Frustrated States Fight Federal Overreach

by JASmius

They are?  Not to hear some Tea Partiers tell it, they're not.

But then, those that are are doing so from some level of constitutional ignorance:

States frustrated by federal overreach have been taking action to nullify laws coming from Washington, D.C. — but the efforts may prove futile given long-standing court precedents dictating that states can't overturn federal law....

Karen Lugo, director of the Center for Tenth Amendment Action at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, said "the Tenth Amendment, or state sovereignty, is a ghost of what our Founding Fathers intended it to be."

The 10th Amendment stipulates that powers not granted to the federal government by the Constitution nor prohibited to the states are reserved for the states and the people.

Lugo said: "Many of us are doing all in our power to breathe life back into the vital principle that is federalism. Due to Commerce Clause, Spending Clause, Necessary and Proper Clause interpretations that eclipsed state authority, there has been much whittling away of state sovereignty."

Crap.

But the tide is turning as states take action, she said. "There is now a resurgence of state dynamism and autonomy. Exemplary states are running budget surpluses, reining in public pension excesses, refusing entitlement creep by declining Medicaid expansion, opting out of Obamacare state exchanges, offering school choice models, and demonstrating interest in food stamp reform."

Yay!

But the chances that any of the nullification measures will withstand court scrutiny are slim.

Crap.

"Nullification represents overt negation of Constitutional federal supremacy," Lugo told Newsmax.

"While it is true that some of the administrative and agency dictates coming from Washington do not comply with Constitutional separation of powers, or the proper balance of power with the states, outright defiance of federal law in an ad hoc or reactionary fashion could lead to the breakdown of the constitutional order," Lugo said.

Which, in the current lawless, anti-constitutional context, would also be known as.....revolution.  A revolution to restore the constitutional order that has been eviscerated by Barack Obama.

Let's remember what the Supremacy Clause (from Article VI) says:

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof....shall be the supreme Law of the Land....

Which means that if a federal law is unconstitutional, it ain't the supreme law of the land.  And since judicial review isn't a constitutionally enumerated power of the judicial branch, the SCOTUS is - constitutionally speaking - powerless to force the states to comply with unconstitutional laws.

Of course, the Regime's power does not derive from the Constitution, so they can just use as much force as they deem necessary to attain the ends they seek from their "inferiors".  And that hasn't had to be much as even most otherwise-constitutionalists fail to grasp the power grabbing usurpation that Justice John Marshall carried out 211 years ago in Marbury v. Madison.

The bottom line is that, for those Americans who believe that the country can still be turned around and saved, there is nonetheless no painless way to achieve that lofty goal.  We've seen that neither politics nor a top-down approach to national salvation has or is going to work.  The Left is plainly and simply too powerful and too deeply entrenched to ever be overcome, even if the Democrats lost the Senate this fall and the White House in 2016.  This revolution has to come in and from the states.  It's going to take blatant defiance of the federal government.  Total, blanket, mass civil disobedience.  And it's going to take a willingness to stand against unprecedented "bullying," as Arizona's Jan Brewer notably failed to do this week.  It's going to take a Jacksonian attitude of, "I don't give a bleep what you say, or what some judge says, we will not comply".

What was it Old Hickory once said?  "Justice Taney has rendered his decision; now let him enforce it."

And if that true grassroots uprising ever took place, Barack Obama would employ as much force as was necessary to crush it, because he would be forced to do so.  It would be his "destiny" or bust.  And if it came down to that, I don't think he'd hesitate.

But it won't come to that because there simply aren't enough "patriots" left in this country who understand the Constitution to animate and lead such a grassroots uprising.  Those that try will be vilified and ridiculed viciously, and their cause - our cause - will be wiped out as though it had never been.  Until, eventually, it is reborn when a poor, impoverished, oppressed America finally realizes that it's had enough and that maybe, just maybe, there really is strength in numbers.  And even then, it'll be bloody.

It's kind of like the final scene in Red Dawn, when the camera zooms in on the "Partisan Rock" monument commemorating the sacrifices of countless Americans that eventually led to the downfall of the communist invaders.  The liberation of America is now a long twilight struggle that, if it's ever realized, will be seen by our children or even grandchildren.  And if, like the proverbial match that burns down a forest, these scattered flickers of proto-nullification lead to that fiery phoenix-like resurrection of a Second American Republic, some "Tea Party Rock" will have to be found to commemorate them.

A man can dream, can't he?