(Originally published in the May 2009 issue of "The Free Kansan". Republished here with permission.)
An Editorial by Matthew Collins
Anyone who paid attention to early American history in school will remember how the Sons of Liberty adorned themselves with war paint and feathered headdresses late one night. They stormed aboard the British ships docked in Boston Harbor, seized its cargo of tea and thrust it overboard into the ocean waters below in vivid protest of the tax laid upon tea imported into the American Colonies by an Act of the British Parliament in London. In effect, those colonists were asking their King and the Parliament of London “would you care for some tea?”. They took a stand against government usurpation and cast the tea overboard “sticking it to the man”; rather than consume the tea which they would be required to pay a tax levied by a legislature foreign to their jurisdiction and unacknowledged by their laws.
Then as now, Boston was not alone in its act of rebellion and similar “Tea Parties”, as they became known, occurred all along our Eastern Seaboard. The colonists protested the tax on tea using the battle cry “no taxation without representation”, not because the colonists wanted to be represented in the Parliament of London, but because each colony already had a parliament or other legislative body of their own and the Parliament in London was acting outside of its proper jurisdiction. To put it in perspective, it would be like the Canadian Government passing a law that laid a tax on all wheat grown in Kansas and exported to Missouri. It wasn’t that the tax was too high; it was that there was no authority for it.
Last month in Wichita, various groups held a “tea party” to protest taxes. Wichita was not alone in this as many States and communities across America have held similar Tea Parties on various dates across the country. In addition to this, many people have mailed the string and tab of a tea bag to their Congressmen (if they mailed the tea bag itself it wasn’t being opened) to further symbolize this modern day tax protest.
However as similar as our modern “Tea Parties” are to those of our early citizens, there are some profound differences. Many of these modern day Tea Parties (if not all) have obtained permits from the government in order to assemble and hold their protests. In Missouri, permission was obtained from the local authorities to actually dump a small hand full of tea (emptied out of the tea bag) into the river as a symbolic gesture. As you recall, the original Tea Party was done under cover of night and was a secret until it occurred taking the authorities guarding the docks by surprise. Our modern Tea Parties by contrast are planned and advertised and notification is not only given but permission granted by the governing authorities well in advance of the event.
It is true that anyone caught in the late 1700s participating in those Tea Parties would have been arrested and subject to criminal charges and punishments. I understand the desire among modern organizers to keep as many people out of jail as possible and see no one is harmed in the process. However, I have to ask “how much effect does a protest against government abuses of power have when the protest itself is granted permission to occur from the government being protested?” Now I realize that technically speaking, the local city and county governments are the ones granting permission for the protests to occur and it is the federal government being protested and these are two different governments.
But when the federal government has converted State Governments into fund-addicted fiends then the federal government has significantly more control over the actions of the States. The State Governments, as a result of their addiction to federal funds, readily submit, sacrificing the State’s well-being, for its ability to get its next “fix” from its federal “pusher”. Kansas for example piggy-backed onto the federal agenda when it came to income taxes, as did many other States. Further this is not the only issue that States adopted federally-driven legislation into their own State law codes. Such things apply to seat belts, speed limits, drug laws, alcohol drinking ages, driver’s license and ID card requirements, healthcare regulations, energy distribution, and so on. That doesn’t mean some of these laws passed by the States are not good ideas or were beneficial but it should have been within the sovereign power of the States themselves to decide whether or not to adopt those policies without being coerced by the federal government.
Here in Kansas, our Bill of Rights expressly states that “[t]he people have the right to assemble, in a peaceable manner, to consult for their common good, to instruct their representatives, and to petition the government, or any department thereof, for the redress of grievances.” As a result, as long as the people of Kansas assemble in a peaceable manner to instruct their representatives and to petition the government in protest to an issue that concerns them, then the people are protected by the Kansas Bill of Rights. A problem we find is frequently the courts have interpreted the Bills of Rights of the States as containing the same rights as the Federal Bill of Rights. However there are differences between the rights preserved in the State Bills of Rights and those preserved in their federal counterpart.
The Federal Bill of Rights states that “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech,… or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” In the federal version of this amendment, there are no rights expressly reserved to the people; there are only prohibitions upon the types of laws Congress may pass. This makes sense considering the structure of the federal constitution. However, compared to the State version, there is no right expressly reserved to the people or the States to “consult for their common good” or to “instruct their representatives”. Further the Kansas version specifically declares that the people have these rights so that there is no doubt as to whether these are rights or privileges.
Now in the federal version it can be argued that these rights are implied in the First Amendment but such an argument could come under fire when the principle of strict construction is applied to this amendment. The danger, of course, is that if implied powers are permitted, then the restrictions and prohibitions in the Constitution and its amendments become almost meaningless and subject to constant interpretation. If strict construction is the rule, then the rights are limited to only those expressed in the amendment.
On the other hand, it could also be argued that these rights found in the State version but not in the federal, are contained in the Ninth Amendment which states “[t]he enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparate others retained by the people.” Personally, I would agree with this as that was the intent of this amendment, however, what rights are covered by the Ninth Amendment itself is subject to modern interpretation (rightly so or not is irrelevant given the fact that it is being done routinely by the courts) as to what constitutes a “right inherent in the nature of mankind” and what constitutes a “privilege granted by the government”. Common sense would say that a person has a right to their income but given the fact that the federal court has ruled that Congress has the power to tax 100% of a person’s income and that it is by their generosity that they permit a citizen to keep any of their income makes this very frightening and illustrates the great importance of properly defining what a ‘right’ and a ‘privilege’ are, rather than leaving it at the discretion of the government!
In today’s world where our governments (federal, state and local) routinely involve themselves in “extra-curricular activities” beyond the scope of the document defining the scope and powers of that government (whether it be a constitution, city charter or some other type of document), it is very important that “we the people of the United States” learn, know and act within our sovereign power to check our government when they try to step out of their designated authority and educate those persons elected or appointed to represent us in our government. Whenever we find our representatives disregarding the duties of their office and abusing our rights as citizens, then it becomes obligatory to replace them with another candidate at the next election and return them to the general population to remind them from where they come or if it is too dangerous to wait till the next election, to recall them immediately and appoint another in their stead to complete their term.
There is no excuse for any lack of choice in candidates during any election. It is the obligation of those who know to step forward and take responsibility for their community and run for office to represent their community so that government functions properly within its clearly defined limits. It is also the duty of those people who are not, themselves, qualified for office to organize themselves and promote the people within their district who are qualified, whether that individual takes the initiative or not, and do everything in their power to see that the person they know to be honorable and educated in the proper role of limited constitutional government is elected in place of the incumbent. Failure to do so leaves the offices of our representative system open to scoundrels and scallywags who know nothing about true liberty and the proper function of government which leaves the door wide open to passing any legislation desired by special interests or those possessed with personal aspirations and delusional aspirations for political power.
We as a citizenry must take back our government. We must educate ourselves on the form and structure of our governments. We must learn and understand the full extent of the limits of the delegated powers within their proper context in which those clauses of the constitutions of our State and federal governments were framed. But this is not enough. We must also acknowledge it when our elected leaders abuse the powers of their office and take responsibility for their actions. Once we have taken personal responsibility for the actions of our elected representation, we have to act upon our knowledge and find solutions to those problems. Knowledge without action is apathy. We must not be afraid to ask our governments, “would you care for some tea?”!
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