that in the United States today there is no longer any true Freedom. Everything is taxed. The Federal Government reaches its hands further into our pockets and our lives on a daily basis and continually strips away our basic Freedoms and Liberties a little at a time in order to further expand their power and fatten their coffers. Money is taken from the states and used to force states into compliance with Federal wishes by only granting funds and services on the condition that states comply with Federal wishes etc. This, coupled with restrictions on gun ownership rights, suspension of due process, domestic surveillance and other invasions of privacy, expansion of powers for domestic military use and numerous other acts have pressed many libertarians and freedom lovers into increasingly questioning the authority of the government and the limits to which a people can be beholden to that government and still be considered Free.



I'll be keeping my eye on this one.