Day 4 CC 2009 Recap

Composed by Richard Church

Today was a good day at CC2009, but not as good as it should have been. Many delegates have privately expressed the same sentiments that I put in my summary last night. It has become obvious that most of the delegates did not even read or consider the consequences of the rules changes. (Sound familiar?) According to my prediction, tomorrow is the day when many of my colleagues will realize their error in these new rules and make substantial changes to eliminate the open discussion in favor of doing some real work. In fact, if committee reports are received in the morning, I doubt there will be any time for the open discussion anyway. Our best hope is that someone moves to reconsider the rules change.

Now don't get me wrong. I am all in favor of impassioned debate, even very lengthy, impassioned debate. However, that debate should be in the pursuit of some goal. For those not familiar with parliamentary procedure, usually there can be no debate until a motion is on the floor. The open discussions that we are conducting are not in pursuit of any goal except to make delegates feel good about themselves. The discussions are supposed to serve as instructions for the relevant committees, but in reality most comments are little more than delegates clamoring for attention by the Internet audience. The fact that we have now agreed to have the audio broadcast during the discussion has worsened this factor. In practice, there are about 10 to 15 delegates who come to the microphones over and over and over again to impress us with their knowledge, wit and speaking ability. And it accomplishes nothing.

The morning presentations were on the topic of the Tax Clauses of the Constitution. First to speak was Mr. Joe Bannister who joined us via video. Mr. Bannister spoke of his former career as an IRS Special Agent. After hearing Devvy Kidd speak on a radio talk show, he began to conduct a personal investigation of our nation's tax laws. He found that there are many Constitutional abuses in the tax laws. As a result of his action on this issue, he was forced to resign from the IRS. He has fought many tax battles due to his refusal to file an income tax return.

The second presentation was by Jeff Dickstein, who has represented Mr. Bannister as well as others challenging the tax laws. After some technical problems were resolved, Mr. Dickstein gave a lengthy presentation regarding the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which is the justification for the income tax.

He presented mostly material from the court cases of Bill Benson, author of "The Law That Never Was." Mr. Benson conducted extensive research into the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment. Many of the states that supposedly "ratified" the amendment did not actually ratify the amendment as it was written. Some had substantial changes in wording that made their ratification resolutions different from the actual proposed amendment that was sent to them. Mr. Benson researched this by acquiring the actual documents from each of the states. Mr. Dickstein gave the history of the case and showed the complete refusal of the courts to allow Mr. Benson to defend the truthfulness of his claims.

After these presentations, we convened one of our official "chat sessions" as described above and in yesterday's update.

The afternoon presentation was by Dr. Orly Taitz, who is also a delegate to this assembly from California. Dr. Taitz spoke about the Eligibility Clause of the Constitution. She defended a definition of "natural born citizen" as a child born to parents (that is both parents) who are citizens and born within the United States. From my own research, while this is one definition that has been used historically, it is by no means the only historical definition. In fact, the courts have never ruled exactly what "natural born" means. Some have proposed that it simply means a citizen by birth. Others have proposed that it must include birth within the country. Some say it takes two citizen parents, some say only one. So this is a very unclear issue.

Dr. Taitz gave a history of her cases. She represents Ambassador Alan Keyes and Pastor Wiley Drake in their case, as well as some others. She claimed that at one point, her case was actually placed on the docket of the Supreme Court but disappeared on the day after Mr. Obama's inauguration for no apparent reason. I must say that I have seen and heard media interviews with Dr. Taitz in which she did not do a very good job explaining her case. This presentation, however, was very well done and I have a greater esteem for Dr. Taitz than I did previously. However, I continue to oppose the suggestion made the other day that we, as the Continental Congress, should express specific support for Dr. Taitz's case.

After the presentation, we initiated our afternoon "chat session." The topic was supposed to be the natural born citizenship, but somehow the discussion changed to matters of religion and government for a short time, but eventually returned to the topic at hand.

Toward the end of the session, the President recognized Mr. Peter Boyce of New Jersey who moved that a committee be formed to draft a declaration of independence from the New World Order. However, under the new rules, this motion was ruled out of order even though it did not pertain to a specific agenda item. I would have appealed this ruling by the chair if we were not so short on time. This was not the first time that Mr. Boyce has tried to present this resolution, and I'm sure it won't be the last.

For the record, I am against such a resolution. When we declared independence from the Crown, it was because we had previously been legally dependent to the Crown. The King was the legitimate ruler of the colonies. To declare independence from the New World Order is pointless since there is no government, organization, or authority known as the New World Order to which we are currently dependent. You cannot declare your independence from an amorphous, ideological cabal which has no authority over you. To do so would indicate that we are currently under the legitimate authority of the New World Order. We are not, nor have ever been, legally dependent to anything called the New World Order and are already independent of it. No declaration necessary.

At the end of the session, the President appointed a committee chair to deal with the issue of the Tax Clauses. No committee to address natural born citizenship was announced, which is actually a failure to follow our new rules. I'm assuming this committee will be announced tomorrow morning. I pointed out this failure, but the President did not take action to address the violation. In addition, there was a Fourteenth Amendment committee that was announced, but had never been authorized by the Continental Congress. (I asked the President about this and he said that it was more of an informal caucus, not an official committee. There have been many such informal caucuses, but they should not be announced as committees of this assembly without a motion to that effect.)

I look forward to tomorrow when some of the committees will begin to present their reports. I am especially looking forward to debate on the Second Amendment Committee report. Mr. William Kostrick of New Hampshire presented to that committee a resolution calling for citizens to take civic action by the open carry of firearms, which is perfectly legal in most states including Wisconsin. (You might remember Mr. Kostrick from his interview with Chris Matthews after he wore a holstered gun to an Obama protest.) I have heard rumors, however, that the committee removed the recommendation to open carry. In my opinion, it is vital that we recommend this simple action that citizens can take to provide for their own security as well as publicly demonstrate support of the Second Amendment. In fact, our own attorney general, J. B. Van Hollen, issued a memo earlier this year to remind district attorneys that it is legal for Wisconsin citizens to openly carry guns "for any lawful purpose" according to our state Constitution.

Tomorrow is when we can quit the chit-chat and resume the important work.

In Liberty,

Richard Church (Wisconsin Delegate)