In The Articles of Confederation Reconsidered, I posited that our original constitution, the Articles of Confederation, was wholly adequate and superior to the Federalist Constitution that replaced it and that, had we kept the Articles of Confederation, we could have avoided the tyrannical government we have today entirely.

A reader of one of my articles on the Second Amendment had suggested that I read a rather obscure book titled, Hologram of Liberty, by Kenneth W. Royce (AKA Boston T. Party) and he used the term (coined by Royce), parchment worship while mentioning this book to me. Well, I had already been vaguely aware that there was some sort of intrigue going on back in 1787 when the Constitution was written to supplant the allegedly inadequate Articles of Confederation, and I had heard it had something to do with some sort of scurrilous moves by the Federalists, lead by Alexander Hamilton, who were either infiltrated by Freemasons or were Freemasons, themselves (actually, as it turns out, so were some of the Anti-Federalists). But, that was all I could recall about it, having heard about this, initially, some thirty years ago.

Well, my thanks go out to that reader for reawakening me to this and I have now looked into the book he suggested, though I haven’t yet got a copy of it for myself. I did, however, visit the Javelin Press website, where there is a pretty fair amount of information about the book, including the following, which I have excerpted:

“Civic Belief #1: The Congress was given few specific powers. All else was left to the States and to the people under the 10th Amendment. Ample checks and balances protect the Republic from federal tyranny.

Civic Belief #2: The Federal Government has become so powerful only because despotic officials have overstepped their strict, constitutional bounds.

If #1 is true, then how did #2 happen?

“The Constitution has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it”. Lysander Spooner, No Treason (1870)

Think about that. By either the Constitution’s purposeful design or by its unintentional weakness, we suffer under a federal colossus which takes a third of our lives and regulates everything from alfalfa to xylophones. This is Freedom? So, why aren’t Americans free? Perhaps we weren’t really meant to be!”

“…the 1787 Convention, its Constitution and Federal Government was the most brilliant and subtle coup d’etat in political history. While the majority of Americans then were Jeffersonian in nature, a few Hamiltonian Federalists eradicated our Swiss-style Confederation and replaced it with a latent leviathan. The Federal Government was given several escape keys to the putative handcuffing by the Constitution. Using the “necessary and proper” and “general welfare” clauses in conjunction with congressional powers under treaty, interstate commerce, and emergency, the “Founding Lawyers” of 1787 purposely designed a constitutional infrastructure guaranteed to facilitate a future federal colossus. While such a massive government was impossible to erect in the freedom-conscious 1780’s, the “virus” of tyranny was cunningly hidden within the Constitution to foment the eventual federal behemoth we are burdened with today. The feds take in a third of economic activity and regulate everything from the price of corn to the size of chimneys and it’s all constitutional!” Oh, it’s only ‘constitutional’ because autocratic Supreme Court Justices say it is!,” some would reply.”

“Yes, but the Framers allowed the Supreme Court, without any check or balance, to approve of federal encroachment on the States and on the people. There is no constitutional avenue for overturning a despotic Supreme Court ruling – and it was designed that way. The feds are allowed to “monitor” themselves, like students grading their own tests. Had the Framers wanted to really check the Supreme Court, they’d have at least created an appellate court (activated by petition) staffed by justices from the States. Had the Framers wanted to really hamstring Congress and the President, they would have given the people a “no-confidence” device to remove traitorous officials in midterm. Had they wanted to, the Framers could have (as did the Swiss) easily confined the Federal Government – but they didn’t want to. In their opinion, a strong central government – independent of real popular approval – was best for America. The Framers left the federal fleas in control of their own flea powder, and that’s why we have such an unchallengeable government today.

Most conservatives and libertarians believe that the Constitution and its Framers were Jeffersonian and laissez-faire. They were not, and they never claimed to be. This Jeffersonian gloss is echoic of two things: 1) What the Constitution was sold as to the people through The Federalist, and 2) How the Constitution, according to Jefferson, should have been interpreted under strict constructionism. Add the Red, White, and Blue, July 4th, the Founding Fathers and George Washington and you’ve got a civic religion with its unique parchment worship. There are but three ways to view anything, including the Constitution:

  • The way you see it.
  • The way you would like it to be.
  • The way it really is.

Friends of freedom have gazed dreamily at the Constitution for two centuries, fusing #1 with #2 to create a false #3. We need to snap out of our parchment worship and coldly study the predicament of Liberty–before it’s too late. Liberty-loving folks need to quickly understand that freedom is not well-served by the current Constitution. Neither is tyranny. It is Royce’s firm opinion that the Constitution will be radically amended, if not abolished altogether, by “us” or “them” within 10 years. Royce proves that the States and the people were politically “checkmated” at ratification, and discusses his three peaceful solutions prior the imminent insurrection now brewing. The goal of Hologram of Liberty is to spark an active synthesis of Libertarians, Patriots, and Conservatives to prevent a 21st century Dark Age in America.”

I, for one, will be reading this book and I urge that everyone do so. It is high time that we Americans learned the truth about our Constitution and why it hasn’t prevented a fascistic regime from emerging in America.

Having said that, it becomes even more apparent that I was onto something in suggesting the original Articles of Confederation should have been retained and that we’d all be a lot better off if it had been, in the first place. The thing is, I had no idea how right I was in saying so until I began looking into it further!

It is my firm belief, having looked into this, that, not only could the present state of affairs have been avoided had the Articles of Confederation never been scrapped, but that we need, desperately, to scrap our current fascistic regime and its constitutional underpinnings and start all over again where we left off – with the Articles of Confederation.