By David L. Miner

AFP-TN

Over the past four or five years the political movement toward States Rights has extended far beyond the usual right-wing commentators and pundits. In fact, even the US Supreme Court has become part of the movement, although perhaps not a willing participant. Yet several of their court findings have added much-needed legal ammunition to the fight for re-establishing a Constitutional Republic. The sad part is the fact that the Patriot Movement has by and large misunderstood these decisions and have made no attempt to use them in their charge toward limiting the federal government to its Constitutional limitations.

If we are to properly use these decisions from the highest Court in the land, the Patriot Movement will have to move beyond its pet causes and see America through the perspectives it claims to embrace.

A good example of this is the recent Supreme Court ruling concerning Texas anti-sodomy laws. Americans have both lauded and castigated the Supreme Court over this decision, without actually reading what the Court proclaimed. There were two issues to the now-infamous decision, the second of which has totally escaped the Patriot Movement. The first issue resolved by the Court is the fact that the Texas law was too unclear in its proscriptions, thereby rendering the law unenforceable. This does NOT constitute an endorsement of homosexual activities as many have claimed. It merely tells Texas that it must clarify the language of the law and try again, if it wants to. The second issue addressed by the Court was the fact that what happens in the bedroom is not the business of the government, especially not the federal government.

Now, isn’t this really what the Patriot Movement, especially the States Rights segment, wants?

Another example of the Supreme Court coming down on the side of States Rights was the recent decision involving the Violence Against Women Act. The Act granted to women the "right" to sue their attacker in federal civil court if the criminal court could not or did not convict him. The Supreme Court overturned this segment of the Act, resulting in women all over America claiming that the Court just declared open season on women. But these claims were based on total ignorance of the issues involved. This is not what the Court stated.

The Supreme Court basically claimed that the federal government had no authority over crimes committed within the 50 States, and therefore could not grant women any authority to file suit in federal courts concerning these crimes. The Court’s opinion observed accurately that women still had the pre-existing right to file suit in State civil court, but could not file suit in federal civil court.

Please read that again. The US Supreme Court admitted that the federal government had no authority or jurisdiction over crimes committed within the several States.

But possibly the most important Supreme Court case in the past 100 years was Lopez v the United States, a decision handed down in April of 1995. In this case the first law signed by President Clinton was on trial. The "Gun Free School Safety Zone Act" was struck down on the basis of the fact that the federal government had no authority or jurisdiction over gun ownership and gun possession within the 50 States. The Lopez Court conducted an incredibly thorough analysis of the Interstate Commerce Clause, the only section of the Constitution that gives the federal government any authority within the States. The Court found that the federal government had vastly exceeded its Constitutional authority when passing that law. But the Court went much further by claiming that the classic interpretation of the Interstate Commerce Clause was totally without lawful foundation and that the federal government had absolutely no authority within the States outside actual commercial actions that occurred between States.

The Lopez case actually gave the States, and all Americans, the legal ammunition to successfully fight all federal gun laws in existence. Americans can fight every federal criminal charge by using the restrictions proclaimed by the Court in the Lopez case. Yet, for some reason, the Patriot Community has not understood the case or the issues resolved by the Court that would benefit us.

The bottom line is simple. The Supreme Court of the United States has solidly come down on the side of States Rights in several cases over the past ten years, indicating that the position embraced by the America Founding Fathers Party and the AFP-TN is not simply an idealistic mission, but an achievable goal.

But to accomplish this goal, you need to get involved. You need to help the Party grow both numerically and financially so we can fight a federal government that is out of control and which refuses to be limited by the Constitution that created it.

David L. Miner

Sevier County Chair

AFP-TN