Post 33: The Power to Affect Change Has Always Been Ours - Start Exercising Your Power
Freedom and Liberty require eternal vigilance. This means active involvement and knowledge of the the law and the levers that you can use. Remember, elected officials are our servants.
Ivan Raiklin (on Substack!) has an interview that was caught on camera with an NPR producer (Zoe Chance, This American Life). This interview (you can watch it here) encapsulates the reality that is being denied and obscured by our media and institutions. We have more power than we realize to affect legal, lawful and patriotic change. Ivan Raiklin is a practicing attorney (Constitutional Lawyer) and a former Green Beret (Army, Lieutenant Colonel, ret)…both a powerful combination that provides a unique insight into what is currently happening in the US and Western republics and democracies.
He was even interviewed by Tucker Carlson and had some choice words for the status of the US Armed Service and the changes pushed by the DEI initiatives. See here. Additionally, an article in the New Republic has tried to paint him in a bad light…completely avoiding his service record as a Green Beret and his background as a lawyer (New Republic; Edith Olmsted - She was previously a breaking news intern for The Daily Beast, and social media intern for TNR. Before that, she received a Master’s degree from the Columbia Journalism School. She is based in New York City.)
One fact to keep in mind is the purpose of the Green Berets: counterinsurgency and psychological warfare operations. Raiklin clearly sees what is happening inside of this country, especially after seeing what happened when he was in active duty…because he was trained to identify and counter those destabilizing forces. Raiklin has developed a strategy, based on Common Law and Constitutional principles, that relies on State level autonomy and powers. Now, this is a last line of defense strategy but we need to prepare just in case.
The Last Line of Defense
Here’s how it goes. There are 3,143 counties in the United States. Each county has a Sheriff. The sheriff is the CLEO (Chief Law Enforcement Officer) for that county. The word sheriff is not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution and at the start of the country only two states, Pennsylvania and New Jersey adopted the Office of Sheriff in their Constitutions, meaning that the role of sheriff was not part of the Constitution of the united States of America. However, because Amendment X in the Bill of Rights:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
The role of sheriff is called a constitutional position because it was created by and empowered through each state’s Constitution rather than by a state law (statutes). The Constitution supersedes law. Laws can be made, changed, eliminated, and updated anytime, meaning government departments can be made, changed, eliminated or updated anytime - as long as they don’t violate the Constitution. In many cases brought forth to the Supreme Court, the use of laws and statutes have been interpreted to apply ONLY to Federal and State employees and officers
After the Ohio Constitution included the Office of the Sheriff as an elected position in their Constitution in 1803, almost every other state followed suit, so that in the United States today, of the 3083 sheriff’s, approximately 98% are elected by the citizens in their county or parishes. The Sheriff is an elected officers of the county and reports solely to the citizens within their jurisdiction, and not to any county employee or governing board.
What does that mean? The Police Chief, police commissioner, Governor or President are all BENEATH the Sheriff when it comes to law enforcement in the county/jurisdiction. The State AG or the local DA cannot compel the sheriff to carry out a writ, notice or court decision in the county IF the sheriff believes or has proof that the order or process is un-Constitutional (hence the very important need for an actual oath of office affidavit - true faith and allegiance). This is why it is vitally important that the sheriff of the county/jurisdiction have full and complete knowledge of both the State and Federal Constitutions…and why he or she SHALL SWEAR AN OATH TO BOTH.
The one thing that stands out is the preponderance of the party affiliation that is associated with all the counties displayed: conservative leaning - by a vast majority.
LAWFUL VERSUS LEGAL
The Constitution is the Law of the Land - but what does that mean? Many people use legal and lawful interchangeably but they have very different meanings and applications. At the federal and state level, the Bill of Rights enumerates the Rights that Shall be protected (not infringed upon) by the government that is established by the Constitution:
the Constitution, written by We the People, under the authority of God, to empower, control and restrict government servants. (Lawful)
Common Law which is written by God in the hearts of men (Lawful); and,
Constitutional Codes, Statutes, and Regulations which are written by Legislators for government agents and commercial activities, not the People! (Legal)
The distinction is made that the Constitution empowers a government to ensure the Right of the People and limit the sphere of power of the government to established and designated statutes.
Codes, statutes and regulations are not applicable upon the People. We the People did not, nor could we, give authority to legislators to write law controlling the behavior of the People. Samuel Adams said it clearly, “The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on Earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but only to have the law of nature for his rule.” (County Sheriff’s HANDBOOK, Prepared by National Liberty Alliance)
The U.S. Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land and lays a heavy responsibility upon those elected to serve the People:
ARTICLE VI: The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution.
Sheriffs, bailiffs and deputies are judicial officers and are required to be bound by an oath or affirmation, as required by both state and federal Constitution’s. For federal officers, as we have discussed previously (see Post 27), the requirement for having a sworn affidavit of affirmation is not a minor thing. 5 U.S. Code § 3332 is nondiscretionary and mandatory. As it stands (and if the AGs of each state would enforce), all orders given by a federal officer without an oath of office affidavit are null-and-void, making it a felony to carry out those orders. That means all the current Secretaries for DoD, HHS, DHS, FDA, DoJ, Interior and State are felons. All assistant secretaries and directors are aiding and abetting a federal crime.
So, if a sheriff has not sworn an oath AND signed an affidavit (with a notary seal), they are not LEGALLY and LAWFULLY a sheriff, bailiff or deputy. They are all criminals, usurping the position and status of the office.
OK…So What Happens If We Have Criminals in Our Elected Offices?
In the past, when the office of the sheriff was occupied by corrupt individuals, people got active…they peacefully and forcefully disagreed. This is not in the far past but is recorded in recent living memory, 1946. As written up in Military Times (Battle of Athens), people took up arms when things became unbearable. The article is a short read but it describes what happened when returning GIs from Europe (battle hardened and trained) ran into the corrupt practices of Tennessee's Crump Machine.
The sheriff and police forces routinely shook-down and arrested the towns people and the GIs, taking their money at the time of arrest and when setting bail. The community tried to go about it legally, running opposition candidates in the elections in Athens.
By Election Day 1946, things began to reach a boiling point. The veterans first tried the democratic way of changing the government. They formed a nonpartisan political party and ran against the political machine, which was now running Cantrell for his old office.
The election was the largest in local history. WWII veterans from around Tennessee came out to help their brothers-in-arms watch the polls for any signs of fraud. The sheriff's office also hired outsiders, but they were to watch the GIs.
As Election Day dragged on, the vets learned that armed deputies were outside polling places. Then, news of irregularities and violence poured in.
A legal representative for the GI Party was arrested for protesting voting irregularities. Soon after, an elderly Black farmer was beaten and shot by a deputy for trying to vote in one of the precincts. The GIs descended on the location, forcing the offending deputy to almost fight his way to his cruiser with a loaded pistol and the ballot box. Deputies arrived at the GI Party Headquarters to make arrests for the incident but were beaten and taken captive.
That was not the end of the election. Both the townspeople and the GIs had reached their limit and knew that the elections were being stolen…right in front of their eyes. The fight over the ballot boxes was on, with the sheriff taking possession of the boxes and getting ready to declared victory at sunset (same day election results were (amd are) still required by law in Tennessee). Violence was being perpetrated by the ELECTED and APPOINTED sheriff, deputies and police officers onto the electorate to keep them from monitoring the counting and validity of the election results.
The GIs raided the National Guard armory, appropriated the weapons, ammunitions and explosives and pinned down the sheriff and deputies at the local jail.
Shortly after 2:30 a.m., the veterans dynamited the jail and the police cars. The deputies at both the jail and the courthouse surrendered and handed over the ballot boxes.
But Mansfield and Cantrell weren't among them. They had sped out of town in an ambulance during the firefight.
The liberated townspeople were ready to kill the deputies for their decades of corruption and harsh treatment -- but the GIs kept them largely at bay. In the days that followed, the World War II veterans of McMinn County dutifully patrolled the streets, an occupying army that kept order.
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." -John F. Kennedy
One of the repeating themes I see in the Unites States is the restraint that is shown by the vast centrist populace in this country. The story of the Battle of Athens is a study on the patient, restrained and appropriate reaction of a people that value their community and institutions that give voice to their needs and aspirations.
Was violence necessary in the Battle of Athens?
I don’t think that is the right question to ask, in this case.
The People have the right to seek redress for their grievances - which they did in Athens. They took steps, afforded to them by the Law and Constitution, to change the members in the power structure.
When those in power used force and intimidation, instead of reason and discourse, to maintain the trappings of legitimacy to exercise their power, the People took the final step in redressing this ultimate violation of Right - they exercised restrained force.
This is in no way an advocation for violence…but the parallels between the 1946 election in Athens are echoing today. What I am witnessing in the United States is the mobilization of a slumbering centrist electorate - peaceful and law-abiding People that are witnessing the violation of the Law and Constitution by members of the county, state and federal government.
I do not foresee a civil war erupting in the United States. There are a minority of deranged and violent individuals (including internal and extra-state agents from domestic agencies and foreign nations) that will attempt to instigate violence. They will attempt to start this violence by denying the legal actions of voting, vote counting and auditing.
The best way to keep this from happening is to remind our elected officials of their oath and to remember the lessons of history.
Until next time.
Tell a friend.