Allison Bricker

Hello fellow readers, it seems like ages since my last post here on the Smoking Argus. I would like to thank everyone who took the time to send me well-wishes and words of encouragement regarding my counter to the M.I.A.C report. I promise to personally respond to each one however it may take me awhile so please do not feel slighted if my response has not been immediate.

Over the past week and after the hoopla over the tea parties died down, it occured to me to take a frank look at how far “The Liberty Movement” has come in just the last two-years. It is indeed an exciting time to be part of the liberty movement especially for those who remember when the mere mention of the Constitution was dismissed outright. Thus, I hope you enjoy my latest video editorial and look forward to your comments.

Allison Bricker

The Smoking Argus Daily spoke with Mr. Bob Schulz, Chairman of the “We the People Foundation“. Many may recall Mr. Schulz and the organization taking out full-page advertisements in USA Today at the turn of the millennium protesting the legality of the Income Tax.

Since then, the organization and its members have submitted several Petitions for Redress to Congress¹, the President, and the Supreme Court. All have been ignored, refused, or entirely dismissed by the courts. Thus, 2009 finds Mr. Schulz traveling the country driving from city to city calling for the formation of a formal Continental Congress.

The plan calls for the selection of three delegates from each of the fifty states, with nominations submitted via their website and confirmed at state level nominating conventions². Mr. Schulz also explained to me that unlike the 1st Continental Congress which met secretly, the Continental Congress of 2009 will be streamed live over the internet for the world to bear witness. When asked about the prospect of not reaching a quorum, Mr. Schulz replied confidently that with such resounding resentment towards the Federal government across the nation, attaining full representation would be in no way a problem.

Whereas a lack of representation may not be a problem, his group has encountered some trouble with their initial choice of venue. Mr. Schulz originally desired for the event to take place at the National Constitution Center, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, just down from Independence Hall. However, according to Mr. Schulz when he called to wire the $14,000 Dollar deposit and finalize the contract in order to secure the facility for the first two weeks, the National Constitution Center Sales Associate began changing the terms of the proposal.

This reporter attempted to speak with the sales associate in question at the National Constitution Center, but my request was denied. The women who answered the phone stated she was the sales associate’s supervisor and thus “knew all about the incident in question.”

The supervisor, who refused to give her last name, and as such shall be referred to as “Supervisor Kelly”, first attempted to lay blame on Mr. Schulz for changing the dates from February to March. She then emphatically denied that the event’s function had anything whatsoever to do with the sudden unavailability. When asked to provide a quote for the sake of accuracy, Supervisor Kelly, finally figured out that I was from the press, (even though I identified myself at the onset of the call) immediately refused to answer any further questions, and instead attempted to direct me to the Center’s public relations department.

It is the hope of this blogger that we at The Smoking Argus Daily might be able to help facilitate a conversation between Mr. Schulz and Mr. Russell Means regarding a change of venue. Moving the location of the gathering to within the boundaries of the Republic of Lakotah is both closer to the geographic center of the continent³ and a land truly befitting of such a historic undertaking⁴.

During my interview with Mr. Schulz, when asked if he planned on using this solely as a publicity stunt where he would find himself as President and Director in Chief of the proceedings, he replied:

“I would love to see Ron Paul preside over it [Continental Congress 2009], I think he should resign… his seat in the House, I mean he’s done there, there is nothing more he can do there [in the House of Representatives], he has done a marvelous service for the country in waking up a lot of people to the message of freedom.”

Mr. Bob Schulz
Telephone Interview
January 20th, 2009

We also spoke in reference to the current economic crisis and how in this time of lost jobs and bailouts, what might a delegate to the Continental Congress expect to spend. Mr. Schulz indicated that according to figures based on lodging in Philadelphia coupled with the length of the meeting, delegates can expect an approximate cost of $7,000 Dollars to cover lodging and food. Regardless of the hefty price tag, Mr. Schulz reiterated that he expects a full house. He continued saying that the various state organizations through fund raising would help defray the costs per individual and that in some instances his organization would also work to help offset the direct cost to the delegates.

Mr. Schulz said that he hopes the Delegates will concentrate on pointing out clear violations of the Constitution, drafting a formal Redress of Grievances, and issuing a call for individuals and business to withhold all economic support/resources to the Federal government. He also made clear neither he nor the “We the People Foundation” is calling for violent overthrow and instead hoped to prevent any such necessity via this Continental Congress. Nevertheless, and with an air of pragmatism in his voice, Mr. Schulz acknowledged that there are only two possible reactions from government: they either stand down or clamp down.

For the sake of providing some comparative perspective, the 2nd Continental Congress drafted the infamous “Dickinson Olive Branch Petition”⁵ in the Summer of 1775. The petition requested King George the III repeal the “Coercive Acts” and make an honest effort towards reconciliation. However, the King’s return proclamation stated that the colonies were in a state of open rebellion and anyone who corresponded with or aided those in open rebellion to the crown would be tried for treason.

Shortly thereafter, Dr. Benjamin Franklin uttered the ominously witty words, “We must all hang together, or most assuredly we will all hang separately.” So perhaps before running off to begin your fund raising drive in hopes of becoming a delegate, it would be wise to ask yourself if you are ready to pledge your life, your fortune, and your sacred honor in such a historic endeavor, and if not, might I suggest staying home.

Source(s): ¹We the People Foundation – Petitions for Redress of Grievances • ² Continental Congress 2009 – January 19th, 2009 Update, Online Delegate Nomination Form • ³ United States Geological Survey “Elevations and Distances of the United States • ⁴ 2007 – Lakotah Unilateral Withdrawal • ⁵ Brown, Weldon A.; Empire or independence; A Study in the Failure of Reconciliation, Page 35, 1774-1783; Port Washington, N. Y., Kennikat Press; 1966, c1941

Allison Bricker

This past October I finished my video editorial entitled “A Long Train of Abuses” whereby the reasons listed by the Founding Fathers justifying separation in the Declaration of Independence are contrasted against current events taking place in our country.

Unfortunately, being new to uploading my own videos to YouTube, the quality was a bit off and as such some portions were unreadable and the audio spiked. As of this morning, both have been rectified and are now available on YouTube for your viewing pleasure.

I would like to thank the readers and members of “The Daily Paul” and “Break the Matrix” for helping surge the overall views of my video editorial. However, since the video was originally uploaded in October, the surge in views was not enough to push the video to the front page and thus a wider audience.

Therefore, with this new video we have the opportunity before us to push this video to the front page and let more people be introduced to the ideas espoused by the Founding Generation.

In closing, I ask you, loyal readers of The Smoking Argus, to help spread this message by sharing, rating, favorite-ing, and DiGG-ing this video.

The video is available here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaZrO0RM-HM

Allison Bricker

When I was little I recall my first exposure to our Founding Fathers some where around the 2nd grade just before Thanksgiving of that year. We covered a very basic watered down version of the “1st Thanksgiving” and “Revolutionary War”. The memory that sticks out most in my mind is that our nation, America, was the first place where the individual was to be the standard bearer of liberty and not controlled by kings or a state-church. That in order to protect us from the designs and ambitions of future kings, the Founders wrote two documents, The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. This “Cliffnotes” version of our country coupled with heavy doses of ABC’s Saturday morning Schoolhouse Rock instilled in me a deep infatuation and love affair with the noble ideal that was to be the American Republic.

Granted in second grade my comprehension of all of this was severely limited, thus proven by me thinking Thomas Jefferson was an African-American and then wondering why it took so long for baseball to let a black man play in the major leagues??? My ignorant bliss would not last, time passed and as one dug beneath the surface, Lady Liberty had more than her fair share of bruises. From the slaughtering of Native Americans, to the utter hypocrisy of slavery in a nation where all men were supposedly equal, to women’s suffrage, etc. Despite all of this, the enthusiasm in how my teacher told the stories must have been contagious. Her eyes would get big as she excitedly explained the “Midnight Ride of Paul Revere” and President Washington’s Crossing of the Delaware River.

Nevertheless, little by little as I dug through the cobwebs of our history it became apparent, that those Kings our Constitution was intended to protect us against, never gave up their fight to reassert their so called aristocratic “divine right”. That even while America has attempted to right the wholly unjust policy of slavery, that we as women are now considered “equal”, the pull-peddling Aristocrats who sought out power, repeatedly picked at the parchment, the ideals, the philosophy of individual liberty, until it was a mere shadow of a document, left only in memoriam, no longer applicable in a “post 9/11 world”.

They set up “opposing methods” to an aristocratic philosophy and called them “political parties”. The philosophy is socialism under the guise of freedom . The “Democrats” believe in social engineering and wholly indebting individuals to the state in the form of social welfare programs.

Republicans set out to prove their methodology via conquest and military occupation. Now let it be known their labels have switched and have been interchanged several times, from federalists, to progressives, to liberals, to conservatives. However the end to their pandering has always remained the same, centralized control of their “subjects”.

Somewhere along the line, they rediscovered the best way to gain more power, a method as old as humanity itself; divide and conquer. These “politicians”, from the Latin (poli) meaning “many” and (tics) meaning “Blood sucking creatures”, began an appeal to an individual’s core sense of fairness. The politicians promised to right whatever problem was most pressing to them as a demographic, in exchange of course, for a vote for the pull-peddler. No matter the cause, from retirement, education, to saving the trees, to homelessness, to healthcare, the politician promised a centralized cure to their ailment. Yet the politician was not done, they imbued the particular demographic of the moment with the notion that this group cause was superior to any and all other causes, and thus demanded, as well as justified the legal use of force, i.e. government coercion, i.e. the trampling of others rights in order to achieve its end. Slowly the country’s philosophy began to change from “live and let live”, whence unless an individual suffered from harm to themselves or property, to a nation that believed they are “entitled to trample” for the benefit of the group, dissenting opinion be damned. This my fellow readers is the root to collectivism, the division of individual Americans into neat little “people groups”.

One need not look too hard in order to find how the pull peddlers craft a strategy and coral these “people groups” into election campaign pawns to be used and cast aside. No just look at the groups up for grabs this most recent cycle. Democrats hoped to embolden the LGBT community, anti-war activists, and Hispanics with promises of the “Big Rock candy Mountain” while Republicans returned to the well for evangelical Christians, Hispanics, and business men, with “both” using the same old scare tactics of gays and terrorists. Politicians promised “change” spoken with cryptic vaguery, national security from an invisible boogeyman, “free” healthcare from a financially bankrupt Treasury Department, civil unions to create separate but equal distinctions, war to protect us from war, and an end to war, yet more saber rattling to a new enemy “Iran”, energy independence via a 19th century technology, all in the ruthless support of their continued power. We the sheeple have been sold a bill of goods by the Washington D.C. Snake oil Salesmen. How much longer shall we suffer this incremental despotism?