http://www.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2011/01/13/null-void-of-no-effect/
Null. Void. Of No Effect.
by Michael Boldin
When Washington D.C. violates the constitution – as it does every single day –
the essential question is – “what do we do about it?”
For countless decades, Americans have been responding through protests,
lawsuits, and “voting the bums out.” Yet, year in and year out, federal power
always grows. And it doesn’t matter which political part is in power, or what
person occupies the white house either.
THE RIGHTFUL REMEDY
In 1798, Thomas Jefferson wrote that “whensoever the general government assumes
undelegated powers….a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy.”
[emphasis added]
Notice that TJ didn’t advise us to use nullification as a remedy “once in a
while.” And he certainly didn’t tell us that a nullification is the rightful
remedy after “we vote some bums out” or “we sue the federal government in
federal court” or after anything else for that matter. Jefferson was pretty
straightforward and recommended that every single time the federal government
exercises powers not delegated to it in the constitution (there’s about 30
powers and nothing more), that we’re to reject and nullify those acts on a
state level as they happen.
HAPPENING NOW
Already, more than two dozen states have virtually stopped the 2005 Real ID act
dead in its tracks. How? By refusing to implement it. Fifteen states – most
recently Arizona – are using the principles of the 10th Amendment to actively
defy federal laws (and a supreme court ruling, too!) on marijuana. Eight
states have passed Firearms Freedom Acts in an attempt to reject some federal
gun laws and regulations. And seven states have passed Health Care Freedom
Acts to block health care mandates from being enforced.
NULL. VOID. OF NO EFFECT.
Get used to reading these words, because the political climate is starting to
swing a new direction. There is a growing number of people in America that are
recognizing a simple truth – asking, demanding, or suing to get the federal
government to fix problems caused by the federal government just doesn’t work.
Take, for example, the Federal Health Care Nullification Act, first introduced
in Texas as HB297, and now also introduced in Montana (SB161), Wyoming
(HB0035), Oregon (SB498) and Maine (LD58). Here’s an excerpt:
“the federal law known as the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,”
signed by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010, is not authorized by the
Constitution of the United States and violates its true meaning and intent as
given by the Founders and Ratifiers, and is hereby declared to be invalid,
shall not be recognized, is specifically rejected, and shall be considered null
and void and of no effect.”
But these bills, as introduced in Texas, Maine, Montana, Oregon, and Wyoming
are far more than mere declarations or position statements
ENFORCEMENT
Implied in any nullification legislation is enforcement of the state law. In
the Virginia Resolution of 1798, James Madison wrote of the principle of
interposition:
That this Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it views the
powers of the federal government, as resulting from the compact, to which the
states are parties; as limited by the plain sense and intention of the
instrument constituting the compact; as no further valid that they are
authorized by the grants enumerated in that compact; and that in case of a
deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by
the said compact, the states who are parties thereto, have the right, and are
in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for
maintaining within their respective limits, the authorities, rights and
liberties appertaining to them.
In his famous speech during the war of 1812, Daniel Webster said:
“The operation of measures thus unconstitutional and illegal ought to be
prevented by a resort to other measures which are both constitutional and
legal. It will be the solemn duty of the State governments to protect their own
authority over their own militia, and to interpose between their citizens and
arbitrary power. These are among the objects for which the State governments
exist”
Here Madison and Webster assert what is required of nullification laws to be
successful — that state governments not only have the right to resist
unconstitutional federal acts, but that, in order to protect liberty, they are
“duty bound to interpose” or stand between the federal government and the
people of the state.
All five bills explicitly include this principle, and if passed, would impose
penalties on federal agents for attempting to enforce National Health Care
mandates in their state. For example, from Wyoming’s HB35:
Any official, agent or employee of the United States government or any employee
of a corporation providing services to the United States government that
enforces or attempts to enforce an act, order, law, statute, rule or regulation
of the government of the United States in violation of this article shall be
guilty of a felony punishable by imprisonment for not more than five (5) years,
a fine of not more than five thousand dollars ($5,000.00), or both.
Sources close to the Tenth Amendment Center tell us to expect approximately ten
states to introduce such bills in the 2011 legislative session.
*******
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"Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of
opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of
increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all
its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.” - Harry S.
Truman
"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations,
or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and
evidence." - John Adams
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually
come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State
can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences
of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its
powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and
thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
“The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one
fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a
few points and repeat them over and over.”
“Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.”
— Paul Joseph Goebbels, Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933
to 1945
"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless
minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds." - Samuel Adams
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by
evil men." - Plato
"Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not." -
Thomas Jefferson
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