Dobbs hosts founder of “very interesting” Tenth Amendment Center

From the September 17 edition of United Stations Radio Networks' The Lou Dobbs Show:

DOBBS: Well, there we are. The 10th Amendment to the United States Constitution, language ratified back on December 15th, 1791. My guest now says our nation's Founding Fathers had very good reasons to pin the 10th Amendment; he joins us now for a Constitution Day history lesson. Michael Boldin is the founder of the Tenth Amendment Center -- and Michael, it is great to have you with us.

BOLDIN: Lou, it's an honor to be here. Thanks for having me on.

[...]

DOBBS: Well, you know, I -- you have a website that is, I think, very interesting, and one that people should know about, and it is the TenthAmendmentCenter.com. That's 10th, T-e-n-t-h, Amendment Center, and you've got your 10-4 Pledge. Tell everybody what that is.

BOLDIN: Well, what we're trying to do is find the politicians that get out of this left-right discussion, like you talk about so often. It isn't just “Democrats are going to save us from Republicans” or “Republicans are going to save us from Democrats.” What we're looking to find are people that are running for office or in office that are focused. The number one issue on every political decision should be: Where in the Constitution is this authority?

And we have a 10-point, 10 affirmations about the role of the federal government under the Constitution and 10 promises. One most prominent one is, “I will vote in favor of the Constitution every issue, every time, no excuses, no exceptions,” and those are the only type of people that we should be voting for.

We just released this. This week we've already got 20 signers, including Randy Brogdon who's running for governor in Oklahoma, Mike Folmer in the state Senate in Pennsylvania, and a number of other good, state legislators around the country.

DOBBS: Good. Well, Michael, thanks for being with us. We wish the best. Come back soon, we've got a lot to talk about.

BOLDIN: Couldn't have picked a better day. It's been an honor chatting with you, Lou.

DOBBS: Good to talk with you, and Happy Constitution Day; Michael Boldin -- who runs the Tenth Amendment Center, and that's a Los Angeles-based think tank, by the way. Thetenthamendmentcenter.com: you can go there, and I would urge you to do so.

TenthAmendmentCenter.com publishes pro-secession articles

“Decentralization for Socialists: A Brief Primer,” reprinted from LewRockwell.com. The essay argued “a peaceful, just, and democratic solution to a centuries-old problem” would be to "[l]et the people of each sovereign state decide their own fate." The essayist argued strongly in favor of “decentralization” and bemoaned “the amount of time the modern statists, particularly on the Left, spend labeling the idea of decentralization and secession as 'kooky.' ” [Tenth Amendment Center website, posted 8/25/09]

“State sovereignty is a long-standing American tradition.” In a partially republished Charleston City Paper commentary by Jack Hunter, Hunter cited Kirkpatrick Sale, “author and director of the Mulberry Institute, a pro-secession think tank,” as saying, “Of course, it is true that the particular secession of 1861-65 did not succeed, but that didn't make it illegal or even unwise. It made it a failure, that's all. The victory by a superior military might is not the same thing as the creation of a superior constitutional right.” Hunter added, in the part of his commentary reprinted on the Tenth Amendment Center's website: “Sale raises a good point. If the Founding Fathers had lost the American Revolution to Great Britain, would the colonial's quest to secede from England have been decided forever, all because of a military loss? The idea that the U.S. could still be an outpost of the British Empire is one that many today would find as laughable as some find secession.” [Tenth Amendment Center website, posted 5/19/09]

“Guns, Gold, Secession.” The post by contributor Karen De Coster praised recent state legislative activity, in which "[t]wenty-eight states are invoking the law of the land, the U.S. Constitution, by rolling out legislation to assert their sovereignty as free states in order to keep from being undermined by the never-ending swarm of unrestrained federal decrees." De Coster argued that "[g]uns are the tools with which you defend yourself, not only from the local criminal who wants what you have, but even more so, they provide free men with the capability for physical resistance from a federal government whose expansion of powers and oppressive tactics are out of control." And, the post concluded, “The only way to get this oppressive tyrant -- known as the federal government -- off our back is to break away from it and start anew.” [Tenth Amendment Center website, posted 4/5/09]

“If At First You Don't Secede.” A “guest commentary” by “VirginiaConservative” argued that "[s]ecession, in my mind, serves as final tool to bulwark against the threat of tyranny. ... It should serve as a last resort to advance the cause of liberty, freedom, and self-determination." While the author described secession as an “extreme option” and expressed “hope that American government can be restored rather than broken apart,” the author concluded: “If we lay aside or are stripped of the principles and values under which this nation was founded, then I have little choice but to say, 'If at first you don't secede...' ” [Tenth Amendment Center website, posted 2/3/09]

Transcript

From the September 17 edition of United Stations Radio Networks' The Lou Dobbs Show:

DOBBS: Well, there we are. The 10th Amendment to the United States Constitution, language ratified back on December 15th, 1791. My guest now says our nation's Founding Fathers had very good reasons to pin the 10th Amendment; he joins us now for a Constitution Day history lesson. Michael Boldin is the founder of the Tenth Amendment Center -- and Michael, it is great to have you with us.

BOLDIN: Lou, it's an honor to be here. Thanks for having me on.

DOBBS: So, why the 10th Amendment? It's a clear effort to emphasize the limited nature of the powers granted to the Federal Government. Why was the amendment itself necessary?

BOLDIN: Well, what the founding generation had to live under for so many years was a government that had an unwritten constitution, a government that had absolutely no limit. And we should all know from our -- just a light study of history that a government that doesn't have rules that guides behavior is a tyranny. So the Founders created this constitution that said that the federal government would be authorized to exercise only those powers that were delegated to it in the Constitution. And that's what the 10th Amendment codifies in law -- that anything not given to the federal government by we the people is kept back in our state governments or in our own hands to deal with how we see best.

DOBBS: You know, you don't even hear a discussion right now -- and haven't for some time -- a discussion of states' rights as once we did in this country. There seems to be sort of an acquiescence to the federal government as the -- as the end all, the power that dominates in every quarter of our lives. Why is that?

BOLDIN: I really don't know, and I think you've been reporting on this for a long time, too -- is the sad thing of it all is that the one thing that the federal government does well is it breaks your leg, and then a few years later, it comes in with a solution to the problem it created. And then, on top of it, it's going to tax your children, your grandchildren, and their children to pay for it for years and years and years.

And the reality is, is that the Founding Fathers created a system of government with the most difficult issues, the most divisive, the most -- tough decisions were kept close to home in state governments. That way, you can have people of so many different backgrounds, like we have in this great country, all living together in peace and harmony. They don't have to always battle over who's going to control the federal government and force you to have a toilet of a certain size or force you into a certain health care program or whatever it may be. People can decide those things close to home.

DOBBS: The 10th Amendment, is it in effect being ignored by our political leadership?

BOLDIN: Oh, absolutely. And I don't think there's many politicians that ever refer to the federal government, their power as being limited. The people created the federal government to be their agent for certain enumerated purposes, and a simple reading of the Constitution, which is in plain English, so that there's approximately 35 powers that we gave to the federal government -- and not listed in there, for example, are cap and trade, and health care, and most everything that they do. An interesting thing, Oklahoma recently was looking to pass or introduce a state constitutional amendment making English the official language of the state.

DOBBS: Right.

BOLDIN: And that's something that should be left to people in Oklahoma to decide. What kind of paperwork they want to have, how much they're going to spend on these things, et cetera, et cetera. So they get a letter threatening them from the federal government, from a -- the person below Holder, saying, “Well, you're going to lose all kinds of funding.” So they used this funding thing from the federal government, money that they take from us in the first place to twist states' arms to follow their dictates.

DOBBS: Yeah, it's crazy what is -- what happens here. What are some of the most prominent examples of the 10th Amendment being ignored?

BOLDIN: Well, I think the big one, and the one that's the hot button issue today, is health care. If you look through the Constitution, there's nothing, nothing whatsoever, at least in the original understanding of the Constitution. Now, mind you, the Supreme Court, those unelected judges in Washington, will not agree with me. They think that the Constitution is different than what Jefferson and Madison and the rest proposed to us.

But there's nothing in there that allows the federal government to take money from you to force you to pay for health care program for someone else or even for yourself or to penalize you for not joining in a program. The proper way to do that, if they were going to follow the Constitution -- whether you oppose it or support it -- is to keep those decisions in state government.

Now Massachusetts has their own single-payer system. I think it's an utter failure, but that's constitutional. If the people of Massachusetts wants to choose a failed or a bad health care strategy, that's their right under the Constitution.

DOBBS: Well, you know, I -- you have a website that is, I think, very interesting, and one that people should know about, and it is the TenthAmendmentCenter.com. That's 10th, T-e-n-t-h, Amendment Center, and you've got your 10-4 Pledge. Tell everybody what that is.

BOLDIN: Well, what we're trying to do is find the politicians that get out of this left-right discussion, like you talk about so often. It isn't just “Democrats are going to save us from Republicans” or “Republicans are going to save us from Democrats.” What we're looking to find are people that are running for office or in office that are focused. The number one issue on every political decision should be: Where in the Constitution is this authority?

And we have a 10-point, 10 affirmations about the role of the federal government under the Constitution and 10 promises. One most prominent one is, “I will vote in favor of the Constitution every issue, every time, no excuses, no exceptions,” and those are the only type of people that we should be voting for.

We just released this. This week we've already got 20 signers, including Randy Brogdon who's running for governor in Oklahoma, Mike Folmer in the state Senate in Pennsylvania, and a number of other good, state legislators around the country.

DOBBS: Good. Well, Michael, thanks for being with us. We wish the best. Come back soon, we've got a lot to talk about.

BOLDIN: Couldn't have picked a better day. It's been an honor chatting with you, Lou.

DOBBS: Good to talk with you, and Happy Constitution Day; Michael Boldin -- who runs the Tenth Amendment Center, and that's a Los Angeles-based think tank, by the way. Thetenthamendmentcenter.com: you can go there, and I would urge you to do so.