Party Profile: Meet the Constitutionalists

Constitution Party National Platform

We declare the platform of the Constitution Party to be predicated on the principles of The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution of the United States, and The Bill of Rights.

According to the original intent of the Founding Fathers, these founding documents are the foundation of our Liberty and the Supreme Law of the Land.

The sole purpose of government, as stated in the Declaration of Independence, is to secure our unalienable rights given us by our Creator. When Government grows beyond this scope, it is usurpation, and liberty is compromised.

We believe the major issues we face today are best solved by a renewed allegiance to the original intent of these founding documents.

Selections from the Party Platform

Preamble

The Constitution Party gratefully acknowledges the blessing of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as Creator, Preserver and Ruler of the Universe and of these United States. We hereby appeal to Him for mercy, aid, comfort, guidance and the protection of His Providence as we work to restore and preserve these United States.

This great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been and are afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.

The goal of the Constitution Party is to restore American jurisprudence to its Biblical foundations and to limit the federal government to its Constitutional boundaries.

The Constitution of these United States provides that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." The Constitution Party supports the original intent of this language. Therefore, the Constitution Party calls on all those who love liberty and value their inherent rights to join with us in the pursuit of these goals and in the restoration of these founding principles.

The U.S. Constitution established a Republic rooted in Biblical law, administered by representatives who are Constitutionally elected by the citizens. In such a Republic all Life, Liberty and Property are protected because law rules.

We affirm the principles of inherent individual rights upon which these United States of America were founded:

•That each individual is endowed by his Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are the rights to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness;

•That the freedom to own, use, exchange, control, protect, and freely dispose of property is a natural, necessary and inseparable extension of the individual's unalienable rights;

•That the legitimate function of government is to secure these rights through the preservation of domestic tranquility, the maintenance of a strong national defense, and the promotion of equal justice for all;

•That history makes clear that left unchecked, it is the nature of government to usurp the liberty of its citizens and eventually become a major violator of the people's rights; and

•That, therefore, it is essential to bind government with the chains of the Constitution and carefully divide and jealously limit government powers to those assigned by the consent of the governed.

Conscription

US Constitution, 5th Amendment:

"No person shall be … deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

Conscription deprives a person of liberty without due process of law. This is clearly prohibited by the 5th amendment. Conscription is an involuntary taking of a person's labor-which is a form of property-without just compensation as provided by the eminent domain provisions of the 5th amendment.

Compulsory government service is incompatible with individual liberty.

We oppose imposition of the draft, the registration law, compulsory military training or any other form of compulsory government service.

We support a well-trained and highly organized volunteer state home militia, and voluntary Reserve Officer Training Corps (R.O.T.C.) military training in our schools, colleges, and universities.

Education

Since the Constitution grants the Federal Government no authority over Education, the 10th Amendment applies:

"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."

All teaching is related to basic assumptions about God and man. Education as a whole, therefore, cannot be separated from religious faith. The law of our Creator assigns the authority and responsibility of educating children to their parents. Education should be free from all federal government subsidies, including vouchers, tax incentives, and loans, except with respect to veterans.

Because the federal government has absolutely no jurisdiction concerning the education of our children, the United States Department of Education should be abolished; all federal legislation related to education should be repealed. No federal laws subsidizing or regulating the education of children should be enacted. Under no circumstances should the federal government be involved in national teacher certification, educational curricula, textbook selection, learning standards, comprehensive sex education, psychological and psychiatric research testing programs, and personnel.

Because control over education is now being relegated to departments other than the Department of Education, we clarify that no federal agency, department, board, or other entity may exercise jurisdiction over any aspect of children's upbringing. Education, training, and discipline of children are properly placed in the domain of their parents.

We support the unimpeded right of parents to provide for the education of their children in the manner they deem best, including home, private or religious. We oppose all legislation from any level of government that would interfere with or restrict that liberty. We support equitable tax relief for families whose children do not attend government schools.

So that parents need not defy the law by refusing to send their children to schools of which they disapprove, compulsory attendance laws should be repealed.

Gun Control

The 2nd Amendment strictly limits any interference with gun ownership by saying: "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."

The right to bear arms is inherent in the right of self defense, defense of the family, and defense against tyranny, conferred on the individual and the community by our Creator to safeguard life, liberty, and property, as well as to help preserve the independence of the nation.

The right to keep and bear arms is guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the Constitution; it may not properly be infringed upon or denied.

The Constitution Party upholds the right of the citizen to keep and bear arms. We oppose attempts to prohibit ownership of guns by law-abiding citizens, and stand against all laws which would require the registration of guns or ammunition.

We emphasize that when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have them. In such circumstances, the peaceful citizen's protection against the criminal would be seriously jeopardized.

We call for the repeal of all federal firearms legislation, beginning with Federal Firearms Act of 1968.

We call for the rescinding of all executive orders, the prohibition of any future executive orders, and the prohibition of treaty ratification which would in any way limit the right to keep and bear arms.

Source: Constitution-party.net

The Bill of Rights and Current Events – December 2010

By Zach Foster

USA.gov recently published a brief list reminding Americans of what freedoms they are guaranteed under the Bill of Rights of the Constitution.  These freedoms are the cornerstone of American democracy and what it means to be an American citizen.  Nonetheless, these freedoms have been attacked or compromised through the ages and they continue to be attacked today.  Let us analyze some of the freedoms guaranteed to us in the Bill of Rights and how they stand in the face of today’s events.

Freedom of Religion: For the most part, American freedom of religion has persevered to unimaginable heights as nearly every denomination of every religion on earth is practiced in this country, from ancient traditional religions like Christianity and Buddhism to modern religions like Wicca and Scientology.  Religious diversity has brought the unexpected but direly needed side effect of teaching Americans to tolerate each other’s differences.  However, the religious group targeted in this country by much of the media for the last nine years, Muslims, has seen attacks on their freedom of religion.  No one is blind to the fact that since September 11^th, 2001 there has been a wave of anti-Muslim sentiment.  Many wonderful and good natured Americans have allowed the better angels of their nature to be corrupted by the propaganda of a few paranoid religious xenophobes.  It is highly unpopular to be a Muslim in America.

What is even more highly unpopular is to be a Muslim in New York City.  Many big names in media launched one verbal assault after another at the idea of building a new mosque several blocks away from Ground Zero.  While it is easy to connect the dots that make this idea seem tacky, the people who have assaulted this idea have bought entirely too deeply into an alleged conspiracy that this is nothing but a slap in the face to America by Muslim extremists.  These people forget, however, that over three hundred of the victims—ten percent of the victims of the attack—were American Muslims.  They also forget about the thousands of good-natured Muslims who died fighting the Taliban between 1996 and 2001, and the patriotic pro-freedom Muslims of the Afghan National Army and the Iraqi Army who have fought and died next to American troops in the fight against extremism.

More importantly, they forget about the American Muslims who have fought and died in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, whose memory is being slapped in the face every time an American utters anti-Islam rhetoric.  Americans forget that we are engaged in a Global War on Terror, NOT a global War on Islam (and let it be noted that former President George W. Bush’s family is very close friends with the  Saudi Royal family).  For all those who still believe that building that mosque in New York is a tacky and intentionally insulting move: is it too difficult to accept that the congregation wants to build their mosque there BECAUSE THEY ALREADY OWN THAT LAND?  Respect religions, condemn violence!

Freedom of assembly:  This freedom is still intact, though it is occasionally abused as Americans forget that this freedom explicitly applies to peaceful assembly.  There are places and times when far-rightist radical groups assemble in order to voice beliefs on racial supremacy and sometimes on how genocide of the lesser races would be a blessing.  Hate dominates their lives and probably always will.  On the other side of the political spectrum, radical leftists gather not just to protest actions of the American government, but advocate for its violent overthrow either for anarchy or for the purpose of proletarian revolution.  They forget that anarchy equals chaos, since social contracts are necessary for society to even function at the bare minimum.  They also forget or consciously disregard historical trends that when governments are violently overthrown by “proletarian revolutions,” the resulting “people’s governments” become more tyrannical and bloody than the ones they replace.  They fail to appreciate the government that, despite its shortcomings, allows them the luxuries of freedom they enjoy daily.

Freedom to keep and bear arms:  This Constitutional right is attacked on a regular basis.  Some states have passed laws overwhelmingly in favor of gun rights, while other state governments do everything in their power to try to remove guns from existence.  While some uneducated idealists truly believe that fewer guns in society will lower gun violence, the fact of the matter is that the vast majority of gun violence is committed not with guns legally purchased from gun stores, but with illegal weapons, usually smuggled into the country and purchased on the black market.  Disarming the law abiding citizenry only makes them vulnerable to be preyed on by criminals.  The Second Amendment was most recently slammed by Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, who claimed that James Madison only hastily threw it into the Bill of Rights to get the Constitution ratified by paranoid Congressmen.  However, James Madison’s explicitly pro-gun essay, #46 in The Federalist Papers, proves Breyer to be quite mistaken.

Freedom of speech:  This fundamental right continues to stand strong.  It is often used to voice hate and hateful vulgarity, but these are necessary evils in order to preserve Freedom of Speech for the moment when it is used to cry out a truth and right any grievous wrongs in our country or our world.

Freedom of the press:  This freedom stands strong and often is heavily abused by members of the press.  The press and media have the right to run any story they choose, but they DO NOT have the right to violate government secrecy when it comes to classified documents.  There comes a point where there must be—not a trade-off—but a compromise between freedom of information and national security.  Wikileaks and its American supporters have greatly strained this right in testing the limits of Freedom of the Press.

It was Benjamin Franklin who said it best: “Those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither.”  If Americans completely give up their Freedom of Speech of Freedom of the Press in the name of national security truly deserve neither.  At the same time, those who would betray vital military or national secrets that would truly harm the security of the nation do not deserve to be free.  There needs to be a boundary for Americans—let each decide their own—where they decide when they are still free to say what they will while national security is respected.  Think of it this way: Will spilling these secrets get people killed?  Will keeping these secrets get people killed?

Freedom for those accused of crimes:  This freedom stands strong to this very day.  It was Cambodian (“Democratic” Kampuchean) dictator Pol Pot who said “It is better that ten innocents should die than for one guilty person to go free.”  In America it is just the opposite, and while crooks are occasionally able to slide past the justice system, many innocent people have been spared from being wrongly sent to prison.  We as a society are above Napoleonic law.  As a matter of fact, it is convicted felons that benefit most from this.  Most Americans misinterpret “protection for the accused” to carry over for those in prison when it need not be so.

There are many convicts in prison who actively fail to be reformed because of participation in rackets and crime from within prison walls.  Many activists rally in favor of improving (softening) living conditions in the prisons, and even for abolishing the death penalty, but they forget two things: 1) Imprisonment and execution are in compliance with Constitutional law, since people can only not be deprived of life, liberty, or property WITHOUT due process of law.  The Justice system is due process of law and CAN deprive a convicted felon of life (the death penalty), liberty (prison time), or property (fines or civil penalties); 2) Prison is meant to be a period of punishment and reform, NOT a child’s time out in his bedroom.

Instead of reading novels, pumping iron, and laying in their cells all day, perhaps prisoners should be doing twelve to fourteen hours of hard labor, followed by one or two hours in education on American history, American government, and the importance of contributing to the community and society as a whole upon release from prison (or, for the lifers without parole, helping others who will be our reform themselves).  While it is important that we protect those accused of crimes, we also have an obligation to teach and reform those in prison so that when they get out, we can also protect potential victims of crime.

Freedom of religion is the face of diversity.  Freedom of assembly is the face of political ideas.  Freedom to keep and bear arms is the face of self defense.  Freedom of speech is the face of expression, and sometimes, truth.  Freedom of the press is the face of knowing what goes on around us so that we may be one society, not an archipelago of people and information, and it is the face of awareness.  Protection for those accused of crimes, as well as legal disciplinary action for those convicted, are key aspects of a social contract and are the face of order.  All of these faces are the grand union that makes up this country.  The Constitution is the Law of the Land, and let us fulfill our dual responsibility of being aware of our rights and defending them at all costs.

What freedoms are guaranteed in the Bill of Rights?

When the Constitution was ratified in 1789, many people were concerned that it did not protect certain freedoms. They thought that the Constitution should be changed or amended to protect these freedoms. On December 15, 1791, 10 amendments were added to the Constitution. These amendments guarantee certain freedoms and rights, so they are known as the Bill of Rights.

Some of the freedoms and rights protected in the Bill of Rights include:

•Freedom of religion

•Freedom of assembly

•To keep and bear arms

•Freedom of speech

•Freedom of the press

•Protection for those accused of crimes

The original paper copy of the Bill of Rights is currently kept and may be viewed at the National Archives Building in Washington, D.C.

The Bill of Rights Day is celebrated every December 15.