We Are All Called to Act to Secure our Liberties
By Rebecca O’Dell Townsend
“Whoever would be obliged to obey a constitutional law is justified in refusing to obey an unconstitutional act of the legislature ... when a question, even of this delicate nature, occurs everyone who is called to act has a right to judge.†--James Wilson, 1791
“If once [the people] become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and the Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions.†--Thomas Jefferson 1787
We are all called to diligently protect and defend our Constitutional rights. Anyone who complies, without resistance and protest, to an unconstitutional legislative act, executive order, or court order aids the government in trampling or destroying that constitutional right. No one is exempt from the constant struggle against tyranny and oppression.
Moreover, we must diligently hold our legislators responsible if they enact any law that violates our constitutional rights. We must diligently hold our judiciary responsible if they apply any legislative act in an unconstitutional manner. We must diligently hold our executive officers responsible if they enforce any unconstitutional legislative act or court order. Our executive officers have just as much of a duty not to enforce an unconstitutional law or court order as they do to enforce a constitutional law or order.
In the United States, we depend on each branch of government and each constitutional officer to defend our Constitution and to secure our God-given inalienable rights. They are required by our Constitution to take an oath to do so. This oath includes the duty to defend our constitutional rights from being violated by other constitutional officers and by other branches of government. Our government is a system of checks and balances. If our constitutional officers or our branches of government fail to act as a constitutional check on each other, then we are soon subjected to oppression and tyranny by the unchecked branch.
Today, our Nation is suffering under judicial tyranny because the other two branches of government have neglected their duty to act as a check on the judicial branch. The executive and legislative branches have allowed the judicial branch to usurp the legislative power. They have allowed the judicial branch to dictate to them what is constitutional and what is not - a right it does not have. The legislative branch has failed to remove judges and justices who have violated their oath. The legislative branch has continued to fund the judiciary and to give the judicial branch jurisdiction over a wide variety of cases. Even worse, the executive branch has enforced outrageous court orders that have blatantly denied American citizens their God-given inalienable rights.
We MUST do our duty as American citizens to stop the assault upon our Constitution and upon our God-given inalienable rights. We MUST hold our government officials of all three branches responsible and accountable. If not, then we may well be the generation that neglected to pass on our religious and civic liberties to our posterity.
Freedom is Not for the Timid © 2006
Rebecca O’Dell Townsend, a resident of St. Petersburg, Florida, is an appellate attorney, practicing before the U.S. Supreme Court, Eleventh Circuit Federal Court of Appeals, Florida Supreme Court, and other federal and state appellate courts. A Past President of Suncoast Women’s Republican Club, she travels the country speaking on “Our Current Constitutional Crisis: the Loss of our Republican Form of Government.†She is a graduate of Eckerd College and Stetson University College of Law. Visit her web site
www.rebeccaodell.org to learn more about the Constitution and the judicial branch’s role within the Constitution.
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