Government in Exile
columnist: Larry Ward

Topic: Ron Paul
The Liberty Card- An offer Ron Paul can't refuse

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Ron Paul's proposed march on Washington seems to me like a frivolous expenditure of the political capital we have invested in him. Let's use techniques we've learned campaigning for him to appeal to him to do better.

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by Larry Ward
(libertarian)
Wednesday, March 19, 2008

The Liberty Card - An Offer Ron Paul Can't Refuse

"Hope for America" was the slogan of Ron Paul's Presidential campaign. I, for one, understood that slogan in the context of Republican President Lincoln's prophetic identification of America as, "the last, best hope of man on earth". The collapse of the campaign then, is to me, the collapse of that last best hope of man on earth- a declaration that there is no hope. I for one, will not settle for this while there is breath in my body. We have to jump start the Revolution. How can we do that?

Dr. Paul calls for a march on Washington as a symbolical statement that a remnant exists that will never acquiesce, (that is, submit or comply silently and without protest), to the dissolution of American government, life and law and to the literal and corporal dissolution of America's territorial sovereignty, by way of the North American Alliance that the elite are building.

But it seems to me that this proposed march on Washington merely further exhausts our financial and personal resources on action that has no purpose and accomplishes nothing. It presents us to the majority as a bunch of kooks and by exhausting our resources, it does as much as MSM and the political establishment to abort our efforts to get America back on the right track. As the proverb says, "God defend me from my enemies. But God SAVE me from my friends." (And though I challenge Dr. Paul here, please understand that I still honor him as my friend and the friend of our common cause.)

We have invested a great deal of time and money and put our personal integrity on the line to support Ron Paul's bid to be our representative and the representative of the laws and values we hold dear. If you agree that he misrepresents us in this action, I ask you here to join me in sending a wake up message to our representative. We signed up for action and real change, not just for pageantry that lets us feel good about losing our liberty. That is how the representative government that is established in our Constitution, and that we seek to restore, works.

One of the great accomplishments of the Ron Paul campaign is the discovery that with the appearance of the internet, when men and women who think independently, arrive independently at the same conclusion, we have means to speak with a united voice that cannot be ignored. Even MSM, however begrudgingly, had to acknowledge the volume of our independent email. Let us use this tool to move our candidate to action that represents our interests. If you agree that the march on Washington misrepresents us and that the action I propose will redeem this error and get us back on track, then forward this article to all you friends and contacts and meetup groups and forward it too, to mail@RonPaul2008.com. If you cc me at No National ID on the email to Ron Paul I will keep you apprised of any progress that is made and any reply from Ron Paul that may be forthcoming. I will also be able to track the volume of support for the action that is proposed here.

This march on Washington is ill conceived but since it is set in motion, let us be sure that it advances our cause instead of setting it back. Its declared purpose is to show solidarity and resolve among those of us who resist fascist usurpation of American government, life and law. But it will show, instead, that whatever resistance exists is powerless and politically bankrupt if it is just a stage for the usual grand standers to rush the podium and appeal to our emotions with hot air, empty rhetoric and meaningless pageantry. It is one thing to say that we won't take it any more and quite another thing to show that we won't take it anymore.

There is a Sign Ron Paul can make at this assembly in Washington that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of defining our minority view and presenting it to the majority in such a way that, over time, it will be recognized by the majority as the right point of view and the point of view that they should vote for in future elections.

In May, the national ID card will be upon us. Dr. Paul has called it an abomination and inarguably, the instrument of a fascist state. What then must we do? It is not a thing that the founders or even Americans as recently as 1960 would have tolerated. No protest marches would have been needed because the state would have known better than to even try it.

But all signs indicate that we will acquiesce to this abomination. We'll go along to get along because without this ID we won't be able to drive a car or get employment or get through terrorist checkpoints that will inevitably pop up along America's highways. We'll need the ID to enter public buildings like court buildings so that without it, we won't be able to enter a court to exercise our right to present a defense. We'll need the national ID card number to get phone or electric service and to vote. We'll need the ID number to get car insurance and without insurance we can be stopped on the highway and taken away in handcuffs. In all cases, we will be presumed guilty of terrorist intent unless we are able to prove our innocence by a card showing that we are registered with, and recorded on the data base of, an national police network. The fundamental and inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness will become privileges granted by the police state.

Furthermore, we will close our eyes as any individual who courageously defies this abomination is taken away in handcuffs. We will watch Fox News reports that demonize a selection of individuals who are arrested for failure to have their papers in order. They will select such creeps and portray them in such a bad light that we will be able to wash our hands of responsibility for securing the 4^th Amendment right of all citizens, even those who are not socially, "top tier", to be secure in their persons, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures. The preposterous claim that all citizens of the United States are presumed guilty of terrorist intent and potential until proven innocent by registration in a national police data base is not reasonable or even rational. If it is not fascism, what pray God is?

So, Doctor Paul, if you are the champion of the Constitution and the leader of lawful resistance to fascist usurpation of America, then go to the march on Washington that you propose. Go to that assembly of those who have given you the role of leader of our resistance and stand before them, and before the TV cameras and before the sea of video cameras that will shout the event across the internet on You Tube- and lead. Show the world that we mean what we say- that we do more than pay lip service to liberty- that we will exercise our legal rights and defy those who illegally usurp them.

Go to the march on Washington, Dr. Paul. Take the podium and before the eyes of all the world, burn your national ID card (or facsimile thereof). Show the world that Doctor No, for one, will not tolerate this criminal violation of the most fundamental, Constitutional rights of every citizen of the United States.

Passive resistance is somewhat more than passive acceptance. Ghandi began his public life by burning the ID card which the Apartheid government of South Africa forced him to carry. It is entirely proper then, if we claim to follow his lead, to burn the National ID card that the police state now forces on us. Nor can we in conscience, acquiesce to the National ID card if we claim to obey the counsel of the founders and to revere the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration says that when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce us under absolute despotism, it is our right and duty to overthrow such government. The founders acted with reliance on the protection of divine Providence and mutually pledged to each other their lives, fortunes and sacred honor. We cannot claim their authority if we do less.

Passive resistance is not passive acceptance and neither is it anarchy or nihilism. We do not seek to overthrow the government or the Constitution but to overthrow those who pervert the Constitution. When the National ID is burned, we must present a lawful and creative alternative to that instrument of fascism and its police state. My colleagues and I propose a liberty card, a voluntary, photo identification card which is not registered with any police department. It is notarized affirmation that the card bearer has provided adequate proof to a notary that he or she is who they say they are. The right to move freely, without police intervention or permission, is an inalienable right secured by common law, the Constitution and innumerable court precedents. No identification card should be required to walk down the street in America. But this voluntary ID carries some benefits that make it desirable and it may be useful for cashing checks and conveniences of that kind.

A few of us already carry a prototype of the Liberty Card along with a writ which cites Constitutional and judicial authority which confirm the card carrier's right to travel where they please without police permission or intervention. The writ also includes a Miranda warning to police, enumerating the tort liabilities to which they are exposed for unlawful intervention in the individual's exercise of the right to walk or drive down the street or exercise any other liberty of a citizen of the United States. With investment of a small amount of the political capital that concerned citizens have put at your disposal, as little as a word of recommendation, we can produce these legal instruments, the Liberty Card and writ to travel on demand and with value added.

Really, any citizen is at liberty to secure notarized confirmation of their identification and address, etc. and print their own card. But we can produce this card in a way that is just as convenient and economical and use the small fee that we would charge for producing the card, to create a pro se legal service that will post bail and provide counsel for presenting a legal defense, to any individual who is unlawfully arrested or in any other way harassed for refusal to comply with the unlawful, national ID card requirement.

We can also provide instruction in methods of filing in the federal courts, tort complaints (law suits seeking financial compensation for damage that is done to us) against state and federal bureaucracies and individual bureaucrats and police when they violate an individual's rights. As police often remind us, ignorance of the law is no defense for violation of the law. No judge or agency or its police or bureaucrats can plead ignorance of the 4^th Amendment because they swear in their oath of office to uphold the Constitution and its Amendments.

We can also file a standard amicus curiae (friend of he court brief) in any court action taken against any individual who is prosecuted for refusal to comply with the illegal National ID legislation or who initiates a complaint which challenges the authority of that legislation. We can further invite anyone who uses our liberty card service to allow their name to be used as a signator of the amicus curiae brief so that courts confronted with our brief will be compelled to defy the legal understanding of thousands of signators.

We're not just the internet but we are a minority. That is proven inarguably by the primaries. But so are the elite whom we challenge a minority. They do not govern by the consent of the governed but by the deceit of the governed. Their monopoly on media empowers them to bewitch the majority into believing that the evil intent and dire consequences of the national ID card and the long train of abuses and usurpations which led up to it, are the paranoid delusions of few nut cases, as the incalculably courageous (and therefore dead) martyr our movement, Aaron Russo, has shown. This deceit is the big lie, the matrix.

But this deceit, and the stranglehold on media by the minority that perpetrates this deceit, will collapse as government agencies and police use the National ID to claim ever increasing jurisdiction in the lives of ever increasing numbers of the majority. Then the majority will turn to us for protection under the law that is defined and established in our Constitution, and they will support our Revolution to restore Constitutional government. And we will once again have Constitutional government by the consent of the governed.

The march on Washington which you propose is a frivolous expenditure of the substantial political and financial capital that we have invested in you. But that expenditure can be redeemed with interest if you will take a leadership role in the action that is proposed here.

Talk to me,

Larry Ward

Las Vegas Nevada, March ??, 2008

No National ID

mail@RonPaul2008.com

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©2008 Larry Ward, all rights reserved. You must have written permission from the author in order to republish this work.
Published: Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Last modified: Wednesday, March 19, 2008

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