Author Carmine Barba considers himself to be an average citizen, albeit one who struggles to keep his head above water. He is dissatisfied with the fiscal quagmire this nation is in, wondering how it will find its way into solvency again. He wonders too if the country and its people are losing their grip on reality and whether they truly believe that we will ever stand tall again and be the masters of our own destinies. In I, the Citizen, Declare ... Barba examines how this can happen-but he cautions that it will only work if we, the people, decide that we want control of the governing reins. The power that lies with the Congress to legislate and spend must be taken out of their hands and given to the people directly. Barba states that Congress has become inefficient and too self-serving and should no longer retain the power it has to pass legislation into law and spend good taxpayers' money. The citizens of this country need to take the power away from them by limiting their ability to deliberate, discuss, and debate issues and expenditures-but not to ultimately vote on their passage. I, the Citizen, Declare ... calls upon all citizens of this good country to make their voices heard.

I, the Citizen Declare ...

How the American Citizen Can Take Back His CountryBy Carmine G. Barba

Trafford Publishing

Copyright © 2011 Carmine G. Barba
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4269-4862-6

Chapter One

Declaration

First declaration;

I, the citizen declare that I will not support nor vote for any candidate for Congress, who does not first solemnly promise that he will introduce and / or vote for an amendment to the Constitution that will nullify his/her power to vote on any proposed legislation and monetary expenditure.

Second declaration;

I, the citizen declare that I will not support nor vote for any candidate for Congress, who does not first solemnly promise that he will introduce and/or vote for an amendment to the Constitution that will give the power to vote on any legislation and monetary expenditure, to the citizenry of the United States of America.

We can take our nation back by passing two amendments to the Constitution:

One amendment would nullify Congress' right to vote on the passing of all national legislation and spending power on all national expenditures.

The other amendment would bestow the power to vote on all national legislation and all national spending to the American Citizenry.

The other thing we need to do is to decide, as a nation, if we would, could and have the fortitude to govern ourselves. Not an easy thing to do, but I do think that we are faced with the issue of whether we want to be self-sufficient or have Big-Brother and Big Government take care of us, and thus continue to dictate to us as to how we should exercise our freedoms, which would at some point eviscerate our freedoms altogether.

In examining the issue of self-government, we found in our search a number of surprising aspects to it.

There is the aspect of how much power the people actually have and how it can be used for better government; what the source of the power is; how it is bestowed upon man by natural law; how elected officials assume power which is usurped and not rightfully theirs; and why the people should consider self- government.

In reading much of the material, I discovered two fundamental facts; one was how little the founding fathers (particularly Madison) regarded the "masses" of the people despite the Constitution's Preamble, which states, "We the People". Their point of view basically was of a deep distrust and an assumed lack of ability to self-govern, which forced them to weigh-in heavily on representation, rather than direct democracy as the preferred form of government.

Another discovery was; how much power the people truly have, and this by virtue of a divine law or the law of nature- all sovereignty emanates from this, and not from the dictatoriality of man-decreed governments, and it may be prudent that we do today, what our founding fathers saw fit, in their collective wisdom, not to have attempted 235 years ago ... and that is to establish direct democracy.

We, as a nation are straining hard and struggling to remain upright fiscally and economically. We spend money we don't have, thereby mortgaging our children's futures. We have a huge national debt which is heavily weighing down on every man, woman and child in this country. Our trade deficits continue to climb, and we are rapidly becoming a debtor nation.

The power to spend must be taken away from the elite few that sit in congress, for they spend money which is not their own. The people who pay the taxes should be the ones to decide how it is spent

Congress has shown over the many decades that it cannot spend money in a discretionary manner. It wastes half of what the citizens sends it.

The secret deals among the members are written into virtually every legislative action, in the form of pork-barreling, whereby the members' individual constituencies derive benefit rather than the country as a whole. There are far too many political games played by the two political parties and the individual members.

When the people learn how to truly govern themselves is when we can have stability and integrity in the governing process. Government must be taken OUT - OF- THE- HANDS of the few, for it corrupts them when they are given a free rein; when they can spend other people's money abandonedly and without real concern; when senators and congressmen can make sweetheart deals to suit themselves and where careers are more important than the affairs of the people. The country will be in total ruin, if it continues to take a back seat to the arrogance and self–serving few who are in the Congress.

When people rule, every voice is heard, every opinion is expressed, every vote is counted.

Congress cannot be trusted in running the country; for too few hands rule over too many lives. Congress is drunk with power and blind to the fact that the power they hold to legislate and to vote, was given to them by the constitution, which in turn is empowered by the people. It is the people who are ultimately in control and it is their will that must be reckoned with and allowed to surface in a more meaningful way, i.e., in a way which puts them in charge of spending and legislating. In other words, the leverage which is currently held by congress, must be taken away from them and given to the people of the nation. The citizen must be in charge.

At this point in our history, it seems strange that despite the fact that we consider ourselves a free people, living in a democracy, having the right to vote (though a limited right), that the citizen should find himself in such dire straights, where he has so little control over his every-day affairs and where the different levels of government have such an impact on his life. He is shoved about to-and-fro and the best he can hope to do is to stay the course and hold on fast.

The following are just a few of the things which weigh upon him,

Every level of government gets its share of the citizen's taxes;

Congress passes legislation to make his life more restrictive and confining;

Inflation beats him down from another side;

Banks and credit card companies raise their rates;

Mortgage payments are overdue; layoffs and job losses weigh on him for months and even years;

Our national borders are not secured;

Family cohesion has weakened and

We are fighting two wars – the list is endless.

In a word, the average schmo has little or nothing to say about how his life is being tossed around by forces which he has no control over.

Will any of this ever change? If so, when and how? Well, my feeling is that it will change; it must change – and for the better.

I don't think God would give us men like Washington and Hamilton, and the Adamses, and Jefferson and Lincoln, who put so much of themselves into making this a country never before seen on the face of the earth, just to have it taken from us by radical elements, who show no love for it and look to destroy it. This is not what God intended for America. America is at the forefront of the future of humankind. God meant for this country to save itself and lead the rest of the world into a happy and peaceful existence. America is God's hope for mankind and it should be ours too.

Chapter Two

The Power of the Citizen

Montesquieu states, "It is a fundamental law in democracies, that the people shall have the sole power to enact laws.

"The constitutions of Rome and Athens were excellent, where the decrees of the Senate had the force of law for one year but did not become perpetual till they were ratified by the consent of the people."

How to check the usurpation of government...." it is clear that the institution of government is not a contract, but a law; that the depositaries of the executive powers are not the people's masters, but its officers; that it can set them up or pull them down when it likes; that for them there is no question of contract, but of obedience and that in taking charge of the functions, the state imposes on them, they are no more than fulfilling their duty as citizens, without having the remotest right to argue about the conditions.

"When, therefore the people set up an hereditary government, whether it be monarchical and confined to one family, or aristocratic and confined to a class, what it enters into is not an undertaking. The administration is given a provisional form until the peoples choose to order it otherwise."

This is a powerful argument against government and for the people. It is people who must rule and not governments.

Natural law

"From the general right to self-preservation are derived specific natural rights. These include the inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness written into the Declaration of Independence. Any government, to be legitimate must observe these natural rights of its citizens. Any government that fails to do so forfeits its warrant to be obeyed, and the majority may remove it from power. Thus modern natural law sets a standard of legitimacy. Although any despotic government that meets the standard may be legitimate because sovereignty rests with the majority, natural law theory is predisposed toward democracy. It is the philosophical core of the government of the United States, France, and other democratic nations."

"The concept of direct democracy was anathema to the framers, they argue, and should be considered unconstitutional today."

I would ask, ... Why? Shouldn't we consider this a slap in the face of the American citizen, to think that after all of the talk about "We, the people" and "natural rights", that once it gets down to the nitty-gritty of the issue, we are suddenly told that we as responsible citizens do not have the sense to govern ourselves. Either citizens are the rulers and the makers of their own destiny or they are not. Either the words of our Declaration of Independence and the other documents written by our founding fathers have validity or they have not.

We can grant the framers one caveat however if they estimated that the population at the time of the Revolution was not capable of governing themselves as a legislative body, due to the lack of rapid communication; the inconvenience of mass assemblies; and the lack of a means of acquiring news quickly; and for discussing issues of the day in open debate – they may have a point. But this is not the case today.

Today we can govern ourselves because we have the means to initiate, discuss, deliberate, amend, and vote on all issues and do it on a national scale.

"Affirming George Washington's insistence in his farewell address (1798) that the 'constitution which at any time exists till changed by the whole people is sacredly obligatory upon all.'"

"Regarding popular sovereignty, James Madison wrote in the federalist, #49, that "the people are the only legitimate fountain of power ... the transcendent and precious right of the people to "abolish or alter their governments" "Legitimate power derives primarily from the people's original consent to their form of government not from their continuing role in it, because popular consent is the "pure, original fountain of all legitimate authority" (Alexander Hamilton)

Madison; "if it is true that all government rest on an opinion, it is no less true that the strength of opinion in each individual and its practical influence on his conduct, depend much on the number which he supposes to have entertained in the same opinion. The reason of man, like man himself is timid and cautions when left alone, and acquires firmness and confidence in proportion to the number with which it is associated."

John Stuart Mills' statement regarding representative government ... the voter (i.e. an elected representative) is under an absolute moral obligation to consider the interest of the public, not his private advantage and give his vote, to the best of his judgment exactly as he was bound to do if he were the sole voter and the election (or issue at hand) depended upon him alone. This being admitted it is at least a prima facie consequence that the duty of voting (by elected officials) like any other public duty, should be performed under the eye and criticism of the public; every one of whom has not only an interest in its performance, but a good title to consider himself wrong if it is performed otherwise than honestly and carefully."

This is a good argument against what congressmen and women actually do. They vote their own personal interest, their own constituency or special interests and not the interests of the nation as a whole, which is all pretty much in harmony with the dictates of the party line.

"It is strictly a matter of duty; he is bound to give it according to his best and most conscientious opinion of the public good. Whoever has any other idea of it is unfit to have the suffrage; its effect on him is to pervert, not to elevate the mind. Instead of opening his heart to an exalted patriotism and the obligation of public duty, it awakens and nourishes in him the disposition to use a public function for his own interest, pleasure or caprice."

"The present is one of the many instances in which the spirit of an institution, the impression it makes on the mind of the citizen, is one of the most important parts of its operation. The spirit of vote or ballot – the interpretation likely to be put on it in the mind of an elector – is that the suffrage is given to him for himself, for particular use and benefit, and not as a trust for the public. For it is indeed a trust, if the public are entitled to his vote, are not they entitled to know his vote?

"Mr. Bright and his school of democrats think themselves greatly concerned in maintaining that the franchise is what they term a right, not a trust. Now this idea does a moral mischief outweighing all the good that the ballot could do, at the highest possible estimate of it. In whatever way we define or understand the idea of a right, no person can have a right to power over others; every such power, which he is allowed to possess is morally, in the fullest force of the term, a trust. But the exercise of any political function, either as an elector or as a representative, is power over others."

"Tocquerville, who was a friend of John Stuart Mills stated; "we cannot prevent the conditions of men from becoming equal, but it depends upon ourselves whether the principle of equality will lead them to servitude or freedom, to knowledge or prosperity or wretchedness." He feared the possible abuse of power by centralized government ... and thought it essential to "educate democracy" ... so that it would have its own dignity, good sense, and even benevolence'

'He was alive to the dangers of uniform mediocrity but believed, like Mills, that democracy could be permeated with creative ideas."

American constitutionalism

"The United States was founded by men deeply influenced by republicanism, by Locke, and by the optimism of the French Enlightenment. George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson all concurred that laws rather than men should be the final sanction and that government should be responsible to the governed.

"... Anxious to safeguard state liberties and the rights of properties, the founding fathers gave the federal government insufficient revenues and coercive powers, as a result of which the constitution was stigmatized as being 'no more than a Treaty of Alliance'. Yet the federal union was preserved ... the concept of natural rights had found expression in the Declaration of Independence."

But was this enough? How much did the founding fathers trust the American people? The constitution does not give the people the right to vote; it never allowed them to pass and approve legislation enacted by the Congress; did not allow the people a direct vote for the presidency, which, even to this day, the vote that actually elects a president is the electoral college; nor did the people have any say in the appointment of judges to the Supreme Court whose decisions hold great sway over the lives of American citizens; and not until 1913 were the people allowed to vote for senators from each of their respective states.

Where does my right to vote come from? I have a right to vote because my state grants me this right, so I vote as a state resident and citizen and not necessarily as a U.S. citizen. Have I, as a U.S. citizen been granted the right to vote by the US constitution? I have not. And if I had that right would that grant me the power to vote on national issues? This power is the same one accorded to the U.S. Congress, which is a man-made institution, empowered as a body, by the Constitution and thus has a right which is not accorded to the citizen, who is a creation of God, and therefore having natural rights as opposed to a right bestowed by the people, via the constitution, to a governing body, like to U.S. Congress.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from I, the Citizen Declare ...by Carmine G. Barba Copyright © 2011 by Carmine G. Barba. Excerpted by permission of Trafford Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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