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This is a rebroadcast of my first interview with Michael Boldin, Founder of the Tenth Amendment Center (TAC) from October, 2010. Truth stays constant. The TAC team is constantly sharing truth and action that supports Liberty. Please consider subscribing and supporting the Tenth Amendment Center today.
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This is a rebroadcast of my first interview with Michael Boldin, Founder of the Tenth Amendment Center (TAC) from October, 2010. Truth stays constant. The TAC team is constantly sharing truth and action that supports Liberty. Please consider subscribing and supporting the Tenth Amendment Center today.
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The transcription is a conversation between the hosts of a radio show and their guest, Michael Bolden, the founder of the Tenth Amendment Center. They discuss the importance of the Tenth Amendment in limiting the power of the federal government and promoting state sovereignty. They also talk about the need to educate people about the Constitution and spread the message of liberty. The guest emphasizes the need to tailor the message to different individuals and their specific concerns. Overall, the conversation focuses on the importance of understanding and upholding the principles of limited government and individual rights. We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America. Transforming the United States of America... Not so fast. Freedom is rising. Constitutional illiteracy is dying. The great aim of education is not knowledge but action. Studying the freedom formula will arm us in our battle to restore constitutional order. People's law. Are you ready to study? Are you ready to take action? This is your co-host Gary Wood, our freedom coach. Gary Alder. And we are very happy to have everyone joining us today on Freedom is Rising. The intro is a little kind of goofy. We are coming to you here on Blog Talk Radio. We appreciate everyone joining us once again for Freedom is Rising in a very crazy time in a very crazy week. Education helps calm the nerves, I think. Don't you, Gary? I do. It is something that's fun. I want to give a quick shout-out to many of the other great shows here on Blog Talk Radio. You have Founding Truth of the U.S. Constitution, Patriot's Heart, Douglas Gibbs, Jeremy Sarber, always a good show, and our good friends over at the Patriot Hour, Sir Malachi and General Rachel. Also News Free, Kuski, Idaho, Silver Noble, and so many others. We'll try and get to some others later on. But today, that's not what everyone's about. What everyone is about and what everyone is excited to have is a very special guest joining us, and I believe he is on air with us now. I want to welcome to the show the founder of the Tenth Amendment Center, Michael Bolden. Michael, how are you? I'm doing well, gentlemen. Thanks for having me here. Well, thank you very much for joining with us. We are very excited to have you here and with us on this show. Chatters, I'll put the link to the Tenth Amendment Center in the chat room. I want to also say welcome, and so do Girl and Sir Malachi, to the chat room. Michael, you know, I'm just a little bit passionate about the Tenth Amendment, and so a lot of people who have listened to the Sunday show know some of that passion, and then on our Saturday show as well. I'd like to introduce you to my co-host here, Gary Alder. Gary, this is Michael. Michael, nice to hear from you. Great to be here, Gary. Tell me, how did you get started on the Tenth Amendment? What was your beginnings here? Well, I actually founded the organization in mid-2006. A lot of people have been saying, oh, you must be some kind of visionary to know in advance that there was going to be this great movement in support of limiting the federal government under the Tenth Amendment, but I can tell you I am no visionary. I just was hoping to reach a few people and explain the simple idea that the federal government is one of enumerated powers, limited powers, instead of one of unlimited, unlisted powers the way it acts today. I was hoping to reach a few people, and I'm glad that there's great patriots out there like you, the listeners, and all across the country who are recognizing that this really is our modern line in the sand. Do we believe in limited government or government that can do whatever it wants whenever it wants? Well, so it wasn't a crystal ball after all that you had that you were gazing into. About how many people, now I know you've just added a couple of more states. How many total states are there now with state coordinators? We're just about a dozen. We just launched, as you guys know, in Utah just before Christmas, and just this week we started in Ohio, Indiana, and Virginia, and we'll be launching an Illinois chapter next week. So we're basically, our goal in the long run is to have great tenthers, as they so often call us, and they try to use that as a disparaging term somehow, to believe in the Tenth Amendment is somehow a bad thing. But we want to have great tenthers in place in every county, every state, every city as possible, just preaching this message of truth. And, you know, I had Sons of Liberty writers in the chat room wanting to know where in Ohio, what's the website? I believe that's going to be ohio.tenthamendmentcenter.com? Yes, and that site just launched. I believe it was in the last 24 hours. Sometimes the time, it's hard to keep track of. You can also find Ohio Tenth Amendment Center on Facebook and just stay in touch with our guy there, Tom Verne. He'll be working with the Ohio Liberty Council there very closely. Excellent, excellent. Now, so you're setting up the states, and, you know, I know here in Utah, you're getting the state coordinator, hoping to get county and city. Where do you see that going? What do you envision as more and more states come on board? Well, I'm hoping that people will recognize, as we establish these state and local organizations, that if you believe in liberty, if you believe in the Constitution, that voting the bums out year in and year out, begging Congress to pass laws, begging unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats that are the Supreme Court to secure our rights is really not the path to liberty. The path to liberty lies in the ideals of Jefferson and Madison and in state capitals. And as we are on the ground more locally, maybe more and more activists, rather than trekking across the country solely to go to D.C. and yell, hey, please protect our rights, will actually pressure state governments to do something about it. Excellent. You don't think that just changing out the federal government year in and year out is going to be the answer, huh? Well, I'm sure you agree with me on this one. But to all those people who believe that voting the bums out in 2010 is going to do anything, I'll just say how well has that been working? Whether it's George Bush or Bill Clinton or Barack Obama or any of these people who have been in government year in and year out, the economy gets worse and your liberty gets reduced. Yeah, we see what kind of good quality it's bringing. You know, I read your article with the reading list on the Tenth Amendment Center, a fantastic reading list. I've actually ordered a few more books than we already had. But one of them that was on there that I had missed, that I'm going to make a priority reading for everyone, and I really was surprised, I didn't think that would be the one that got me so much, was The Cult of the Presidency by Gene Healy. Fantastic. This guy is probably one of the leading thinkers in the country today on states' rights philosophy. He works with the Institute pretty high up there at Cato. And that is a fantastic book to see how basically instead of what the founders' vision was, which is a president that pretty much just or an executive that executed the laws of Congress, basically we've got an elected king. Right. And it's important for people. I think this book has put it out clearer than I've ever really seen the case laid out before, where you can actually see how this has happened. This cult has grown up around the president. Excuse me. What is really striking is unless you knew what the presidency was like firsthand before Teddy Roosevelt, we don't know what it was supposed to be like, because it's been morphing since then. So most of us don't know. Every single one of us alive today has experienced a president that had more power than any of the founders or ratifiers ever would have approved. And even in times under Ronald Reagan, even Reagan himself, the man who preached limited government, had far more power than Jefferson, Madison, Andrew Jackson, or any of those early guys ever would have wanted. Right. Yeah, I think that we see a definite need for this message. The question is, how are we going to get it out? Well, I think the message of the Constitution and liberty is popular. It crosses political party lines. I mean, I can argue with a socialist, and when I'm bringing them points of like, well, do you really want to point a gun at somebody and force them to get involved in your health care plan? Most average people aren't into using the government to force people to do things. I think they just don't realize that there are other ways. There are better ways to approach things. And the more people we talk with, the more this message just spreads. I see it just in the last year, the amount of interviews I've been able to do with major media organizations. Even the New York Times has given some favorable press of all places on this movement. And I think the only place we have to go is up. Well, I think you're right. I've been saying for a couple of years on this show, trying to explain to our listeners, both on the Sunday show and now on our Saturday show, that oppression opens ears. And so it's our responsibility to educate ourselves and educate those that are of like mind, so that as the oppressed's ears open, we'll be ready to explain to them what the truth is. Have you found a, oh, I don't know, just a quick 30-, 60-second comment that people can effectively use to start a conversation? I guess it really depends on the issue. What I always try to do, rather than having the same thing going to each person, I always try to find what's in that person's mind, what motivates them. And if you're talking to someone on the left, you're not necessarily going to talk to them about gun rights, even though the federal government has no right, no authority whatsoever, to be messing in the affairs of people's rights to protect themselves. What you need to do is cater your message to the person you're talking to. Someone on the left, you may tell them, hey, in California, that state should be allowed, and it is allowed, under the Constitution, to legalize marijuana. And there aren't too many people on the left that would be opposed to California having legalized marijuana, because that issue is supposed to be kept close to home, where people of like mind can make those types of decisions. So you can appeal to people, no matter what side of the political spectrum they're on, whether it's marijuana or health care or gun rights. People can have different personal viewpoints on things, but all be aligned on principle, because the principle is that these difficult, divisive issues are best left close to home. Well, and I think that's the key to everything right there, is the lowest level, you know, right down to self-government. I always tie that into our Ninth Amendment responsibility, where we really are to be able to self-govern and be responsible within our own families and our own communities and move on forward. With the Tenth Amendment restoration, or the effort to restore it, what kind of backlash do you see coming down at the federal level? Well, we haven't seen too much of a response from the federal government itself. I mean, there's been a little bit of activity. For example, in Montana and Tennessee, they passed the Firearms Freedom Acts, which basically nullify federal gun laws and regulations for guns made and kept in those states. The federal government didn't do much. They sent a pretty nasty letter from the BATF saying, hey, basically we don't care what your law is. We're going to continue to enforce the federal law. We don't care what the Constitution means. It only means what the Supreme Court says it means until they change their mind. But the reality is, and again, going to marijuana, I come from California, so this is a hot issue here. You can look at what happened here in California on the weed topic as a great example of how you can fight back against the federal government on any number of issues. In 1996, the state of California passed this law in direct contravention to the federal government on marijuana. They said, hey, we can make our own decision on who's going to be allowed to have this plant. The federal government said, oh, no way. Supremacy means we can overrule it. We're going to raid you. We're going to send in the DEA. We're going to arrest people. And they did that. A few years later, people in California sued. They took it to the Supreme Court. They lost. And even after having the entire federal apparatus oppose them, in that time from 1996 until now, because I live in Los Angeles, there are more marijuana dispensaries than there are Starbucks or 7-Eleven. So the bottom line, the moral of that story is, whatever issue you believe in, promote it as hard as you can locally, because if enough people in your state get behind it and simply resist and nullify and stand up and say no to the federal government, it doesn't matter what the federal government wants. They can't enforce their laws. They simply don't have the manpower. Right, right. I had a chatter in the chat room and wanted to know what he was talking about a good states' rights book might be. Is there a good introductory book you can think of that, you know, I'm thinking, of course, Chapter 4 in the Politically Incorrect Guide to History by Thomas Woods or, you know, Who Killed the Constitution or Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution, but just a good, easy read for a lot of people out there. My first one is always Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution by Kevin Guzman, who's spent a lot of time and energy advising us on our efforts here. He's written some articles for the website. And I think that's really the best introductory review of how the Constitution is supposed to be working. And then you can go from there, Who Killed the Constitution, also by Kevin Guzman, along with Tom Woods. There's Constitution in Exile by Andrew Napolitano, a number of really good books. But if you want to start out, go there. If you want to get a little bit more high-end, you're going to look to a book like Nullification, a Constitutional History by Professor Kirk Wood. Okay, okay. And that's a tougher one to find, but, you know, it's worth looking up. I finally did dig it up on Alibri.com. Right, or you can find it on Amazon, for example. Right, right, yeah. And Kevin Guzman has really some good insights. He was a guest of ours on our Sunday show, oh, gee, six months back or so, I guess now. But some really easy read to get started. But then there is a lot. Then it just opens up. Gary, what do you find is a good study? Well, I've been thinking that really Adam Smith. Adam Smith, there you go. He's one of my favorites. If I could just share a little bit. And I think I would like to see things take a non-confrontational, more that the local governments and state governments start doing their responsibility more than squaring off against the feds. I think at this point in time that maybe squaring off is somewhat premature. But anyway, as I looked at Adam Smith, and I'm just trying to find that quote again as I was dealing with it. He says, in the progress of despotism, the authority of the executive power gradually absorbs that of every other power in the state and assumes to itself the management of every branch of revenue which is destined for any public purpose. And I think the key is that revenue issue. That's where I think we've gone astray and we've been so willing to, if I could use the terminology, suck up to the federal government so that we get the money. And I think if we first train ourselves to be more as county and city and state governments more self-sufficient, self-reliant than just planning on the feds gathering the money for our little project. Yeah, I think a big step, I don't know how you feel about this, Michael. I think a big step is going to be for that first state that will actually stand up and tear out the income tax system within the state and quit playing tax collector for the feds. I don't know how far away we'll be from that. In my discussions with advisors and some supporters of the Tenth Amendment Center, that always tends to be the final nail in the coffin. What's going to happen? At some point, the IRS and the income tax system is going to have to be dealt with because that's the bottom line. They're taking our money and, you know, they're taking it from us at our jobs. People, we haven't even seen it. I think that is a little ways off yet and there are some proposals on how to deal with that. Ray McBerry running for governor down in Georgia has got a really good proposal, a federal income tax escrow account where the state will actually collect the taxes and basically distribute to the federal government a percentage of the taxes collected based on what they're doing that is constitutional. I think that's a little ways down the line. Yeah, I think maybe a predecessor to that would be for the state to have a state income tax, you know, which here in Utah, ours just piggybacks off of the federal forms and I presume that most states do. When you get your TurboTax, they'll have a state project that just piggybacks off the logic and methodology of the feds. And I think if the states learn to stand on their own two feet and just get rid of their own state income tax, then they can, I don't know, maybe if I could say it, practice having a spine and learn to be self-reliant and non-socialist as a state. And it seems to me that that would strengthen the position, you know, when push does come down to shove because eventually it will. What's your thoughts on that, Michael? Well, I think that's actually a really good idea. Now, here in California, I doubt we'll actually see the state ever want to not be socialist. They'll probably come up with ways to try to be more socialist than the federal government, as hard as that may seem these days. But I also agree that each state should make their own determination on that. The people of each state should determine. And if California fails like Massachusetts has been just coming down to pieces. My sister lives in Boston. She takes it and she's telling me, she's like, there's crashes all the time. It's coming to pieces, basically. They never run on time anymore. It's just a result of socialist government, as we all know. Things end up going awry. But, yes, absolutely, those states that actually stand up and are more self-reliant, I believe, will be far more successful and will be a shining light, an example to others to give them more courage to do the same. And it's just going to take one to get the ball rolling. That's the thing. It will take one. If you have a state like California, I don't miss it, if you have a state like California that does want to be more socialist, under a properly run Federalist Republic, you have the ability to vote with your feet. You can leave that state. When you have an entire nation that's designed around it, it's kind of tough to vote with your feet. I don't mind if a lot of people say, if you tenthers have your way, then you think all the states will be better? No, but I think it will be more in line with how we should be able to control where we live. Sure, absolutely. And I actually believe, in the long, long run, all the states will be better because I really believe in freedom. I believe that liberty is the best system. I believe that free choice is the best system. And that naturally competing systems of freedom versus coercion and freedom will eventually win out. If we have a system where 50 different states are doing 50 different laboratories in a Federalist system, it's a long run. It may not be five years. It could be 50 or 100 after a while. But I believe in the long run, if we decentralize like this, we'll all be better off, our children, our grandchildren, and on and on. Isn't it sad? I just had a thought, and you'll have to forgive me. I kind of drift off into these weird thoughts. You were mentioning your sister in Massachusetts. Isn't it strange and odd how it was Massachusetts that John Adams was able to at least test his separation of powers with the three houses, the executive and judicial and legislative, as Montesquieu had seen it. He was able to test it there when it was rejected by Thomas Paine and others in 76 and 77. And now Massachusetts is so far from what Adams thought it might have been. You can't tell it from there. But, yeah, it's interesting. How long, you know, one of the things that frustrates me is every time I've seen an uprising, I saw one in 78, 79, 80, then we elected Reagan, everyone went home. I saw another one starting in 93, 94, then Newt Gingrich sold everybody on the contract to America, and everybody went home. Trying to convince people you can't go home this time. It's a long-term fight. Do you have, looking back in that crystal ball you used to fire up the 10th Amendment Center, how do you see this playing out? Do you see this happening by a wonderful sweeping 2010 and 2012, or do you see this like I do, long, long term? I can tell you the result of the election in November 2010 and November 2012 will be the federal government will get, your liberty will be less. It may be in different areas, but that is a fact. My thought is, my perspective is, I want everybody to go home. It may be a different viewpoint. I want everybody to go home and stop paying attention to the federal government. Know what it does so you can figure out how you can get your state to nullify and interpose, stand between you and the federal government and protect your liberty. That, even someone like Daniel Webster, who believed in this perpetual union, even he in his famous speech in, I think, 18 or something, basically said, this is the primary duty of a state government is to interpose and protect the liberty of its citizens against a federal government that is overreaching the Constitution. That's what states are supposed to do. Yeah, and I really want people to, and today we were just down cleaning up and getting ready for our first class next Tuesday night at our new Heritage Training Center opening here, and one of the things that we're really going to be pushing there is local involvement, getting people to realize, all right, right now everybody pays attention to the federal elections but tends to forget their local. I want to try and change that paradigm. I want them to focus more on the local. Yeah, well, there are important elections coming up in 2010, but they're not for one Senate seat or another, one big government Republican versus one big government Democrat. The big government Republican sounds good on health care, but it's bad on every other issue. So, I mean, if we only focus on that one issue, we're going to be in a lot of trouble. And if we look at this example that I gave of the marijuana, or 20 to 20 states that have refused to comply with the 2005 REAL ID Act, and it's still not around, think of that. If we found 20 to 25 states who simply refused to comply with gun regulations on a federal level or health care, just really just did what they were supposed to do, the federal government would have no chance to be able to slam this stuff down our throats. And that's where we can be most effective. Right, right. I'd like to invite our listeners to call in. Let's see if someone else has some questions for Michael. Listeners, we have, as a reminder, our call-in line is 347-326-9311. Also, we have a lot of chatters in the chat room. So if any of you have a specific question you'd like us to ask Michael, you can leave it in the chat room or again, 347-326-9311. How long are you going to be able to stay with us, Michael? I'm here as long as you need. Okay, wonderful, wonderful. As long as we're not going overnight, I need a little rest here and there, but we're good. We pulled a plug on the show at 1159. You got a deal, guys, you got a deal. So as we're waiting to see if we get any questions from the chatters or if we get a caller, I'm curious. You know, I've read a little bit of background, but can you tell the listeners really, I'm sure a lot of them are curious, how did this bug bite you so deep? Well, I grew up a good socialist like most of us that went to government-run schools. I think back, I remember with the bailouts of the airlines. You know what my first instinct was? It wasn't let them go bankrupt. It was, well, if the federal government's giving them all this money, why didn't the government just own it? Why didn't the government own all transportation? This was my instinct. And I guess I just had a shift over the years when I saw everything that the federal government touched failed. One of my favorite writers was a great libertarian. His name was Harry Brown. He ran for president of the Libertarian Party twice. And Harry always said it best, I think. And he said, government is good at one thing. It breaks your legs, and then it comes along afterwards and says, hey, I've got a solution. Praise me. And I think it just was a realization of watching year in, year out, that really happening on virtually every issue, that I became more and more interested in limiting the government's power. And then, obviously, struggling across the Tenth Amendment and realizing that the power is already limited by law in the Constitution. That, to me, was the bottom line for everything. Yeah. Harry Brown, you mentioned. And, you know, he earned my vote several times. And I still love and support Jim Bapko, who's been on here before, many times with thedownsizedc.org. And I think that's a long-lasting tribute to the great Harry Brown. I just actually got a book of his today in the mail. Again, one that your list reminded me of that I had loaned out a long time ago, Why Government Doesn't Work. One of my favorites. Yeah, yeah. And I was like, you know, and I had this book, oh, I bet it was ten years ago, I'm guessing. No, maybe not. Maybe it was five, seven years ago. And I loaned it to someone and never saw it again. And I saw it on that list, and I said, I just got to have it. Of course, this was an expensive one now. It cost me $2 through a Libri. So. Talk about a capital outlay. Yeah, yeah. It was tough. So you grew up a good socialist, and this started getting to you. Now, how long, the Tenth Amendment Center, now, has that been online since 2006? No, we actually launched the website in January of 2007. So we've actually been online for almost three years. And it's interesting, because when I talk to reporters, one of the first things they'll say is, well, this whole Tenth Amendment thing, this is obviously just something to do with you hating the black man who's the president. And I say, well, if you know how to use the Internet, you'll just go online and see that we were raking Bush's policies online publicly since 2007. And it backs them off of that. So I think that's a good selling point to people who say, well, this Tenth Amendment movement is about right versus left. All you have to do is point it out and say, hey, the Tenth Amendment Center is no fan of the Republicans or Bush. You can just look at the history of their website. That's a good thing to point out. We do have a caller, caller from 801. You are on the air with Gary, Gary, and our special guest, Michael Bolden. Who is this calling, and what kind of question do you have for Michael? I don't know if you can hear me or not. Do I have to click to talk? Yep, you're doing fine. I can hear you fine. This is Ann Ford. Hi, Ann Ford. I just wanted to tell Michael Bolden how excited we are to be involved with the Tenth Amendment Center. And, you know, like you said, he's been around for a while. I just am so grateful. And are you finding, though, that other states are now really getting excited about the Tenth Amendment, Michael? Yeah, absolutely. Well, the thing is that people really believe they're starting, like I was saying, they're starting to realize that it isn't one political party or the other that will protect liberty, that the best way to do it is what Thomas Jefferson said, James Madison, is look inward towards the state, look closer to home to protect your rights. And we're seeing really great movements in places. I mean, I think Utah is the right place. There's going to be a lot of great activity there. You guys are with the Patrick Henry Caucus. They're going to do a lot of good things. And other places like New York, Canada, Texas, New York, New Hampshire, Ohio. Are you bringing it up on us, Michael? I don't think we did, did we not? Not very well. In Ohio, just past August, they were one of the first places that actually threw a rally that was solely based off the Tenth Amendment, and they pulled between 8,000 and 10,000 people just to support the Tenth Amendment. I mean, it's really starting to catch on. Well, we thank you very, very much, and we are so glad that we have Gary, too, to help teach us. So I'm going to hang up now. Thanks. Thank you, Lynn. So, you know, and that's something that I would like to see us do here, because right now we've had a lot of Tea Party rallies and we've had a lot of other rallies. But with the advent of the Heritage Center and things, I would really like to get a specific states' rights rally and just see what kind of people that would draw. And I'm thinking many. Well, it really has a lot of potential. I mean, we've seen these types of rallies before. There's been rallies in Florida, in Texas, Pennsylvania. All of this is coming up in Omaha. They expect something like 1,000 or 1,500. Michael, you're breaking up really bad. Are we there? No, try that again. All right, there we are. There you are. Good. All right. Well, what I was saying is there's been great rallies everywhere. They have planned for the Pennsylvania Census or Virginia Census. People are truly attracted to this. You're breaking up again, partner. Try calling in there. Can you hear me now, gentlemen? Yeah, we can hear you now. All right. All right, I'm here. Go ahead. I would say that whenever these rallies happen, there's a lot of things that could happen. Yeah, we're ear garbled, Michael. Maybe we can try and have you call back in or something. Or I don't know what's causing the garble. I don't know. You were doing okay for a while, but then it just started breaking up pretty bad. I'm just going to call in on another line. Okay. All right, we'll go ahead and keep things rolling here, and we'll look for you. Okay, he's going to call back in. Okay, good enough. I had a thought there that I wanted to bring out. We mentioned this in our Freedom Formula, our keys, that the first ten amendments, the Bill of Individual Rights, do not amend the original intent of the Constitution. They clarify the restraints placed upon the national government, and they safeguard the rights of individuals. On that key, I think that's critical to understand. And let's go back for a minute while we're waiting for Michael to come back in. Which key is that? That was key number 13. Thirteen. And so if I can read that real quick. The first ten amendments, the Bill of Individual Rights, do not amend the original intent of the Constitution. They clarify the restraints placed on the national government, and they safeguard the rights of individuals. And then key 14, the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, are the keystones to preserving freedom. Okay, but the concept existed before the words of the amendments were there. That's the point that I'd like to make, is that it wasn't a change in the intent of the founders and the framers when the amendments were put together. It was a let's get it down on paper. This was totally in line with their intent. But as we look at, like, Article I, I think, of the Constitution, gives us Section II, they're talking about the House of Representatives. And a lot of people in our classes, they get real confused on that. But there's a very succinct point that's made here, and let me just read Section II, Clause 1. The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several states, and the electors in each state shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislature. Okay, what they're saying there is we trust the states. You guys know how to elect your House of Representatives or whatever it's called in your state. But whatever you've done for your state house, you may do for the federal house. Very good point. So if you have qualified somebody to elect a state representative, he is automatically qualified to elect a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. At the time when the Constitution was written, it wasn't an issue of micromanagement. It was an issue of trust. We said these states are great governments. They know how to run themselves. They have a little trouble when they clash with each other. There are some common defense issues that we have to look at. There were limited powers delegated to the federal government. But the key there is the federal government started out trusting the states. And I think that's an important part. And, Michael, you're back with us? All right. Hopefully this works a little bit better. That sounds really good. Yeah, that sounds excellent. So, you know, I don't know how much of that you caught from Gary explaining how, at the very beginning, it wasn't micromanagement or anything else. It was a realization the states did just fine for the people's needs. And the people in those states knew how to best govern themselves. There was only some federal-level areas that needed help. And on top of it, if we understand the entire founding generation, they lived under a government that had no limits. And they recognized that the easiest path towards tyranny was to make sure that government could do whatever it wanted. So that's why they specifically limited the federal government to only those issues that were delegated to it in the Constitution. And that, yeah, sometimes the states would do a great job. Sometimes they'd do an awful job. But if they did an awful job, just like you were talking about previously, people could vote with their feet and go somewhere else. That's right. They were really in competition with each other. And we recognize that competition, whether it's in business or in government, improves the quality. So when you have one great government making the decision for what kind of health care every single person is going to get, a one-size-fits-all solution, you know that a majority of the people are going to get a bad solution. If you have multiple choices, multiple options, that's where you're going to be better off, whether it's health care, whether it's just about anything. Yeah, and particularly in something like health care, which is a government program, you really find that government is not competent to run business. I mean, by being government, it doesn't give it any competency to run business of any sort, whether it's an insurance business, health insurance, whether it's a banking business or whether it's any other business. Government should be in the restraint business and should restrain us from injuring one another, and that should be the end of what they do. Couldn't have said that any better myself. Yeah, I think that's important for everyone to understand, is that the government should not be in these kind of businesses, and especially the federal government has no business in it at all. And then the state governments themselves, as we take over the governing bodies, there's only certain things the state levels should be doing, and a lot more should be done at the county, and a lot more at the city, and even more locally. So down to the farmer? The farmer superintending his own acreage, his own field. Right. Yes. Every person should act in the capacity in which he is competent to act, and we have delivered no competency and given no training to our government to be in the economic realm. Except to restrain crime, and even that is done in an indirect fashion. So what do you see as ahead for the Tenth Amendment Center and tenthers in general? What's your vision over the next 2010? As Carl Wimmer here, the founder of the Patrick Henry Caucus, is trying to call it the 2010th year. That's the way to do it, make 2010 the year of the Tenth Amendment. It's essential that we, in every situation, everything that the federal government does, we say where in the Constitution is this authority? And I think that's just a simple reading of it. It's in plain English. It's not in Chinese or Swahili or anything else. It's very easy to read and understand. We recognize that most of what the federal government does is not authorized to them by the Constitution. My hope is that, like we were talking before, that this isn't just, you know, let's see what happens in the next election and forget about it. Let's say the Republicans take back Congress. That doesn't mean that governments can all of a sudden shrink and they're going to get out of every issue possible. The Republicans gave us the greatest increase in government-run health care since the 60s in that Medicaid or Medicare bill expansion while Bush was in office. So if we just recognize that neither of the major political parties are going to be a friend to liberty, then we're really going to see some long-term benefits towards liberty. Right. Gary, what are you looking at there? I was just glancing through the Constitution and thinking. Actually, I was just sitting there mostly thinking, not reading. You didn't catch me with anything specifically in my mind right now or the stuff that's on the paper. I just think it's important for people to realize, and I'm hoping this is the time because I've been involved in this for several decades now, I'm hoping this is the time that people do realize that it's not anything that's going to be fixed by either of the major parties or any number of other parties. Parties are factions, special interest groups. It's only going to be begun to be turned around as we stand up and demand the job descriptions are followed. Now, everybody's got a certain job description. Let's get back to understanding what's in our job descriptions and following those job descriptions. I think it has to come right down to the personal level. I think that we are not going to be an independent nation until we get independent people. And the problem is, as we request collective action, then we tend to say, well, let's go to the biggest guns we can find and we immediately start pushing the feds to do something. And do they? Sure, it buys them votes. And so, as I see it, the solution is going to only come when we get people to stand on their own two feet and realize that even in the state and local government, all of these programs are designed to steal somebody else's money. Basically, I think we go back to our friend, Friedrich Mastiaf, who talks about the law, about the plunder, the legal plunder. We're certainly opposed to illegal plunder, but until we get equally opposed to legal plunder, it will just be a matter of how we try to plunder our neighbor. If we get rid of the federal government plundering but still turn to the states for a system of plunder, they don't plunder as well as the feds. I have to admit it. You won't get the results. If you're still trying to do the plunder gig, I have to say the feds are the best place. They've got the machinery in place already. They're excellent at it. Michael, Gary, we are at about the halfway mark. I want to just take a quick break, if you will, for giving a shout-out to Block Talk Radio, some of the other great shows on Block Talk Radio, listeners, as you're looking for shows. One, of course, join us Sunday on our March of Liberty show, every Sunday at 7 p.m. Eastern. You also have the Freedom and Liberty show out there. You have the Freedom Wings show, Spin This, Political Vindication, Loki and the Halls of Valhalla. You also have, of course, Jeremy Sarber and, of course, General Rachel and Sir Malachi over at the Patriot's Hour, a show you never want to miss. Real quick, we want to remind everyone about a very important activity going on called Read the Bills Act, and I want to play just a quick 30 seconds on that. Imagine you're on trial. The charge against you, violating one of the hundreds of laws Congress passes each year. You rise in your defense and say, Your Honor, I didn't know about this law. How will the judge respond? I'm Jim Babco with DownSizeDC.org, and I think you know the answer. The judge will reply, Ignorance of the law is no excuse. So what's the excuse for your representatives in Congress? Their ignorance is even worse. They don't even read many of the laws they pass. At DownSizeDC.org, we're proposing a simple but powerful idea, the Read the Bills Act, to force Congress to read the laws they pass. Why? Because we believe the federal government is way too big. We want to slow the politicians down. We want to reduce the size and power of the federal government, and we want them to sweat the details, just like you do. Check out DownSizeDC.org, because ignorance is no excuse, even for a congressman. Even for a congressman. I want everyone, if you haven't lately, to get on over to DownSizeDC.org and visit Jim Babkin and the wonderful things that they're doing over there. Not only with Read the Bills, but many other campaigns that go on over there. It's a wonderful, wonderful organization. You are listening to Freedom is Rising with our very special guest, Michael Bolden, the founder of the Tenth Amendment Center. The chat room is open. Brad over in the chat room just said it's quiet in here, so you guys go stir it up and show Brad what you normally are like on most chatting days. Also to remind you, our call-in number is 347-326-9311. If you have any questions or comments for Michael in particular on the Tenth Amendment or what's going on with the Tenth Amendment Center, 347-326-9311 is the number to call. All right. I appreciate that, giving us that couple of minutes there. Michael, we're wanting to know just out there, what do you see someone that maybe doesn't want to necessarily get involved as a coordinator position, what's something they should be or could be doing to help move the idea of restoration of the Tenth forward? What everyone should do, and I think everyone is affected by so many different things, especially now with the economy having so much trouble. I think a lot of people are looking for causes. They're reaching out and saying, well, why is this happening? Why are things so difficult these days? And more and more people are recognizing that it is the federal government in many situations that has caused a lot of the problems that we face. So some people don't have the time and energy to be educated on every single issue coming up, and I think that's reasonable. The kind of system we really should have is where people can just live their own lives and love their family and have a good, peaceful, free life. But unfortunately, that's not reality. So find something that's really important to you. Obviously, health care is a big issue for a lot of people these days. Find the most important issue and lobby your state representatives, your state centers, and say, well, there's a lot of other states that are doing something about this, or saying they're either going to sue the federal government or pass a law to outlaw a national health care plan in their state. What's your thoughts on it? Just start a conversation with your state senators, your state reps, and see if you can give them the courage to actually stand up and do something, because they really need a lot of people calling them, emailing them, faxing them, stopping to see them in their office to realize that this difficult thing that they need to do has a lot of support. And they really do need to see that because the other side is active. Those that want federal control, those that want this growth, are very, very active. You know, I was surprised. There was an article, several articles, about the Patrick Henry Caucus and our Attorney General, Mark Shurtleff, committing to join in with a lawsuit should health care get passed. And one of those articles ran in the Salt Lake Tribune here. And, of course, I'm all excited. I get over there and I'm thinking, oh, this is great, getting out in the crib. There's going to be a lot of commenters out there showing how much people are supporting this idea. And every comment, and there were over 40 of them, every comment before I put mine in was against the lawsuit in favor of federal health care reform as drafted by the great Harry Reid. The great. I hope that's in quotes, right? Yeah. Most assuredly. And it was tough for me to even quote it. Of all people to be arrogant in government, Mr. Reid, of all people, is right near the top of the list. But, yeah, I mean, I see a lot of the same thing in mainstream media. Maybe it's the people who follow the mainstream press that are champions or cheerleaders for more government control. That's a possibility. Or maybe the average person really just doesn't want to be bothered, so they don't want to get up there and do these things. But I think, like you're saying, it's important for us to show that we support resistance or say no to these federal programs or expansion. That's the only way you're going to rally more people to the flag. Yeah, yeah. I think a lot of it, you know, the thing is that I think Gary and I have both found is the truth still does attract when people are allowed to hear it. Well, and that really is the key. That's why you have to keep repeating the message, repeating the message, repeating the message. And even for those people on the left, I think Dennis Kucinich, who is probably the most leftist person in the public sphere these days, he opposes the national health care plan as well because it's not socialist enough. But there are people who are extreme socialists that can actually help the cause because they are opposed to what's going on in the federal government. And the bottom line is you have to sometimes make alliances with people, you know, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, as Sun Tzu always said. And even Kucinich, as I've heard him in a recent interview saying, hey, you know, for those people who really believe in socialized health care, the federal government is blocking many states through certain regulations from enacting these types of programs. So I tell my socialist friends, and I have many of them here in Southern California, if you really believe in this thing, if you really believe in this, you should bring it closer to home and do it that way. There you go. All right. What's their response? Well, a lot of people, when you present it to them and you have enough time to talk with them, they say, yeah, yeah, and I'll tell them, look, you know, why do you trust these big corporate interests in Washington, D.C.? You know, they're only just giving away money to lobbyists and things like that. And I say, yeah, yeah. So what you need to do is if you want socialized health care, although I would never really want this to happen, you know, call your state legislators and try to get them to do it instead. And I think trying to get people all across the political spectrum to resist this type of legislation coming out of Washington, D.C. is important to actually get it defeated. Yeah. I think that's one of the beauties of the Tenth Amendment. It can appeal to everyone. Yeah, and that's one of the reasons with all the things out there. I mean, I have my long-term dreams, you know. I want to see the party caucuses ripped out of our legislative branches federally and at the state level. I want the annihilation of this ridiculous tradition of majority leaders and minority leaders. I want to see the 16th and the 17th ripped out and tossed on the roadside dead. I want to see the restoration of a lot of different things. But the Tenth Amendment is where you can get anyone involved. And like you're saying, even the socialists can get involved in the Tenth Amendment. Sure. If someone like Dennis Kucinich is championing issues of states' rights, complaining about how the federal government is interfering with the ability of states to enact socialized health care, you know, that means this issue, this principle is becoming extremely popular. Yeah. Yeah, it is. Period. I just wondered, you know, if we can't teach people that socialism doesn't work, I don't know that they'll ever reject socialism. And I kind of see that as where it's actually hitting. I don't know that we can actually tell to the socialists and buy ourselves anything long-term. Unless we think that socialism will work. If we're convinced that socialism won't work, even if we eliminate it at the federal level and expand the practice at the local level, we still have a non-functional system. Yeah, but do I hear him saying that, Michael, are you saying to expand it locally, do I hear him saying at least bring the debate locally so you can fight it out locally instead of federally? Well, I don't know if I have the time to debate with every socialist. I read a book that Murray Rockbard wrote on socialism and covered, or I mean Ludwig von Mises wrote on socialism. So what I'll often do is try to convince them that if you're going to go for this, you're better off. I mean, not even Europe is so crazy. People always talk about how, well, Europe has socialized health care. Well, not even Europeans are so crazy as to have one unified national socialized health care system for every country. They have it in each individual state. And that's the type of message that actually appeals to these people. I'm not saying that socialism will ever work. It's always bad. But we still have to at least change the minds of people on left and right in some issues and get them to kind of lean off of looking to Washington, D.C. And I think every little bit helps. You may not have as many of the left-leaning people there in Utah as we do here in California. But like I was saying previously, you cater the message to the person that you're talking to. Right, right. I would rather fight against a socialist agenda locally than have to deal with fighting it from a federal mandate down. Yeah, you'll be far more successful. And if people were enacting these types of laws and programs more locally, we could actually see which ones work and which ones didn't far better than having one-size-fits-all solutions. It goes back to that whole idea that if we decentralize all these decisions, then in the long run, freedom will reign. Freedom will always show to be the better system. The problem is that after all these years of government-run schooling in this country, people believe government is good. At my grade school, I went to a Catholic grade school. So, of course, we were taught that Catholicism is the right way. I'm not making a judgment call on that. But the reality is when people go to government-run schools, they're taught that government is the right thing. In fact, many people replace God in their lives with government for so many things. And we have a long way to go. And I know you guys work a lot on education. It's important to teach people so they can learn against all these many years of government-run education that taught us that every time there's a problem, run to politicians to fix it. Oh, and that is definitely the mindset even more prevalent now than when I was going through the California indoctrination system in the 60s and 70s. You know, it's amazing. It's creeped in at so many levels. And the thing is with education that I think that is one area we have a chance locally, at least I know in this area, of maybe getting people to say that, to at least awaken to the fact that the DOE, Jimmy Carter and his DOE idea, has not been a very good thing. It has not. No. It has not given us quality education. No, not at all. And it just expands and expands and expands. And then when Bush came in with the No Child Left Behind program, which, I mean, it basically tried to make a one-size-fits-all solution for every student in the country. And the reality is each person is an individual with different backgrounds, different beliefs, different family. And each area has different ways that will work better for different people to learn. And when you nationalize something, it's a great example to show how this doesn't work. And that may be an example. There's a lot of people on the left that are vehemently opposed to No Child Left Behind. Maybe they only are because it was a Bush program. But who knows? That can also be another way to open the door, get your foot in the door, and say, hey, here's a great example of how a one-size-fits-all solution is a complete and utter failure. In fact, it's creating more problems than it was even designed to supposedly fix. Yeah, and that's a pattern that we can easily see has repeated and repeated and repeated with federal growth over the last few decades, especially as we've hit warp speed. I'm thinking the utter dreams and hopes of so many people that are so unrealistic that Obama has no way of, or the administration. When I say Obama, I'm talking about the whole administration system up there. They have no way of fulfilling. And those are the people that are going to be ready to listen to something different. I shared with some people before, I've got two older foster sisters who have been liberal Democrats, California liberal Democrats, all their lives. They all are. Oh, yeah. And they still live up in Victory Thrill. And a couple of months back, the one is seven years older than me named Elsie, and she called me up, and we're talking. And she said, brother, I need to tell you I'm sorry. And this is a woman who has never apologized to me once in our entire lives. She never apologized when she dressed me up as a girl when I was six years old and paraded me around the neighborhood for Halloween, ruining me for decades. Never, not a sorry thing. So I gathered myself, picked myself up off the ground, picked my job up, and said, okay, for what, Elsie? Are you apologizing? You were right. Pelosi is such a disgrace. Pelosi is trying to kill us. Oh, you were so right about all of this. Oppression opened ears. I just had almost the same conversation with a very close friend of mine who is here visiting earlier today. And this is a woman who is very passionate politically. She's very, very liberal. Many socialist programs appeal to her. And what she said to me today was, wow, this last month has really opened my eyes, and this Obama guy is just as evil as Bush. And he may be worse because he gave me the idea that things were going to change. This is what somebody told me today, and I think we're going to see over the coming years, or at least it's my hope, in quotes, that we'll see more and more people from all across the political spectrum come to the cause that important issues should be held close to home. Yes, yes, I believe we will see more and more, and that's why it's important to have the resources available in each state and in each area for people to be able to find some better answers than what's available through the lamestream media or whatever you want to call that disastrous group. I could not believe, I don't remember who I was listening to on the way to work, but they played a clip of one of my favorites, Chris Matthews, and he was giving praise to the 1960s hero, Saul Alinsky, and how he always turns to Saul Alinsky for guidance and knowledge, and I'm like, people cannot turn to Chris Matthews for answers when they need it. Yeah, but NBC, these are state organs, in my opinion. I mean, they may be their own corporations, but to me, the mainstream media, whether it's Fox or CNN or NBC or any of them, they're just cheerleaders for government power, and they just only oppose the opposing party. Right, right. It's, yeah, you cannot, you've got to give alternatives to people besides turning to that. You've got, how many more state sites do you see coming on board over the next few months? As far as state chapters for Tenth Amendment Center, we expect to see somewhere between 20 and 25 in the early part of this year, and what's even more exciting is we expect to see way more legislation coming out of the states in support of the Tenth Amendment on issues ranging, I mean, obviously health care is a really hot one. There's a great piece of legislation that came from Rep. Dan Itza in New Hampshire. He put out two pieces of legislation that kind of raised the bar on this whole Tenth Amendment movement. A lot of good proposals have been out there, but what he's done is he added into the bill actual sanctions and penalties for federal agents violating the state law, for example. Oh, really? Yeah. Yes, the New Hampshire Firearms Freedom Act that was introduced included felony charges for any federal agent violating gun rights of a citizen of New Hampshire. So they're taking it up just a little notch, and I'm hoping, and we're pressing state reps around the country to start doing this same type of thing, whether it's a misdemeanor or a felony, to include actual charges for violating the state law. Maybe that will make a little bit of a difference. That would be good to see. I know we've got SB 11 being introduced here by Senator Margaret Dunham, I think, or Dayton, and it doesn't have those kind of teeth, but that would be nice to see more and more of that. That's right. All the Firearms Freedom Acts, including the ones that passed in both Tennessee and Montana, obviously it's implied that if someone violates state law that there's going to be a penalty for it, but there hasn't been anything explicit in any of the legislation up until now within its bills in New Hampshire where it says specifically this is what happens, and there's some precedent to it. In fact, Jefferson talked about this back in the early, early days, and so in the 1830s, South Carolina was talking about arresting federal agents for trying to impose a tariff that they saw as unconstitutional. So there's definitely some precedent, and it will make things interesting if something like that passes. What are your feelings on the role of the county sheriff? Well, have you actually interviewed Sheriff Mack for the show? I have not yet. I need to do that. Well, Sheriff Mack is, I think, fantastic, and he is a person, and obviously you'd have to talk with him in more detail, but the brief overview is he believes that the sheriff's duty, which I think he's correct, is to uphold the Constitution, not only the federal Constitution but the state Constitution, and the sheriff's duty is to basically arrest people that are violating the law, and that means whether it's just an everyday person violating the law or another everyday person who happens to wear a federal badge, it doesn't matter. So the sheriff is supposed to stand up. It's the highest law enforcement official in the county, and that's their role. He's working hard to lobby and educate sheriffs around the country to actually take up this kind of position. I hope he has some success in that. Yeah, I know our group, the Utah 912 States Rights Coalition, went to the state sheriff's meeting of all the county sheriffs, and we presented the Sheriff Mack book to all of them, and it was funny. There's a group of patriots down in Washington County, which is where St. George is, down in the southern end of the state, and several hundred of them had a meet-the-candidate-night type event and invited this one person that was going to be running for county sheriff, and they had an hour-and-a-half meeting for this guy, and the first question is, what will you do to stand up to the federal government if they encroach upon our constitutional rights? And he said, well, you know, I don't think it's going to be my duty to stand up to the federal government. And they said, thank you very much. We appreciate you coming. And he's like, whoa, wait a minute, no, I've got an hour-and-a-half here. Let me tell you about me. And they were like, nope, that's all we need to know. Thank you very much. That is all you need to know, what sheriff is going to do their duty. They swear an oath to the Constitution of the United States and to the state constitution, and if they're not going to do their most basic duty, and we talked earlier about how one of the prime roles of the state itself is to protect the right of the citizens that live there, and the same goes for the sheriff. Exactly, exactly. And, you know, that's why two of my questions, my vetting questions, everybody is always, you know, how do you vet people, how do you vet people? And I tell them I have two basic questions most candidates can't get through. I've been using them for about 20 years now. The first one is, can you explain to me the oath of office? And the second is, what can you tell me that will make me feel comfortable you will uphold that oath especially if they get through the first one. I find very few that can get through either of those two. And if they can't, I don't care about their other issues. I don't care about their personality. This is about principles and goals. I could care less. Yeah, I could care less what the background is of someone in office, is what their color, their religion, where they grew up, any of that. As long as they uphold, they stand up for their oath, they stand up for the Constitution, that's all we need. Those are the types of people we need. Yeah, and, you know, what is that, he who can cheat without, oh, geez, I can't remember it. The Ben Franklin quote where he who cheats without fear does so without scruples anyway. It's basically if you're going to be able to cheat and you're going to be able to get away with things and no one is going to say anything to you, you're just going to get better and better at it. And I think that's one of the problems with the oath of office. We've allowed them to violate the oath of office so often they have no fear even in taking the oath because they know that it will always be all right to violate it. No one will say anything. There it is. He'll cheat without scruples who can without fear, Ben Franklin. You bring up a really, that's a really important point. For years and years and years we've allowed politicians to bend the rules of the Constitution, and it's always ostensibly for some good reason, whether it's for economic issues or health issues or security issues. They're always bending the rules. But sooner or later, if you're going to let politicians bend the rules or break the rules year in, year out, sooner or later you're going to end up with politicians that feel the rules don't apply at all, and I think if we're not there already we're pretty darn close. Yeah, yeah, we really are, and that's just from years of NICOLA and years of us not demanding it. I think that's one of the keys we have to start demanding again. What do you think, Gary? I do. I was just thinking back as we were talking, kind of changed the context here just a little bit, but I recall my days when I was employed and I was supposed to be an expert in my field, and sure enough, you know, one day I'd have a question, and the first thing I would assume is because I don't know the answer to this. The guy in the next cubicle does. So I'd go over to Brent or Bob or one of the guys that was in my group and ask them the question, and they would dutifully get down the book and find the answer. And I found the same thing happened when other people didn't know the answer. You know, it's like you think that if I don't have the answer, somebody else does, and the first thing I must go do is go to that somebody else to find their version of the answer instead of looking it up myself. And in almost every case, the person you go to had to look it up anyway. They didn't have the answer. Yeah. And I think that's kind of what's happened to us in government. We see a problem that's sticky, and there are lots of problems in our lives that are sticky. I don't know what to do about health care. I don't know how to make it affordable. Obviously, government must know. You know, I think we've got to get over that assumption that government has answers because government is in the restraint business, and unless our question is something about restraint, they don't have the answers. I've got a couple of callers. I'm going to go one at a time here, callers, so hold on for me. First of all, caller 914, introduce yourself and what's your question? Yeah, I'm Doug. Hi. Can I rap? Pardon? Can I rap? Can you rap about what? About the bitches. All right, caller 845, you are on the air. Introduce yourself and what's your question or comment? The world's coming to an end. We're all going to die. All right, we've got an interesting group of callers roaming blog talk radio today. Normally we have a little different level of callers than that. I apologize for that. I'm getting some entertainment out of it. I guess they're having just a teasy good time for themselves. I don't know. And, chatters, I will remind you, if you have any questions, go ahead and type them in the chat room, and the call-in number for those that might actually have a real question, 347-326-9311. So what do you think if you actually had people who were in elected offices that would turn to the book and read once in a while for the answer? Well, I think they've got us all tricked that they don't know what they're doing. Maybe it's crazy, but I really believe that Pelosi and Reed and the rest of them know that the founders and ratifiers never intended for them to do what they're doing. They clearly read the Constitution because they're attacking every single piece that they can. What they're really counting on is that you and I don't read it, and you and I don't understand that what they're doing is wrong. So it really is going to take, like we've been saying, people actually educating themselves instead of looking to some other person to explain it to them and just reading the plain English of the Constitution and knowing. And if we have those types of people in government, which is, wow, it's just amazing to even think if that could actually happen, especially on a federal level. So many of the problems we face now, whether it's economy or security, they'd all be gone. Right, right. I just believe that on the basis of the 10th Amendment, especially the 9th and 10th, you know, Thomas Jefferson, when he called it the Keystone, it really, the first time I read that, it piqued me because my brother was a Mason all his life before his back blew up. One of the, Palladia and Jefferson were two architects that inspired him as a youth architecturally. So there was a man who was calling the 10th Amendment a Keystone who truly understood the architectural importance of Keystone in a building. And I think as people, it's to me such an easy, basic focus, as we've been discussing, to really be able to get a lot of people to at least open their ears a little bit to, is the importance of it. Well, what is that? Why is that important? What do you mean an architect said what, you know? A lot of times I'll talk about this architect back in the 18th century, and I'll never mention Jefferson's name until at the end. Call him Jeff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, Jeff the architect, you know. Well, some people have prejudicial views already towards Thomas Jefferson, and if you turn at him with a different angle, it'll rattle him sometimes. Well, what you're bringing up is really important. It's essential to talk about principle rather than personality. Some people are more interested in hearing what Jefferson had to say, and some people are more interested in what Madison had to say, and some people are not interested in what either of them had to say, but if you can present to them a principle that makes sense, this is just, you know, the secrets of good persuasive talk, then, again, it's the whole idea of getting into their head. And that whole principle that you're talking about, this foundation, and that's what Jefferson was saying in that quote, the foundation of the government and the Constitution rests on the Tenth Amendment, and the Tenth itself in the legal world is what's called a rule of construction. It defines how we're supposed to look at the entire Constitution, and that being one of powers that are delegated, and everything that's not delegated is retained to the states or us, the people themselves. Yeah, Michael, I think that a lot of times people just don't understand the Constitution. They think the Constitution is just super law, and that anything you want passed into a law, if you really want it to overshadow everything and be superior, you stick it in the Constitution. And, well, I think what they need to understand is that the Constitution was built for the purpose of controlling the government. This is what people handle on government, and if we disallow that, in fact, let me read a little bit from Federalist 78 from Alexander Hamilton. He says, a Constitution is, in fact, and must be regarded by the judges as a fundamental, which we understand to be foundational law. It, therefore, belongs to them to ascertain its meaning as well as the meaning of any particular act proceeding from the legislative body. If there should happen to be an irreconcilable variant between the two, that which has the superior obligation and validity ought, of course, to be preferred. Or, in other words, the Constitution ought to be preferred to the statute. And he defines it here, which I think is just beautiful. The intention of the people to the intention of their agents. So, the Constitution is the intention of the people on how their government should act, and the statutes are the intentions of the legislatures, how they do act. And then we can, you know, we as just lay people can understand it if we look at it in that way. Oh, this guy doesn't understand his Constitution. He doesn't know it should be controlling him. Right, absolutely. What the Constitution is, is it doesn't apply to you. It doesn't apply to me. It doesn't apply to any person at all. Like you said, it applies to government. And in the American system, we've got one great thing, this idea of sovereignty being in the hands of people. Sovereignty, which means final authority, was always in the hands of a king or a group of unelected bureaucrats or just whatever, some kind of ruler. And the American system created something great. Well, it was the people who were the final authority. And that's really, in the shortest term, that's what Hamilton was talking about there in The Federalist, that the bottom line is, when there's a conflict, it's not up to the rulers or the agents of the sovereign to determine what's right and wrong. It's up to the sovereign itself, and that's we, the people. Exactly, exactly. Got a question from KJRIZZ56. In the chat room, a pretty good question, Michael. He wants to know, is TAC assisting in coordinating nullification bills of the states or working with the Patrick Henry Caucus? I have tried to reach out to the Patrick Henry Caucus, and Bryce Schonk, who's our national grassroots director, has sent them a few e-mails. We've just never heard anything back. So, I mean, we love what they're doing, and if they want some legislative support or ideas, we're always available and happy to chat with them. Okay, okay. And maybe that might be a matter of maybe sending me some contact information and let me see if we can break through with Carl or one of the others here and get a communication flow going. What do you think of some of the nullification bills out there? I know you mentioned the one in New Hampshire. Are there any others specifically you see that are really holding a lot of promise, or what do you think? Well, obviously the ones that already passed, for example, Tennessee and Montana, who already passed the bill to nullify federal gun laws and regulations, those are fantastic. Arizona will be considering on the vote in 2010 a state constitutional amendment to effectively ban or opt out of national health care. This has already passed the House and the Senate, and if the people vote on it, it is veto-proof. There is no veto from the governor that's even possible. So there is some good things happening. I really believe that the model is what was proposed in New Hampshire to actually add official or formal sanctions to the legislation because they're directing the government. I mean, it's possible that some state could pass this law, but then they just don't have the spine, as we've talked about, to really do anything about it. But if you pass the law and you're directing the state apparatus to actually arrest people violating the law, whether they're citizens or federal agents, that can actually have a really strong effect. Yeah, I don't know. You know, one of the things we try and explain to people is eventually there is going to be some blowback if there's enough of the states that are pushing. And we have to be ready for that. But I think to see some more teeth going in, I'm excited about the advent of the Freedom Firearms Act going in more and more states because that's what I think it really takes is a number of states on the same issue to slow them down and get the attention necessary. Right. And that's what I was talking about with the weed issue, the marijuana issue. There's 13 states that have some form of law that authorize the use of medical marijuana in their state. And the federal government's laws say, you know, it's totally different. Marijuana is illegal no matter what. But the practical reality on the ground is when there's enough states that do this, the federal government just can't enforce it. And they recently announced whether they are willing to or not, they just don't have the resources to deal with it. So if enough states actually pass laws protecting gun rights in the state, I mean, what's the federal government going to do? The ATF is a big, scary organization, but they're not that powerful. Right. Yeah, I know one of our representatives here mentioned that, jeez, why do we want to present any kind of act until we know if Montana stands up in court or not? Why do we want to bring on any lawsuit? If it's a fight we can't win, why do we want to get in the battle, basically? And I think that kind of attitude will slowly be defeated as people see what happens with just 10 or 15 or 20 states standing up, like with the real IDE or with any other issues. I think health care is going to really be a unifying issue for a lot of AGs. Did you mention earlier, and I'm sorry, the number of states already that are talking about battling health care? Well, for health care we expect to see a good 20 or so states with some type of legislation introduced to effectively nullify or opt out in that state. I'm assuming that when those pass, and I'm sure some of them will, that the federal government will say, we don't care, it doesn't matter. And there's already I think a dozen or so states that are talking about suing the federal government on similar grounds. I think it's mostly focused on the Nebraska issue, but I mean just the federal government being involved in health care in any way, first of all, is not constitutional according to the original intent and understanding. So I don't really have a lot of faith in the Supreme Court ruling properly. They have been leaning towards some federalist positions in recent years. If they rule properly, great, but the reality is we have to learn to exercise our rights whether we get permission from the bureaucrats or not. Absolutely, absolutely. Well, we are quickly running into our last couple of minutes. And, Michael, I can't thank you enough for staying with us so long during this show and sharing with us your insights on the Tenth Amendment. I'd like to invite you to take about a minute to say whatever you'd like to say to our listeners out there. Well, I think that last statement that I made was really the most important thing, is that because we are the sovereign, we the people are the final authority, it's totally upside down if we're begging politicians to allow us to exercise our rights, if we're asking politicians to pass laws that free us, or begging for judges or hoping for judges to do the right thing. The reality is we're supposed to be in charge, and if we work together and if we get our state government some backbone, some spine, then we'll be able to exercise our rights whether the federal government wants us to or not. Very good. Very well stated. Again, Michael, chatters, I've posted the TenthAmendmentCenter.com in the chat room. And listeners, it's TenthAmendmentCenter, all one word, .com. Get on over there. You can also link over to see if there is a state center in your state yet or not. If there's not, go ahead and apply to become a state coordinator. Jump on in. I know a lot of us out there want to go swimming but don't want to get wet. Well, the water is fine. So jump on in. Michael and his team make it real easy, and I appreciate what you've done so far for the Utah Tenth Amendment Center group. Michael, I thank you again for being on. I really appreciate you having me on today. It's been very enjoyable. Listeners, tune in tomorrow for a March of Liberty, of course, with Jason and myself, and next Saturday for another episode of Freedom is Rising. We've got several other guests coming on down the line, and we'll be putting those out to you as we get everything firmed up. Don't forget to visit studyourhistory.com and freedomformula.us. And I'm going to hush up for the last 40 seconds, and Gary, take us out of here. Thank you. It's been great, Michael, to have you with us today. It's great. We're talking about sovereignty, and I guess my challenge for all of our listeners and for everybody is we just heard that we're the sovereigns, and if we need maybe to crack the books here, you know, maybe we've got that question like I mentioned earlier. I'm a sovereign. Well, how do I work that? Well, let me tell you. Go to the Constitution, because that's going to tell you how to keep your government under control. The government should be not the master but the servant of the people. It's been great today. Have a nice day, and we'll catch you again next week on Freedom is Rising. All right, Michael, the show's off, and we're going to cut loose here, and thank you so much again. It's time to take charge of your future. Access Esperanza Clinics can help you plan it. See experts in birth control and preventive health care. 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