Alan Keyes Weighs in

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Thursday, July 29, 2010
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INVASION USA
Unconstitutional attack on the state of Arizona
Exclusive: Alan Keyes combats judge's use
of 'the doctrine of pre-emptive dereliction'
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Posted: July 30, 2010
By Alan Keyes
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The Judiciary Committee of the United States Senate votes to recommend the confirmation of Elena Kagan as a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. A federal judge blocks implementation of key provisions of Arizona's now famous immigration law. Both events are part of the Obama faction's final assault on the government of limited, delegated powers established by the Constitution of the United States.

Back in April, I wrote a column pointing to the constitutional provision (Article I, Section 10) that recognizes that when one of the United States is "actually invaded," the state government may act, without federal authorization, to defend itself. Due to the federal government's ongoing dereliction, in open and abusive defiance of existing federal law, Arizona and several other states of the Union are the victims of an ongoing invasion, which endangers and damages the lives and livelihood of their inhabitants.

According to the Constitution's language, when actually invaded, a state may go to war in defense of its citizens. Arizona has undertaken instead to respond to the invasion by directing its police forces to make a special effort to do what the federal government refuses to do – carry out existing federal law. But even if there were no such federal laws, Arizona has the clear constitutional prerogative to respond to the actual invasion of its territory.
U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton seeks to suppress this clearly stated constitutional prerogative. She claims that it is pre-empted by the federal government's refusal to enforce the existing federal laws. So a prerogative established by the Supreme Law of the Land is somehow pre-empted by the perjurious refusal of federal officials faithfully to carry out laws enacted in accordance with the Constitution's provisions. In effect, this doctrine of pre-emptive dereliction replaces the rule of law with the lawless abuse of authority. It aims to force the states to accept whatever damage the federal government chooses to inflict upon their citizens by its neglect of duty.

Arizona and other states in a similar situation are being invaded. Those presently wielding the authority of the federal government refuse to respond to the invasion. The judge's ruling implies that the forces of the U.S. government may now be used to prevent the state's police forces from defending its people against invasion. The U.S. government implicitly threatens war (i.e., enforcement of the U.S. judge's order) against any states that dare to do so.

Judge Bolton's doctrine of pre-emptive dereliction is both unconstitutional and irrational. In the final analysis, it represents an abuse of federal authority like none we have seen before in the nation's history. Are the states obliged to surrender their constitutionally recognized prerogative of self-defense in deference to federal authority when that authority is invoked in order to sustain the U.S. government's derelict unwillingness to honor the U.S. Constitution and carry out provisions of law made pursuant thereto? Or does such derelict abuse of federal authority depart from the basic premise of the constitutional compact, turning it from an instrument of government that respects the common good of the governed, into a suicide pact that surrenders and violates the most evident and unalienable right of the people?

All the claims of right and law in this matter are on the side of the government and people of Arizona. The natural law supports their right of self-defense. The Constitution supports their state government's prerogative to defend against actual invasion. The federal law provides the basis for identifying and constraining the perpetrators of that invasion. Nothing supports the dereliction of the Obama faction, or the opinion whereby Judge Bolton seeks to provide legal cover for its malfeasance. That is, nothing but the extraordinary notion that the demands of foreigners, who have invaded the country in contravention of its just and duly enacted laws, supersede the prerogatives and unalienable rights of the citizens. Yet, in consequence of their God-ordained rights, it is the citizens' sovereign will that authorizes the U.S. Constitution and the just powers of the government it ordains and establishes.

Do the people of Arizona, or for that matter of the whole United States, have no right to defend the property of their state and nation? If, in disregard of the Constitution and laws of the United States, the U.S. government may leave the property of the whole people open to invasion by foreign citizens, what of the property rights of individuals? If the federal government refuses to act against certain groups that invade and seize private property (as they have refused to act against the Black Panther group that sought to deprive people of the liberty of their vote), does Judge Bolton's new doctrine of pre-emptive dereliction mean that state police forces are forbidden to interfere with their crimes?

During his election campaign, Obama called for the establishment of a national police force as large and well-equipped as the military. But the doctrine of pre-emptive dereliction would allow his faction to dispense with the need for such a force. The federal government could, by dereliction, unleash lawless forces against any people who dare to assert constitutional prerogatives and rights the Obama faction means to destroy. Then, the implicit threat contained in the doctrine of pre-emptive dereliction would keep state authorities loyal to the Constitution from intervening to defend the lives and liberties of those in the targeted population.
Federalism was intended to provide people in the states with natural rallying points for their efforts to resist the unconstitutional abuse of power by the national government. If accepted, the irrational doctrine of pre-emptive dereliction implies the legalistic destruction of that vital line of constitutional defense for liberty.


As Published: WND.com