Molon Labe!

by Boston T. Party

  "I do solemnly swear that I will support, obey and defend the Constitution for the United States of America, and the constitution of Wyoming, and that I will discharge the duties of my office with fidelity; that I have not paid or contributed, or promised to pay or contribute, either directly or indirectly, any money or other valuable thing, to procure my nomination or election, except for necessary and proper expenses authorized by law; that I have not, knowingly, violated any election law of the state, or procured it to be done by others in my behalf; that I will not knowingly receive, directly or indirectly, any money or other valuable thing for the performance or nonperformance of any act or duty pertaining to my office, other than the compensation allowed by law."

  "Congratulations, Mister Governor."

  "Thank you, Mister Chief Justice," replies Preston. He gives Juliette a discreet kiss, holding her emerald eyes in his for that extra second which conveys volumes. Preston then squares himself to the rostrum and looks out on the cheering crowd with its breathy condensation.

  "Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. I cannot describe the honor I feel for you having chosen me as your governor. Mindful of my own limited abilities, I also cannot describe my trepidations as I enter this office. It is one thing to captain the course of a business or of a family, but yet another to take the helm of a ship of state. As I took this oath of office, I felt the weight of power and responsibility fall on my shoulders.

  "Power and responsibility. They are inseparable, for power without responsibility is madness, and responsibility without power is futility. They must be exercised jointly as they are a curse without each other. You, the people of Wyoming, are the sovereigns. I, and the entire Wyoming government, are your servants. I pray that I and your government will always exercise this stewardship with wisdom, grace, and courage.

  "As I mentioned in my victory speech last November, we face difficult times as Americans. We have become foreigners within our own country. Jefferson once wrote that the Federal Government was not 'the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself.' Somewhere along the way, we forgot that. But never again. You needed the governor's office on your side, and now you have it! (applause)

  I am committed to recreating at least a small piece of America for us, here in Wyoming. So are you, or else you wouldn't have elected me. I cannot accomplish this goal alone. I am only in office to help you all accomplish this. I can't do this thing alone; I can't do anything, truly, but to stay out of your way. Isn't that really the only thing Americans ever wanted from Government — to stay out of our way? (great applause)

  "I'm firmly convinced that Wyoming is destined to be a beacon of freedom to our fellow western states. Because of our particular spirit and hardiness, we have prospered in the face of great adversities. We have even done so under burdensome government. While we can't do much about our fierce winters, we don't have to lug around oppressive government on our backs, like a sack of cement! What has the Federal Government ever attempted for us that we couldn't have done ourselves? Truly, government is a disease masquerading as its own cure! (laughter) Well, 'to cure the patient would kill the doctor.' (laughter) Beginning today, we 'check ourselves out of the hospital' and Wyoming will be the leader in America's rediscovering of Freedom. (great applause and cheers)

  I can't help it if the rest of the country isn't interested in living free and responsible lives, but here in Wyoming, beginning today, we aim to take our lives back! (thunderous applause) We invite our western neighbors to join us in this Second American Renaissance. We challenge our western neighbors to create for liberty-loving people a happier home than even Wyoming .

  "This 'Wyoming Experiment' will be carefully monitored by our faraway puppetmasters in Washington, D.C. In the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, Thomas Jefferson wrote that the States 'are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government,. .and that whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force.' (great applause) I think that the country is fed up with five Supreme Court Justices ruling 300 million Americans with ridiculous rulings based on the overextended interstate commerce clause. (applause) Americans are sick and tired of the President and a handful of traitorous Senators binding us all to poisonous treaties and UN resolutions which conspire to remove us from our farms and homes. (continuing applause) And we have had it with Executive Orders trying to disarm us. (great applause) I say this to the Potomac Parasites, 'Mind the nation's business and stay out of ours!' (wild applause) Even though the Tenth Amendment doesn't read ' expressly delegated — 'that' is how the people of the 1790s interpreted it, that's how Thomas Jefferson interpreted it, and, by God, that's how I will interpret it! (uproarious applause)

  "Thank you. Here in Wyoming, we are still committed to the once-orthodox proposition that peaceful, productive, and respectable folks are entitled to live as they see fit. As your Governor, I solemnly pledge to you my life, my fortune, and my sacred honor that my office will always be used to protect your Liberty — no matter the threat. In the words of a French libertarian long ago, I pledge that the Wyoming government will 'Laissez vous faire' — We will leave you alone! (wild applause)

  "Wyoming has a history of giving first and taking last. We were the first government on earth to politically emancipate women in 1869, but the last state to ask for federal aid during the Great Depression. We have prostrated ourselves for the nation, only to be used as a milk cow for our minerals, energy, land, and water. From here on out, we will be the nation's milk cow only for freedom and prosperity. If anybody wants our coal, helium, bentonite, oil, natural gas, or water, they'll have to pay us a fair market price and respect our Western ways during the deal! (more applause)

  "From today on, we will live the Golden Rule and demand the Bill of Rights, especially the Second and Tenth Amendments. We will live as decent Citizens. Citizens — not slaves. Our rights were not given to us by the Constitution; they were merely codified by the Constitution. The Federal Government may indeed ignore that codification, but it cannot erase our rights themselves. In Wyoming we are free people, and from this day on we will act like it! We will run honest and productive businesses, we will raise our families as we see fit, and we will bear arms as free people used to do.

  "Thank you again for the honor of this office. Now, you've got freer lives to live and I've got a lot of government to remove from your way. Shall we get to work? Good day to you all. God bless!"

  24,000 hands went up with the "W" sign.

  People are "free" or not solely according to their perceptions. Freedom is relative to whom one questions. To the recent emigrant from North Korea, the U.S. is more free than he could ever have imagined. Similarly, most Americans believe themselves to be free, primarily because they have been taught to believe that. (The echoic freedom of our nation's early history has naturally been indispensable in this regard.)

  Thus, in their own minds, they are free — and so are all other Americans. Egocentrism fuels such a general psychological projection. The masses cannot understand what the extremists are all upset about. "Buying assault weapons to someday wield against the government? Why, it's outrageous! Don't they know that America is the freest nation on earth?"

  However, to the home-schooling, pot-smoking, gun-toting, seatbelt-shunning, tax-evading, SSN-eschewing entrepreneurial "libertarian," the U.S. is a very stifling regulatory atmosphere. Such an extremist not only perceives himself to be under "tyranny" (his most favored term), he also imagines (through the neutral mechanism of egocentrism) the rest of the country to be under tyranny as well. He is thus at a loss to explain why the masses are not consciously hostile to this situation, as he is.

  The masses do not feel oppressed because, by their own reckoning, they are not oppressed. They can largely do whatever they please, whenever they desire. This leaves the extremist complaining about his clipped wings to people whose wings have long since atrophied — an indignant eagle screechi
ng to dodos.

  Flight had been bred out of the dodo eons ago. His withered wings were the result, not the cause. Although we can take the eagle from the sky, we cannot take the sky from the eagle. We cannot directly breed flight from him. No matter. We will indirectly attentuate his urge to fly by eliminating his means to fly.

  Wings clipped, he will have no choice but to hop around in the dirt with the dodos, which is the next best scenario. The dodos will take the sky from him...

  — Julius N. Harquist, The Gaian Convergence, p.31

  River Lethe Press (2007)

  Washington, D.C.

  The White House

  Snide comments float about the Oval Office.

  "Could he have mentioned Thomas Jefferson just one more time?"

  "'Foreigners within our own country' — jeez! "

  "That Tenth Amendment comment was a shot across our bow." Attorney General Leah Vorn exclaims, "Did you hear that, Mr. President? He altered the oath's language!" Having gained the room's attention, the AG continues, "Instead of swearing to defend 'the Constitution of the United States,' as is required of all state governors, Preston said 'the Constitution for the United States of America'!"

  Warming to the subject, the AG elaborates, "You see, in the Preamble, the Constitution refers to itself as 'the Constitution for the United States of America' whereas the presidential oath mandates allegiance to 'the Constitution of the United States'_a different matter altogether."

  "Leah, you're 'lecturing to the faculty,' not to some freshman law class — we know all this already," the President admonishes.

  "Yes, sir, but this is truly unprecedented in American history. Not only does Preston know about it, but he actually recited his own 'corrected' oath to embrace the 'for the U.S.A.' Constitution!"

  "So what if he did?" asks Deputy Chief-of-Staff Phillip Miles. Heads swivel towards him at his befuddlement.

  Patiently, though with a hint of exasperation, the AG explaines, "Phil, our 'First Federalist' Alexander Hamilton had the presidential oath altered while serving in Committee of Style during the final days of the 1787 Philadelphia Convention. If not for him, we'd all be bound to the publicly known Constitution — the 'for the U.S.A.' version."

  Dark, intelligent eyes about the Oval Office glow at her reminder of this. For Miles, it is no reminder — it is apparent to all present that he never knew any of this in the first place.

  Exultant in her student, Vorn presses forward. "The Constitution in Article 6, Section 3 requires all officers to support 'this Constitution' —meaning the Constitution 'for the U.S.A.' and any amendments, which includes the Bill of Rights. Clearly, this would not do. Given the Article 2, Section 1, Clause 7 presidential oath reference to the 'Constitution of the United States' it seems that Article 6, Section 3 was a tragic oversight. Congress in 1789 circumvented that error with an act requiring allegiance to the 'of the United States' Constitution. The state constitutions were thereafter all written, or rewritten, with the 'of the United States' language.

  "We all appreciate how important the Civil War was, especially with its Reconstruction era 14th Amendment. All of this finally began to be capitalized on in 1940 with the Buck Act, and later with the various UN conventions. The arduous work to achieve the nationalist dreams of the Hamiltonian Framers by eliminating the stubborn vestiges of state autonomy was within just several years of completion. Until now. Until Preston. By changing a few words in his oath of office, he has chopped many invisible control wires the Federal Government has enjoyed over the so-called 'sovereign' states. He has threatened the brilliant work of some 230 years."

  Clearly confused, Miles interrupts with, "What 'control wires,'" Ms. Vorn? And what is this 'of the United States' constitution?"

  Seeing the AG's Should I tell him? raised eyebrows, President Connor answers, "I'm sorry that you weren't brought aboard on this earlier, Phil, but I saw no need to add to your busy workload."

  With the President's approval, the AG explains with her typical air of pedantry. "The American people and their state politicians have lived under the propagated delusion that sovereignty originates with 'the People' and that what was not specifically delegated by the Constitution to the Federal Government remains with the people and their states. Had the Tenth Amendment read 'expressly delegated' that notion would indeed be fact and not delusion. However, our onetime friend James Madison_thankfully still under Hamilton's wing in 1789_removed the word 'expressly' which left 'delegated' without any adverbial restriction, as it had suffered under in the Articles of Confederation. That one tiny bit of clever Madisonian syntax turned the seemingly Jeffersonian constitutional republic on its head. You see, instead of the Government being limited to only that which it was explicitly authorized to do in the Constitution, the Government can actually do anything not expressly prohibited."

  Noticing Miles's furrowed brow, AG Vorn offers, "Think of it this way. You're an ambitious federal 'butler' with dreams of grandeur. Which national household would you prefer: one in which your freedom of action is confined to ABC; or, one in which you may do anything except XYZ?"

  Basking in the gradual understanding on Miles's face, the AG milks the analogy still further. "The butler's constitutional contract was skimpy, by design. His prohibitory XYZs are very basic and not terribly inconvenient. Because of the 'general welfare' and 'interstate commerce' clauses, our lucky butler can_because the contract doesn't specifically say that he can not_raid the refrigerator, borrow the family car, and even sleep with the master's daughter. Oh, sure, the 'master' is complaining, but he is bound by his own hastily made contract. And, best yet, any changes in that contract can be proposed only by the congressional maids!"

  A phlegmy wave of laughter sweeps the Oval Office, which Miles nervously joins. Don't blow it, Phil. Hear this witch out.

  Amidst the residual chuckles, Miles asks, "Yes, I follow you so far, but what about the 'control wires' and this other constitution?"

  The AG plows on. "The 10th Amendment was merely built upon the foundation of the presidential oath. Remember, except for three or four fools, nobody at 1787 Philadelphia wanted a limited Federal Government. Nobody there wanted some Jeffersonian republic of yeoman farmers each under their own vine and fig tree1. Why do you think the increasingly federalist Congress sent Jefferson to Europe during the crucial years of the mid-1780s? He would have single-handedly compromised our plans in Philadelphia and probably stolen Madison away from us several years earlier than he did. Only after the Constitution had been ratified and our Government had been on-line for six months was Jefferson allowed to return home in 1789. Then, he was given the cozy post of Secretary of State where he could be watched and overruled by Hamilton, our first Secretary of the Treasury.

  "Anyway, back to the presidential oath. Even though the Constitution for the United States of America was contrived, written, and ratified by our political ancestors, it was not perfect for our purposes. You see, the substantial Jeffersonian sentiment of the day had to be assuaged with a Bill of Rights, else the Constitution could never have been ratified. Thus, the scrappy bone of freedom thrown to the people of the late 18th century has traveled full circle to become a bone in our throats. The Framers foresaw this would happen someday, so they wrote the presidential oath in such a way that we have a quiet, legal means for crushing that bone.

  "Since you do not hold an actual office under the political trust of the people, you were not required to swear an oath, therefore you were not told of our 'Constitution of the United States.'"

  "So, what is its meaning and purpose?" asks Miles tautly.

  "It is only because of three factors that you may learn of it. One, its secret was blown in 1997 by a book called Hologram of Liberty. While its author had no direct proof of our Constitution, he did, quite amazingly, point to its likely existence through a succinct interweaving of historically circumstantial evidence. To use a physics analogy, he postulated the nature of electricity before the existence of electrons could be confirmed
by scientific equipment. It probably had to happen eventually. Our activities had become so 'unconstitutional' that somebody was bound to suggest that there must be another batch of 'programming' other than the visible 'Constitution for the United States of America.' Move enough chairs around in an old house and someone's gonna cry 'Ghost!' Royce finally did that and Preston must have read his book, even though it was generally ignored by the conservatives. The President's trust in you is the second." At this, the AG simply stopped talking, preferring to drink in Miles's suspense.

  With visible restraint, Miles quietly asked, "Ms. Vorn, what is this so-called 'Constitution of the United States'?"

  "It's our private, hidden charter, Phil. To use a computer analogy, it's like a UNIX shell, or a hidden 'device driver' — a TSR, or Terminate and Stay Resident program, if you will.

  "Most of us here are not computer programmers like you, Leah," the President gently offers.

  "Right — sorry, sir. Before 1997, before Hologram, the masses had no idea that it even existed. In a nutshell, our little Constitution mandates our prime directive, which is the continuance and growth of the Federal Government over any and all other considerations. It mandates our allegiance to the federal 'U.S.' over the national U.S.A. It requires that Federal needs crowd out state concerns, that public policy shall precede individual rights, that corporate economics stand above employees and entrepreneurs, that powers of national emergency override the democratic process, and, most importantly, that political power is restored to its rightful place in the Government. We are the sovereigns, Phil, not 'the People' and certainly not the states. The nation of the United States of America was always meant to be a business, and the corporate federal entity called the 'United States' is simply the board of directors for 'USA, Inc.' Through that nimble verbiage in the presidential oath, the U.S. runs the U.S.A."