Quantcast
Channel: Ben Lewis | Tenth Amendment Center Blog
Browsing latest articles
Browse All 51 View Live

Independence Day is not about Loving Centralized Power

“We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and...

View Article



Don’t Bother Calling Congress

It looks like a recent study has confirmed something that the Tenth Amendment Center has said for a long time – calling Congress does the average person no good. According to The Hill, two political...

View Article

Unconstitutional Wars, Unintended Results

Last week President Obama became the fourth consecutive American president to announce the bombing of Iraq. Obama’s actions dovetail perfectly with American sentiment. According to a recent Washington...

View Article

Did the Civil War End State Sovereignty?

Did you know that the Tenth Amendment Center has an online feedback forum where you can ask questions and make comments or suggestions? We occasionally run into questions that are so good, we need to...

View Article

Madison and Secession

On the Tenth Amendment Center’s Feedback Forum, a member asks: “What was James Madison’s view on secession? I read some of his letters and he states that a state cannot secede at will but only by...

View Article


Fox Business: States Rebel Against Federal Government

On an episode of his Cavuto on Business show on the Fox Business Network last week, Neil Cavuto spoke with former governor and presidential candidate Gary Johnson. Cavuto noted, as was sent to the...

View Article

Love Liberty? Don’t Donate to Presidential Candidates

Texas Senator Ted Cruz made headlines last week when it was revealed that he had raised an eye-popping $31 million in less than a week for his presidential campaign. Kentucky Senator Rand Paul...

View Article

Missouri House Kills Medical Marijuana Bill; Fight Moving to the Ballot

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (Apr. 29, 2016) – A Missouri bill that would have legalized medical marijuana was voted down by the Missouri House of Representatives last week. Had the bill been signed into law,...

View Article


Rhode Island House Committee Holds Hearing on Bill to Limit Warrantless Drone...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (April 30, 2016) – A Rhode Island bill that would restrict the use of drones by state and local law enforcement had its first committee hearing this week. The legislation would not...

View Article


Colorado Town Says “No” to HUD, Refuses Federal Funds

While the federal government always views its threats to cut off the flow of stolen money to the states as a kind of untrumpable trump card, a Colorado town has created a template for how to handle the...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

A Professor’s Defense of Nullification

Supporters of nullification cannot have a conversation on the topic without quickly encountering three arguments: that the actions of the federal government are supreme, that the Supreme Court is the...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Is Nullification Racist?

Proponents of nullification continue to spread the message that the solutions that Americans say they want will not be found at the federal level.  They painstakingly show how the principle is...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

The Government We Deserve

We all have people in our lives who influence not just what we believe, but how we think.  For me one of those people is economist and author Walter Williams.  Dr. Williams is one of a handful of...

View Article


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Nullification 101: A Intro to Defending Liberty

The federal government is out of control, unable to limit its spending or satisfy its insatiable appetite for consuming the people’s liberties.  And these tendencies seem to get worse with each...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

State Non-Compliance is Its Own Penalty

Imagine for a moment that you are a basketball player.  The opposing team has the ball and you’re playing defense.  What would happen if you turned around to find that the court had doubled in size and...

View Article


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

San Diego Mayor Calls for Jury Nullification

Don’t look now, but nullification is about to spread to the courtroom.  NBC 7 in San Diego reported this week that the city’s mayor, Bob Filner, has called for jurors to refuse to convict the operators...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Book Review: Reclaiming the American Revolution

After lying dormant for the better part of 150 years, nullification has been gaining momentum in recent years.  My own awareness of nullification, the idea that the states have the constitutional right...

View Article


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Is Obamacare on Life Support?

Remember a couple of months ago when the Obama administration sent letters to four states promising to use federal agents to enforce Obamacare if the states failed to?  Well, it appears that smug...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Federal Laws: To Infinity and Beyond!

How many federal laws are on the books?  500?  1,000?  5,000?  Go ahead, take a guess.Give up?Yeah, well, so does the Library of Congress.  In an attempt to answer the frequent question of how many...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Federalism is for Liberals

In a recent article in The Atlantic, Emily Bazelon makes the claim that “states’ rights are for liberals”, citing the examples of state support for marriage equality and the legalization of marijuana...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Spying on Kids to Improve Education?

Bill Gates has an idea.  In order to improve academic performance, teachers should be monitored all day, every day.  A preposterous waste of resources and manpower, you say?  Well, not to worry,...

View Article


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Jackson County, Michigan Passes 2nd Amendment Preservation Resolution

By a 9-0 vote on June 18, the County Commissioners in Jackson County, Michigan unanimously approved a resolution in support of the 2nd Amendment.The resolution promises to reject any attempt by the...

View Article


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Abortion: A State Issue, a National Nightmare

News broke recently that Florida Senator Marco Rubio plans to sponsor a bill that would ban abortions after 20 weeks.  With Rubio’s reputation recently taking a hit in conservative circles, a cynic...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Some Utah Republicans Get It, Some Don’t

Some sentences are so contradictory, so self-evidently oxymoronic that they stop you in your tracks.  For example, maybe you have a friend who says something like, “I’m a vegetarian, but I really love...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Founders Turning in Their Graves

“A republic, madam, if you can keep it.”So said the ever-quotable Benjamin Franklin upon emerging from the Constitutional Convention debates in 1787.  Franklin’s now-famous statement to an inquisitive...

View Article


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Political Pressure is Like Real Estate

I have a confession.  I’m not one of those suave guys who always does everything right.  I once put diesel fuel in my car only to find out that diesel fuel and unleaded gasoline are not...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

A Long History of Constitutional War Power Violations

Barack Obama is clearly not the first president to ignore the framers’ intent regarding the executive’s war powers. In many ways Obama is merely building upon the framework of George W. Bush, whose...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Has Eric Cantor Read the Constitution?

Virginia Republican Congressman Eric Cantor met with President Obama on Tuesday to discuss the situation in Syria.  Shortly after his conference with the president, Cantor released a statement saying,...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Wisconsin Nullifies Park Service Shutdown Order

Scott Walker is at it again.The governor of Wisconsin, who has previously publicly stated his intention to resist Obamacare, had his state’s Department of Natural Resources reject federal requests to...

View Article



Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

A Lesson from the “Shutdown”

We have entered week two of the federal government’s “shutdown” and, amazingly, Americans are still hanging in there.  This is a fact that has chagrined federal politicians to no end.  In an effort to...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Governor Kasich Loves Obamacare

You have to love Ohio politicians.  Some of them are the only people on earth unprincipled enough to make Massachusetts politicians blush.Now it appears that John Kasich, Ohio’s Republican governor,...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Is Allen West why the Constitution is in Tatters?

Tweens and Justin Bieber’s music.Anyone and the Kardashians’ TV shows.There are some people who are extremely popular with the masses, but whose appeal I just can’t see.Here’s another one.  The tea...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Esquire Whiffs Again

You have to give Esquire’s Charles P. Pierce credit.  He’s consistent.He’s also wrong.  Conspicuously, unrepentantly wrong.  But at least he’s consistent.We first encountered (and refuted) Pierce a...

View Article


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Rethinking Big Government

The word “big” gets thrown around a lot in American politics.  People endlessly rail against “big government” programs while advocating in favor of smaller government which would purportedly give us...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

A Question for Limited Government Centralizers

Being a political decentralist has its share of oddities.  The phenomenon that continues to amaze me is how we who believe in decentralization often find ourselves in political agreement with people...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Non-Compliance is Nullification

For being such a simple concept, nullification sure does cause a lot of confusion.  For some, nullification only counts if certain criteria are met.  These criteria typically follow the John Calhoun...

View Article


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Reagan’s Executive Order on Federalism: A Post-Mortem

A few weeks ago weeks ago we received a question on our Tenth Amendment Center Feedback Forum about TAC’s perspective of Ronald Reagan’s Executive Order 12612.  The order, a direction to the members of...

View Article


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Missouri Bill Would Nullify NDAA Indefinite Detention

Missouri state Senator Brian Nieves introduced legislation this month to ban his state from enforcing sections 1021 and 1022 of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act. These sections purport to...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Kentucky Bill Seeks to Nullify Warrantless Drone Spying

The Kentucky legislature will consider a bill in the 2014 legislative session that would take significant steps towards protecting people there from prying eyes in the sky.Representatives Diane St....

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

New Hampshire Bill Would Drastically Limit Drone Use

The New Hampshire legislature will consider a bill in the 2014 session that would take big steps towards fully protecting residents and visitors from prying eyes in the sky.Rep. Joe Duarte (R-Candia)...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Nullifying the federal ban on hemp farming: Colorado leads the way

In the battle over the federal government’s unconstitutional drug laws, marijuana always gets the publicity. But there is an overlooked aspect to Washington’s unconstitutional ban on cannabis:...

View Article


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Politician Claims Pledge of Allegiance Trumps the Constitution

Over the years I’ve found that most Americans are not receptive to criticisms of the Pledge of Allegiance. Such criticisms typically elicit funny looks if not outright scorn and ridicule.On the few...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Oaths of Office and the Tenth Amendment

On March 31st, I was a guest on The Dignitary podcast. The show’s topic was the oath of office that politicians take, particularly that of upholding the Constitution. The Dignitary’s host, Jacob, and I...

View Article


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Supreme Partisanship

In a recent New York Times story, justices on the allegedly non-partisan Supreme Court were reported to be much more likely to rule in favor of free speech if they agreed with the ideology of the...

View Article
Browsing latest articles
Browse All 51 View Live




Latest Images