July 14, 2021  James Fetzer blog

Introduction by Jonas E. Alexis, VT Editor

Dr. Chuck Baldwin is an American politician and has been involved in at least 12 full-length documentary films. He was the presidential nominee of the Constitution Party for the 2008 U.S. presidential election and had previously been its nominee for U.S. vice president in 2004. He is also a pastor of Liberty Fellowship in Kalispell, Montana.

JEA: Dr. Chuck Baldwin continues to be an acquired taste, and he still has enough things to say that will either make you upset or make you think about the directions in which America is going.

Feel free to disagree and writes your reasonable comments. But Baldwin is a man of good will, and we should make every effort to associate with people like him. Baldwin is not pessimist, but he is not naïve either.

April 9, 1865

This is the date when General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. Regardless of where one comes down on the subject of the War Between the States, one fact is undeniable: Abraham Lincoln seriously dismantled the Jeffersonian model of federalism in America.

Ever since Lincoln’s presidency, virtually every battle that free men have fought for the principles of limited government, State sovereignty, personal liberty, etc., has stemmed directly from Lincoln’s usurpation of power and subjugation and forced union of what used to be “Free and Independent States” (the Declaration of Independence). In fact, the philosophical battles being waged today regarding every encroachment upon liberty and State autonomy by our federal government have their roots in Lincoln’s autocracy.

July 9, 1868

This is the date when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified. This amendment codified into law what Lincoln had forced at bayonet point. Until then, people were deemed citizens of their respective states. The Constitution nowhere referred to people as “U.S. citizens.” It only recognized “the Citizens of each State.”

Notice also that citizenship was only recognized among the “several States,” not among people living in non-State territories. Until the Fourteenth Amendment, people were “Citizens of each State.” (Article. IV. Section. 2. Paragraph. 1.) The Fourteenth Amendment created a whole new class of persons: “citizens of the United States.” This false notion of “one nation” overturned the Jeffersonian principle that America was a confederated republic, a voluntary union of states.

February 3, 1913

This is the date when the Sixteenth Amendment was ratified and the personal income tax and IRS were instituted. This was a flagrant repudiation of freedom principles. What began as a temporary measure to support the War of Northern Aggression became a permanent income revenue stream for an unconstitutional–and ever-growing–central government.

April 8, 1913

This is the date when the Seventeenth Amendment was ratified. This amendment overturned the right of the State legislatures to elect their own senators and replaced it with a direct, popular vote. This was another serious blow against State sovereignty. The framers of the Constitution desired that the influence and power in Washington, D.C., be kept as close to the people and states as possible.

For example, the number of representatives in the House of Representatives was to be decided by a limited number of voters. In the original Constitution, the ratio of “people of the several States” deciding their House member could not exceed “one for every thirty thousand.” (Article. I. Section. 2. Paragraph. 3.) And when it came to the US Senate, the framers recognized the authority of each State legislature to select its own senators, thereby keeping power and influence from aggregating in Washington, D.C.

The Seventeenth Amendment seriously damaged the influence and power of the states by forcing them to elect their U.S. senators by popular vote. Senators who answered to State legislators, each answering to a limited number of voters, were much more accountable to the “citizens of the several States” than those who are elected by a large number (most states now numbering into the millions) of people. For all intents and purposes, U.S. senators are more like “mini-presidents” than representatives of sovereign states.

December 23, 1913

This is the date when the Federal Reserve Act was passed. This Act placed oversight of America’s financial matters into the hands of a cabal of private international bankers who have completely destroyed the constitutional principles of sound money and (for the most part) free enterprise. No longer would the marketplace (private consumption, thrift, growth, etc.) be the determinant of the U.S. economy–which is what freedom is all about.

But now a private, unaccountable, international banking cartel would have total power and authority to micromanage (for their own private, parochial purposes) America’s financial sector. Virtually every recession, depression, and downturn this country has ever had (including the Great Depression) was the direct result of the Fed’s manipulation of the financial markets.

1913 was not a good year for the United States or for freedom.

June 26, 1945

This is the date when the United Nations Charter was signed and America joined the push for global government. It is no accident that America has not fought a constitutionally declared war since we entered the UN–and neither have we won one.

Furthermore, it is America’s involvement in the United Nations that has spawned this pathetic push for a New World Order that George H.W. Bush, Henry Kissinger, Tony Blair, Walter Cronkite, et al., have talked so much about.

The United Nations is an anti-America institution that works aggressively and constantly against the interests and principles of the United States. But it is an institution that is ensconced in the American political infrastructure.

Like a cancer, the UN eats away at our liberties and values, and both major political parties in Washington, D.C., are equally culpable in allowing it to exert so much influence over our country.

May 14, 1948

This is the date that the Zionist State of Israel was created. Nothing has blinded America’s pastors and Christians like the advent of the modern State of Israel. And I was just as blinded as anyone about this subject for most of my life. And anyone who wants to better understand why I have taken the position on Israel that I have now should be sure to read my postscript at the end of this column.

Many–if not most–pastors and Christians believe that modern Israel is a fulfillment of Bible prophecy preceding the appearance of Christ (as I used to believe). But it is much more likely that this faux Israel is a devilish counterfeit preceding the appearance of antichrist.

Since the creation of the Zionist State of Israel in 1948, nothing has influenced and even dominated American politics, government, business (especially banking), the mainstream media, and the entertainment industry more–and all for the WORSE.

August 16, 1954

This is the date that the infamous Johnson Amendment to the 501c3 tax code was signed into law by President Dwight David Eisenhower. This review from Regent University accurately summarizes the Johnson Amendment:

“The Amendment appears to be nothing more than an attempt by a powerful senator [Lyndon Johnson, D-TX] to silence political opponents that he feared were hurting his chances for reelection. Johnson knew how to work the system and inserted his Amendment into a large tax overhaul bill. There was no referral to a committee for further study and hearings.

There was no legislative analysis of the effect of the Amendment on tax-exempt organizations. And there was certainly no attempt to understand the effect that the Amendment might have on constitutional rights, especially those of churches and other religious organizations.

The Johnson Amendment plainly targets speech because it prohibits statements that are published or distributed, yet Congress made no attempt to reconcile the Johnson Amendment with the First Amendment. There was absolutely no discussion at all of the First Amendment, and Johnson’s Amendment simply sailed through Congress as a small addition to a popular tax overhaul bill.” (Regent University Law Review, Volume 24, 2011-2012, Number 2)

Nothing has done more to gag America’s pulpits and churches like the repressive speech restrictions of the 501c3 non-profit tax status instituted under the Johnson Amendment. And nothing has done more to destroy America than these gagged and muted pulpits and churches.

June 25, 1962, and June 17, 1963

These are the dates when the U.S. Supreme Court removed prayer (’62) and Bible reading (’63) from public schools. Think of it: since the time that our forebears settled this continent, children had been free to pray and read the Scriptures in their various schools. We’re talking about a period of more than 300 years.

Of course, the State legislatures–and the vast majority (if not all) of municipal and county governmental meetings–still open their sessions in prayer, as do the U.S. House and Senate and even the U.S. Supreme Court. But this same liberty is denied the students of America’s public schools.

There is no question that America has not recovered from these two horrific Supreme Court decisions. And since the federal government expelled God from our public schools, it has been methodically expelling God from virtually all of our public life.

November 22, 1963

This is the date that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. For all intents and purposes, the American people lost control of their government with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963.

With the exception of Ronald Reagan, every President since Kennedy has been completely controlled by the establishment elite that ordered Kennedy’s murder.

A retired Air Force Brigadier General friend of mine (who, before he retired, probably flew every jet the Air Force had and who had been assigned to both the White House and Pentagon during his illustrious career) told me in no uncertain terms that he was convinced that President Kennedy was assassinated by government insiders (with the help of the mob, of course) for two reasons: 1) he intended to disband the CIA, and 2) he intended to dismantle the Federal Reserve.

The assassination of President Kennedy and subsequent cover-up was much more than a killing; it was a coup.

October 22, 1968

This is the date when President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed the Gun Control Act of 1968. Before this Act, the Second Amendment was alive and well in the United States. The Gun Control Act of 1968 turned a right into a privilege and forever forced the American people to bow at the altar of government when seeking to exercise their God-ordained duty of self-defense. Interestingly enough, Johnson’s Gun Control Act of 1968 borrowed heavily from Hitler’s Gun Control Act of 1938.

Our Founding Fathers could have never imagined that the American people would ever allow their right to keep and bear arms be infringed as they are today. In fact, it was the attempted confiscation of firearms cached at Concord, Massachusetts, that triggered the War of Independence on April 19, 1775. Pastor Jonas Clark and his Lexington Minutemen must be turning over in their graves at the egregiously restrictive gun control laws imposed in their beloved State of Massachusetts today.

The hundreds and hundreds of draconian gun control laws that currently plague the American people–and that have cost thousands of American lives (including the 1993 Brady Bill)–have all come about as a result of Johnson’s Gun Control Act of 1968.

January 22, 1973

This is the date when the U.S. Supreme Court issued the Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions, which, in effect, legalized abortion-on-demand and has resulted in the legal murders of nearly 60 million innocent, unborn babies. Imagine: since these two Supreme Court decisions, more innocent human beings have been killed in the United States than were killed in the holocaust of Nazi Germany or in the great purges of Stalin’s Russia or in the communist revolution of Mao’s China.

The Roe and Doe decisions expunged the Jeffersonian principle that all men are endowed by their Creator with the unalienable right to life (Declaration). These decisions opened the door to a host of big-government programs and policies that have resulted in the wanton destruction of human life both in the United States and overseas.

It has created an entire industry whose express purpose for existing is the destruction of human life. It has desensitized the conscience and soul of America. Furthermore, it has forced men of decency and good will to finance–with their tax dollars–the unconscionable act of killing unborn children.

And, once again, another Jeffersonian principle was eviscerated. He said, “To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.” The Roe and Doe decisions violate this principle in the most egregious manner possible.

December 8, 1993

This is the date that President Bill Clinton signed the job-killing, manufacturing industry-gutting, anything-but-free-trade bill, The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), into law. NAFTA had been ceremonially signed by President George H.W. Bush on December 17, 1992.  The U.S. House of Representatives passed it on November 17, 1993, and the U.S. Senate passed it on November 20, 1993.

According to the Economic Policy Institute, “The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was the door through which American workers were shoved into the neoliberal global labor market.

“By establishing the principle that U.S. corporations could relocate production elsewhere and sell back into the United States, NAFTA undercut the bargaining power of American workers, which had driven the expansion of the middle class since the end of World War II. The result has been 20 years of stagnant wages and the upward redistribution of income, wealth and political power.”

“Second, NAFTA strengthened the ability of U.S. employers to force workers to accept lower wages and benefits.”

“Third, the destructive effect of NAFTA on the Mexican agricultural and small business sectors dislocated several million Mexican workers and their families, and was a major cause in the dramatic increase in undocumented workers flowing into the U.S. labor market.”

“Fourth, and ultimately most important, NAFTA was the template for rules of the emerging global economy, in which the benefits would flow to capital and the costs to labor. The U.S. governing class–in alliance with the financial elites of its trading partners–applied NAFTA’s principles to the World Trade Organization, to the policies of the World Bank and IMF, and to the deal under which employers of China’s huge supply of low-wage workers were allowed access to U.S. markets in exchange for allowing American multinational corporations the right to invest there.”

September 11, 2001

This is the date that the Twin Towers in New York City and Pentagon in Washington, D.C., were attacked. It is very difficult to not notice the Orwellian reaction by the federal government in Washington, D.C., to the 9/11 attacks–whoever was responsible–including:

*The creation of the Department of Homeland Security
*The passage of the USA Patriot Act
*The passage of the Military Commissions Act
*The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan
*The exponential escalation of the global (and endless) “war on terror”
*The rise of burgeoning Police State within the United States

But many people (including experts) are firmly convinced that the attacks on 9/11 were carried out or at least facilitated by elements within our own government. Which, if that is the case, would constitute the greatest conspiratorial hoax against the American people since Kennedy’s assassination.

October 26, 2001

This is the date when President George W. Bush signed the USA Patriot Act and the federal government’s war against individual liberty began in earnest. This is the exact same bill that Bill Clinton and Al Gore tried to push through a Republican Congress during the 1990s but were unable to do, because Republicans said the bill was “unconstitutional.”

But it was those same Republicans who passed this same bill in 2001, because it was now being proposed by a Republican administration. That’s how these pathetic politicians from both parties play this game, folks.

Most of the unconstitutional eavesdropping, snooping, wiretapping, phone-call-intercepting, email-reading, prying, financial-records-tracking, travel-watching, ad infinitum, ad nauseam by federal police agencies began with the implementation of the Patriot Act.

The Department of Homeland Security, the “war on terror,” and the usurpation of local and State power at home have all come about as an outgrowth of the Patriot Act. The Patriot Act forever shifted the focus of American law and jurisprudence away from constitutional government and individual liberty and toward a police-state mentality.

March 20, 2003

This was the date that President George W. Bush launched his moronic invasion of Iraq–a nation that had absolutely NOTHING to do with the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon on September 11, 2001. In fact, the invasion of Iraq had been planned since Bush first became President. The events of 9/11 were merely the excuse George Bush and Dick Cheney needed to launch their preconceived invasion.

The invasion of Iraq led to the destabilization of the entire Middle East, the rise of ISIS, America’s phony war on terror, and unprecedented Muslim immigration in Europe and the U.S–not to mention the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent victims.

October 17, 2006, and October 9, 2009

These are the dates when President G.W. Bush signed and President Barack Obama re-signed the Military Commissions Act. This Act is another outgrowth of the Patriot Act and has, in effect, terminated the fundamental protections of individual liberty, which are found in the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights.

For all intents and purposes, the Patriot Act and Military Commissions Act (along with the indefinite detention sections of the NDAA) eviscerated the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution and do serious injury to several others. The Military Commissions Act also expunged the constitutional right of Habeas Corpus.

March 21 and 23, 2010

These are the dates when Congress passed and President Obama signed into law the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,” the so-called “health care reform” bill–aka Obamacare. While Social Security and various Welfare programs have toyed with socialism in the United States, this bill is the largest and most expansive endorsement of socialism in American history.

By socializing the healthcare industry in America, some 18% of the U.S. economy has been socialized. The fallout and ramifications of this bill are going to be horrific. Costs of this medical monstrosity are already skyrocketing and care is already suffering. Left standing, Obamacare will destroy the finest medical system the world has ever known.

June 26, 2015

This is the date that the U.S. Supreme Court attempted to officially redefine marriage as being between same-sex couples via their hideous Obergefell v. Hodges decision. This decision forces states nationwide to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Not only is this dreadful decision an assault against State sovereignty, it is an assault against the sanctity of marriage itself.