Town challenges and WORRIES the Federal Government!!

Neither the Real ID project nor the Patriot Act is recognized within South Dakota borders. Yet the press never even approaches such matters. My brother is a police officer, as well as a libertarian, in Sioux Falls. I don’t think even he realizes those laws exist.

—Cliff in Sioux City, Iowa
May’s Song: ♪Emily♪ by Dave Koz
Throw-away tools of war

The federal government is over reaching its authority. People should never appeal to International mumbo jumbo. The Constitution limits powers and divides juistictional authority.

I agree with Supreme Court Justice Black in Reid v. Covert, 354 U.S. 1 (1957)

Supreme Court Justice Black opinion:

"The United States is entirely a creature of the Constitution. Its power and authority have no other source. It can only act in accordance with all the limitations imposed by the Constitution."

Article VI, the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, declares:

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof, and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; . . .

"There is nothing in this language which intimates that treaties and laws enacted pursuant to them do not have to comply with the provisions of the Constitution. Nor is there anything in the debates which accompanied the drafting and ratification of the Constitution which even suggests such a result. These debates, as well as the history that surrounds the adoption of the treaty provision in Article VI, make it clear that the reason treaties were not limited to those made in "pursuance" of the Constitution was so that agreements made by the United States under the Articles of Confederation, including the important peace treaties which concluded the Revolutionary War, would remain in effect. It would be manifestly contrary to the objectives of those who created the Constitution, as well as those who were responsible for the Bill of Rights -- let alone alien to our entire constitutional history and tradition -- to construe Article VI as permitting the United States to exercise power under an international agreement without observing constitutional prohibitions. In effect, such construction would permit amendment of that document in a manner not sanctioned by Article V. The prohibitions of the Constitution were designed to apply to all branches of the National Government, and they cannot be nullified by the Executive or by the Executive and the Senate combined."

This Court has regularly and uniformly recognized the supremacy of the Constitution over a treaty. [n33] For example, in Geofroy v. Riggs, 133 U.S. 258, 267, it declared:

The treaty power, as expressed in the Constitution, is in terms unlimited except by those restraints which are found in that instrument against the action of the government or of its departments, and those arising from the nature of the government itself and of that of the States. It would not be contended that it extends so far as to authorize what the Constitution forbids, or a change in the character of the [p18] government, or in that of one of the States, or a cession of any portion of the territory of the latter, without its consent.

This Court has also repeatedly taken the position that an Act of Congress, which must comply with the Constitution, is on a full parity with a treaty, and that, when a statute which is subsequent in time is inconsistent with a treaty, the statute to the extent of conflict renders the treaty null.

Even during time of war, the Constitution must be observed. Ex parte Milligan, 4 Wall. 2, at 120i, declares:

"The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times, and under all circumstances. No doctrine involving more pernicious consequences was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government."

I think I know why the feds chose to fight this one. It's an easy win. They want the precedent. It's an easy win because the Constitution specifically gives the feds the right to run the military. The Constitution also says that treaties that the US enters into are the highest law of the land. According to the article, the US is party to treaties that forbid recruiting persons under 18. The feds will argue that a person is not "recruited" until they are actually signed up and enlisted.

let's help make it a trend. "Win or lose, for Meserve, the election demonstrated that activists can be more effective by reaching out to mainstream voters instead of putting all their resources into rallies or symbolic resolutions - a message that is spreading among activists from Berkeley to back east.

"Activists around the country are certainly looking at this and saying, 'Hmmm, maybe we can do something like that here,' " said Sam Diener, editor of Peacework Magazine in Cambridge, Mass.