“Sovereignty is when you make one phone call and a thousand people show up to protect you.” —David Callihan [1]
The principle that people have the right to govern themselves is not merely an academic doctrine, but is a practical matter rooted in reality. We either exercise it and protect it, or we lose it to others who will gladly seize the opportunity to govern us for their benefit.
Prior to 1776, the American colonists had been governing themselves on the local level for over 100 years. These colonists were politically organized from the bottom-up on the local level as well-regulated public militias.
In this context, the term “politically organized” means that the colonists acted together collectively in their public capacity as a sovereign body politic, to formally and lawfully establish government on the local level by written public charter. Through these public charters, each community established its own local public militia.
A militia is a type of military organization that serves only when called upon, as opposed to a standing army, which is a permanent professional military force maintained by a country in times of peace as well as war.
The term “well-regulated” means to be efficiently ordered by legislative (state) statute in all aspects of governance so that the militia members were militarily trained, armed and accoutered. Militarily trained means that they were trained in the art of war, including how to fight in combat. Armed means that they had the best firearm weapons available. Accoutered means that they were equipped and clothed militarily.
These local public militias exercised the public power of protection. Their job was to protect every member of their community and every aspect of their government. They were the colonists’ local “homeland security”. Their role was primarily defensive and preventative protection, which included gathering information for the purpose of preventing crime, sedition, insurrection or treason, in addition to serving as the “eyes and ears” in the community for the sheriff and the grand jury.
The local public militias were effective in their job of protecting their community members, even when off duty, in part because their numbers were significantly larger than the local sheriff and sheriff’s deputies or other law enforcement, together with the fact that they were typically dispersed throughout their communities, in contrast to civil law enforcement officers, who cannot be everywhere in a community at once.
Due to both their training and their numbers, off-duty public militia members were highly effective in preventing social tragedy in their communities caused by mentally ill or socially maladjusted people such as child molesters and rapists, or those consumed by hate, for whatever reason.
The fact that the American colonists were politically organized as well-regulated public militias is probably the main reason why our Declaration of Independence could legitimately recognize the colonists as sovereign. How the colonists were politically organized is also why they were both politically and militarily strong enough to defeat the mighty state of Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783), and why these colonists were able to successfully settle America while at times being in competition with the indigenous tribes and French and Spanish settlers.
One day when my friend David Callihan was explaining to me the role that local public militias played in American government during the 1700s, our conversation briefly turned to several instances we knew of where a rogue Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agent had brought sixteen or seventeen Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) agents dressed in special weapons and tactics (SWAT) gear to a non-violent individual’s home or business, in the guise of seeking “books and records in support of a tax bill due and owing”. In each instance, the object of the unnecessary public display of force was to intimidate or embarrass the individual while the rogue IRS agent was conducting an unconstitutional collections action under color of law. Color of law refers to an appearance of legal power to act, when in reality no such right exists.
In this context, David gave me the following illustration. He said in reference to the unconstitutional IRS practice of misusing ATF SWAT teams to harass law-abiding citizens, that,
“Sovereignty is when you make one phone call and a thousand people show up to protect you.”
It was in that moment I first began to understand from a historical perspective the kind and quality of security that American colonial society knew and enjoyed due to the way they were “politically organized” as local public militias. David’s statement had a dramatic effect on me, which I will always remember.
[1] David Callihan mentored the author in American colonial government, including most of the terms and concepts presented in this chapter.
*Re-posting permission given by the author.
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Join our CIVICS EDUCATION platform at www.patriots4truth.org where you will learn about parts of the U.S. Constitution that were not taught in American public school indoctrination centers. We citizens have POWER…and lots of it. Learn the first steps of putting together citizens grand juries with Douglas Gabriel and author Randall E. White.
If the Department of Justice can’t clean up the corruption in our government, then We the People have a constitutional right to do so… and the best news is that our founding fathers left those provisions in our contract.
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American citizens have always possessed plenary public powers, even in early colonial times. Plenary means full and complete. In this context, the term “public” means governmental. Public powers are the recognized the legal authority held by a group within society that allows for the administration of public resources and implementation of policies for society.
The citizens’ inherent, full and complete public or governmental powers include:
The ability to act collectively as a sovereign body politic to create government and alter or abolish it
Full powers of protection and war
Full public policy, legislative, executive and judicial powers
Full economic powers, such as money creation and public banking
American citizens have traditionally exercised their plenary public powers through both participatory and representative governmental institutions. Our participatory institutions include public sanctioned voting, including direct legislation through ballot initiatives; public militias; grand juries; petit juries; and committees (such as the Continental Congress, Conventions of Provincial Association, and Committees of Safety, Correspondence, Observation, et cetera, just prior to and at the outset of the Revolutionary War). Our representative institutions include the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government.
Although the Constitution does not articulate our plenary public powers, the Tenth Amendment recognizes that the people possess public powers which they have not delegated to their general government or to their state governments:
“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.”
Also, the Ninth Amendment recognizes that We the People possess rights that are not articulated in the Constitution:
“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
By rediscovering our plenary public powers and political rights, together with learning how to exercise them through our traditional participatory governmental institutions, we have a one-hundred percent probability of obtaining proper legal remedy in matters that most of us had previously either been completely ignorant about, or had given up on as utterly hopeless due to the apparent impossibility of ever overcoming or abolishing deeply entrenched systemic public corruption.
The wording in Article 1 section 8 is “Promote the General Welfare” which is a far cry from Providing for the General Welfare. Promote and Provide are not the same thing and should not be conflated.
The American Intelligence Media and American Popular Sovereignty invite you to join patriots everywhere in learning American history and civics – the real stuff, not the propaganda found in public school textbooks from publishers with Pilgrims Society affiliations.
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Since 1945 the IRS has been misapplying federal employment taxes to private sector workers in violation of our Constitution
Since 1945 the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has been systematically misapplying federal employment taxes to private-sector workers in violation of Article 1, Section 9 of our Constitution, which prohibits direct federal taxation without apportionment of the tax among the States. [1] This is one of the scams involving systemic public corruption articulated in American Popular Sovereignty.
None of the revenue proceeding from this illegal exaction conducted in the guise of a federal income tax alleged by the IRS to be levied on “all that comes in” goes towards paying for the services taxpayers expect from government. On June 30, 1982 President Ronald Reagan authorized through Executive Order 12369 the Private Sector Survey on Cost Control (PSSCC), which is commonly referred to as “The Grace Commission” after the commission’s leader, businessman J. Peter Grace. The job of the Grace Commission was to investigate and identify waste and inefficiency in the federal government. In January 1984 the Grace Commission presented its report and recommendations to Congress, which stated,
“One-third of all income taxes are consumed by waste and inefficiency [in the federal government]; one-third escapes collection owing to the underground economy; and 100 percent of all income taxes collected are absorbed solely by interest [on the national debt] plus government contributions to transfer payments [federal pension and social welfare programs]. In other words, all individual income tax revenues are gone before one nickel is spent on the services taxpayers expect from their government.” [2]
In brief summary (of what is fully explained in American Popular Sovereignty),
A tax is a publicly authorized public taking. All taxes have a subject and a measure. The subject of a tax is the specific thing, activity, or event that the tax is levied on. The measure of a tax is the means or method of computing the amount of tax due.
In 1796 the issue of direct and indirect federal taxation under the Constitution was fully argued and settled in the case Hylton v. United States, 3 U.S. 171 (1796). The U.S. Supreme Court determined that the Constitution divides federal taxation into two categories: direct; and indirect. The Court further determined that the subject of a direct tax consisted of land and the revenue proceeding from the land, and that an indirect tax was a “circuitous mode of reaching the revenue of the individual”. Consequently, the subject of an indirect tax is necessarily something other than the revenue of the individual.
The last time Congress levied a direct tax was in 1861, which expired in 1872.
In the cases Brushaber v. Union Pac. R.R., 240 U.S. 1 (1916) and Stanton v. Baltic Mining Co., 240 U.S. 103 (1916), the U.S. Supreme Court determined that the Sixteenth Amendment did not alter or amend Article I, thus the direct and indirect taxation provisions in the Constitution remain intact.
For these reasons, all federal taxes set forth in the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) are of the indirect kind.
The IRS claims that all workers in America are liable for a federal income tax on their pay, yet it is not clear how such a tax could be an indirect tax conforming to the Constitution.
Accordingly, We the People have the right to straightforward answers to the questions set forth in the following letter template:
Your name
Address
City, state, postal code
Date
President Donald J. Trump; The White House; 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW; Washington, DC 20500
Commissioner Charles P. Rettig; Internal Revenue Service; 1111 Constitution Avenue, NW; Washington, D.C. 20224
Representative [name]; address; Washington, DC, postal code
Senator [name]; address; Washington, DC, postal code
Senator [name]; address; Washington, DC, postal code
Re: Questions concerning federal tax liability
Dear Public Representatives,
I am writing to you in my capacity as one of We the People, who are the creators of our government and having the authority to protect our Constitution. This letter presents questions of great national importance affecting the rights and duties of millions of private sector working-class Americans in relation to our Internal Revenue laws. We require straightforward answers which will assist us in properly determining the legal status of our pay when preparing federal tax returns.
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) asserts in its official publications, forms, liens and levy actions, that all Americans are liable for a federal income tax on our wages of labor and earnings from self-employment. The IRS sanctions third-party reporting about our pay on the IRS forms W-2 and 1099, which the IRS routinely uses to assert that we have a federal income tax liability.
Whereas Article I of our Constitution prohibits direct federal taxation without apportionment and the last time Congress levied a direct tax was in 1861, which expired in 1872, taken together with the fact that the Sixteenth Amendment did not repeal or modify Article I, it is not clear how the IRS federal taxation, lien and levy policies and practices involving the forms W-2, 1099, and 1040 conform to the basic elements of direct and indirect federal taxation under our Constitution, or to our Internal Revenue laws.
Therefore, pursuant to your oath of office to uphold and defend our Constitution, and your duties thereunder, please assist us in understanding our rights and duties in this matter by answering the following straightforward questions:
Concerning the IRS Form W-2, identify any sections of the Internal Revenue Code that levy a tax with respect to the wages of labor.
What is the subject of the tax?
What is the measure of the tax?
In accordance with the basic elements of direct and indirect federal taxation under the Constitution, how is the tax a circuitous mode of reaching the revenue of the individual? [3]
Concerning the IRS Form 1099-MISC, identify any sections of the Internal Revenue Code that levy a tax with respect to non-employee compensation.
What is the subject of the tax?
What is the measure of the tax?
How is the tax a circuitous mode of reaching the revenue of the individual?
Concerning the IRS Form 1099-K, identify any sections of the Internal Revenue Code that levy a tax with respect to an individual utilizing a merchant processing service for conducting retail sales over the Internet.
What is the subject of the tax?
What is the measure of the tax?
How is the tax a circuitous mode of reaching the revenue of the individual?
Thank you for in advance for your cooperation by providing truthful, complete, and timely answers to our questions.
Best regards,
Your name
[1] White, R. (2019). Direct and Indirect Taxation Under the Constitution. American Popular Sovereignty; A guide to restoring participatory government and achieving remedy. (pp. 280-294). Fort Worth, TX: APS Education.
[3] White, R. (2019). Direct and Indirect Taxation Under the Constitution. American Popular Sovereignty; A guide to restoring participatory government and achieving remedy. (pp. 280-294). Fort Worth, TX: APS Education.
To make it easy, we put this letter in a WORD format for you. Just open and customize. Easy peasy. Since 1945 IRS
The American Intelligence Media and American Popular Sovereignty invite you to join patriots everywhere in learning American history and civics – the real stuff, not the propaganda found in public school textbooks from publishers with Pilgrims Society affiliations.
To get started, we recommend that you subscribe to this blog where you will receive regular updates, including video presentations, recommended articles, and conversations between authors Randall E. White and Douglas Gabriel. For students that can’t wait to dig in, go ahead and purchase the print textbook which ships anywhere in the world:
Follow along with us. Required citizen textbook info is below. The first step to regaining our power over this runaway government is to learn what our U. S. contract (the Constitution) contains. Randall spent 20 years researching his book and every American can benefit from what he found. Remember, you were NOT taught civics properly – you were taught from textbooks printed and distributed by the Pilgrims Society publishers who do not want you to know the TRUTH about the CONTRACT that We the People have with government.
The American Intelligence Media and American Popular Sovereignty invite you to join patriots everywhere in learning American history and civics – the real stuff, not the propaganda found in public school textbooks from publishers with Pilgrims Society affiliations.
To get started, we recommend that you subscribe to this blog where you will receive regular updates, including video presentations, recommended articles, and conversations between authors Randall E. White and Douglas Gabriel. For students that can’t wait to dig in, go ahead and purchase the print textbook which ships anywhere in the world:
American Popular Sovereignty is a new contemporary civics textbook written by from a populist perspective. Populists believe that government should serve the interests of ordinary working-class people.
Knowledge about civics is vitally important to everyone because government literally affects every area of our lives, including our rights, freedoms, safety, security, access to justice, access to capital, access to employment, and our buying power, which largely determines our standard of living and quality of life, including our ability to afford to marry, buy a home and raise a family.
Underlying all of our major political and economic problems is the fact that We the People are totally ignorant about participatory government and our public powers. We are the creators of government, yet we no longer know about our public powers or how to use them. For at least the last hundred years, institutionalized civics miseducation has been teaching an incomplete and disempowering version of civics, which is “all representation and no participation”. As a result, participatory government in America is now dormant or asleep, thus it no longer performs its traditional role and function of protecting the integrity of representative government and our civil rights by holding public representatives accountable to their oath of office and to the citizens’ public will.
In stark contrast to conventional civics miseducation, American Popular Sovereignty empowers us with knowledge by explaining the true history and basic elements of American participatory government, together with explaining our public powers and how to use them through the ballot initiative process and through our traditional participatory governmental institutions (public militias, grand juries, petit juries, and committees) to serve and protect our society and culture.
If we want to have good government which supports our access to a good quality of life and protects our society from tyranny, then We the People need to be the ultimate policymakers who direct the functioning of our representative government and control its outcomes. As a matter of enlightened self-interest, we need to wise up by taking the issue of obtaining a genuine and empowering civics education seriously!
American Popular Sovereignty (abbreviated as “APS”) is an extraordinary book, not only because of its content, but because of its origin. APS was born out of the undeterred pursuit of proper legal remedy. In April of 2015, after more than a decade of providing litigation support to clients fighting against illegal and unconstitutional policies and practices, and suffering along with my clients at the hands of systemic public corruption and deprivation of rights in our courts, I met with congressional staff and their legal counsel to discuss how we could stop the IRS from willfully misapplying the Internal Revenue laws to my clients. They plainly said that my memorandum of law about federal taxation under the Constitution was correct, but the problem of public corruption involving the IRS was too big for them to challenge.
I already knew that our remedy was with a Grand Jury, because the institution inherently possesses full judicial powers and authority to investigate and prosecute public corruption, but the courts and the prosecutors were blocking our access. This situation is what prompted me to write a civics textbook which would empower We the People with sufficient knowledge to overcome all obstacles and barriers to justice.
APS is unlike anything that we have ever read. The chapters present interesting history and information about American government that we have never before hear of, together with powerful ideas that will raise our consciousness and lead us to life-changing political action. APS teaches us how to be the creators and masters of government, instead of its servants and victims, which will forever change our political conversations and world view.
*Re-posting permission given by the author.
Participatory government means that we are the ones that can make government better. This video might give you some ideas to get started.
The American Intelligence Media and American Popular Sovereignty invite you to join patriots everywhere in learning American history and civics – the real stuff, not the propaganda found in public school textbooks from publishers with Pilgrims Society affiliations.
To get started, we recommend that you subscribe to this blog where you will receive regular updates, including video presentations, recommended articles, and conversations between authors Randall E. White and Douglas Gabriel. For students that can’t wait to dig in, go ahead and purchase the print textbook which ships anywhere in the world:
“Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate and doubt, to offer a solution everybody can understand.”
— Colin Powell
Most Americans attend public schools. The civics education classes in these schools teach us that there are three branches of government (the legislative, executive and judicial branches), and that these branches function as a check or balance to each other. The concept of checks and balances, as taught in public schools suggests that each branch of government has some measure of influence over the other branches and may choose to block procedures of the other branches.
What the author and his associates in the field of litigation have learned through experience is that behind the scenes in government, public actors regularly engage in off-the-record communications, both within and between the three representative branches of government.
Within these off-the-record communications, elected and appointed public officials routinely conspire and collude with each other concerning their involvement in executing unconstitutional policies and practices. These public representatives communicate covertly for the purposes of maintaining the appearance of proper legal and ethical conduct, and avoiding getting caught in illicit activities, including receiving illicit personal economic gain, which is often institutionalized within the corrupted system.
The net effect of these covert communications and collusion between the three representative branches of government is that they actually work together in concert to implement unconstitutional policies and practices for the purpose of receiving illicit gain while retaining the sham appearance of independence and legitimate governmental functioning. In other words, behind the scenes, the three representative branches of government do not, in reality, act as a check or balance to each other.
Public representatives engage in illicit conduct because they can. It pays very well, and presently we have no functional restraints in place to curb the illicit conduct, so the odds of getting caught are minimal. The problem will continue until we address the issue, because the reward for illicit governmental conduct far outweighs the risk.
The official myth that most of us have been taught all of our lives in public schools and reinforced by the corporate-owned news media about the alleged system of checks and balances between the three branches of representative government is in reality official disinformation and pure political theater devised as a cover for public corruption and its role in aiding and abetting organized corporate crime. This situation brings us to the obvious logical question, “What can we do about it?” Well, glad you asked!
You will learn, as the author eventually did after more than a decade of studying law, that knowledge of popular sovereignty is the key to holding our public representatives accountable to their oath of office and to the citizens’ public will, and to unlocking government sanctionedremedy. In law, remedy is defined as a legal means of enforcing a right or of providing redress. Redress means to adjust a situation to make the matter of concern fair or equal, including compensation for a legal wrong.
*Re-posting permission given by the author.
The American Intelligence Media and American Popular Sovereignty invite you to join patriots everywhere in learning American history and civics – the real stuff, not the propaganda found in public school textbooks from publishers with Pilgrims Society affiliations.
To get started, we recommend that you subscribe to this blog where you will receive regular updates, including video presentations, recommended articles, and conversations between authors Randall E. White and Douglas Gabriel. For students that can’t wait to dig in, go ahead and purchase the print textbook which ships anywhere in the world:
Add this one to the next piece and occasional throughout the pieces
The American Intelligence Media and American Popular Sovereignty invite you to join patriots everywhere in learning TRUTH American history and civics – the real stuff, not the propaganda found in public school textbooks from publishers with Pilgrims Society affiliations. We posted the first lesson of our civics course below and hope you will follow along this year, watching us develop an online civics course for anyone and everyone to access.
Our AIM community is crowdsourcing each lesson plan by contributing comments, offering video selections, making reference of how the topic applies to something in current events. We are asking you to be teacher assistants in developing the AIM ONLINE CIVICS COURSE.
The first step in helping with this project is to subscribe to
Watch for the Civics Education posts or read ones already posted. They will have top images of the Capitol building as pictured here and are all tagged ‘civics education’ for easy searching.
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“We the People… do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
—Preamble to the Constitution of the United States
America’s system of government has a name and a specific history, which are relevant to understanding how government in America is supposed to operate. The name is popular sovereignty, which means that the supreme authority over the state is the People, who have the right to self-government without any outside interference. Literally, the word “popular” means a community of people, and the word “sovereignty” means the top authority. So, We the People are the top authority. We are the creators of government. We embody government. And we have the right to alter our government in any way we see fit, or to abolish the government altogether.
Popular sovereignty is collective, not individual. In America, there is no such thing as a sovereign individual. Citizens possess sovereignty when legally organized as a body politic. The term “body politic” means the people of a nation, state, or society considered collectively as an organized group of citizens. In America, the terms “body politic”, “popular sovereignty”, “the people”, “We the People”, “we the people”, and “we the popular sovereignty”, all mean essentially the same thing.
America’s Declaration of Independence repudiated the doctrine of the divine right of kings (individual sovereignty) and invoked the peoples’ right to self-determination, using language that spoke of the colonists as “the creators of government” in the plural, i.e., “all men, “among men”, “the governed”, and “the people”, which are all terms having the same intended meaning as “body politic” and “popular sovereignty”, as follows:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.” Declaration of Independence (U.S. 1776), para. 2.
Similarly, America’s Constitution is a popular sovereignty document. The Preamble cites “We the People” as the creators of the Constitution for the purpose of supporting the public weal. Public weal means a general state of wellbeing, prosperity, and happiness. This is what our Constitution is really about:
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
Please note that the language in the Preamble starts with “We the People”, not “The Sovereign States”. The People are the Sovereign; not the States.
America’s State constitutions are also popular sovereignty documents. Most of these constitutions contain provisions asserting the People’s right to self-determination, together with asserting the purpose of government is to support the public weal. An example is this excerpt from Virginia’s Declaration of Rights:
“That government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of the people, nation, or community; of all the various modes and forms of government, that is best which is capable of producing the greatest degree of happiness and safety, and is most effectually secured against the danger of maladministration; and that, when any government shall be found inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community hath an indubitable, inalienable, and indefeasible right to reform, alter, or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most conducive to the public weal.” Declaration of Rights (Va. 1776), §3.
Another example is the Massachusetts Constitution, which expresses these same principles of popular sovereignty:
“The people of this commonwealth have the sole and exclusive right of governing themselves as a free, sovereign, and independent State, and do, and forever hereafter shall, exercise and enjoy every power, jurisdiction, and right which is not, or may not hereafter be, by them expressly delegated to the United States of America in Congress assembled.” (Mass. Const. (1780), part 1, art. IV.)
In accordance with the popular sovereignty principle that the body of citizens are the top authority, the decisions and actions of elected and appointed representatives are proper only to the extent that they conform to the public will. The term “public will” means the desire of the body politic, or organized body of citizens, in the matter.
The American Intelligence Media and American Popular Sovereignty invite you to join patriots everywhere in learning American history and civics – the real stuff, not the propaganda found in public school textbooks from publishers with Pilgrims Society affiliations.
To get started, we recommend that you subscribe to this blog where you will receive regular updates, including video presentations, recommended articles, and conversations between authors Randall E. White and Douglas Gabriel. For students that can’t wait to dig in, go ahead and purchase the print textbook which ships anywhere in the world:
The great American constitutional scholar, Dr. Edwin Vieira, Jr., explains the hierarchy of political authority in American government in Chapter One of The Sword and Sovereignty. On page 54, he asserts
“We the People are the final authorities on the meaning of the Constitution.” [2]
As part of his lengthy discourse of the matter, on page 56, Dr. Vieira quotes the famous eighteenth century jurist, Sir William Blackstone, in support. Blackstone observed that society at large is a higher legal authority than any magistrate vested with powers originally delegated by that society,
“For, as Blackstone pointed out, ‘whenever a question arises between the society at large and any magistrate vested with powers originally delegated by that society, it must be decided by the voice of the society itself: there is not upon earth any other tribunal to resort to.’” [3]
Blackstone authored the famous Commentaries on the Laws of England, which was an influential treatise on the common law of England that America’s Founding Fathers studied and kept in their personal libraries along with the writings of John Locke, Adam Smith, and other highly influential leaders during the Age of Enlightenment. The Age of Enlightenment (also called the Age of Reason) was a period in Europe during the late 1600s and early 1700s when many writers and thinkers began to question established beliefs, such as the authority of kings or of the Church, in favor of reason and scientific proof. The European Enlightenment formed the philosophical basis for the American Enlightenment, which was a period of intellectual ferment in the thirteen American colonies that led to the American Revolution and the creation of the American Republic.
Dr. Vieira’s scholarly work explains and supports the following conclusions: We the People are the sovereign authority. We stand above the Congress because we are the creators of the Congress via the Constitution. Congress stands above the Supreme Court because Congress has the power to stipulate how the Judges are to interpret the laws. The present-day doctrine of “judicial supremacy” asserting that the Supreme Court is the ultimate judge of “what the law is”, is nonsense! We the People are the ultimate public authority in America, not congressional despots or judicial oligarchs. Despot means ruler with absolute power. Oligarchy means rule by the few.
This statement is made with the proviso that America is historically a Christian nation comprised primarily of European immigrants who shared the foundational belief that God or “the Creator of All That Is”, is the source of We the People’s sovereign authority to govern ourselves. George Mason, who principally authored The Virginia Declaration of Rights, which later served as the primary template for writing America’s Declaration of Independence and the United States Bill of Rights, plainly asserted,
“The laws of nature are the laws of God, whose authority can be superseded by no power on earth.” [4]
In accordance with the basic principles of American popular sovereignty, including our English common law roots, the hierarchy of political authority in America exists from the top down to the bottom, in the following order:
We the People (the citizens collectively, as a sovereign body politic possessing plenary public powers, are the top authority)
The Public Will (the citizens’ collective desires and objectives in all public matters)
Public Policy (the course or principles of action dictated by the citizens’ public will)
Public Charters (the formal, written legal documents through which the citizens formally create their governmental institutions and offices, establish jurisdiction, declare civil rights, et cetera) [5]
Public Laws (the codified legal standards for conduct precipitated by public policy conforming to the citizens’ public will)
Public Institutions and Offices (inhabited by public representatives delegated the known legal duty to uphold, defend and protect the public weal, which means the wellbeing of society, in conformity with the citizens’ public will)
Elected and Appointed Public Representatives (having the duty to perform the functions of their defined jobs in support of the public weal, in conformity with their oath of office and the citizens’ public will)
We the People are the top authority in our system of government. Our elected and appointed public representatives are the bottom authority. Our public representatives are our public servants. We delegate to our public servants the duty to observe, obey, uphold, and serve our public will, our public policy, our public charters, our public laws, our public institutions and our public offices for the purpose of serving and protecting our public weal.
In America, it is an honor and a privilege to serve society in a public capacity. When governmental entities or public representatives violate the public trust through official misconduct by acting against or outside of their publicly delegated authority and purpose, they automatically lose any statutory immunity from criminal prosecution or civil suit for damages corresponding to their limited sovereignty. The following chapters in Section I explain these concepts and terms.
[2] Vieira, E. (2012). Chapter 1, The constitutional principles of “the Militia of the several States” must be derived from the pre-constitutional Militia statutes of the American Colonies and independent States. The Sword and Sovereignty: The Constitutional Principles of “the Militia of the several States” (CD ROM ed., First, pp. 54-57). Front Royal, VA: House of a Thousand Suns.
[3] Blackstone, W. (1765-1769). Book 1, Rights of Persons; Chapter 3, Of the King, and His Title. Commentaries on the Laws of England (Vol. 1, at p. 212). Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press.
[4] George Mason made the statement as part of his argument in court asserting natural human rights coming from God, including to freedom and justice, in the case Robin v. Hardaway (Virginia, 1772), while acting as an attorney representing descendants of Indians fighting against slavery.
[5]Public charters are referred to by different names, including national, federal or state “constitution”, “municipal charter”, “public corporation” or “municipal corporation”.
Why does it matter that we understand the Constitution? Here we learn that We the People have powers that are being usurped by the globalist infiltrators that are destroying our Republic. We now have an empire with a global standing army and not a Militia in one single state. Ever wonder how the globalists, and their lap-dog bankers, got rid of the Militia System in violation of the U.S. Constitution?
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Throughout all of history, people have organized into groups such as families and tribes for protection, sustenance and entertainment. Our human nature defines us as sentient, social creatures who enjoy nurturing, play and having fun, and exchanging ideas, goods and services with each other. We also have predatory instincts, which make humans the most feared and dangerous predator throughout all of Nature.
The field of behavioral psychology tells us that our individual human behavior is largely a result of learning what we live while we grow up, due mainly to the fact that humans have a long, plastic childhood through which our thoughts and feelings, patterns of consciousness, self-awareness, sensitivity to others, manners, motor skills, and other kinds of behavior are molded and developed into what eventually becomes our personality. Our patterns of physical, emotional, moral and intellectual behaviors that develop while we grow up eventually become our character. This principle is best illustrated by the poem written by Dorothy Law Nolte, Children Learn What They Live. [2]
We typically achieve noble character and great cultural wealth—or squalor—depending mostly on the situation in life we are born into and raised. Our upbringing could be wonderful—or tragic and awful. For most of us, our childhood and later life experiences are usually somewhere in between—not exactly Heaven—but not total Hell either.
Because humans possess both powerful nurturing and predatory instincts, we all have the ability to become very loving or very destructive people, thus the great challenge to society is to maximize wholesome, nurturing behavior and traditions which sustain human greatness, and to minimize inappropriate expressions of predatory behavior for the sake of maintaining peaceful relations, while avoiding war and other forms of tragedy. Our identity, or how we view ourselves individually and as part of a family, culture, society, or nation, becomes important towards this end.
All humans need physical, emotional and cultural security. For this reason, well-developed humans possessing good self-esteem tend to form vibrant communities supporting personal and social safety, security, freedom and happiness. These healthy communities typically enjoy sharing their productivity and culture with each other, including sharing food, festivities, technology, art, manufactured goods, music, dance, and other forms of creative expression and entertainment, while also working together to abate the problems of ignorance, poverty and disease.
Sadly, emotionally and morally underdeveloped people tend to hate and blame others for their problems, and to rationalize or self-justify socially alienating, deviant or destructive behaviors such as lying, cheating, stealing, deceiving, abusing, hating or harming others as acceptable means to personal gratification or economic survival. Additionally, there are the unfortunate people who for whatever reason become mentally deranged, and the other kind of unfortunate people whose consciousness is poisoned by a totalitarian ideology. Whenever a person exhibits bad behavior that violates public standards codified as laws, we call this type of misconduct “crime”.
When morally underdeveloped people come together to form a gang or even an army under the control of a totalitarian dictator, they pose a serious threat to society. Ordinary working-class people must therefore band together to protect themselves, or face the peril of their disorganization. When very wealthy, morally underdeveloped professionals in significant positions of political or economic power come together in some unethical scheme, they pose an even greater threat to society, because the size and scope of the harm that these elite-class predators can achieve through covert manipulation of world markets and national relations is enormous.
When greedy, power-hungry, unscrupulous politicians, bankers, industrialists, institutional investors and corporate executives conspire together to plunder through a pattern of economic or physical warfare, they become an elite class of economic super-predators having the ability to completely devastate society. In this context, amoral investors and hedge fund managers care not whether a market is going up or down—only that it is moving—and that they are controlling the movement or have inside knowledge of the direction that the manipulated market is about to go.
To these folks, war is the ultimate profit center. This is because political instability creates extreme volatility in the marketplace, which is highly profitable for the institutional investors having inside knowledge. A physical war causes the greatest market demand for very expensive goods such as weapons and medical supplies, which is profitable for the industrialists manufacturing these supplies. Further, international bankers like war because it creates the greatest demand for enormous loans to the nations bringing or defending against the hostilities, which will be paying interest on these national debts to the international bankers for decades to come.
Sections VI and VII of American Popular Sovereignty explain in detail two extremely damaging schemes perpetrated by the globalist banking cartel (illegal mortgages and unconstitutional taxation policies and practices), which constitute economic war crimes against working-class citizens.
Another extremely destructive scheme, only mentioned here for the purpose of illustrating why societies form government to protect themselves, is how the billionaire hedge fund manager and “Open Society” founder, George Soros, is using his vast wealth to financially gut countries, destabilize their governments, rig their elections, [3] ruin their society with drugs, destroy their cultural and religious traditions, and undermine their sovereignty by destroying their national borders. In response to these subversive activities and all of the damage they have caused, the Philippines, Hungary, Russia, Poland, Turkey and Pakistan have all banned Soros and his treacherous political and economic operations. [4]
On the surface, it might appear that Soros simply hates civilization, or has some twisted kind of humanitarian bent, but in reality, he is operating with a strong profit motive. Soros intentionally manufactures large-scale political instability because it causes dramatic volatility, or upward and downward economic movement, in the securities marketplace. Hedge fund managers desire upward and downward movement of the price of stocks and commodities—especially when they have inside knowledge—because they make much of their money through buying and selling option contracts predicting the future direction of the market. Soros combines his inside knowledge of the political instability that he is creating, and the predictable effects of his subversive actions on the marketplace and economy, together with his skill in trading stocks and bonds and derivatives, to generate enormous profits for his multi-billion-dollar hedge fund.
One of the primary vehicles Soros is using to destroy national borders is a flood of millions of Islamic migrants, coming mostly from war-torn countries in North Africa. [5] Towards this end, he is working together with the multinational financial institution, Master Card, in funding the invasion of Islamic migrants into Europe and other parts of the world. [6]
If Soros actually wanted to help these Africans as part of a true humanitarian effort, he would be allocating some of his billions to financially assisting them in building up a good economy and desirable living conditions in their homeland, together with providing education supporting these people in taking full responsibility for their political disorder, and teaching them how to peacefully coexist and to peacefully govern themselves.
Tragically, these incoming Islamic migrants are typically poor, illiterate, unskilled, mostly military age men from impoverished or war-torn countries in North Africa and the Middle East. Due to their indoctrination into Islam, they generally have no real appreciation or respect for Western democratic values or laws, and possess no desire whatsoever to assimilate into Western culture. [7] Instead, they brazenly overrun national borders, trash the countryside, create mass mayhem, overwhelm local governments, ruin local economies, and cause the indigenous residents to live in fear of being molested, raped, abducted into human trafficking, robbed, mugged, or murdered, including living in fear of being beheaded for merely expressing a political view or opinion going contrary to fundamentalist Islamic doctrine or beliefs.
Merely giving handouts to these migrants does not actually help them to rise above their terrible circumstances. Their greatest obstacle to progress is the way they think. Their minds and hearts must be opened to new ideas before they will be able to embrace and create for themselves a better way of life, including building a peaceful and prosperous society in their homeland by adopting the social principles that sustain a kind, egalitarian culture—which essentially means embracing the Western values that they presently reject.
Although these migrants claim refugee status, they actually bring their political instability problems with them wherever they go. This is because the Shia and Sunni warring factions of Islam that are integral to North Africa and Middle East political instability have been engaged in theocratic political conflict for 1400 years. This long-running Shia-Sunni power struggle is not likely to be resolved any time soon, thus when these Islamic migrants move away from their devastated homeland battleground, they merely drag their 1400-year-old Islamic nightmare with them wherever they go. [8] Spreading this age-old conflict into other communities does not solve it. We need to go to the root of the problem, which is consciousness.
Individuals are powerless to defend themselves against the financial elite super-predators such as George Soros and his ilk who conduct large-scale economic plunder, and political, cultural, and physical wars against civilized society. Thus, out of necessity, ordinary working-class people must choose to work together in an intelligent and organized manner to protect themselves, their society, culture and way of life from unscrupulous or sociopathic elites and their large-scale predatory organizations and unethical schemes.
For these reasons, communities organize politically to:
Protect themselves, their property, their culture, values, standards, government and way of life from opposing or predatory individuals and organizations, as well as from the problems caused by natural or man-made disasters, such as hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, nuclear power plant reactor mishaps, mass shootings, gang wars and lootings, insurrections, invasions, border crossings, et cetera
Protect, facilitate and regulate trade and commerce
Protect their society and culture from warmongering, predatory or invading cultures
Bring out the best in people within society, including upholding the principles of justice, fairness, kindness and respect in all aspects of societal relationships
Formally establish and protect good relations with other communities, societies and cultures
Within these politically organized communities, citizens establish hierarchy and delegate authority, roles and duties to certain institutions and individuals in service to their society. We call this government, or more precisely, civil government, since there are several other spheres of government, such as self-government, family, church, business, and organization governments, also known as “sphere sovereignty.”
In this context, America’s spiritual challenge, as a society, is how to go about establishing social structures to live by, including government, which support loving consciousness, including loving the unlovely—while still being wise and not stupid—for the purpose of creating as best we can, Heaven on Earth. Nancy Poer, an inspiring teacher who influenced my thinking in the matter, said it best, [9]
“The spiritual mission of America is to bring freedom to the world.”
Footnotes:
[1] John Dickinson was one of America’s Founding Fathers. He wrote The Liberty Song, first published in the Boston Gazette in July 1768. The lyrics say, “Then join hand in hand, brave Americans all! By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall!”
[2] Nolte, D. L. and Harris, R. (1998). Children Learn What They Live: Parenting to Inspire Values. New York, NY: Workman Publishing Company.
[9] Nancy Poer is a co-founder of Rudolf Steiner College, a Waldorf education teachers’ college in Fair Oaks, California, where she taught for forty years.
*Re-posting permission given by the author.
The American Intelligence Media and American Popular Sovereignty invite you to join patriots everywhere in learning American history and civics – the real stuff, not the propaganda found in public school textbooks from publishers with Pilgrims Society affiliations.
To get started, we recommend that you subscribe to this blog where you will receive regular updates, including video presentations, recommended articles, and conversations between authors Randall E. White and Douglas Gabriel. For students that can’t wait to dig in, go ahead and purchase the print textbook which ships anywhere in the world:
The first step in helping with this project is to subscribe to
“For, as Blackstone pointed out, ‘whenever a question arises between the society at large and any magistrate vested with powers originally delegated by that society, it must be decided by the voice of the society itself: there is not upon earth any other tribunal to resort to.’” 
All humans need physical, emotional and cultural security. For this reason, well-developed humans possessing good self-esteem tend to form vibrant communities supporting personal and social safety, security, freedom and happiness. These healthy communities typically enjoy sharing their productivity and culture with each other, including sharing food, festivities, technology, art, manufactured goods, music, dance, and other forms of creative expression and entertainment, while also working together to abate the problems of ignorance, poverty and disease.
Tragically, these incoming Islamic migrants are typically poor, illiterate, unskilled, mostly military age men from impoverished or war-torn countries in North Africa and the Middle East. Due to their indoctrination into Islam, they generally have no real appreciation or respect for Western democratic values or laws, and possess no desire whatsoever to assimilate into Western culture. 
