Our Founders established the criteria of Natural Born Citizen upon our President for a very important reason. Natural Born Citizen meant, to our framers, a child born of two parents who were citizens of the United States at the time of the birth of that child.  If you are not sure of this, or perhaps disagree, please read this article based upon fact & history before you go on: https://goo.gl/sFkKUm

A person who is born of just one parent who is a citizen of the United States is a citizen by birth, but not Natural Born Citizen.  Someone cannot hold or have held dual citizenship with a foreign country and be a Natural Born Citizen.  The fact that we are confused by this qualification, or perhaps even wish to alter this qualification, must be because we do not understand WHY this qualification was established in the first place.  So, before we take a stand either way, we must consider the reasons why this qualification was established by the framers of the American Constitution.

The whole reason the president must be a Natural Born Citizen is because our framers had a history full of foreign kings imposing foreign law and foreign favor upon the people and they knew how dangerous foreign influence was to Liberty.  George Washington spent a great bit of effort trying to drive this understanding home in his Farewell Address of 1796:

“Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government.”

Washington knew from his history the real dangers of foreign influence.  Part of Washington’s British Constitution was a document called the Grand Remonstrance of 1641 in which the people of Great Britain listed many grievances against their King, Charles I.  They indicated that these grievance were indicative of a larger design to overturn and undermine Liberty of the people and the Law of the Land.  One of the grievances illustrates how foreign influence and foreign law have contributed to that destruction of Liberty:

“Such Councillors and Courtiers as for private ends have engaged themselves to further the interests of some foreign princes or states to the prejudice of His Majesty and the State at home.”

In another part of the British Constitution, this time the English Bill of Rights of 1689, the people of Great Britain actually require an oath of their King and his council to shun all foreign influence:

“And I do declare that no foreign prince, person, prelate, state or potentate hath or ought to have any jurisdiction, power, superiority, pre-eminence or authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual, within this realm. So help me God.”

Protecting the United States from foreign influence was very prominent in the minds of our framers, especially in the office of president.  At the time of the creation of the Constitution by the States there were no Natural Born Citizens so an exception was made until that qualification could be met.  Article 2 section 1 clause 5 reads:

“No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President;”

The exception to the Natural Born Citizen requirement was that the President must be a “Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution.”  Joseph Story in his “Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833” explains that this was to ensure that people who were “Patriots of the Revolution” could be considered for this office.

“This permission of a naturalized citizen to become president is an exception from the great fundamental policy of all governments, to exclude foreign influence from their executive councils and duties. It was doubtless introduced (for it has now become by lapse of time merely nominal, and will soon become wholly extinct) out of respect to those distinguished revolutionary patriots, who were born in a foreign land, and yet had entitled themselves to high honours in their adopted country.”

This is an important distinction that helps us understand WHY the Natural Born Citizen requirement is a must.  The President is the commander in chief of the military.  Our framers knew from their history that it would be extremely dangerous to allow someone of foreign influence to exercise power over our military.  Founder, John Jay wrote a letter to George Washington on July 25, 1787, expressing this very point.

“Permit me to hint, whether it would not be wise & seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government, and to declare expressly that the Command in chief of the American army shall not be given to, nor devolved on, any but a natural born Citizen.”

The commander in chief could have no fractionalized loyalty.  The commander in chief must be loyal to the United States, first and only.  Prior to being a Natural Born Citizen, the candidate for president would have proven that loyalty by having been a “distinguished revolutionary patriot.”  Once time established the availability of Natural Born Citizen candidates, that unbroken loyalty would be proven in party by the fact that both parents were citizens of the United States and establishing that the candidate would have been raised in a home with loyalty only to the United States.

When a child is raised in a home where one or both parents are citizens of a foreign country, then that child will naturally be raised with an attachment to that foreign country out of love for that parent.  Our framers knew that in time of military crisis, our commander in chief must be free from all attachments and bias with a foreign country and mattered not if that bias was for or against the foreign country.  The president must not hesitate or haste in matters of war.  He must only act upon the best interest of the United States, free from internal conflict.  George Washington explains this fact in his Farewell Address:

“Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other.”

Alexander Hamilton gives another perspective upon the Natural Born Citizen requirement.  He postulates why a foreign country might actually want to actually raise up someone to become president of the United States and the inherent danger in that possibility:

“Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one querter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union?”

Just as the birth of a child on US soil does not create citizenship in the parent, the birthplace of the child does not establish the status of Natural Born Citizen.  Throughout history citizenship has been based upon the criteria of the parents.  It has not been linked to the child.  This criteria of Natural Born Citizen does not deviate from that norm.

In summary, the entire reason for establishing the criteria for a president to be a Natural Born Citizen was to help to eliminate any possibility that the commander in chief of the military be influenced by love or hate of a foreign nation.  Because of this well established and historically justified reason, we should think very long and hard before we consider altering or diluting this established requirement through modern interpretation or modern court opinions.  Our framers did what they did on purpose and with a purpose.  We only endanger our Liberty when we assume they didn’t know what they were doing, and our advanced intellect means we can disregard their reasons for our own personal preferences.  We would do well to learn from this history, instead of dooming ourselves to repeat history’s mistakes.

Greetings Liberty Loving Patriots!  We are off to a great year for the Liberty First mission.  We have already taught hundreds of high school and college students, legislators, Sheriff Deputies, as well as Liberty minded (and some not so Liberty minded) groups.  I am working so hard, traveling and teaching on average of 265 times in over 20 States every year.  Who can put a price on the education of our young people and adults to drive the cause of Liberty?  What is our ignorance costing us?

I do not charge speaking fees, nor do I require groups to compensate us for travel and accommodations. This is so important because we are able to reach people that would not have the opportunity to hear these essential truths if I charged the fees that most speakers charge in this field.   We don’t ever want to change that philosophy, but we need your help because the reality of the airfare, car rentals, hotels and food are beyond what I am able to pay.  We must continue this mission to defend the Constitution and preserve Liberty!

These are our PRESSING Needs:

1. Vehicle Repairs
2. Airfare
3. Car Rentals
4. Hotels
5. Food

DONATE HERE: http://goo.gl/FlkYtC

There are so many things we want to do in the Liberty First mission.

1. We want to set up an online Liberty school, where we can have classes for people all the time, any time so we can reach more people at less expense to the ministry.
2. We want to increase awareness of my book Sovereign Duty, which is so important to the restoration of personal Liberty
3. We want to have more resources to give young people the education and tools they need to become Patriots on Purpose.

Your support of the Liberty First mission is essential to these projects.

DONATE HERE: http://goo.gl/FlkYtC

Please consider sowing the seeds of Liberty by sending the Liberty First mission a donation today.  If everyone who read this letter simply donated $5, $10, or more, we could have all we need to continue this mission, set up our online school, pay for the publicity we need to further the mission, and continue to give books away to students and teach without speaking fees.

Just a small seed of $5 or more could be all we need to plant the truths of Liberty for generations to come.

DONATE HERE: http://goo.gl/FlkYtC

Thank you for your continued support.  Thank you for helping us to fight for Liberty.  If you are unable to give, PLEASE PRAY for us.

“We must stand against tyranny today, or our children will bow tomorrow.”  Mercy Otis Warren.

In Liberty,

KrisAnne Hall

Hillary Clinton MUST be impeached.  Here is why…

Recently I wrote an open letter to Trey Gowdy​ that invoked quite a bit of ire from loyal Gowdy supporters.  If you haven’t read the letter, please do: http://goo.gl/pQutYx

In this letter I point out that Hillary Clinton MUST be held accountable and that Congress needs to stop making political excuses for her criminal behavior.  I even offer up the suggestion that Mr. Gowdy and Congress should be looking to Art. 2 Sec 4 for the solution to the Hillary problem.  Many loyal Gowdy commentors didn’t understand this application of impeachment, and I fear that Mr. Gowdy doesn’t either, so let me explain…

Art 2 Section 4:

“The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State, is a civil officer and because of the numerous documented instances of misconduct while in office, she MUST be impeached.

Some may try to argue that because Hillary resigned she is no longer eligible for impeachment.   That is simply not true and precedent has been established to the Contrary.

William Belknap served as Secretary of War under Ulysses S Grant from October 25, 1869 – March 2, 1876.  While Secretary of War, Belknap’s extravagant life style came into question.  You see, Belknap only made $8k a year but was known for his extravagant lifestyle and expensive parties.  Congress launched an investigation into his finances and found corruption that extended back to 1870.

According to Senate records, in 1870, “Belknap’s luxury-loving first wife assisted a wheeler-dealer named Caleb Marsh by getting her husband to select one of Marsh’s associates to operate the lucrative military trading post at Fort Sill in Indian territory.  Marsh’s promise of generous kick-backs prompted Secretary Belknap to make the appointment.  Over the next five years, the associate funneled thousands of dollars to Marsh, who provided Belknap regular quarterly payments totaling over $20,000.”

Some of the accusations against Belknap included, indirectly selling weapons to France and for accepting illicit kickbacks in exchange for making political appointments.  Gun running, kickbacks, political deals for financial gain…isn’t that exactly what evidence strongly suggests Hillary Clinton is or was involved in?

According to Senate records, “On March 2, 1876, just minutes before the House of Representatives was scheduled to vote on articles of impeachment, Belknap raced to the White House, handed Grant his resignation, and burst into tears.”

Belknap’s resignation did not stop his impeachment.  “Later that day, members voted unanimously to send the Senate five articles of impeachment.”  What was Congress’ chief accusation against Belknap:  “criminally disregarding his duty as Secretary of War and basely prostituting his high office to his lust for private gain.” I have never heard a better description of the tenure of Hillary Clinton.  Yet what does Congress do today?  NOTHING, but excuses.  I missed the Constitutional Amendment that changed the Congressional power exercised in 1876 into the powerless and excuse ridden Congress of today.  By the way, impeaching Hillary would preclude her from holding any future public office, ever.

But Congressional responsibility doesn’t end with Hillary Clinton.  According to James Madison, the father of the Constitution, their responsibility to impeach Hillary is not only established but also invokes an even bigger responsibility…to impeach the President, as well.

“It is very possible that an officer, who may not incur the displeasure of the President, may be guilty of actions that ought to forfeit his place.  The power of this may reach him by the means of impeachment, he may be removed even against the will of the President…[the president will be] in a peculiar manner, responsible for their conduct, and subject him to impeachment himself, if he suffers them to perpetrate with impunity high crimes or misdemeanors against the United States, or neglects to superintend their conduct, so as to check their excuses.” (The Writings of James Madison: 1787-1790, James Madison, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904)

Congressional hearings USED to actually have consequences.  Congress USED to exercise real power.  Congressmen USED to know their duty to the Constitution, their obligation to preserve Liberty, and their obligation to control the executive branch.  Nothing about the Constitution or the power of Congress has changed since 1876, so what has changed?  What has changed is the knowledge and courage of Congressmen!

If the President of the United States has direct power over his agents, is directly accountable for their actions, and can be impeached, himself, for failing to govern proper Constitutional control over his agents, shouldn’t Congress also be held accountable for their failure to govern proper Constitutional control over the executive branch?  Isn’t it time We The People start requiring real Constitutional proficiency, instead of simply accepting the flowery speeches and rhetoric as chief political qualification?

“No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffused and virtue is preserved. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauched in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders.” Samuel Adams

But then again, “what difference does it make, anyway?”

Government regulation of private business is never a good thing. Shocking statement isn’t it? But its true, so lets look at it.

1. First we must recognize that laws don’t stop crimes. If laws stopped crimes we would be a crime free country. Laws aren’t even designed to stop crimes. The criminal justice system is designed to define criminal activity and set up a mechanism to punish criminals. If laws stopped crimes, we would be a crime free country because we have way too many laws.

2. Next we must recognize that every “legitimate” regulation (one that is clearly geared at wrong behavior and not purely regulatory mechanism to raise revenue) is already covered by a criminal law already on the books. Once again proving point #1. If laws stopped crimes there would be no need to “double up” on bad behavior punishment with additional regulation.

3. Since we know that laws don’t stop crimes, how can we possibly believe that adding additional regulations on top of laws will do any more? Never mind the fact that the government is real good at selective enforcement of regulations depending on who you are.

4. So if we know laws don’t stop crimes and the additon of regulation can’t either, what could possibly be the real purpose of regulations?

Answer: Reinforcing in the minds of the people that government knows best. Giving more power to the government over the people. And finally, the biggest reason for regulations, in my opinion, making sure that people do not actually OWN their businesses and that everything is owned by government.

When government regulates private industry people do not and cannot own their businesses. People merely possess their business as long as the government wants them too. All it takes is one regulation that you can’t or won’t comply with and !zap! no business.

Some might claim that you can sue the regulatory agency if the regulation is really a bad one, but that is a false claim of reassurance. You have no business and no income because you can’t comply with the regulation, how are going to afford the law suit? Meanwhile the government will have deep pockets, filled by the regulatory fees you have paid and the taxes collected, to beat you into submission or bankruptcy; whichever comes first.

Let us not forget that you don’t get to sue the regulatory agency in a real court of law. You will first have to challenge them in an administrative law court where the judge is paid by the government to determine whether the government is following their rules. Constitution? Rights of the people? What are those in a court where the government owns and runs everything. Regulations create a monopoly of all industries because everything has a has a single owner, the government.

The problem is not lack of laws or absence of rules. The problem is selective enforcement of the laws we have and punishments that do not fit the crime.

I am for proper and equal enforcement of just laws within the required confines of due process. I am for complete deregulation of private industry and a return of businesses to their rightful owners, the people who built them. Why would I take such a “radical” position? Because it is the only position that supports Liberty. And #LibertyMatters!

Now I want to ask a question. Why would this position be radical? Why may those who read this feel uncomfortable with this position? It is after all not my original thought. I got it from James Madison:

“That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where arbitrary restrictions, exemptions, and monopolies deny to part of its citizens that free use of their faculties, and free choice of their occupations, which not only constitute their property in the general sense of the word; but are the means of acquiring property strictly so called. What must be the spirit of legislation where a manufacturer of linen cloth is forbidden to bury his own child in a linen shroud, in order to favour his neighbour who manufactures woolen cloth; where the manufacturer and wearer of woolen cloth are again forbidden the oeconomical use of buttons of that material, in favor of the manufacturer of buttons of other materials!” James Madison, Property, 1792

Guest Post by Robin Koerner

I have just paid my biggest bill of the year. The invoice was for a cool 9% of my entire annual income – or my “Adjusted Gross Income” (AGI) as it appears on my tax returns, which have just been filed. And that invoice was from my accountant who just filed them for me.

I have a pretty modest income – so modest, in fact, that my AGI is of the order of a half of the median household income across the United States – the kind of income that triggers significant subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. Even the “top line” of my income falls short of that median: so it’s not as if I’m earning loads and deducting huge amounts.

My financial life last year was pretty simple: my earnings derived from a modest real estate portfolio and some freelance/consulting work. My income is earned through my small business, which, for those who know about these things, is an S-corporation. I have no employees. I do no payroll.

Yet, I have just paid my accountant more than a month’s worth of income to complete my tax returns.

How many pages of tax returns do you think that I, a single individual, and my S-corporation (a small business) had to file, bearing in mind the small amount of income in question?

Frankly, there’s no good reason the answer is not one or two. But you already know the answer is more than that, don’t you?

Ten? Try again.

Twenty? Keep going.

Surely not 50?

You’re still not close.

Did I hear you say 100 – you’re going for three digits now? Wow.

Still not there.

The answer, my fellow American tax victims, is 149.

Just take a moment to absorb that. A sub median-earning American taxpayer, engaged in simple business activities, has a 149 page tax return. And if he doesn’t get it right, his error is punishable. Of that 149, about 100 go to the Feds.

Completing 149 pages of tax forms/schedules/supporting statements is a lot of work. And I know exactly how much it is, because of that big invoice from the accountant that I already mentioned.

It’s $2000 of work – my aforementioned largest bill of the year. And it’s $2000 of work I in no way could have done myself.

I’m no high school drop-out. I have a first class degree in physics from one of the best universities in the world. I like numbers. I like logic. I like intellectual rigor. I even have a nerdy love of spreadsheets (which tells me, for example, exactly how much I spent on groceries this month five years ago ($173.41, as it happens. I’m low-maintenance)).

But I could not reverse engineer those 149 pages of tax returns if my life depended on it. And I would defy anyone without a CPA qualification to be able to do so.

I have no complaint about my accountant, who provided very good service this year, but even he couldn’t get it right first time. As I type this article, I am awaiting “corrected” state returns (which are no shorter).

Moreover, as any small businessman knows, my accountant can only generate those 149 pages of returns after I have compiled all the necessary numbers and data in neat spreadsheets, nicely itemized and comprehensively annotated (two or three days’ work, right there, perhaps?). I know for sure that most tax payers are not as proficient with Excel as I am – so my accountants have an easy time of it with me. (He even told me so.)

Here’s the reality of the American tax system for modestly earning individuals who run small businesses:

My government has put me in a position where I must either pay 9% of my income to a professional just to enable me to avoid punishment, asset garnishment and even imprisonment. Supposedly, I can “do my own taxes”, but that is a joke. No one who has not gone to school for it could accurately complete those 149 pages with any honest degree of confidence – and I don’t care what software he’s using. Moreover, even if it were do-able, the time taken to learn how to do it and then do it properly would be measured in weeks, not hours. And we don’t get to invoice the IRS for our time.

Look in wonder, America, at the most regressive aspect of any taxation system in the world – its utter complexity to the point of Kafkaesque absurdity. And if you think it must be like that, literally a few days ago, the British chancellor announced the abolition of the annual tax return in the United Kingdom.

Can anyone, conservative or progressive, justify the need for self-employed individual to spend 9 percent of his income just to remain a free citizen in good standing or, should he not have the money to spare, to go to school to navigate his way through whichever of the 74,000 pages of the tax code apply to him?

If the tax code were sufficiently sensible that I could do my own taxes (which, as someone who likes money, spreadsheets and math, I’d be very happy to do), I could have paid the Feds double my actual tax bill – and still have been a thousand dollars better off on the money I’d have saved on tax preparation. Relative to the current situation, both I and the country would have been significantly better off.

It is established Constitutional Law (by Supreme Court precedent), basic morality and simple common sense that the government may not place an undue burden on a fundamental right – such as the right to stay out of prison even if one doesn’t have an accounting degree and the right not be forced to expend one’s property on anything other than actual taxes owed.

To quantify the absurdity, here’s a comparison I’ve never seen made before.

In the course of a year, my assets and non-business activities generate nine times as much tax (in the form chiefly of property taxes and sales taxes), as my end-of-year check to the IRS. The cost to me of compliance on that first nine-tenths of my tax burden is zero, while the cost to me of compliance with the other one tenth is about double the amount I actually owe.

You really can’t make it up.

Let me offer these thoughts, then, not as an article, but as an open letter to our government, the IRS and any Constitutional attorneys out there.

To the government, I am notifying you of the undue burden that you are placing on law-abiding citizens whose income, it happens, is deemed by recent legislation to be sufficiently modest that it wishes to subsidize my healthcare: the cost of this undue burden more than cancels out all such subsidies.

To the IRS, I ask this question. What will you do if I save my $2000 in preparation fees, pay you 50% more than I did this year, and I don’t complete those forms? A bonus to me of doing this would be that I don’t have to lie any more. Because we all know that you are forcing me to lie when I sign that paper saying “I declare that I have examined a copy of my electronic individual income tax return and accompanying schedules and statements for the tax year ending December 31, 2014, and to the best of my knowledge and belief, it is true, correct, and complete.”

… The real truth is that, “to the best of my knowledge and belief”, no person who is not trained, certified and engaged in daily work in the business of tax preparation, could possibly expect that he could generate a correct 149 pages of this stuff – regardless of how well he tried. And, moreover, the fact that he cannot is exactly why he can’t be expected to vouch for the work of the accountants whom he’d not have to hire if he did understand what on earth was going on in the first place.

Finally, and most importantly – to any Constitutional attorney: I can’t pay you (see above), but I have a tax return that will make your eyes bleed. Get me in front of a jury or, better yet, the Supreme Court, and let us ask 12 or nine reasonable people if the burden of completing this particular tax return – a requirement I must meet to retain my liberty and my property – is reasonable or not. And if just one of the jury or bench believes that a reasonably educated person could accurately complete my tax return in a reasonable period, I’ll be happily defeated – as long as he shows me how.

Otherwise, use me as a legal guinea pig to pull down this entire rotten structure that turns good people into unwilling law breakers or liars of both, reserving its very worst for those of us on modest means who wish to rise in the spirit of the American Dream, which our government and its agents seem all too willing to crush.

Our tax code is so complex that people our government deems too poor to buy their own health insurance must fork over nearly a tenth of their income just to comply with it. I cannot be the only one.
If I could reasonably compute my own tax – and it’s a matter of common law, surely, that a typical citizen must reasonably be able to meet all impositions of the state by his own means – I’d willingly pay double my current income tax because of all the money I’d save on compliance: I’d save enough to visit my family in England twice in a year; I’d save almost my entire year’s grocery bill; I’d save the cost of the roof over my head for two months.

I can afford my tax bill. I just cannot afford to calculate it. And as you can see from my short list, the complexity of this calculation has a very real impact on my life.

This complexity of our Federal tax system is crushingly regressive; it is impoverishing, and it is morally indefensible.

Simplifying the tax code would be simply the most immediately effective, progressive and moral low-hanging fruit Congress could pick. More importantly, the Constitutional requirement of not attaching undue burdens to our fundamental rights – whose protection, according to our Declaration of Independence, is the very justification of the existence of the state – legally and morally demands it.

 

Robin Koerner is a political and economic commentator for the Huffington Post, Ben Swann, the Daily Paul, and other sites. He is best known for coining the term “Blue Republican” to refer to liberals and independents who joined the GOP to support Ron Paul’s bid for the presidency in 2012. His article launched the biggest coalition for Ron Paul and a movement that outlived his candidacy, which now focuses on winning supporters for liberty (rather than just arguments), by finding common ground among Americans of various political persuasions. He is also the founder of WatchingAmerica.com, where 300 volunteers translate opinion about the US from all over the world.