GROUND ZER0, New York, N.Y.--Aug. 27, 2003--I’m watching Americans defying the U.S. federal government.   They are acting not unlike many people in Iraq who refuse to accept the occupational authority of the United States to run their country.

        Instead of guns and bombs, the American Federal Terrorists are kneeling, praying and protesting the removal of the 5,280-pound Ten Commandment granite monument placed in the lobby of Alabama’s Supreme Court by its Chief Justice two years ago.
        Many protest the removal of the Ten Commandments on a moral basis, arguing that without “God” the law cannot be morally administered.
        But, there is another issue shrouded by the religious-secular debate.   That is the occupation of a state by the federal government, and the trumping of state’s rights by federal rights.
        Individuality is the fundamental premise of American civil rights.   The right of anyone to speak his or her mind, to believe in what he or she wishes to believe in, and to pursue a lawful livelihood in whatever field chosen, preserves and protects the true principles of Freedom in America.

       At the core of these freedoms has been the right of the state to control its own destiny, in harmony with other states.    The federal/state is supposed to be the combination of each individual state, melded together with all their differences to make one “more perfect union.”
        Religion was the cornerstone of all  of our liberties.
        To the vast majority of Americans, it still is.
        So it is in Iraq.
        Iraq is torn into a variety of states, headed by religious beliefs that often clash with one another.   Clans and tribes form political factions, spinning around religious beliefs that each group claim is the “higher authority.”
        The United States in Iraq faces a massive problem of trying to federalize a nation that is divided not unlike America.
        America is the sum of fifty states.  It is also the sum of 285 million individual franchisees, the citizens of America.
         Each is granted the right of “individuality” not under the Constitution, but specifically by the Declaration of Independence.    The Declaration of Independence is the “higher authority.”   It stands above the Constitution, and gives the people the “right to revolt” against the potential onerous nature of federalism.

         In Alabama, the issue over the presence of the Ten Commandments in the lobby of the state’s Supreme Court is forcing a challenge between individual rights and federal rights.  Which one has the most power?
         Politicians and news pundits keep rolling the rock back to the Constitution of the United States, claiming that the “highest authority” of what’s right rests in the laws and edicts of the federal government.
         This is a fallacy.
          The Declaration of Independence keeps the true power of individual liberty alive.   The refusal to bend to federal law in the Ten Commandment case is not a defiance of the Constitution or federal law, but an act of solidarity between the people and the Declaration of Independence.
          Federalism would have us all believe that the Constitution is the singular document authorizing our freedom.    Federalists, and most journalists, forget to remind our children that our freedom as a nation was chiseled into history by the Declaration of Independence.   The U.S. Constitution did not come into effect until ten years after the victory of Americans over British rule.
         The Declaration was the primary weapon used to smash the federalism of Great Britain over the colonists.   When the government dictates how individuals can live, and tries to control the behavior of its citizens at their expense, then the right to revolt rises above all letters of law.
          That is the point of the Ten Commandments.   Moral law is being butted against black letter law.
           Federal law is trying to squeeze the testicles of state law.   Its purpose in this issue is to bend the state to the will of the “government.”   The government is assuming the rights of the people in the state of Alabama are less than the rights of the federal government.

          The federal order to remove the Ten Commandments from the lobby of Alabama’s Supreme Court building is similar to the Boston Tea Party.    It is “regulation without representation.”
            Heavy-handed governments risk revolution.
            Iraqi dissidents are killing roughly one American a day, as they protest the presence of the United States.    While we may argue against that violence, it is not dissimilar to the acts of Revolutionists attacking the British in 1775.   
            And what is happening in Alabama begs the question about our policy in Iraq.   Federalism both here and there is a form of latent Terrorism.   Its power rests quietly out of sight until it closes its fist and smashes down, reminding the citizenry that the Beast of Terror is often its own government.
           Iraq found that Saddam Hussein wielded a fierce fist, one that spilled blood of the innocent deep into the earth.

          The United States is constantly changing its leadership, fearful that any one group will amass far too much power and seduce the public into Complacency while it rapes and ravages the land.
            Power does corrupt.
            In Alabama, the issue is whether the fist of government has the right to smash the Ten Commandments.
            There can be no question about the right of dissent.  The people protesting in front of the Alabama Supreme Court are exercising their rights, not under the Constitution, but under the Declaration of Independence.   The Constitution bends to the Declaration.  All Constitutions do.
            As this is being written, there is a group of 25 men framing the new Iraqi Constitution.   This will be the fourth Constitution since the inception of the nation at the turn of the century.  
           What hasn’t changed, and will never change in Iraq, is the right of revolt.
           America and all nations reserve such rights to revolt.  It is a fundamental right, as fundamental as displaying the Ten Commandants or the Koran.
           What concerns me about the issue in Alabama is the state of Complacency.   Across the news little if any information at all is being told about the Declaration of Independence, or its power and position over the Constitution. 
          Certainly, politicians will not promote the document for it invites the removal of a government not serving the people.   It also empowers people to stand above the law as proscribed by governments.
           Laws, however, are not laws when issued by governments.
           Almost daily, thousands of laws are being created and few are being removed.   In California in one year, more the 1,800 laws were passed.  
           Once sodomy was a crime.  Now, the law has changed and it is legal.
           Laws that can come and go, and are decided by a group of human beings, are not laws at all.

           A law is an immutable, unchangeable force.  Gravity is a law.   Jump off a building and you’ll fall at 120 mph no matter what the Supreme Court says.
           Abortion is now legal in the United States.   Not too long ago it was a crime.   When laws shift with the winds, they cannot be laws.  They are mere human opinions cut out of the opinions of a few in behalf of the many or, in some cases, the few.
           Man-made laws are nothing more than vainglorious attempts to try and manage the behavior of others.    Not all such laws are bad. Many are well intended.  But are they “laws.”   Not hardly.
           They may be rules and regulations, but not laws.
            The Ten Commandments are laws.   They are the foundations of not of just Christians and Jews, but of every religion that seeks to evolve in a moral manner for the future security of their children.
           Moral laws belong not to any group, but to us all.   These Principles of Vigilance of human behavior cross all cultural lines, all economic, social and political barriers.  If one were to travel deep into the jungle where people had never come into contact with modern civilization and asked the chief of wisdom to share the “laws of moral behavior” for the tribe, the fundamentals of the Ten Commandments would appear.
            The words might not be exactly the same, but the Principles of Vigilance would be on target.  
            Men and women over centuries and centuries of evolution have come to understand the basics of right and wrong.   The federal government doesn’t need to tell them what is right or wrong.   It can try to manage right and wrong, but in the final analysis, it has no power to dictate it.   The people will do that.
           When governments assume the duty and responsibility to dictate the moral behavior of people, the people revolt.    It is their right.     

           The Catholic Church recently felt the sting of the public’s right to rule when countless violations of sexual abuse were shot like cannons at the fortress walls of the Church’s sanctuary.    The power of the people to crumble the secrecy of the Church prevailed.   Individual rights overwhelmed federal rights.   
             We must be careful when we teach our children about fundamental rights.  To teach children that the federal government, or the Church laws, dictate a person’s rights or his or behavior must bend to such laws is erroneous.
          Children must be taught that their rights as individuals come from a Higher Authority than any man-made laws.    Moral laws, embodied within the Ten Commandments and other moral guidelines such as the Koran and Bible, are the “higher authority.”

        The United States was formed on this Principle of Individual Vigilance.   Citizens of the colonies stood up to federalism and changed the “laws” governing them.   They used the “Rights of Man” as their authority.   They said the authority for governing themselves came from “God,” and that the highest authority of the land was the Supreme Being, who gave us all “inalienable rights.”
           In Iraq, there are people protesting the right of Iraq to form and shape its own destiny.
           In Alabama, the same drama is underfoot.
           We all need to step back and ask ourselves:  “What are we teaching our children?”   Are we teaching them they must conform to the “rules” or that they have the right to “protest” them?
           The Beast of Terror would have us accept the federal law removing the Ten Commandments.    He would have us think it is a religious issue, not a freedom issue.

          True freedom means we must have Courage in the face of Fear, Conviction to battle Intimidation, and Right Actions taken for the Children’s Children’s Children to undermine the threat of Complacency—non action, acceptance of the status quo.
             Teaching a child that he or she is protected by the Sentinels of Vigilance, and that it is his or her duty to make the right choices not just for him or her, but also for future generations so their rights are not threatened, is not an easy task.
             You can make it easier, however, by taking the Pledge of Vigilance (below) and practicing the Principles of Vigilance.
             Then, when someone comes to your door and tells you to remove your Bibles, Korans, crosses and other religious symbols because the government wants to protect the children from parents’ opinions, you can flash the Pledge of Vigilance into the face of the visitor.
             Vigilance is your Declaration of Independence.   As Thomas Jefferson once said:   “The price of Liberty is eternal Vigilance!”

Aug 26--Five Percenters Terrorists Attack America's Security

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