March 9, 2006
by Stephen Neitzke
The South Dakota legislature handed anti-abortion extremists a great howler of a victory on Monday 06 March, when Governor Mike Rounds signed the anti-abortion bill. Media column-inches have trumpeted the extremists' values and intentions to overturn Roe v. Wade at about 10,000 to 1 over the cautions from abortion-rights advocates. The lop-sided, one-eyed politics of anti-abortion have become a media feeding frenzy.
By general consensus, two-thirds of the nation supports the core right to abortion as defined in Roe. However, our population's one-third anti-abortion extremists are about 10,000 percent more vocal. And, heaven knows, any divisive issue green-lighted by money-power for more chaos among the sovereign people will get instant editorial approval. The hack parrots that pass for mainstream journalists now make their careers on editorial approval of anything desired by money-power -- anything that keeps the advertising dollars flowing into media coffers.
Citizen rights and the law have gone dark. No lights. Almost nobody home. Almost nobody to say, wait just one damn minute -- this is not about overturning Roe v. Wade. This is about a governing elite putting themselves above the law and violating it. This is about a governing elite trying to hide behind the doctrine of legislative immunity when, in reality, they have committed legislative felony.
They want you to think that they have legally made law in a legislative setting, and that their legislative privileges mean that they are not culpable for any illegal consequences that their law might have.
Surprise, Article 3, paragraph 11 of the South Dakota constitution says that legislative immunity shall not extend to cases of "treason, felony, or breach of peace". If you do the felony, Mr. Legislator, you can be taken from this place, questioned, arrested, prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned.
Surprise, every conspiracy that violates a constitutional right is a felony, as defined in the federal statute, 18 USC 241. That short, powerful law says, in part -- "If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, ... They shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both... "
The moment that the governor of South Dakota signed the anti-abortion legislation, he and every legislator who voted for the legislation became co-conspirators in a felony to violate rights. They are all constitutional criminals and felons-in-waiting. Their only rightful place is in federal prison.
High station in life is not a get-out-of-felony-free card. The law is harsh, but it is the law. The prosecutions should begin immediately.
It's the law, stupid -- not the politics.
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Every state constitution carries the felony exception to legislative immunity. In the language of most state constitutions, legislative immunity is couched in the "privileges" or "immunities" section in whatever Article defines the legislative branch. You can find the felony exception for other states whose governments have already announced South-Dakota-like anti-abortion intentions at the following citations -- Mississippi (Article 4, section 48), Missouri (Article 3, section 19), Ohio (Article 2, section 12), Indiana (Article 4, section 8), Tennessee (Article 2, section 13), West Virginia (Article 6 section 16), Kentucky (Section 43).
In South Dakota, the "values" of the anti-rights uberbigots have been twisted into what the constitutional criminals say is "law".
It is not law, of course. It is an unconstitutional, anti-law regime. It is an inferior statute, unconstitutionally taking down a legally superior constitutional right. It is as wrong and illegal as American pseudo-law can possibly become
There is a remote possibility that some South Dakota court will find the anti-abortion "law" unconstitutional and bar its implementation. Remote -- very remote possibility. This is a state in which the violent uberbigots control the society. The last resident doctor who performed abortions at the state's one abortion clinic retired about ten years ago. He wore body armor and carried a .45 Colt. Since then, abortion doctors are flown in from out-of-state. Their identities are kept as confidential as possible
Beginning 01 July, this anti-law regime will be enforced as though it were law by the entire machinery of the South Dakota government. Judges will issue bench warrants. Sworn officers will arrest suspects, sometimes ruining careers and, in every instance, violating federal statutes 18 USC 241 -- criminal conspiracy against rights -- as well as 42 USC 1983 -- civil action for deprivation of rights. Prosecutors and defense attorneys will generate the hard arguments needed for trials, which will sometimes split families and communities, and. in every instance, will involve state-employed attorneys and judges in violations of 18 USC 241 and 42 USC 1983.
Prosecutions of the conspiracy felonies under 18 USC 241 and the consequent civil lawsuits under 42 USC 1983, growing out of the enforcement of the anti-law regime, could roll on for years. The federal civil lawsuits, normally barred by legislative immunity, are wide open in the aftermath of the conspiracy felony. Those prosecutions and lawsuits will ruin more careers, split more families, lock in more interpersonal hatreds, and create more needless human anguish.
Needless human anguish will be the centerpiece of this anti-law regime. And much of that needless human anguish will be borne by young women illegally denied their constitutional right to the abortion decision defined by Roe.
What's wrong with this picture? How can our system of checks and balances, our system of laws, and our overarching 'rule of law' allow such blatantly unconstitutional and illegal anti-law to be enforced?
The short answer is that no anti-law regime needs to be allowed. Obviously, though, it can be forced on all the citizens of South Dakota -- under color of law -- if they do not object to their government's arrogance and criminality.
Objection is the key. Indifference to rights is the death knell of sovereign peoples that began ringing in ancient Republican Rome. Indifference to rights is a nation-killer. Do something. Start now, please.
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Stephen Neitzke [send him email] is the founder of the Direct Democracy League. He is the author of "The State of the Republic, 1776-2004" as well as a number of other works, which can be found at www.ddleague-usa.net and on his blog at http://ddrevival.blogspot.com/
© 2006 Stephen Neitzke
