Authority

The rattlesnake receives nearly daily, e-mail messages from a man named Larkin Rose. Mr. Rose is one of the rare breed of individuals in this nation who is willing to “put his money where is mouth is” sort of speak. He has been a force in the truth-in-tax movement for many years. He just finished a stint in federal incarceration for standing up for freedom in the face of the federal courts. Many would say that Mr. Rose’s loss (i.e. losing a court battle that resulted in his being sent to jail) shows that his point of view has no merit. Nothing could be further from the truth. Just ask anybody who has had any dealings with federal courts and they will tell you that truth and real justice are rarely found inside a federal court room. Mr. Rose and his wife too, are courageous people who are to be admired. They are the sort who started this nation. If you want to receive Mr. Rose’s e-mails you can send a blank e-mail message to tmds-on@mail-list.com. He is a fun read and a thoughtful guy. The snake encourages you to get his messages. However, Mr. Rose did make a comment in one of his recent messages with which the rattlesnake has umbrage.
In his post dated November 11, 2007, entitled More of the Same, Mr. Rose asks, presumably a the rhetorical question, “Why does anyone still think that the belief in “authority” is a CIVILIZING influence?” Here Mr. Rose falls into the snare that many freedom fighters, which have had their butt kicked by tyrants, do. They begin to bad-mouth all authority as if the very concept of authority is evil. It is a reactionary response filled with very little logical thought. The entire universe is created around, and with, authority engrained into it. The rattlesnake has never met Mr. Rose or spoken with him personally, but I will venture to say that Mr. Rose believes in God. If he does not then he has no foundation from which to judge what was done to him by the federal courts as “wrong” -- for without God there is no foundational presupposition for belief in absolute truth; and if there is no absolute truth then might-makes-right. The guy with the biggest gun will tell you what truth is – period. But I know Mr. Rose believes in truth. The principles he stands for and espouses daily are secured by truth that is not subject to the mere opinions of men. What was done to him and other fighters across this land was and is wrong by absolute standards.
Authority, properly grounded and applied in concert with the mind of the Creator of the universe, is in fact, a civilizing influence. The ethics and economics of the Bible establish free enterprise and market driven systems as truth. The ownership of property is seminal to the individual responsibility God expects from all men. Slavery, as is created by a graduated, confiscatory income tax system, is degraded in the Bible. The laws of this nation were established and cemented in authority properly aligned with absolute truth of the bible. The problem Mr. Rose has, as do we all, is the fact that those imbued with the power of government have purposely discarded the values of the Bible. We are left, then, with a government of men not laws. This fact does not make true the canard that authority is incapable of having a civilizing influence. It does make true that authority, promulgated apart from absolute truth, is incapable of a civilizing influence.
Two quotes from the great statesman John Adams, say it all – in the rattlesnake’s opinion.

June 21, 1776 John Adams wrote “Statesmen, my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People in a greater Measure, then they have it now, they may change their Rulers and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting liberty.” John Adams believed, as did most of the framers, that authority was capable of a civilizing and free influence.
On October 11, 1798 President Adams stated in an address to the military “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Authority can and does have a civilizing influence. The most radical political and economic effort anybody can put forth for freedom and liberty is to lead their personal life, and thus this nation, back to the values of the Bible and our framers God. Think and be free.

The Rattlesnake

The Garden of Allah
(A tale in which the Devil visits a large Western city and finds that he has become obsolete).
Written by Don Henley, Stan Lynch, John Corey and Paul Gurian

It was a pretty big year for fashion
A lousy year for rock and roll
The people gave their blessing to crimes of passion
It was a dark, dark day in the collective soul
I was somewhere out on Riverside
By the El Royale Hotel
When a stranger appeared in a cloud of smoke
I thought I knew him all too well

He said, “Now that I have your attention
I got somethin’ I wanna say
You may not want to hear it
I’m gonna tell it to you anyway
You know, I’ve always liked you, boy
‘Cause you were never afraid of me
But things are gonna get mighty rough
Here in Gomorrah-by-the-sea”

He said “It’s just like home
It’s so damn hot, I can’t stand it
My fine seersucker suit is all soakin’ wet”

And the hills are burning
The winds is raging
And the clock strikes midnight
In the garden of Allah

“Nice car . . . . .
I love those Bavarians . . . . so meticulous
Y’know, I remember when things were a lot more
Fun around here
When good was good, and evil was evil
Before things got so . . . . fuzzy
Yeah, I was once a golden boy like you
I was summoned to the halls of power in the heavenly court
And I dined with the deities who looked upon me with favor
For my talents; my creativity
We sat beneath the palms in the warm afternoons
And drank the wine with Fitzgerald and Huxley

They pawned a biting phrase
From tongues hot with blood
And drained their pens of bitter ink
Vainly reaching for the bottle full of empty Edens
Branded specially for the ones
Who had come with great expectations
To the perfumed halls of Allah
For their time in the sun

We were stokin’ the fires
And oilin’ up the machinery
Until the gods found out we had ideas of our own”

And the war was coming
The earth was shaking
And there was no more room
In the garden of Allah

“Today I made an appearance downtown
I am an expert witness, because I say I am
And I said, ‘Gentlemen . . . and I use that word loosely . . .
I will testify for you
I’m a gun for hire, I’m a saint, I’m a liar
Because there are no facts, there is no truth
Just data to be manipulated
I can get you any result you like
What’s it worth to ya?
Because there is no wrong, there is no right
And I sleep very well at night
No shame, no solution
No remorse, no retribution
Just opportunity to participate in the pathetic little circus
And winning, winning, winning’ ”

It was a pretty big year for predators
The marketplace was on a roll
And the land of opportunity
Spawned a whole new breed of men without souls
This year, notoriety got all confused with fame
And the devil is downhearted
Because there’s nothing left for him to claim

He said, “It’s just like home
It’s so low-down, I can’t stand it
I guess my work around here has all been done”

And the fruit is rotten
The serpent’s eyes shine
As he wraps around the vine
In the garden of Allah

I doubt the rattlesnake and Don Henley would see eye-to-eye on world view matters. But I do think we both know how to recognize the devil.

The tale of two citizenships - Part I

In the early 1990’s some of my fiends and I began a journey that would make history. My education during this time, from 1989 to 1994, led me to Constitutional inquiries and revelations that would change my life.

I learned from the Constitution what a freeman (person) was supposed to look like before the law. Most folks in America think they live in a free country. Maybe they do and maybe they don’t. What I know for sure is that most Americans have no idea what a freeman looks like before the law and before society in general. I did not know either until I made it a point to learn it. What I learned was shocking, nerve racking and dangerous. Are you ready to hear what I know?

The United States of America is the most unique and ingenious system of governance ever to come about on the planet. The framers attempted to remove the historically proven “bad stuff” from other forms of governments while setting in legal motion many new and unparalleled elements. Governance by the consent of the governed, as apposed to rule by birth right, had virtually no precedence in history. Even the Romans had an emperor. Our forefathers trounced on the idea of the divine right of Kings. Their new system ensconced in the Constitution the requirement that one had to earn the ability to have governing authority from those whom they would govern. American citizens were different – we were, are, no longer subjects of a king but rather free and autonomous individuals before the State. The Supreme Court stated:

On the declaration of independence, it was in the option of any subject of Great Britain to remain British citizens or to become citizens of the republic. Ware v. Hylton, 3 Dall 199, 1 L Ed 568.

The very idea of royalty, especially when that royalty used their “divine right” to tyrannize their subjects, graded on the framer’s legal and moral intellect. Subjects are not freemen, plain and simple.

I under take a difficult task here, for this is a hard subject with which to stay on track and yet not loose the reader by leaving gaps in information. The intertwined principles and facts will come together, I promise, if you’ll just stay with the rattlesnake until the end. I will have to spread this over a number of BLOG entries. Therefore, stay tune to the rattlesnake to get the whole enchilada. Here is the first sign post, written by the United States Supreme Court, as we enter a network of jurisdiction, citizenship and subjects.

The courts presume you to be a federal citizen, without even telling you that there are different classes of citizens. It is up to you to dispute this. “Unless the defendant can prove he is not a citizen of the United States, the IRS has the right to inquire and determine a tax liability”. U.S. V. Slater, 545 Fed. Supp. 179, 182 (1982).

The context of this statement by the court is obviously from a tax case, but I do not want you to focus on that. This statement alone could run us down many avenues, but let’s take a moment to deconstruct it. What are the main legal points the court is trying to get across?

First, the courts (notice the plural) presume you to be a federal citizen. So we have a Supreme Court acknowledgement of a federal citizenship class. Second, the courts will not tell you what other classes of citizens exist – but there are others. Third, it is up to you to know all of the classes of citizens and to dispute the court’s assumption if you are not a federal citizen. And, in order to be thorough with our deconstruction, the court’s presumption, if allowed to stand undisputed, allows the Internal Revenue Service, in this case, to inquire and determine tax liability. So what are the other citizenships you and I must better be aware of?

Before I get to the other citizenship, I want to digress and run down one rabbit trail. In law, a presumption may stand as fact unless it is disputed. The courts are not mean; it is just that it is not their job to teach anybody the law. No matter what you attempt to accomplish in any court, you had better know exactly what you are doing. What if, in the Slater case above, the person was not actually a federal citizen and thus, presumably, not subject to IRS inquiry and tax liability. This defendant, not being aware of other possible options open to him, and certainly not being told by the court, will watch as the court’s presumption of federal citizenship stands, against the defendant’s own ignorance, and the combination of the two will be (probably) a nasty outcome for the defendant -- an outcome that could possibly have been avoided had he only known about other citizenships under which he may reside and make a defense. You mean to say that the courts would let me walk into a morass without any warning me while they are in full knowledge of the truth? You ask. Yes they would and do all of the time. Now back to our topic.

Certainly, if a person is visiting from say France, and finds themselves in an American court, they would not be a federal citizen and could easily dispute the court’s assumption; this is not really what the court is referring to. There is another citizenship in America. Read, again, the United States Supreme Court:

The term resident and citizen of the United States is distinguished from a Citizen of one of the several states, in that the former is a special class of citizen created by Congress. U.S. v. Anthony 24 Fed. 829 (1873)

The other citizen class is a sovereign, native born American citizen of one of the several states.

In our country the people are sovereign and the Government cannot sever its relationship to the people by taking away their citizenship. Afroyim v. Rusk, 387 U.S. 253, 18 L.Ed. 2d 757,761,87 S. Ct. 1660 (1967)

The special class of citizen created by congress is the class called United States citizen. It was created by the 14th Amendment. The following ruling makes it clear that birth on American soil is a sufficient and complete right of citizenship declared by the Constitution:

The power of Congress to regulate naturalization under the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution does not include the power to restrict the effect of birth to constitute a sufficient and complete right of citizenship as declared by the Constitution.
United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 US 649, 18Ct 456.

So you see there are two distinct and separate citizenships known to and recognized by the courts; the Federal United States citizen created by congress in 1868 through the 14th Amendment and the sovereign, native born Citizen guaranteed by the Constitution. Why did Congress create a citizenship? What citizenship(s) existed before the special creation of congress? What are the legal differences between the United States Federal citizen and the state Citizen? What, exactly, is a United States Federal citizen? What exactly does this fact of two citizenships mean to you and me as American’s and freemen? I shall enlighten you. Stay tuned for the next BLOG entry on this topic.

The rattelsnake

Atheist losers

If the rattlesnake were to create a list of the snake's top ten losers in America today, Christopher Hitchens would have to top the list. Why? Because he is the new patron saint of atheists -- and all atheists are losers. Atheism is lunacy, and atheists are insane idiots. Insane people cannot separate reality from fantasy, and the truly stupid people create a belief system out of fantasy.

No atheist would attempt to propagate the idea that a wrist watch--a time piece worn on a person's wrist--could ever come into existence without a designer and builder. It would be shear lunacy to even suggest, let alone, assert as fact, that all of the raw elements of a wrist watch (say a beautiful Movado) could somehow pull themselves out of the rocks and earth from which they come; pile themselves into some sort of order then (somehow) change into the finished components (i.e. springs, battery, et cetera) that will eventually constitute a working time piece -- and do this all by themselves through purely random events and circumstances. If someone really believed this to be possible we would rightly think them insane. If they tried to teach it as fact we would call them stupid and give them tenure.

Compared to the complexity of the human eye or the universe, a wrist watch is child's play. If something as simple as a watch must have a designer and builder to exist, how in the, the (fill in the blank) can the universe exist through random chance and circumstance? It cannot, that's how. This universe was created by an all mighty being with infinite power and knowledge. It takes a mind more advanced than a watch to create the watch. Only an idiot, an insane idiot, would look at the complexity of this universe and affirm that it all came about by accident. A fool says in his heart and mind that there is no God. Christopher Hitchens is a loser, a fool who will lose is life if he does not accept the truth and turn to God for mercy -- as will all atheists.

When my wife suggested that I start a blog, to give some outlet for my incessant ranting and to no doubt give her some peace, I was hesitant. Who would want to hear my thoughts? I pondered. Nobody, came the answer over and over again. So I decided to not do it. But the ranting continued every time I read or heard something about our American culture, economy, science, religion, et cetera. So I once again began to explore a blog. I read one advice column about blogs and the writer told me that nobody really wanted to hear my ranting anyway. Yes! I pumped my fist. You’re not as good of a writer as you think you are, he advised – my grammar died at age 92. This I know full well – no surprise there. Finally, he asserted that I must come to grips with the fact that nobody would probably read my blog anyway, maybe my mom, and a few friends to fill a moment of boredom. All right, I was motivated now. It seemed this blog stuff was in keeping with my life’s philosophy; keep your expectations low and you’ll never be disappointed. So off I go into the blogasphere where nobody wants to hear what I have to say, I can’t effectively write about anything anyway and you don’t care. Oh, one more thing. Since this is my blog, I may make statements and assertions for which I will offer no supporting evidence whatsoever. When I feel like evincing my truth statements I will, if not, you will be left to determine the truth yourself. But really, if you think about it, isn’t this the way we should learn truth anyway?

The rattlesnake

Cowardly Christians

I am a Christian. I became a disciple of Jesus Christ during my stint in the Air Force in 1979. My world view is Christian. Science, sociology, law, politics, economics, ethics, psychology, biology, history, theology, philosophy are all areas of study where the Christian world view is clear and tenable. So, when I speak of Christianity and Christians I am speaking of my own. When I say Christians I mean those, and only those, who have a personal, born again, biblically evinced, relationship with Jesus the Christ. We know who we are. If you are not sure if you fit this description then you absolutely do not. If you would like to understand and have assurance, then get alone for about two hours, obtain a reliable copy of the bible (New King James, (New) American Standard, New International Version), open it to the book of John. Before reading the book, close your eyes and pray this (or something similar):

God, I am not sure if you are real or not. But I do have confidence that if you are real, and therefore the most powerful force in the universe, you can reach me. I am a finite human but you are the infinite God. I want to know you and your son Jesus if you will allow me. Please show me the truth. Please reveal yourself to me as I read this book from your word.

If after offering this humble confession and finishing the book of John in one sitting, you do not know God or His son Jesus, then you never will. If the infinite all powerful God of the universe has not revealed Himself, then you are not chosen; you have my complete and utter sympathy. But this is not the subject of this BLOG entry.

I am tired, sick and tired to be precise, of limp-spined, yellow-bellied, chicken-hearted Christians. I aim this especially at American Christians, but any Christian who is portrayed in the above list. Duty before self preservation should be the mantra of all whose eternal life has been bought and secured by the Savior. Instead, these Christians are afraid of everything. If making a stand for Jesus’ truth, in any arena, means any discomfort or potential danger or risk, any at all, they will give up their duty to promulgate this truth in favor of self preservation. Jesus said that if you love anything more than me you are not worthy of me. Self preservation is definitely included. I can think of many illustrations of this activity, but I will pick one that is a particular peeve of mine.

First Peter, chapter 2, verse thirteen says that Christians are to submit to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake. Cowardly Christians use this verse to avoid any conflict with governing authorities, even to the loss of freedoms and property. But, do these Christians really believe this verse. I mean do they really believe that they are to obey every ordinance given by any legitimate governing authority. I propose that they do not believe this and that they should not. We hide behind this verse for self preservation. Let me explain using three examples.

Ask your self these questions and answer honestly even if you feel a trap coming on. Is the government of Canada a legitimate governing authority? Yes it is. Is a Christian in Wyoming required, by the order in I Peter, to obey every ordinance of man coming out of Canada? No he or she is not. Is a Christian in Denver, again a legitimate governing authority, required to obey ordinances from Houston? No. The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) is a legitimate governing authority, is it not? If a Christian is not in the military are they required by this scripture to obey the ordinances of the UCMJ? Lets all say it at once. No they are not!! I trust you have pick up my point by now. No honest Christian really believes we are subject to every ordinance of man. We (rightly) believe that we are subject only to that authority which has legitimate rule over us. What are we talking about here folks? In the law we are talking about jurisdiction. In our nation there are as many as twenty differing types of legal jurisdictions – there may be more.

We are not required to obey ordinances from authorities that do not have jurisdiction over us. However, there may be times when governing authorities step out of their lawful jurisdiction and attempt to ordain rules for everybody including those over whom they have no legitimate rule. Sometimes this is simply an inconvenience and others it is outright tyranny. Namby-pamby Christians will obey, say, the United Nations, or other "laws," out of fear of what might happen if they don’t. They act as though they are following God’s will according to I Peter, but they are really just afraid of what duty may call upon them to do, so they self preserve in the name of God. It is cowardly. I am ashamed of them.

The Hebrew midwives were given a direct order by a legitimate governing authority and they refused to comply. I know, I know they told Pharaoh that the Hebrew women were too hearty and that the babies were already born before they got there. The midwives could have still complied with Pharaoh’s orders by killing the infant anyway. These midwives had no intention at all of ever complying with this ordinance of man – hearty birth mothers or not. They saw themselves under the jurisdiction of God first and foremost – they put duty before self preservation. Their action is recorded for all time and praised by All Mighty God. May every Christian have the heart of these faithful servants? Persecuted Christians all over the world put duty to Jesus Christ over their families, businesses and very life. Christians in America cower when they are told they can’t read their bible in school or gather around the flag for prayer, or, God for bid, witness to somebody at work. The fear of man truly brings a snare. Shame on the cowards.

Finally, knowing that jurisdiction is critical to our duty before God and man; don’t you think that every Christian has a responsibility to know and fully understand the lawful jurisdictions under which he or she resides? Don’t you think that every Christian has a duty to know what true and lawful rule can be wielded by those governing bodies around them? Other wise how will we know when we are being set upon by unscrupulous men? The machinations of evil are often shrouded and need full light to be exposed. How can we as Christians shine the light of truth if we can’t even find the flash light of knowledge? So grow a spine, read a copy of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Study the bible and do your duty.

The Rattlesnake