Thom Tillis may have just killed his chances of becoming North Carolina’s next U. S. Senator. Depending on how some other current trends play out, Tillis may find that H 494 may very well drive a stake through the heart of his run for the Senate. Here’s how we see that possibility playing out.

These are unusual days in American history. We have a president who has effectively annihilated the U. S. Constitution. If you have any doubt about the truthfulness of that statement simply click here and here. The inescapable conclusion any intellectually honest person must come to is that traditional precedents established and adhered to for years no longer are “the law.” Moreover, what is equally clear is that both the Federal judiciary and the Congress are totally impotent to “preserve and defend the Constitution, either as textually written or as interpreted by judicial precedent.”

	H 494 simply calls for the restoration of the original federalism upon which this nation was founded. Tillis is unwise and foolish to assert that duly elected members of the NC House have no such right to render an opinion on the constitutionality of any issue affecting their state.

The fact is that the original construct of federalism upon which the United States of America created the Union has been turned on its head. What we have today is most certainly not what the Founders intended, and what the sovereign states signed onto. No honest constitutional scholar would argue that “indefinite detention” or warrantless searches, no matter how justified, were envisioned by the Framers. And that list is virtually endless, all the way down to the light bulbs in your home.

We would posit that, at some point, enough knowledgeable and courageous people in this nation will reject this bastardization of the Founding Documents, and even the established precedents, and take a stand to return this nation’s laws to the original intent. Common sense would indicate that it will happen either peaceably or violently. If it is done peaceably it wil be operationalized by leaders stepping up and demanding that the illegal actions be overturned, nullified if you will, and state action interposed in their place.

If it is done violently…we’ll not go there at this point, except to say that the inevitable issue that will determine how that scenario plays out will be determined by how the officers of our military ultimately determine how to uphold their oath as officers of our armed forces to preserve and defend the Constitution from all enemies, domestic and foreign. Suffice it to say on this point that we have no doubt there are millions of Americans willing to die for our liberties and if the time comes that enough of them decide the choice is between liberty and death, enough will join the choice Patrick Henry and other patriots made in 1776. We don’t think it will come to that, but of that we are not absolutely sure.

Here is what we see as a much more likely scenario.

In 2014 there will be an election that will determine whether the U. S. Senate will flip from Democrat to Republican. If one assumes the U. S. House will remain under Republican control the issue will be whether five states switch from Democrat to Republican in the Senate. North Carolina is one of those.

If whoever the Republican candidate for the Senate is in North Carolina seizes on the restoration of the Founding Principles as the pivotal campaign issue and if that person is elected then we would predict that there will be a move to rescind many of the Obama executive orders and other actions he has taken that are “extra-constitutional” or unconstitutional. There will, in effect, be a pendulum that swings back toward restoring the Founding Principles if Republicans gain control of the Senate.

Likewise, if Republicans gain control of the Senate, Obama will not be able to appoint left-wing justices to the U. S. Supreme Court and the lower federal courts. A shift of 2 and certainly if 3 more conservative justices are appointed, the “law” in this nation will change dramatically. ObamaCare will only be one example.

But there is a second force building that is unprecedented in American history. That force is taking root in the states, and permeates to the local level, or perhaps more precisely, percolates up from the local level. Beaufort County’s recent resolution calling for nullification of unconstitutional federal actions against the Second Amendment and a call for a constitutional convention to clarify the original federalistic balance of powers is an example. We would expect this force at the local and state level to grow in direct proportion to the level of frustration with in-action by Congress.

If the Republicans do gain control of the Senate and do not move aggressively to restore the Founding Principles, particularly in relation to the federalist balance of powers, then there will be a strong pushback at the state level. We would predict that the “nullification and interposition” movement will explode. And we would postulate that the reason this will happen is that a complete loss of confidence in Congress will accentuate the movement at the state level simply because more and more state and local leaders will see it as the only hope for saving the nation.

We think North Carolina is ahead of the curve in this Restoration Movement. Again, the fact that the first county commission in the nation to pass a nullification resolution and call for a constitutional convention came from North Carolina is significant. Rep. Michael Speciale introduced a version of the Beaufort County resolution, watered down at the insistence of the GOP legislative leadership, was simply a precursor to H 494. The strong rejection of ObamaCare health insurance exchanges is another illustration. Ditto voter photo ID. And of course, H 494 itself is an expression of this Restoration force.

At the same time, there is an unprecedented movement across America that is rising up in defense of the Second Amendment. Obama and the left greatly underestimated the strength that millions of Americans have in standing to protect their right to keep and bear arms. The ignorance shown by the gun-control fanatics in characterizing the issue as a “hunting rights” issue rather than a liberty protection issue simply illustrates how badly the liberals have misinterpreted the “fed-upness” of millions of Americans. And those Americans at the grassroots are now pushing back.

The risk is that the leaders and want-a-be leaders on the right will also underestimate the Force for Restoration of our Founding Principles. That risk is that failure to jump to the lead of the Restoration parade puts these leaders at extreme peril of losing their base. And that is where Thom Tillis has blundered on H 494.

Let us explain H 494. It came into being over a simple proposition that most North Carolinians will not contest: That the Rowan County Commissioners, or any county commission, should be able to open its meetings just as the N. C. Senate, House and U. S. Senate and House open their meetings…with a prayer. The Fourth Circuit has said no, that is unconstitutional. H 494 challenges that position. And we would suggest that the N. C. House has every right to challenge an erroneous court ruling. Indeed, it has a duty to do so.

As a matter of fact, H 494 lays open a legitimate legal argument to support a declaration of opinion that the federal courts have misinterpreted the First Amendment and Fourteenth Amendments. And it presents a classical argument against judicial review as expressed in Marbury vs. Madison.

Without going into the legal ramifications, suffice it to say here that the judicial concept of incorporation the courts have found in the Fourteenth Amendment simply cannot be found in the original intent of the compact that brought the U. S. Constitution into being. Rejection of incorporation renders H 494 precisely correct in its interpretation of the First Amendment applying only to the federal government.

In order to validate incorporation, one must disregard the Tenth Amendment as well as a strict construction of Article I, Section 8 (the Enumerated Powers Clause), both of which are at the heart of the federalistic system. Moreover, to accept the doctrine of incorporation one must disregard 150 years of precedent. Incorporation is a relatively new phenomeonon, emerging in American law only since the 1920’s from the Progressive Era in our history.

No reasonable constitutional scholar would even argue that the jurisprudence that has evolved from the Fourteenth Amendment was ever intended by the Founders. In fact, even a cursory review of the Federalist Papers offers an abundance of evidence that modern federalistic jurisprudence is severely contrary to the original intent of the Founders and more importantly, the states which originally ratified the U. S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. Moreover, there is even a compelling argument that can be made that the Fourthteenth Amendment itself is unconstitutional in that it was ratified under duress and compulsion; hardly a sound legal basis for a compact of sovereign states.

To ‘cut to the chase’ here we are arguing that judicial review, incorporation, the expansion of federal powers beyond Article I, Section 8, the extra-constitutional expansion of Federal power by Executive fiat (bureaucratic ordained regulations), by executive orders, fiscal blackmail and extortion, administrative usurpation of legislative responsibility (abrogation of legislative authority) and incorrect judicial interpretations are all contrary to the original principles upon which the creation of the Federal government was based. And a compelling argument can be made that because the creation of that Federal government was by compact with and among sovereign states that any change not mutually agreed to is null and void.

And that is the heart of H 494. It seeks to express disagreement by one of those sovereign states to specific Federal action (the prohibition of sectarian opening prayer at a public body’s meeting).

Now comes House Speaker Thom Tillis, according to one of his aides, and essentially says: Representatives Ford, Warren, Burr, Collins, Conrad, Jones, Jordan, McNeill, Pittman, Presnell, Shepard, Starnes, Turner and Whitmire—and more importantly, any other representatives who might have chosen to cast a vote in support of this expression of opinion—have no right as duly elected representatives of the sovereign state of North Carolina to express disagreement with the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. That is absurd.

H 494 simply calls for the restoration of the original federalism upon which this nation was founded. Tillis is unwise and foolish to assert that duly elected members of the NC House have no such right to render an opinion on the constitutionality of any issue affecting their state.

Tillis unfortunately accepted a fallacy put forward by the looney left, principally the American Civil Libertarians Union, i.e., that the First Amendment applies equally to the states as it does to the Federal government. But that position is based on recent precedents. There is a long line of cases holding that the First Amendment does not apply to state action. The only way the argument can be carried to it has been incorporated to apply it to the states is to accept that prior judicial decisions were constitutionally incorrect. There is, in fact, a long line of cases stretching back to 1833 that said that the First Amendment did not apply to the states. Thus, to take the position H494 is unconstitutional is rationally contrary to innumerable instances wherein the Federal courts have misinterpreted the U. S. Constitution in many, many cases over long periods of times. Such is the history a civil rights jurisprudence in this nation. Just read the Dred Scott case. And ironically, if one accepts that precedence is immutable then the ACLU is going to have a terribly difficult time honestly pushing its homosexual marriage agenda! There is currently abundant precedent that marriage as sanctioned by the state is strictly between one man and one woman. But the ACLU argues that these precedents are contrary to what our Constitution now means.

No court is infallible. Stare decisis guarantees that. Precedence may cause the law to change slowly, but it does change as a result of court decisions. But when those decisions are contrary to the original intent, judicial decisions that stray from that standard should be called into question. That is precisely what H 494 does.

The ACLU can’t have it both ways. You can’t say that precedence is immutable in relation to prayer at a public meeting but it is not when it comes to whether the Equal Protection Clause affords one the right to marry one of the same sex, or several partners, or even their dog or cat. No honest constitutional scholar would dare argue seriously that either the Founders or the ratifiers of the Fourteenth Amendment ever dreamed of state sanctioned homosexuality.

	Speaker Tillis, Majority Leader Stam and others who resist the sovereign State of North Carolina taking a stand on how the U. S. Constitution should be applied within the state had best run get in front of the parade that is the times changing toward Restoration of the principles this nation was founded upon and that made it the greatest nation in human history.

The only rational way to apply the Equal Protection Clause to state sanctioned homosexuality is to conclude that “times change.”

Well, that is what H 494 is saying. Times change. For years we have accepted a drift away from the original principles, but times have changed and the times now are swinging back to the right.

Speaker Tillis, Majority Leader Stam and others who resist the sovereign State of North Carolina taking a stand on how the U. S. Constitution should be applied within the state had best run get in front of the parade that is “the times are changing” toward Restoration of the principles this nation was founded upon and that made it the greatest nation in human history. Republicans should be leading that parade.

If Barack Obama continues his march to omnipotence, the Restoration Movement will accelerate and amplify. Tillis will be on the wrong side of history. If Obama mitigates the force for Restoration, Tillis will still be seen, if his primary opponent is smart, as an antagonist against our Founding Principles. Either way he will be cast on the wrong side of what may be the most significant groundswell in recent American history. And the worse the economy gets the more unrest among the body politic there will be for a major overhaul of American government, specifically the federalistic balance of power between the states and Washington. Few will fight to continue an inept Federal government except those within that Club. Rep. Ford and Warren may indeed emerge from this as Sons of Liberty.

What is not in doubt, in our minds, is that the Restoration Movement will be the most significant driver in North Carolina politics over the next four years. The leaders who stake their position on the concept that “it is right because the Federal government says that’s the way it going to be” will most likely to find themselves on the wrong side of history. Restoration is a change whose time has come. Mark our words.

If leaders like Speaker Tillis refuse to allow legislators to express their opposition to actions in Washington that are inconsistent with our Founding Principles then it is time for those legislators to adopt a resolution calling for a constitutional convention to restore our Founding Principles. And therein is the wisdom shown by the Beaufort County Commissioners.

Finally, we would share this from a highly respected constitutional law professor we once had. He said: “It is clearly the duty of the courts to find the constitutionality, or nay, of a statute or government action. But the finding does not make it constitutional or unconstitutional. It is either constitutional or not, and all the court does is do its best to find that condition. Finding it neither makes it so or makes it not so. It is the meaning within the Constitution that determines the constitutionality of an act. Sometimes we find the truth. Sometimes we miss it. The best we can hope for is a system that corrects itself when we miss.”

We commend Reps. Ford, Warren and the others supporting H 494 for their courage and wisdom in seeking to correct the system that has gone astray. And we extol our GOP legislative leadership to get with the program.