Starting an Old Engine, Part 2, by John Leyzorek
(Continued from Part 1. This concludes the article.)
Now we come to the oldest parts of our marvelous rediscovered machine, already centuries old in our English Common Law heritage when they were written into our Constitution.
Who will indict powerful members of government itself, when they break the law they are sworn to uphold? Everyone knows how the System protects itself, and the law be damned. The Grand Jury, that is who, an institution first described in the year 997 and wholly independent of judges and prosecutors, with lawful power to investigate any suspicion of crime in its jurisdiction and to examine any records and summon anyone for questioning.
And who will carry the lawful demand for records to the offices of powerful officials, bring them in for questioning, even arrest them if necessary? Surely few ordinary sheriffs or police agencies, needing money for re-election or paid by the very crooked officials the Grand Jury indicts. Our Constitution contains only one mention of law enforcement, specifying that it is Militia that is to “execute the laws…”.
And who is the Militia? In the words of Signer George Mason, “The whole People”..All of us. We ourselves, for the protection of whose natural rights our whole edifice of government is built.
It’s ours. The Founders knew, only we, the People, ourselves, can be trusted, without delegation, to keep it straight.
I said, simple, but not easy. What should that look like on the ground?
Our Constitution says that Congress is, “To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress”. But neither the States nor Congress have fulfilled this duty for 150 years! Does that mean that our Constitutional Militia, not only in the words of the 2nd Amendment “necessary to the security of a free state”, but our only ultimately non-political and non-corruptible law enforcement, is gone forever?
It does not, because our Declaration of Independence, in its catalogue of the crimes of King George III sets forth the principle that the power to perform a duty, delegated to government by the people, if government neglects that duty, “returns to the People at large for its exercise.”
So, as many of you following this essay know, Tactical Civics has prepared a Constitution Enforcement and Militia Ordinance, that any County or independent City or Town governing body can pass, which will bring back into solid legal existence and practical operation the Constitution’s specified, necessary “machine” for enforcement of our highest human Law. If you want to know more about this please contact me, but the details of the Ordinance are not the subject of this talk.
Any community can take up its duty of actually securing the rights of its citizens and making local self-determination, personal freedom, and common-sense, enforceable in that community. We do not have to wait for the Governor, or for the President. We are not the subjects of a king, or Chinese, or Europeans. It is not their job. It is ours.
So, the question I actually want to explore here is why this plan, so simple (but not easy), so clearly lawful, and so comprehensive is not being widely, eagerly, and quickly adopted all over our Republic? Why so much grousing and hand-wringing, and so little action? Why won’t the old engine start?
Several reasons occur to me, but remember we are not here to make excuses for why we can’t, because this is an essential, a necessary duty, more visibly necessary every day. So we discuss the obstacles only so as to get past them.
I think the first obstacle is mere unfamiliarity. Our civilization has evolved (or devolved) to leave less and less of our own lives in our own hands. We call a plumber to fix our pipes, a teacher to teach our kids (except homeschoolers. God bless you, homeschoolers!), a lawyer to navigate the law, a doctor if we cough, a landscaper if we want flowers, a policeman if we hear a thump in the night. So, too, “enforcing the Law” seems like not-our-job.
But what is law, anyway, but a built-up system for applying the rules of right-and-wrong that everybody knows, to the the conflicts of daily life and the control of our impulses? Do we know right from wrong? Of course! In our own experience, do bureaucratic institutions reliably apply this knowledge? H*ll, No! So we return to the Founders’ wisdom, enforcement of our Law must be ours. We have to grow up, and get used to that.
But, what about the cops? The prosecutor? the Sheriff? All those people in the Courthouse looking down their noses over their glasses, or through those scary mirrored shades at us? They think the Law is their very own big stick, their playground, their candy-store..
A few of these are indeed hopeless arrogant thugs, but most are not, even if they have been soaking in some serious unhistorical bad-attitude and have unconsciously absorbed a lot of it. They are all sworn to uphold the same Law that we are talking about here, that we love, that makes America the unique place she is, that we are ready to fight for. They all want safer, more prosperous communities as we do. We pay them, in many cases we elect them. We are their neighbors. Deep breath here, we outnumber them.
Our first resort must be to educate them, as sweetly and gently as possible but as roughly as necessary, that we are in this together, that our goals are the same, that WE as Militia offer them more in enhanced capability and support and backup than they have dreamed of, as long as we all remember that we are on the same side and our highest Law comes first; that the job and purpose of that Law is to secure our rights, that we will stand for nothing less.
Our countryside and even many of our cities are full of Militia groups, dedicated to the Constitution and to their communities. All of them know that they are our last defense against invasions, and spend huge amounts of their own energy and money on training and supplies for armed confrontation with any “enemy foreign or domestic”.. Most are also right there helping everyone after a disaster, looking after the vulnerable every day.
These are, you are the guys and gals whom our Founders called, not only to repel the Indians and the Redcoats, but to enforce the Constitution, which means keeping our servants in government on the strait and narrow path of securing our rights, not infringing them.
Oh, but the Courthouse is unfamiliar territory, scary territory. Most of us have been there at one time or another, maybe paying crazy fees or trying to find records, or all alone or with a very expensive but not very helpful lawyer, to answer either for some dumb thing we know we should not have done, or to seek justice for something done to us, or for some perfectly righteous and reasonable thing we did that the bureaucrats did not like. And we felt lucky as Hell to get back out, and dirty all over from the experience.
That is not how it should be, not how it must be. But that kind of experience creates a huge psychological barrier, a great aversion to even going in there, even when we know we own the place. We need to get over it. We built and pay for that place, and pay all the folks in there, and they work for us under our Law, and we need to re-educate ourselves and them, as sweetly and gently as possible but as roughly as necessary, not alone but in numbers, but not as a begging, pleading, or threatening mob but as We The People, who to secure these rights established this government.
Part of the process of establishing our Militia again in their law-enforcement function is to get the recognition, the “organizing arming and disciplining” that Congress has refused, from our local governing body, in the form of our binding Ordinance. And all of us know politicians. Our local guys are hopefully not nearly as bad, as arrogant, as two-faced, as ambitious, as dyed-in-the-wool liars as their congeners in Washington, but many are trying to be, and it is too much to hope for that more than a few will help us merely because they love America as we do. If they refuse our lawful demand, we are not stopped, but we must seek their recognition.
Again, we are their neighbors. We can look them in the eye even if they will not look back. We can talk to them in their own language if they pretend not to understand ours: Their passing our Ordinance will not only put them in the history books alongside Button Gwinett if not George Washington, but everybody in Town will thank them on election day for the return of their jobs, their freedom, for safer communities, for a new way of enjoying community, and for a new sense of control over their own destinies. If your group has the kind of community support I think it does, that it has worked hard to earn, they will listen. They will know that they are getting paid to listen, and not listening will mean soon not getting paid any more.
We live in scary times. Tall buildings fall down that should not. People commit suicide who had no reason to. People are falling dead in heaps all over the world, or maybe they are not. But it is not, yet, nearly as scary as it was the last time we had to stand up in numbers against tyranny. Then you could be hauled out of your house and hanged the same day. Our country could get there again, some say it is headed that way fast, but we still have time. It has to start in our local communities, as it did 200 years ago, because too much power has done its inevitable job of corrupting, everywhere we have allowed it to. But it is not too late. The task is unfamiliar, that is why we discuss it, to make it familiar, It is scary, but fear is the source of carefulness and the mother of courage. That odd, small but growing group, Tactical Civics, by Divine Providence has found the keys, the Plan that can bring the light, the freedom, the prosperity, the self-respect, the American beacon of freedom roaring back.
But it has to start in your community. Grab that rusty crank, and turn, darn it, all together, turn it. It will start. The team at Tactical Civics will answer any question, will stand by you every step, our hands are on that crank, too, but darn it, it is your community, turn!
Editor’s Note: Tactical Civics is a Trademarked name.