Cliven Bundy And His Followers Are Not Patriots!

I am always amused by those individuals who attach themselves to the United States Constitution in such a way as to be literal in its interpretation, wrap themselves in the Flag of our Nation, and call themselves “true patriots” and the defenders of our “rights and liberties”.

Apparently, if I disagree with their definition of “true patriotism” then I am something less than a citizen or patriot incapable of defending our “rights and liberties”.

Of course, they have self-appointed themselves as guardians of our nation , based on bizarre legal theories they have manufactured, and are quite content to live in an alternative reality which is nothing more than a revision of history of their own making.

They present themselves with the recognition that we are an “exceptional nation because we believe in the rule of law” and yet they are the first to violate the construct when it is inconvenient for them to adhere to the standard.

Cliven Bundy and his supporters of the “patriot militias” are nothing more than thugs! Strip him of his cowboy hat and his militia friends of their fake camouflage uniforms as they prance around with their AR-15’s, they are nothing more than an insult to the men and women who have served honorably in the Armed Forces of the United States.

In my professional status I have dealt with these individuals and the vast majority of them have never been in combat and have never been under fire in a fierce firefight.

If Mr. Bundy’s argument is that he does not recognized the Government of the United States and that it has never existed , and only believes that he is subject to the laws of Nevada then he must yield.

Article 1, Section 2 of the Nevada Constitution:

"All political power is inherent in the people. Government is instituted for the protection, security and benefit of the people; and they have the right to alter or reform the same whenever the public good may require it. But the Paramount Allegiance of every citizen is due to the Federal Government in the exercise of all its Constitutional powers as the same have been or may be defined by the Supreme Court of the United States; and no power exists in the people of this or any other State of the Federal Union to dissolve their connection therewith or perform any act tending to impair, subvert, or resist the Supreme Authority of the government of the United States.

The Constitution of the United States confers full power on the Federal Government to maintain and Perpetuate its existence, and whensoever any portion of the States, or people thereof attempt to secede from the Federal Union, or forcibly resist the Execution of its laws, the Federal Government may, by warrant of the Constitution, employ armed force in compelling obedience to its Authority."

The paramount-allegiance clause, a product of the era in which Nevada gained statehood, originated in Nevada's first (and unofficial) constitutional convention of 1863. Some 3,000 miles to the east, the Civil War raged between the federal government in the North and West and the rebellion that had swallowed the South. In early 1864, Abraham Lincoln—who wanted more pro-Union states in Congress so as to pass the amendment to abolish slavery, and a few more electoral votes to guarantee his reelection that fall—signed a bill authorizing Nevada to convene an official constitutional convention for statehood. The state constitution's framers, who were overwhelmingly Unionist, retained the clause in solidarity with the Union when they gathered in July 1864.

Even the states that retain the phrase "paramount allegiance" today don't share Nevada's explicit openness toward armed federal intervention to enforce it.

Nevada isn't the only state with a paramount-allegiance clause. Republicans added similar clauses to Reconstruction-era state constitutions throughout the South, although few survived subsequent revisions after federal troops departed. Even the states that retain the phrase "paramount allegiance" today, like North Carolina and Mississippi, don't share Nevada's explicit constitutional openness toward armed federal intervention to enforce it.

That pro-federal sentiment also guided Nevada's first congressional delegation when it arrived in the nation's capital in early 1865. William Stewart, the Silver State's first senator, proposed an amendment to the U.S. Constitution in December 1865 that would've enshrined a weaker form of the paramount allegiance clause at the federal level:

First—The Union of the States, under this constitution, is indissoluble, and no State can absolve its citizens from the obligation of paramount allegiance to the United States.

Second—No engagement made, or obligation incurred by any State, or by any number of States, or by any county, city, or any other municipal corporation to subvert, impair, or resist the authority of the United States, or to support or aid any legislative convention or body in hostility to such authority, shall ever be held, voted, or be assumed or sustained, in whole or part, by any State or by the United States.

This proposed amendment—which would have resolved secession's
constitutionality for all time—did not succeed. The U.S. Supreme Court later ruled in Texas v. White in 1869 that secession had been unconstitutional and that "the Constitution, in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union composed of indestructible states." Stewart nevertheless left his mark on the Constitution the same year as White, when he wrote what would become the Fifteenth Amendment, guaranteeing black suffrage.

Two decades after Nevada's founders proclaimed unswerving obedience to federal authority, Cliven Bundy's family first settled the land where he and his supporters now make their heavily armed stand against federal power. It's doubtful even the Nevada Constitution will change their minds—if legal and constitutional arguments could persuade the militia movement, there might not be a militia movement.

There is a difference between common ignorance and willful ignorance. The former is excusable, in this particular case the latter borders on sedition and insurrection.

Attribution to all sources is fully credited in the writing of this commentary.

Karl Edward Neathammer