Lies the government told you

by Andrew P. Napolitano

  We should abolish the federal income tax, prohibit eminent domain, impose term congressional limits, make Congress part-time, return the power to elect senators to State legislatures, abolish the Federal Reserve system, and prosecute for malfeasance any member of Congress who cannot articulate where the Constitution authorizes whatever he or she is voting for or who has voted for any law that he has or she has not certified under oath that he or she read and fully understands. And we must reject the nice smiles and easy ways and seductive promises of anyone in government who lies to us.

  The Big Government Party crowd is obviously not afraid of lying or being caught in a lie. Its members do not fear their own lawlessness or our loss of freedom. They only fear the loss of their own power. So let’s use that fear against them. Jefferson understood and articulated this best when he wrote: “When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty.”

  If we fear our own government, if we accept its deceptions, its lies to us, if we take no action to redress them, our freedoms are doomed.

  Acknowledgments

  Though my name is on the cover and title page of this book, it has actually been a collaborative effort. My personal producer at Fox, George Szucs, Jr., who runs my professional life, ran it so that I had the time and temperament to work on this book. My researchers, Magda Hanebach and Jaclyn Sakow, provided terrific material from which this book grew. My researcher and intern, James Spithogiannis, was tireless as a sounding board who refined much of my work. My friend James Conley Sheil, who has edited all my published works, and did so very skillfully on this book as well, has provided invaluable and irreplaceable assistance. And to my boss at Fox, Roger Ailes, who created out of whole cloth a media network that has become a voice for those who sought one and a balance in the national discourse and a home for freedom—and who found a place in that home for me—I owe much for whatever good I may have done in my public work.

  Notes

  Lie #1

  1 . Today, the word unalienable has the same meaning as the word inalienable. Jefferson’s draft of the Declaration of Independence used the word inalienable, but the Continental Congress chose to use unalienable in the final draft.

  2 . Floor Statement of Senator Barack Obama on the Nomination of Alberto Gonzales for Attorney General, Feb. 3, 2005.

  3 . Gordon S. Wood, “Never Forget: They Kept Lots of Slaves,” New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/14/books/review/14WOODLT .html?scp=3&sq=never%20forget%20they%20kept%20lots%20of%20slaves&st=cse (Dec. 14, 2003).

  4 . Matthew Spalding, “How to Understand Slavery and the American Founding,” The Heritage Foundation, http://www.heritage.org/research/ americanfoundingandhistory/wp01.cfm (Aug. 26, 2002).

  5 . Wood, “Never Forget: They Kept Lots of Slaves.”

  6 . Spalding, “How to Understand Slavery and the American Founding.”

  7 . Ibid.

  8 . Denis Henderson, and Frederic W. Henderson, “How the Founding Fathers Fought For an End to Slavery,” The American Almanac, http://american_almanac.tripod.com/ffslave.htm (Mar. 15, 1993).

  9 . Spalding, “How to Understand Slavery and the American Founding.”

  10 . Ibid.

  11 . The Northwest Ordinance of 1787, Article 6.

  12 . Spalding, “How to Understand Slavery and the American Founding.”

  13 . Alan Dershowitz, America Declares Independence (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2003), 124.

  14 . Ibid.

  15 . Ibid., 127.

  16 . Ibid., 128.

  17 . Ibid.

  18 . Ibid., 129.

  19 . Ibid., 130–31.

  20 . Ibid., 135.

  21 . Ibid., 135–36.

  22 . Ibid., 125.

  23 . Ibid.

  24 . Ibid., 126.

  25 . “Legacy—Thomas Jefferson,” Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/exhibits/jefferson/jeffleg.html ( Jan. 26, 2007).

  26 . Ibid.

  27 . Wood, “Never Forget: They Kept Lots of Slaves.”

  28 . Ibid.

  29 . Ibid.

  30 . Ulrich Boser, “The Sorry Legacy of the Founders,” U.S. News and World Report, http://www.usnews.com/usnews/culture/articles/040112/12slave.htm ( Jan. 4, 2004).

  31 . Wood, “Never Forget: They Kept Lots of Slaves.”

  32 . Ibid.

  33 . Ibid.

  34 . Ibid.

  35 . Spalding, “How to Understand Slavery and the American Founding.”

  36 . Ibid.

  37 . Ibid.

  38 . Ibid.

  39 . Ibid.

  40 . The Federalist, No. 54.

  41 . Spalding, “How to Understand Slavery and the American Founding.”

  42 . Ibid.

  43 . Ibid.

  44 . Ibid.

  45 . Ibid.

  46 . Aside from the debate with Garrison, libertarians today consider Frederick Douglass a hero. In a well-known speech, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?,” Douglass, a former slave, proclaimed that “interpreted as it ought to be interpreted, the Constitution is a Glorious Liberty Document” (emphases in original). Douglass was also a staunch proponent of the free market, as well as private property. Furthermore, Douglass condemned government affirmative action programs, believing that government aid to blacks after slavery merely showed African-American inferiority. (The source of the information contained in this endnote is Ronald Hamowy’s The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism (2008), published by SAGE Publications, Inc., at pages 127–28.)

  47 . . . . though some have tried. For a collection of essays supporting the institution of slavery, see Defending Slavery: Proslavery Thought in the Old South, by Paul Finkelman.

  48 . Michael Knox Beran, “‘Never Forget: They Kept Lots of Slaves,’” The National Review Online, http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/beran200312290000.asp (Dec. 29, 2003).

  49 . Paul M. Angle, and Miers, Earl Schenck, eds., The Living Lincoln: The Man in His Times, in His Own Words (Fall River, MA: Fall River Press, 1992), 203.

  50 . Ibid.

  51 . Ibid.

  52 . Letter to Horace Greely, editor of the New York Tribune, Aug. 22, 1862.

  53 . Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3, 13 (1883).

  54 . Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896).

  55 . Plessy, 163 U.S. at 551.

  56 . Plessy, 163 U.S. at 552. The fascinating part of the Plessy case, however, is that regardless of the railroad companies’ feelings toward African-Americans, they believed that it was way too costly to purchase additional cars for African-Americans, so as to segregate the two races. Therefore, if the legislature had not passed the race-based law at issue in Plessy, the free market would have ensured racial equality in this area.

  57 . Plessy, 163 U.S. at 559.

  58 . Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954).

  59 . Regents of Univ. of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978).

  60 . Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003).

  61 . Grutter, 539 U.S. at 341.

  62 . Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Pena, 515 U.S. 200, 240 (1995).

  63 . Grutter, 539 U.S. at 351.

  Lie #2

  1 . Jeff Benedict, Little Pink House: A True Story of Defiance and Courage (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2009), 88.

  2 . Ibid., 324.

  3 . Ibid., 357.

  4 . Ibid., 330.

  5 . See my book Constitutional Chaos: What Happens When the Government Breaks Its Own Laws (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2004), Introduction.

  6 . Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience (1849), http://thoreau.eserver.org/civil.html.

  7 . S. Burlington County NAACP v. Mt. Laurel, 92 NJ 158, 209 (1983).

  8 . A newspaper, the Star Ledger, quoted him.

  9 . Anastasia C. Sheffler-Wood, “Where Do We Go from Here? States Revise Eminent Domain Legislation in Response to Kelo,” 79 Temp. L. Rev. 617 (2006), 618.

  10 . Kelo, 545 U.S. 469 (2005).
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  11 . Patrick McGeehan, “Pfizer to Leave City That Won Land-Use Case,” New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/nyregion/13pfizer.html?scp=2&sq=pfizer&st=cse (Nov. 13, 2009).

  12 . Ibid.

  13 . Ibid.

  14 . Kelo, 545 U.S. at 503.

  15 . 545 U.S. at 522.

  16 . See my book Constitutional Chaos: What Happens When the Government Breaks Its Own Laws, 65–78.

  17 . Patrick McGeehan, “Pfizer to Leave City That Won Land-Use Case.”

  18 . Ibid.

  19 . Ibid.

  20 . Ibid.

  21 . Brian A. Blum and Juliana B. Wellman, “Participation, Assent and Liberty in Contract Formation,” Ariz. St. L.J. (1982), 901, 907–08.

  22 . It is important to note that in discussing a “valid police purpose,” the Court was referring to the government’s “police power,” which is the power of state governments to protect the health, safety, welfare, and morality of its people. The police power has nothing to do with the policing of criminals, but rather with government interference with the rights and dealings of the common people.

  23 . See my book The Constitution in Exile (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2006), 89–101.

  24 . This is my favorite line from among all U.S. Supreme Court decisions and best crystallizes an originalist interpretation of the Constitution.

  25 . Karen De Coster, “Obama to Government Motors: ‘Let’s Roll’,” Ludwig von Mises Institute, http://mises.org/story/3484 (May 22, 2009).

  26 . See my book The Constitution in Exile.

  27 . “Europe’s Solution: Take More Time Off,” a post on “Room for Debate,” a blog from the editors of the New York Times, http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/europes-solution-take-more-time-off/ (Mar. 29, 2009).

  Lie #3

  1 . Then Judge John G. Roberts, at his Senate confirmation hearing (Sept. 12, 2005).

  2 . “Obama’s Primetime Press Conference,” Real Clear Politics, http://www .realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/03/obama_primetime_press_transcript.html (Mar. 24, 2009).

  3 . Kermit Roosevelt, “Why Judicial ‘Activism’ Explains Little,” CBS News, http://www .cbsnews.com/stories/2009/07/08/opinion/main5144440.shtml ( Jul. 8, 2009).

  4 . Bryan A. Garner, Black’s Law Dictionary, Third Pocket Edition (2006).

  5 . Ibid.

  6 . Kermit Roosevelt, The Myth of Judicial Activism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), 1–2.

  7 . Ibid., 2.

  8 . Then Judge John G. Roberts, at his Senate confirmation hearing (Sept. 12, 2005).

  9 . Ibid.

  10 . Ibid.

  11 . Ibid.

  12 . Susan Page, “Sessions vows third GOP vote against Sotomayor,” USA Today, http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/judicial/2009-07-27-sessions_N.htm?csp=34 ( Jul. 27, 2009).

  13 . David Stout, “McCain Will Vote Against Sotomayor,” a post on “The Caucus,” a blog from the New York Times, http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/03/ mccain-will-vote-against-sotomayor/?scp=1&sq=august%203,%202009%20 mccain%20opposes%20sotomayor&st=cse (Aug. 3, 2009).

  14 . Then Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s Lecture entitled “A Latina Judge’s Life,” given at the University of California–Berkeley, in 2001.

  15 . Sam Stein, “’Where Policy Is Made’: Sotomayor’s Court Comment Explained,” Huffington Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/26/where-policy-is-made-soto_n_207570.html (May 26, 2009).

  16 . Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist, No. 78.

  17 . Ibid.

  18 . Hon. Richard B. Sanders, “Do State Constitutions and Courts Still Protect Liberty?” http://www.justicesanders.com/20030803CatoInst.htm.

  19 . Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803).

  20 . Erwin Chemerinsky, Federal Jurisdiction, 5th Ed. (New York: Aspen Publishers, 2007), 12.

  21 . Ibid.

  22 . Chemerinsky, Federal Jurisdiction, 12.

  23 . Laurence Tribe, Abortion: The Clash of Absolutes (New York: W. W. Norton, 1992), 80.

  24 . Ibid.

  25 . Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896).

  26 . Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303 (1880).

  27 . Strauder, 100 U.S. at 308.

  28 . Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 153 (1973).

  29 . “The court as interior decorator – Judge Russell Clark orders capital improvements for Kansas City schools,” National Review ( Jan. 22, 1990).

  30 . John Taylor Gatto, “A Billion, Six for KC,” The Odysseus Group, http://www .johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/17f.htm.

  31 . “The court as interior decorator,” National Review.

  32 . Ibid.

  33 . Ibid.

  34 . Ibid.

  35 . George Will, “More Judicial Activism, Please,” Washington Post, http://www .washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/12/AR2009061202755.html ( Jun. 14, 2009).

  36 . Ibid.

  37 . Ibid.

  Lie #4

  1 . Vincent Bugliosi, The Betrayal of America (New York: Thunder Mouth’s Press / Nation Books, 2001), 16.

  2 . James Madison, The Federalist, No. 57.

  3 . “Full Text of the Iraqi Constitution,” Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost .com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/12/AR2005101201450.html (Oct. 12, 2005).

  4 . Ibid.

  5 . “President George W. Bush’s Address Regarding Iraqi Elections,” www.johnstonarchive.net/terroirism/bushiraqelection.html ( Jan. 30, 2005).

  6 . Ibid.

  7 . Kenneth P. Vogel, “Will Afghanistan’s election be fair?,” Politico, http://www.politico .com/news/stories/0609/24105.html ( Jun. 23, 2009).

  8 . Fisher Ames, United States Congressman from 1st District of Massachusetts, 1789–1797, in “The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution (Source: DiLorenzo, Thomas J., “Repeal the Seventeenth Amendment,” LewRockwell.com, http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo93.html (May 17, 2005).

  9 . Thomas J. DiLorenzo, “Repeal the Seventeenth Amendment.”

  10 . Ibid.

  11 . Ibid.

  12 . Ibid.

  13 . Ibid.

  14 . Ralph A. Rossum, Federalism, The Supreme Court, and The Seventeenth Amendment (Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001), 183.

  15 . Ibid.

  16 . Ibid., 183–84.

  17 . Ibid.

  18 . Ibid., 185.

  19 . Ibid., 187–90.

  20 . Ibid., 190–91.

  21 . Ibid.

  22 . Ibid.

  23 . Ibid., 191.

  24 . Ibid.

  25 . Ibid.

  26 . Ibid.

  27 . Jerry O’Neil (Montana State Senator), “Q. Why should we repeal the 17th Amendment and forfeit our right to vote for U.S. senators?” www.liberty-ca.org/repeal17/states/montana2003oneil.htm (2003).

  28 . Ibid.

  29 . Ibid.

  30 . Ibid.

  31 . Maraleen D. Shields, “Racial Gerrymandering: Enfranchisement or Political Apartheid,” http://www.drury.edu/ess/irconf/MShields.html.

  32 . Ibid.

  33 . Ibid.

  34 . Ibid.

  35 . Ibid.

  36 . Ibid.

  37 . Ibid.

  38 . Ibid.

  39 . Shaw v. Reno, 509 U.S. 630 (1993).

  40 . Shields, “Racial Gerrymandering: Enfranchisement or Political Apartheid.”

  41 . Ibid.

  42 . Ibid.

  43 . Abigail Thernstrom, and Stephan Thernstrom, “Racial Gerrymandering Is Unnecessary,” Wall Street Journal, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122637373937516543.html (Nov. 11, 2008).

  44 . Ibid.

  45 . Ibid.

  46 . Ibid.

  47 . Ibid.

  48 . Ibid.

  49 . Shields, “Racial Gerrymandering: Enfranchisement or Political Apartheid.”

  50 . Private recounts conducted after President Bush was inaugurated indicated that he did, in fact, win the 2000 election. In April 2001, the Miami Herald and USA To
day reported that if Florida went ahead with the recounts, George W. Bush would have widened his lead by 1,665 votes. The New York Times also conducted a recount, and reported on November 12, 2001, that George W. Bush would have prevailed. (Sources: “Media Recount: Bush Won the 2000 Election,” PBS Online NewsHour, http://www .pbs.org/newshour/media/media_watch/jan-june01/recount_4-3.html (Apr. 3, 2001); Ford, Fessenden, and John M. Broder, “Study of Disputed Florida Ballots Finds Justices Did Not Cast the Deciding Vote,” New York Times, http://www.nytimes .com/2001/11/12/politics/12VOTE.html?scp=1&sq=november%2012,%202001%20 florida%20ballots&st=cse (Nov. 12, 2001)).

  51 . Summary of proceedings from The Nine, by Jeffrey Toobin (New York: Anchor Books, 2008), chapters 11–13.

  52 . Toobin, The Nine, 165–66.

  53 . Bugliosi, The Betrayal of America, 26.

  54 . Toobin, The Nine, 166.

  55 . Ibid.

  56 . Ibid., 167.

  57 . Ibid., 168.

  58 . Bugliosi, The Betrayal of America, 25.

  59 . Ibid., 26–27.

  60 . Ibid., 50.

  61 . Ibid.

  62 . William O. Douglas, The Court Years, 1939-1975: The Autobiography of William O. Douglas (Vintage Books, 1981).

  63 . Toobin, The Nine, 201.

  64 . Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98, 109 (2000).

  65 . Steven LaTulippe, “Ron Paul and the Empire,” LewRockwell.com, http://www.lewrockwell.com/latulippe/latulippe80.html ( Jul. 31, 2007).

  66 . “Obama-McCain Comparisons,” www.obama-mccain.info

  67 . Ibid.

  68 . “Andrea Mitchell: John McCain Only Met Sarah Palin Once,” Huffington Post, www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/29/andrea-mitchell-john-mcca_n_122517.html (first posted: Aug. 29, 2008; updated: Sept. 29, 2008).

  69 . Ibid.

  70 . “Ron Paul’s Opening Statement at National Press Club,” The LRC Blog, http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/022773.html (Sept. 10, 2008).

  71 . Butler Shaffer, “The Voting Ritual,” LewRockwell.com, http://www.lewrockwell.com/shaffer/shaffer147.html (Oct. 24, 2006).

  72 . David Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections, http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS.

  73 . Ibid.

  74 . Ibid.

  Lie #5