Through the years our government has found many reasons to send our troops overseas and we are now continuing with President Bush’s “preventative war strategy to contain rogue states”. Is this really a war on terrorism, or something else? We have built an empire and it continues to grow every year. Don’t you think it causes resentment overseas? Consider how you’d feel about a Chinese military base here.  The Pentagon currently owns or rents 716 overseas bases in 38 countries and has another 4,863 bases in the United States and its territories. In just one country, Germany, we have 18 air and army bases. http://www.acq.osd.mil/ie/download/bsr/BSR2009Baseline.pdf

Also, consider the fact that we spend more on our military than does the entire rest of the world combined – over $600 billion per year. This is big business, as a matter of fact, too big to fail. As our war machine grows so does the need for new wars and the new reasons to justify them. Although it may take years for the public to be properly conditioned for the next war, there will always be another. We are now being conditioned for military action in Iran and Yemen. The obvious bungling of our intelligence in the near-catastrophic Detroit plane incident at Christmas makes you wonder. Are our intelligence agencies really that stupid or is there a method behind this madness?

“Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes … known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.… No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.” — James Madison, Political Observations, 1795

This bill may be argued in the Supreme Court and eventually corrected but consider all the other laws already on the books that allow the Federal Government to override the Constitution. There are many, but let me point out just one – one that the Commonwealth of Virginia has agreed to. Although local school boards are elected to control the district’s schools, they really have no power. It has been usurped by the state and federal government. The No Child Left Behind Act gives the U. S. Department of Education the power to take over any of our schools. Our state government has agreed to give away this power to control local schools in exchange for additional federal funding. Just think, we elected all these brilliant legislators!

Our state government is as complicit as is our federal government in taking away our rights and liberties. We, the people, have allowed these to be chipped away until we are now at the mercy of government instead of the other way around. We have waived those “inalienable rights” written into the Constitution by voting for people that have no intention of protecting them. The 10th Amendment in the Bill of Rights says “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”. This amendment, and the 9th that says “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people “,  has been forgotten or never considered by our legislators and is unknown to the majority of Americans. The media doesn’t inform and the individual is mostly oblivious.

Everyone should also be aware that we have given the power to the President to “suspend” the Constitution for any reason he or she may deem as a “national emergency”. This can be done with Executive Orders that have been written and have the force of law. The last, so called, national emergency was in October when the President declared the swine flu a cause for a national emergency, a flu that killed less than any normal seasonal flu. What this says is the President can take on dictatorial powers at any time and for any reason he desires – and suspend all our constitutional rights at will. Although he didn’t, he could have instituted any measure he wanted at that time. The Executive Order hasn’t been suspended , so he still can. How many other national emergencies are still in effect? Care to guess?

Under any national emergency declared by the President, he can declare martial law and take over every aspect of human activity including the detention of large segments of the population, control of all industry, media, banks, and all transportation. This is a condition of dictatorship is only held back by his perception of public resistance. In Venezuela Hugo Chavez he has gotten far.

What is the purpose of this dissertation? Ask those people you may be voting for in 2010 whether really intend to uphold the Constitution when they take the oath.