North Carolina USDC Sr. Judge Fox:

Continued Tyranny In America Has Changed The Constitution

As you decide whether to become more pro active in defense of the Constitution, consider what a sitting federal judge recently had to say -- on the record -- regarding the Constitution.

In March of 2003, just prior to the invasion of Iraq, Donald Sullivan, an active duty Lt. Colonel, and Jeffrey Sullivan, his nephew -- an
active duty Sp4 -- sued the government to prevent the application of the armed forces in Iraq unless and until the Congress declared war, in keeping with the war powers clauses of the Constitution.

A hearing for a temporary restraining order was held before the Senior United States District Court Judge James C. Fox. Note: The hearing was scheduled for March 21, 2003, without the knowledge that the war would start on March 20, 2005.

An official transcript of the hearing has been obtained by WTP.
http://www.GiveMeLiberty.org/RTPLawsuit/Documents/CarolinaJudge16th.pdf
(Right-click on the link above to download it to your computer before opening. 650 KB, .pdf)

Sullivan argued in relevant part, "I talked to the Governor; talked to the commander of the National Guard of North Carolina; wrote letters, as you saw in the exhibits, to the Congress asking how we can do this over and over and over without someone standing up and straightening things out. After the phone calls and the letters and no response, not even return phone calls in some cases from the congressional committees, because of the urgency of the case before the court, I went ahead and put the documents together and filed the case. Until the congress can meet and issue a declaration of war to the President, plaintiffs stand by their complaint. Plaintiffs [pray for] a final decision rendered to require the federal government to again obey the tenets of the constitution (page 4-5)."

At one point during the hearing, Sullivan admits that when he filed the complaint he did not expect us to be at war so quickly. He says, "I
would not ask the court in good conscience to stop hostilities now they've begun, but I would ask the court to require the congress to make it right for the future so we don't make this same mistake again. We've been in, as I said in my complaint, 240 different conflicts since 1947, and I can't identify one of those that was protecting my domestic security or my constitution (page 20)."

Remarkably, at this point, Judge Fox says, on the record, that the President and the Congress have been in collusion violating the war powers for a long time and that this long course of history has changed the constitution. He said, "I think that it has occurred over a long period of time, and consequently, there is less hesitancy on the executive branch to preserve [the Constitution]. It's just like kids who break a rule the first 200 times and after a while they don't care; they don't acknowledge that the rule exists - the course of conduct over a long period of time has advanced that collusion, if you will, between those two branches (page 20)."

The, Judge Fox, completely on his own initiative, brings up the income tax and offers it as another example of collusion by the President and the Congress that, because it has occurred over a long course of history, has changed the Constitution.

Judge Fox says, "If you were to go back and try to find and review the ratification of the 16th Amendment, which was the internal revenue, income tax, I think if you went back and examined that carefully, you would find that a sufficient number of states never ratified that amendment. And nonetheless, I think it is fair to say that it is part of the constitution of the United States, and I don't think any court would ever set it aside. Well, I've seen that.  I've seen somewhere a treatise on that, and I think it was --- I think I'm correct in saying that actually the ratification never really properly occurred. Yet nonetheless, I'm sure no court's going to say that the 16th Amendment permitting income tax is void for any reason. I think there may be something analogous there vis a vis the continued
practice of the Executive to have incursions and police actions or to commit the country to hostilities without the formal declaration of war (page 22-24)."

Acta Non Verba

These comments by an active senior judge are clear evidence that the American experiment in self-government is in serious trouble and
America's Constitution is approaching the same status as China's "constitution" --- it reads well, but is meaningless.

The motto of the WTP organization is "Acta Non Verba," or "Deeds, not words."

Civic education, such as contained in this article is important, but education without civic action, especially when confronting governmental tyranny and constitutional torts, has never brought about the necessary reforms.

A Plan for Civic Education and Action to Restore The Constitution is needed.

We will have more to say on this in the near future.

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