65% Say Fire Congress!

dear friends & family!

thank you all for the wonderful birthday blessings — your thoughts & prayers have all encouraged me tremendously over the recent weeks.

as you all know, i have this thing for liberty.  and especially right now, with all the ludicrous amounts of money being spent on the elections, i'm trying very hard to not let all this get to me.  i bet we all are, regardless of individual perspectives on things.  i wonder how much of that "$$$" being spent comes directly from the taxpayer...?  i am reminded daily of this as we continue to receive duplicate glossy color printed junk snail-mail containing typical and often erroneous mud-slinging.

therefore, in the "spirit of the season", i thought this was a very timely message worthy of sharing from Tim Cox of "GOOOH" (no, it's not "goo", but GO! — as in, Get Out Of Our House!  GOOOH ).

for those with whom i failed to effectively communicate my rationale behind voting against incumbents (generally), perhaps this might help to clarify it a bit better.

regardless, it makes me happy to hear that there is a majority of American who would like to simply fire Congress!  to me, that's some good news which perhaps might help us endure this "season of extra BS flinging".

in liberty,

8-)

bernard baruch carman

* * *

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Begin forwarded message:

From: "Tim Cox" <tim@goooh.com>

Date: October 30, 2010 2:22:58 PM EDT

To: bbc@infinitygames.com

Subject: 65% Say Fire Congress!

65% Say "Fire Congress!"                                                 October 30, 2010
We encourage everyone to vote on Tuesday and continue working until the last minute for those you support. When the dust settles, I hope you will carefully consider the note below. The real battle begins on Wednesday.   This new Rasmussen poll reports that 65% of our nation would like to replace the entire Congress, including their representative. We are likely to see a bigger turnover than we have seen in years on Tuesday, and that is great news, but recognize that 85 - 90% of all incumbents will once again be re-elected. An image of rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic comes to mind. Within a few months it will be politics as usual. We'll have a new budget that is $600 billion in the red and both sides blaming the other for the gridlock that follows. I pray I am wrong but pigs have never flown before.   USA Today estimates FOUR BILLION will be spent on political ads this election, including $32 million on the Senate race in CO, $20 million in PA and $17m in WA? Over $6m is being spent on individual House races in NY, NV, and MI - for jobs that pay $175,000. Look for a record number of earmarks next year as bribes are repaid. Watch for legislation that rewards donors instead of addressing problems.   Yes, the political pendulum will swing back to the right on Tuesday, but have our peers forgotten the past? In 2006 it swung from right to left because of Republican malfeasance, in 2000, from left to right. Back and forth it goes while our nation falls deeper into debt. Left, right, left, right, yet thirty percent of our kids fail to graduate year after year. Underemployment according to Gallup is at 18.6% and unemployment at 10%. Health care costs spiral ever upward. Borders leak like a sieve. Misguided government programs consistently fail.   Yet some still believe politicians will solve the very problems they have created.   The good news is there is an alternative. But it will require work. You must educate others that neither party is the answer, that politicians are the problem. The solution is simple: elect true citizen representatives who are not controlled by a party, indebted to groups who have paid millions of dollars, or concerned about getting re-elected. Our government was created so that every seat in the House is up for re-election every two years, but our nation has fallen into a trap: we are forced to choose between the lesser of two evils.   2012 will be different. We will run our candidates in the primaries against the incumbents, but our candidates will not controlled by either party. Our candidates will not have accepted special interest money, nor will they be career politicians.   I challenge you to inform others that we have an alternative. Please send this letter to every person of integrity you know and ask them to get involved. We only need an email address for them to join us. As soon as we get to 500,000 members we will execute our plan, explained in detail at GOOOH.com.   Inform your friends that GOOOH is not a party. It is a method for the citizens of each district to identify a candidate who will compete in the primaries where possible. We will not split the vote, but instead offer an alternative to career politicians. If you happen to live in one of the few districts with a good candidate, support the system nationally so we can remove the 429 bad ones! If we insist on supporting the few who are good we will be stuck with all who are bad. If your representative is good, he will defeat our candidate in the primary, as he should, but let's create competition and see if we can find someone even better. There are almost 700,000 people in each district and no one person is so important that we should not evaluate others.   I often hear people express concern that GOOOH might allow someone whose views they do not agree with to be selected. That happens today! We all disagree on certain issues. But that completely misses the point. We need a new system to identify quality candidates. Trust that the people of each district will select a qualified candidate. If anyone who has this concern will participate in one of our Online Mock Selection Sessions you will see that those with extreme views and ridiculous quirks are quickly eliminated. With a fair system, we simply need to have faith in our fellow man. The system we have today attracts the wrong kind of people. The two-party system encourages extremists and career politicians. GOOOH will weed them out.   How much longer can our country last if we stay this course? Six hundred billion dollar deficits will not fix what is broken. Tough decisions need to be made, but they will again be deferred because those in office are more concerned about being re-elected than doing what is right. A twelve-year-old child understands you cannot spend more than you make year after year without consequence. Our economy offers all the proof you need that this course is not sustainable.   Do not permit your friends to keep doing what they are doing. Get every one of them to join GOOOH now and ensure we identify men and women who will do what must be done in 2012. If we do not, the greatest nation the world has ever known will soon become just one of many. It will fail under the watch of our generation unless we act.   In Liberty,   Tim Cox

This message was sent from Tim Cox to bbc@infinitygames.com. It was sent from: Tim Cox, Rio Gabriel Ranch, Liberty Hill, TX 78642. You can modify/update your subscription via the link below. Email Marketing by

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my 2010 ballot thoughts

various friends in my locality have been asking me how i plan to vote.  i don't mind sharing at all, so i thought i'd broadcast my 2010 ballot thoughts.

i began this note with the intention of only focusing on the NC/WNC ballot, but then wound up writing a couple thoughts worthy of contemplation which apply wherever you are.

feel at liberty to share this with anyone you wish.

• [YOUR STATE] Constitutional Amendments...

before i get to candidates, i implore you to check your ballot for a possible "State Constitutional Amendment".  if there is one, read it very carefully & think about the potential consequences of it being passed.

for example, on the NC ballot, it's very important to take note of the "[NC] Constitutional Amendment" which, if passed, would prevent anyone who was ever convicted as a felon from being eligible to serve as a Sheriff in NC.

when given the option, the NC legislature thought it was better to put this junk on the NC ballot rather than increasing liberty by legalizing medical marijuana.

one can be charged as a "felon" these days for no telling what... even growing a weed!  and what better Sheriffs could we have than individuals who have been victimized by the unlimited and unaccountable government we have allowed to become so corrupted?

i have to wonder how many people won't even realize the implications of this deceptive NC Constitutional Amendment.  it should be a no brainer, but for the sake of sanity, VOTE AGAINST this increase in tyranny!

• regarding voting for candidates...

in general, i plan to go with my usual rule of thumb election strategy: vote against incumbents whenever possible.  this means, to vote for the duopoly party candidate in a given race who is not currently holding office.

why?

because, for one, it's a way of enforcing term limits.  power corrupts.  therefore, the longer the term, the more chance of increased corruption.  incumbents should thank us for limiting their term, thus reducing their potential or degree of corruption.

also, because it's perhaps the best message We the People can send to our tyrannical government.  the way i see it, we should only re-elect officials who understand and agree with their oath of office that they are supposed to be protecting our individuals rights by maintaining a limited and accountable government through the principles found within the US Constitution.

most of the time we'll be electing another typical bureaucrat, but there's really not much difference between them anyway, and all we have to do is oust their incumbent butt during the following election — that's a message for ya!

and voting straight party ticket is utter foolishness — that's what the establishment of tyranny wants us all to do!  the elitists want to keep Americans divided into Red & Blue camps while they continue to rule over rather than serve US.  so until we have a lot more "Ron Paul" types within government offices at all levels across America, we should try to enforce enforceable term limits.

• on to NC/WNC candidates...

(of course, NC ballots will vary according to location)

of course, there are occasionally exceptions to the vote-against-incumbents rule of thumb, most notably this time, i plan to vote for the only Libertarian Party candidate on my ballot, Michael Beitler for US Senate, rather than voting against incumbent-Burr by casting my vote for Elaine Marshall.  i realize that because we have Plurality Voting (rather than Score/Range Voting) i'll be "wasting my vote", however, i'm finding it too difficult to not support Beitler at this point.

i plan to vote for Jeff Miller for US House of Representatives District 11 because i'm voting against incumbent-Shuler.  perhaps the next go around, we can elect Dr. Dan Eichenbaum in the primary and have a real liberty candidate representing WNC in Congress!

also for RL Clark for NC State Senate District 49 — again, voting against incumbent-Nesbitt.

for John Carroll for NC House of Representatives District 114 — against incumbent-Fisher.

IMPORTANT:  for Bridget Odom for District Attorney District 28 — totally against 20-year-incumbent-Ron Moore!

for John Sutton for Clerk of Superior Court — against incumbent-Cogburn.

for Dickie Green for Buncombe county Sheriff — against incumbent-VanDuncan.

being that i know there to be several liberty minded individuals within the AVL Tea Party, i also seriously consider its recommendations (i think most are also non-incumbent challengers):

AVL Tea Party Recommended Candidates

http://ashevilleteapac.com/candidate-endorsement-process/

there are certainly other candidates on the ballot with whom i'm unfamiliar, so i asked around among my local liberty contacts.

i received the following information from a liberty minded friend of mine in our locality who i met during the Ron Paul campaign and was also very active in the Dr. Dan Eichenbaum campaign:

Regarding my selections, I used several sources, including personal conversations with some of the candidates, recommendations from others whose opinions I trust, researching cases they adjudicated, and the Civitas interviews of the IRV judges which are posted online at Civitas.

Supreme Court: Barbara Jackson (incumbent, currently serving on NC Court of Appeals) - I did original research by reviewing some of the cases she decided in recent years as a NC Appeals Court Judge.  My understanding is that she would have a sympathetic ear if a case were brought before the NC Supreme Court challenging heavily gerrymandered districts in NC, and this could come before the court in 2011, as this is the census year when all NC House, NC Senate, and Congressional districts will be re-drawn.

Court of Appeals: Ann Marie Calabria (incumbent) - also did some research here and didn't find any important or high-profile cases. most of the cases handled by the court of appeals are rather mundane, and are decided 3-0.  however, she is well-respected in the legal community, and has a solid conservative, non-activist judicial record.

Court of Appeals: Steven Walker (non-incumbent challenger) - young guy who hasn't practiced law as a private attorney (which concerned me at first; he clerked for a NC Supreme Court Justice for 5 years).  Then I saw him on Dr. Dan's Freedom Forum and was impressed with his knowledge of the Constitution and maturity (for his young age).

Court of Appeals: Dean Poirier (non-incumbent challenger) - he was recommended by several people.  (bbc notes: and of course he's the non-incumbent challenger!  also, i found him on a Cape Fear Tea Party Patriots site.)

Superior Court Judge (Buncombe County): Alan Thornburg (incumbent) - Thornburg is a moderate* Democrat who is running against liberal* Democrat, Kate Dreher, who according to several sources, was the chief prosecutor under Ron Moore who cut many weak deals with sex offenders and other criminals who hurt children.  It is these deals (plea bargains) that upset Bridgette Odom to the point of running against Ron Moore for D.A.  (*bbc notes: i hate those terms — i'll take it to read that Thornburg is less of an authoritarian tyrant than is Dreher.)

District Court Judge: John Jay Watson (non-incumbent challenger) - He is a conservative (*hate that term too! 8-), and a home school dad.  He is also in private practice, never been a judge before, which I like.  (bbc notes: and a non-incumbent challenger.)

District Court Judge: Moorefield (non-incumbent challenger) - no info here, other than voting against incumbent-Patricia Young, who is apparently occasionally called "Patty Melt" because she "melts down" in court.

Court of Appeals — IRV**:  

1st - Daniel Garner - home school dad of 11 kids, honors NC & US Constitutions, wants to stop judicial activism on the left AND the right.  didn't take any public funds to run his campaign, on principle.  has an MBA in addition to his law degree.  has been in private practice, worked as an appeals referee for the Employment Security Commission, and legal advisor to the NC Commissioner of Banking.  very impressive guy.

2nd - Chris Dillon - also impressive, understands the Constitution.

3rd - Doug McCullough - solid conservative*.  he is the firewall to stop a liberal* Democrat.  (bbc notes: again, hate the terms — i'll read that as "classic conservative" and "contemporary liberal".)

Superior Court Judge (Buncombe County) — IRV**:

1st - Marvin Pope - conservative Democrat (non-incumbent for this seat, but has been a District Court Judge for a long time).  has endorsement of Bob Orr, well-respected retired NC Supreme Court Justice.  He lost the other Superior Court race in the primary to Thornburg and Dreher, but this seat became available with the late retirement of Judge Winner, making this an IRV race.

**bbc notes: why Score/Range Voting is better than IRV (Instant Runoff Voting).

that's all folks!

8-)

bernard baruch carman

* * *

- seeker of truth / seeder of truth • SeedsOfTruth.org • ∞Liberty 

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Time Magazine Exemplifies Anti-Liberty Mainstream Media Deception

hey folks,

OK, there are certainly a few things that piss me off, deliberate & blatant deception by a major "journalism" magazine like Time is certainly one of these.

those of you who have known me for some time, know that i have been a proponent of the We the People Foundation & Congress, chaired by Bob Schulz, since around the year 2000.

this group of American patriots -- especially Bob, himself -- have spent their efforts in bringing the "Forgotten Clause" of the First Amendment, the "Accountability Clause", to the attention of the tyrants who have been transgressing various Constitutional limitations placed upon the government, and ignoring the fact that the founding fathers created and documented a legal process by which the People of America might peacefully procure relief of such grievances.

after a long process of petitioning for remedy of various documented grievances which have gone ignored by the poli-tyrants, the US Supreme Court was finally challenged to define, once and for all, the meaning of the near-forgotten "Accountability Clause", those last 10 words of the First Amendment -- of course, it failed to do its Constitutional duty, proving to myself and many others that we are definitely living in a state of tyranny.

whomever has been paying attention to all this, or even paying attention to what has been happening over the past century or so, who still honestly believes we live in the "land of the free" is really seriously deceived.

sure, we have some various freedoms, but just try and exercise them!  try standing up to the tyrannical State when it makes decisions about the personal life of the individual -- extortion in the name of "taxation", forced annexation, transgression of individual property rights, etc...

so now i discover that Time magazine has deliberately misrepresented Bob Schulz' We the People Foundation & Congress, equating our various non-violent & legal efforts to the growing militia movement -- nothing could be further from the truth!  so now, all those reading this slanderous and deceptive article in Time will now believe the We the People movement is filled with a bunch of violent nut-balls!

of course, i see this as a continuous attempt of these anti-liberty workers of evil to drive liberty activists and apologists to the point where we are forced to take a defensive physical position, so that they can blame the entire liberty movement of being "violent" in order to enact total and complete martial law... and no doubt the masses of idiots will buy it!

i seriously hope that Bob can bring a law suit against these deceivers, but i'm not holding my breath.  i realize, as do many, how corrupted the judicial system has grown (along with the other two branches of government).

so all i can do is to continue to point to the deceivers and say, "LOOK PEOPLE -- WAKE UP ALREADY!!!"

if you have a moment, please read the article and Bob's response, and open your eyes to see for yourself the state of this nation.

in liberty & Godbless...

8-)

bernard baruch carman

* * *

- seeker of truth / seeder of truth • SeedsOfTruth.org • ∞Liberty 

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Begin forwarded message:

From: "Bob Schulz \(DO NOT REPLY - Unmonitored Mailbox\)" <LMM-8U46CJ8@givemeliberty.org>

Date: October 7, 2010 2:44:53 AM EDT

Subject: [WTP]   BOB SCHULZ RESPONDS TO TIME MAGAZINE

October 6, 2010 BOB SCHULZ RESPONDS TO TIME MAGAZINE WTP Chairman Bob Schulz is featured in the cover story of the Oct. 11, 2010 issue of TIME magazine titled, ""Locked and Loaded: The Secret World of Extreme Militias."  NOTE: The TIME article is volatile and highly misleading. What follows is Bob's response. Please send it to as many people as you can. Thank you.  Links to the TIME article and an online interview w/ Bob Schulz are at the bottom of this update. Dear Editor: I am featured in your cover article, written by Barton Gellman, though I cannot understand why.  You have wholly mischaracterized me and the works of my Foundation, in order to shoehorn me into a piece that may work for TIME, but has no relevance to what Gellman and I discussed. The information I provided to Gellman, through more than six hours of face-to-face interviews, plus e-mails and written documentation, has been twisted and wholly taken out of context, rendering it inaccurate, misleading and libelous. There are so many falsehoods in what was attributed to me that I cannot address them all in this letter. I will take them up with TIME management.  For the record, I have never advocated violence, I do not and have never belonged to any militia, nor do I communicate with militias or influence militias in any way that I am aware of.  However, I do fully support the Constitution's guarantee of well-regulated militias in every State. To quote the mandate of the second Amendment, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the Right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Therefore, the absence of well-regulated Militias in every State is repugnant to the constitution.  This article serves neither the truth nor the People of this nation. While it wastes thousands of words regurgitating the intricate details of militia activities, their confrontations with government officials, and a handful of blatantly criminal acts, the article fails to address the fundamental "secret" re-invigorating the Patriot consciousness of Americans across the land.  The "secret" that the mainstream media appears to have an extreme aversion against putting forward or openly discussing, is that over many administrations, with the support of both Parties, the federal government has all but abandoned our Constitution. (Continued...) Click Here to Read the Entire Update    Our Annual  Year-End Fundraiser! The 2011 Freedom Calendars Click Here Our Continuing Thanks  Again, many thanks for your much needed support. You can donate viaPayPal, or Join the WTP Congress (monthly or yearly memberships) or set up a monthly "subscription" or one-time donation of any size. Click the button or this link to our PayPal account (*NO* PayPal account or log-on is necessary!)

Most Important Election Cycle Ever!

gee, i never heard that before!  8-)

i've pretty much thus far seen my share of e-messages promoting voting for "Republicans" in order to get the "Democrats" out of office.

but i cannot find such optimism for any political party, as do so many others.  i'd much prefer to vote against incumbents.

YEP!  i've reached the point where i'm entirely up for throwing out pretty much everyone currently in office.  D or R doesn't make much difference to me.  along with "liberal" & "conservative", i understand these labels as nothing more than tools of deception designed to divide and enslave people.

i view voting a straight ticket as playing perfectly into this deception, as the pendulum continues to swing back and forth as it has for the majority of America's existence, while our Creator-given liberties simultaneously continue to be usurped.

seems to me, if the unaffiliated/apathetic majority in America would take a cue from the GOOOH strategy, we could remove the elite class from ruling the rest of us.  not that we have any probable chance of "fixing" things, but we could at least perhaps send tyrants packing all across America and at all levels of government.

otherwise we're just swapping one tyrant for another tyrant.  unless, of course, the new replacement is truly a real Constitutionalist who will actually work toward establishing Constitutionally Limited & Accountable government.

however, i have to wonder just how many candidates (especially "Republican") this election cycle are typical poli-tyrants wrapped in a Tea Party disguise, feigning a passion for liberty.

NOPE!  i'm not falling into this popular deception -- i'm going to vote against (most all) incumbents!  i hope other American voters think first before continuing to vote along political party lines, and rather seek out and support real liberty candidates.

8-)

bernard baruch carman

* * *

- seeker of truth / seeder of truth • SeedsOfTruth.org • ∞Liberty 

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Evil for Evil?

Terry Jones, the pastor at Dove World Outreach Center church has declared Sept. 11 as "International Burn a Quran Day," and added that he hoped the burning of the Muslim religion's holy text "will be as it is intended, as a warning." I think we need more of these pastors during the same thing as the Muslims burn the bible of the christians.

since i first heard about this over the past couple of weeks, a Biblical precept came to mind.  here are a couple scriptures to consider:

Psalms 54:

 4 Behold, God is my helper; The Lord is with those who uphold my life.

 5 He will repay my enemies for their evil. Cut them off in Your truth.

Romans 12:

 17 Repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men.

 18 If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men.

 19 Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, "Vengeance is Mine, I will repay," says the Lord.

 20 Therefore "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; If he is thirsty, give him a drink; For in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head."

 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

i personally can not imagine any kind of good would come as a result of attempting to turn 9/11 into an "International Burn a Quran Day".

while i understand that individuals and government (both church and state) now commonly ignore their own laws and principles, some questions fill my mind:  what about the Christian principle Messiah gave to turn the other cheek?  has it been replaced with, "you hit me, so i'll hit you back?"

while i don't condone it, i support the right of individuals to burn things as a sign of protest: flags, books, and yes, albums.  so i'm not suggesting Congress convene to pass any more un-Constitutional legislation which violates our unalienable rights & liberty.

i am just moved to ask proponents of this "International Burn a Quran Day" idea to consider for themselves why they think it's wise to ignore the Biblical principle which plainly teaches to not repay evil for evil...?

the verse, "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good," also brings to mind the phrase, "you are what you do".  those who plan to take part in this event might want to consider what fruits they are planning to bear.

8-)

bernard baruch carman

* * *

- seeker of truth / seeder of truth • SeedsOfTruth.org • ∞Liberty 

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HYPOCRISY among the authorities

http://www.theagitator.com/2010/08/02/this-weeks-crime-column-4/

HYPOCRISY among the authorities: we all know it exists, but i wonder what would happen if more individuals brought it to the spotlight...?  notable quote from this article:

"... while citizens who don’t know the law can be fined, arrested, and jailed, cops and prosecutors who wrongly threaten with arrest and wrongly charge people based on a misunderstanding of the law typically face no sanction at all."

IMHO, authorities should be held MORE accountable than regular citizens for such actions, and thus be charged as anyone else who is not "above the law".  but of course, those authoritarian tyrants in such positions of power probably do not agree.

8-)

bernard baruch carman

* * *

- seeker of truth / seeder of truth • SeedsOfTruth.org • ∞Liberty 

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A Commandeering of the People

like in so many other cases in "neo-law", the "Commerce Clause" of the US Constitution has been twisted in order to establish greater control over the individual, as well as for increased revenues through legalized extortion.

the most important statement in the article, IMHO:

"The Commerce Clause was really put there, essentially, to create a free-trade zone for the United States, not to give Congress power over all economic activity."

"free-trade" really means, trade free from intervention, of entities outside of the trade... including government.

on this most fundamental principle, anything outside of "free-trade" is not free.

how many things can you personally think of that can be truthfully considered free?

8-)

bernard baruch carman

* * *

- seeker of truth / seeder of truth • SeedsOfTruth.org • ∞Liberty 

- BornToWin.net • FellowshipOfTheWord.org

- Articles of Freedom • Oath Keepers • GOOOH • LibertyAsheville 

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from the Wall Street Journal:

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052748703467304575383702986874016-lMyQjAxMTAwMDIwNDEyNDQyWj.html

'A Commandeering of the People'

One of America's leading libertarian legal scholars handicaps whether the Supreme Court will find ObamaCare's insurance mandate constitutional.

By JAMES TARANTO

Is ObamaCare constitutional? "If you ask any constitutional law professor whether Congress can do something, the answer is always yes," says Randy Barnett. But Mr. Barnett, who teaches legal theory at Georgetown, isn't just any law professor. A self-described "radical libertarian," he is the author of a 2004 book, "Restoring the Lost Constitution," that argues for a fundamentally new approach to jurisprudence.

Since the New Deal, Supreme Court justices have generally assumed a law is constitutional and overruled it only when it infringes on an individual right that is enumerated in the Constitution (free speech) or not (privacy). "If you're talking about the regulation of economic activity, the presumption of constitutionality is for all practical purposes irrebuttable," Mr. Barnett says.

Instead, Mr. Barnett would have the court adopt a "presumption of liberty," placing the burden on the government to show that a law has a clear basis in Congress's constitutional powers. "The easiest way to explain it is, it would basically apply to all liberty the same basic protection we now apply to speech," he says.

It's an attractive theory to those of us with libertarian sympathies—a group that seems to be growing in reaction to the Obama administration's unprecedented expansion of federal power. But Mr. Barnett, 58, readily admits there is virtually no chance the high court will embrace it during his lifetime. "On the Supreme Court now, probably only Clarence Thomas would be willing to question what the law professors call the 'post-New Deal settlement.'"

No one can accuse this theorist of being an ivory-tower intellectual lacking real-world experience. As a child, he was an avid fan of the 1960s TV series "The Defenders" and aspired to become a criminal lawyer. This he did, taking a job out of law school as a Chicago prosecutor. But he also had a scholarly side: "I realized that one day I would want to be a law professor, [a job] in which I could write about these things—not so much to tell people what I thought was just, but to figure out for myself what justice really is."

"I became sort of pulled into the constitutional law world," he says, an area of study to which he was initially cool. "I was trained in law school to believe that all the good parts of the Constitution were gone. And if they're not going to respect the good parts, I'm not really all that concerned about the remaining parts."

One of those "good parts" is the Ninth Amendment: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." In 1998, Judge Charles Breyer of California's Northern District (younger brother of Justice Stephen Breyer) asked lawyers in a medical marijuana case to brief him on its Ninth Amendment implications. The defense lawyer, Robert Raich, came to Mr. Barnett, one of the few scholarly experts on the subject, for help.

In 2004, Mr. Barnett appeared for the first and only time before the Supreme Court, arguing the case of Gonzales v. Raich on behalf of Mr. Raich's then-wife, who had been busted by the Drug Enforcement Administration for growing marijuana for her personal medical consumption.

Did the federal government really have the power to do this? In Wickard v. Filburn (1942), the Supreme Court had held that it was constitutional to force a farmer to destroy "excess crops" rather than use them himself. But Mrs. Raich was not a commercial farmer. Nonetheless, in 2005, by a 6-3 vote, the court held that the federal government's authority under the Commerce Clause—which authorizes Congress to "regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes"—"includes the power to prohibit the local cultivation and use of marijuana in compliance with California law."

Raich continued a jurisprudential trend, started during the New Deal and interrupted only by a couple of narrow decisions by the Rehnquist court, of construing Congress's power under the Commerce Clause very broadly. This is why ObamaCare proponents are so confident it will pass constitutional muster.

Mr. Barnett's own view of the Commerce Clause is extremely narrow. If he had his way, ObamaCare would be struck down on the ground that Congress has no authority to regulate the insurance business. When the Constitution was written, Mr. Barnett says, commerce was understood to mean "trade in things—goods. . . . The Commerce Clause was really put there, essentially, to create a free-trade zone for the United States," not to give Congress power over all economic activity. "Not only was insurance not thought to be a part of the original meaning; in fact, it was held by the Supreme Court for 100 years that it was not something within the commerce power to reach."

Today, however, Mr. Barnett acknowledges that is a losing argument. The court reversed itself in the 1944 case of U.S. v. South-Eastern Underwriters, holding that the Commerce Clause does authorize federal regulation of the insurance business.

So would "any constitutional law professor" be right to scoff at the case against ObamaCare? Not according to this law professor. "The challenges to ObamaCare are serious legal challenges within the existing doctrinal framework," Mr. Barnett says. "They are not an attempt to restore the lost Constitution."

That's why the "individual mandate"—the requirement that all Americans purchase medical insurance or pay a fine—has been the focus of the lawsuits by state attorneys general seeking to overturn ObamaCare. (Mr. Barnett wrote a friend-of-the-court brief with the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, in support of the Virginia attorney general's lawsuit.)

Such a mandate is unprecedented: "This is the first time in American history that Congress has claimed to use its power over interstate commerce to mandate, or require, that every person enter into a commercial relationship with a private company," Mr. Barnett notes. "As a judicial matter, it's also unprecedented. There's never been a court case which said Congress can do this." That doesn't establish that Congress can't do it, but the high court could reach that conclusion without undoing existing law.

Last weekend the New York Times reported that administration officials were preparing to argue in court that the individual mandate—or, more precisely, the penalty for failing to comply with it—is an excise tax. This is an awkward political position, since the president himself insisted in an interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos last September that it was nothing of the sort.

It's an awkward legal argument, too, since there is no language in the ObamaCare law to support it: "The bill doesn't say excise tax," Mr. Barnett says. "The bill does have excise taxes in it. Tanning salons are subject to an excise tax. Medical devices are subject to an excise tax. . . . This bill has an entire section . . . in which they're trying to identify all the revenue-raising aspects of the bill for purposes of scoring its costs. They failed to include the penalty. . . . They didn't even think of it as a source of revenue."

Mr. Barnett speculates that this shoddy legislative work resulted from the political timing—from the way in which Democrats pushed ObamaCare through over public opposition. He and others first made the argument that the individual mandate was unprecedented in December, the same month the Senate approved ObamaCare on a 60-40 party-line vote.

"Then Scott Brown gets elected, and there's no option to pass a new bill that highlights the tax power. They're stuck with the December Senate bill that highlights the Commerce Clause power. So what do they do? The day the House votes the Senate bill up, the Joint Committee on Taxation staff issues a report describing the individual mandate as an excise tax. . . . So now, the tax-power question is: If Congress could have enacted it as an excise tax, is that going to satisfy the court?"

The premise of that question can't be taken for granted either: "Never has the tax power been used to mandate that everybody engage in an activity with a private company either. Just because you switch the claim of what you're doing, doesn't make it any less unprecedented."

Mr. Barnett doesn't think the justices will buy the tax-power argument. If they did, "from then on in, Congress could prohibit or mandate anything, as long as they limit themselves to a fine. Anything. It would be unlimited power in Congress."

Instead, he thinks, the argument will be over the Necessary and Proper Clause, which authorizes Congress to "make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof."

The strongest argument for ObamaCare's constitutionality, in Mr. Barnett's view, begins with the premise—true as a matter of settled law—that Congress has the power to regulate insurance. Among the regulations Congress has seen fit to enact is one barring insurance companies from refusing coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. This regulation cannot work without keeping healthy people in the insurance pool.

"It's necessary under the loose, anything-goes criteria of necessary" that the court typically uses in deference to Congress, Mr. Barnett says. "But it's also necessary under a tighter 'Is it really necessary?' [standard], and the answer is, 'Yeah.' And did Congress really do it for that reason? The answer is again, 'Yeah.' So it kind of satisfies even the kind of scrutiny I would like to see attached to it."

But is it proper? Again, because such an individual mandate is unprecedented, no case law exists that speaks directly to the question. Mr. Barnett's counter-argument necessarily ventures into uncharted legal territory.

He notes that twice in the 1990s, the high court struck down federal mandates against state governments—one requiring legislatures to pass laws dealing with the transport of nuclear waste, and one mandating that police conduct background checks on gun buyers—saying they amounted to unconstitutional "commandeering" under the 10th Amendment. That amendment is usually thought of as protecting states' rights, but note the final four words: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

"What is the individual mandate?" Mr. Barnett says. "I'll tell you what the individual mandate, in reality, is. It is a commandeering of the people. . . . Now, is there a rule of law preventing that? No. Why isn't there a rule of law preventing that? Because it's never been done before. What's bothering people about the mandate? This fact. It's intuitive to them. People don't even know how to explain it, but there's something different about this, because it's a commandeering of the people as a whole. . . . We commandeer people to serve in the military, to serve on juries, and to file a return and pay their taxes. That's all we commandeer the people to do. This is a new kind of commandeering, and it's offensive to a lot of people."

Will this argument prevail? "If I want to bet actual money, I'll always bet the court upholds anything Congress does," Mr. Barnett says.

Therein lies the danger of constitutional litigation: If you lose, it is a lasting defeat for the principle on behalf of which you are arguing—something Mr. Barnett knows all too well from his experience in the Raich case. "My opening line in the Supreme Court . . . was: If this court upholds this extension of federal power, Gonzales v. Raich will replace Wickard v. Filburn as the outermost extension of federal power ever recognized by this court," he says. "That's kind of what happened, and I'm responsible for that. You know how badly that makes me feel?"

I console him by pointing out that if the court upholds ObamaCare, he will no longer have that unwanted distinction. He responds by laughing, heartily if somewhat ruefully.

Mr. Taranto, a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board, writes the Best of the Web Today column for OpinionJournal.com.

BP Oil Spill: A Fuller Picture

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BP Oil Spill: A Fuller Picture

http://timpeck.blogspot.com/2010/06/bp-oil-spill-fuller-picture.html