A new Rasmussen poll reported exclusively by our friend Michael Patrick Leahy of Breitbart reveals the depth of antagonism Americans feel toward the federal government in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decisions on same-sex marriage and Obamacare.
“Only 20% [of likely voters] now consider the federal government a protector of individual liberty,” the Rasmussen Poll finds. “Sixty percent (60 %) see the government as a threat to individual liberty instead,” it concluded.
Rasmussen Reports noted, “The Declaration of Independence, the foundational document that Americans honor on the Fourth of July, says that governments derive their authority from the consent of the governed, but just 25% believe that to be true of the federal government today.”
Leahy points out in his article, and CHQ Chairman Richard Viguerie documented at some length in his book TAKEOVER, the Tea Party movement arose in 2009 to restore those principles of constitutionally-limited government. But despite electoral victories that placed Republicans in control of the House of Representatives in 2010, and the Senate in 2014, it is undeniable that the Republican establishment those elections empowered is instead aligned with the forces of statism.
As Breitbart’s Thomas Williams noted, and Justice Scalia himself pointed out in his scathing dissent in the gay marriage decision, not a single member of the nine member court is of the Protestant faith. Not a single member has graduated from a law school other than Harvard, Yale, or Columbia. Nor has a single member done anything other than practice some version of corporate law with “big law” firms, sit on a federal court, work for the federal government, or work in left-wing academia.
Clearly, says Leahy, the majority of the members of the Supreme Court itself are part of an “elitist” camp of anti-constitutionalists.
The concept of popular resistance to the unconstitutional encroachment of the federal government on the rights of individuals and states has been gaining momentum over the past several years notes Leahy.
Conservative radio host Mark Levin, for instance, has advocated on behalf of an Article V Convention of the States to propose new amendments to the Constitution for ratification by the states that would limit federal powers.
Conservative author and intellectual leader Charles Murray has also advocated for a type of civil disobedience to resist unlawful federal regulations through the use of well-funded legal challenges to the most egregious of those regulations.
Both concepts have merit, says Leahy, but ultimately lack the power and effective counter-attack available through the simple mechanism offered by the 10th amendment—widespread resistance to federal overreaches by the state governments themselves.
Bolder, constitutionally based resistance at the state level is a practical and viable remedy, one that already has broad popular support among conservatives concluded Leahy.
And when you look at the numbers reported by Rasmussen it is hard not to agree with Leahy’s analysis:
[T]he voters who feel strongest about overriding the federal courts – Republicans and conservatives – are those who traditionally have been the most supportive of the Constitution and separation of powers. During the Obama years, however, these voters have become increasingly suspicious and even hostile toward the federal government.
Fifty percent (50%) of GOP voters now believe states should have the right to ignore federal court rulings, compared to just 22% of Democrats and 30% of voters not affiliated with either major party. Interestingly, this represents a noticeable rise in support among all three groups.
Fifty percent (50%) of conservative voters share this view, but just 27% of moderates and 15% of liberals agree.
Leahy’s conclusion is that by limiting the role of the federal government to the exercise of that very narrow set of specifically “enumerated powers” ascribed to it in the Constitution, state governments can guarantee that our constitutional republic will continue to flourish for generations to come.
The alternative is a constitutional republic in name only, a dystopian oligarchy where words have no meaning, right is wrong, good is bad, truth is deception, and the rule of law is invented anew each day by the ruling class of federal royalty.
Freedom of the individual states from the usurpations of the federal government does not mean secession from the constitutional republic. It is, says Michael Patrick Leahy, and we agree, the surest realistic mechanism that remains to preserve the constitutional republic.
Click this link to read Rasmussen Reports new poll, "Support Grows for States to Ignore the Federal Courts [4]."
Click the link to read Michael Patrick Leahy’s article “TIME FOR THE STATES TO DECLARE INDEPENDENCE FROM THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT [5]” in its entirety.
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