I Rise to Speak – On This Memorial Day – In Refusal of Murder

by Jeff Knaebel
by Jeff Knaebel

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This document is comprised of three sections. The first is an abridged list of the violations of my humanity perpetrated against me by the United States. The second is my personal declaration of independence. The third calls upon the legal precedent of the Wisconsin legislature to support my defiance of the constitution. However, at the end of the day, I need no "legal" support for my actions of moral conscience, and I believe, as Lysander Spooner, that the constitution is of no authority over anyone.

INTRODUCTION

It has been more than forty years since my outfit shipped out to the Vietnam war zone. When I read out the orders to the detachment of which I had charge, one of the seamen asked, "Why are we going?"

Taken aback, I had no intelligent answer for him. If asked now, I would say, "Because this uniform is a costume that has cast us in the role of murderers on hire to the Money Power, to carry on its alchemy of blood into money for the Power Structure."

Young, naive, brainwashed, deceived and patriotically duped did I ship out to Vietnam. After service with minor distinction, and many years and many tax returns later, I now see patriotism as a mental disease. Not only have I come to understand it as a diseased conditioning of the mind, but I have come to realize that the Power Structure which is the vector of the disease – in addition to being without conscience – is utterly ruthless.

There is something wrong with the internal guidance mechanism of the Money Power as human beings – something deranged.

Now old, not much wise but waking up, I write from exile to speak truths that would put me on FBI-CIA watch lists. So convinced am I of the urgent need for peace that I have refused to continue as a tax-paying accomplice to murder, and have become a man without a country. The war in which I served – like every one of the forever wars of aggression of the USA – is a shame and a stain and a disgrace upon the human race.

I pray to become worthy of the following words of Mohandas Gandhi:

I must not suppress the voice within, call it conscience… that something in me which never deceives me tells me now: ‘forsake friends, wife, and all; but testify to that for which you have lived, and for which you have to die.’

STATEMENT OF ABUSES AND VIOLATIONS OF MY HUMANITY AND NATURAL RIGHTS PERPETRATED AGAINST ME BY THE UNITED STATES

by Jeff Knaebel, 20 October 2006

"Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the State becomes lawless and corrupt."
~ Mohandas Gandhi

• The United States has forcibly taken from me, under penalty of my liberty, the product of my labor.
• It has used this product of my labor, taken from me by force, to execute massive crimes against humanity in my name usurped from me. These crimes are too numerous to account. A few of them include deliberate, calculated, cold-blooded mass murder of innocent, non-combatant civilians including women and children; massive destruction of the infrastructure of civilized societies, resulting in untold suffering and death; long term poisoning of earth’s ecosystem and food-water supply with effluence of war, such as depleted uranium and Agent Orange; massive destruction of local ecologies upon which civilians depend for life and livelihood; massive direct destruction of livestock and crops, leading to suffering and death of human beings; deliberately fomented and supported war, revolution and genocide in foreign lands for its own purposes of domination. Other abuses are discussed elsewhere in the text of the booklet of which this is part.
• It has used this product of my labor, forcibly removed from me, to undertake assassinations and murder in the course of overthrowing foreign governments. It has further employed these funds for the illegal imprisonment, torture, degradation and murder of innocent civilians, without charge, and without habeas corpus.
• It has used my taxes paid under coercion of threat of force to conduct weapons experiments with poisonous chemical and radioactive substances on its own unwitting citizens, some of whom died as a result. This is premeditated murder.
• It has used my taxes paid under threat to my liberty to experiment with pesticides on pregnant women, resulting in damage and death to the unborn.
• It has conscripted me to military service and dispatched me as a participant in an aggressive war against a foreign country of no palpable threat to the United States – a war in which millions of people were murdered. This violates my right not to kill and not to support killing.
• It has used the product of my labor forcibly taken from me under penalty of liberty to manufacture, deploy and drop napalm bombs upon innocent women and children living in grass huts in non-combatant Cambodia, dispatching hundreds of thousands of souls to an incendiary death. This is a grotesque crime against humanity.
• It has used tax payments forcibly extracted from me to build, maintain and operate a reported seven hundred military bases around the world, doing thereby immense ecological damage, disturbing the peace, destabilizing societies and causing the flames of hatred against America to burn ever hotter in more and more places.
• It has used the product of my labor taken from me under palpable threat of force to execute certain specific "war crimes" and "crimes against humanity" as defined by the UN, including but not limited to the following:
  • Targeting of foreign leaders in "decapitation" strikes
  • Targeting civilian populations and civilian infrastructure with by intentionally directing attacks upon civilians and hospitals, medical centers, residential neighborhoods, electricity stations, water purification facilities, and intense indiscriminate military operations against cities and towns which resulted in many civilian casualties.
  • Using disproportionate force and weapons systems with indiscriminate effects, such as cluster munitions, incendiary bombs, depleted uranium and chemical weapons.
  • Using depleted uranium munitions with devastating long term effects upon human beings and the environment.
  • Extensive destruction and appropriation of property not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly (Geneva Convention).
  • Seizure of, destruction of and willful damage done to religious institutions, charity and education, the arts and sciences, historic documents and archeological treasures of humanity.
  • Attack and bombardment of undefended towns, villages, dwellings and buildings.
  • Wanton destruction of cities, towns and villages with devastation not justified by military necessity, for example the wanton destruction of ancient Babylon.
  • Imposition of interim government over a foreign people with practices of managed elections and violation of right of self-determination.
  • Unlawful attacks, including assassinations, summary executions, murders, disappearances, kidnapping and torture, use of deadly violence against peaceful protestors, imposition of punishment without charge or trial, including collective punishment.
  • Unlawful detention and torture, including by US military personnel and paramilitary forces operating anonymously, including widespread, repeated and systematic use of torture and degrading treatment of civilians as well as military personnel detained in prison facilities or covertly transferred for torture in foreign countries, practices which are unconditionally prohibited by international law.
  • Willfully devastating the environment, including through the use of depleted uranium.
  • Systematically utilizing, controlling, directing, manipulating, misinforming and restricting press and media coverage and deliberately presenting false and misleading reports to obtain support for US military and political actions; and to deprive the American people of knowledge essential to develop an informed public opinion essential to democratic processes and public justice.
  • Ordering young Americans, soldiers and others, to commit terrible acts that will aunt them, their families and their communities. Their acts of torture and the killing of women, children, injured people, doctors, nurses, and the bombing of places of worship and hospitals will not only brutalize these soldiers individually, but will increase te violence and militarization of American culture.
  • Indefinite detention of persons seized far from any combat zone while denying protection of the Geneva Conventions and US Constitution.
  • The use of military force to seize and detain indefinitely without charges US citizens, denying right of habeas corpus.
  • Committing murder by authorizing the CIA to kill people designated by the President anywhere in the world.
• It has not only taken from me by force the product of my labor and thereafter employed it in the execution of crimes against humanity, but it has also violated my human rights and my conscience as being done in my name and with my money, in ways listed below, among events too numerous to account. The overwhelming force of government being beyond my capacity to resist, this is a clear violation of my person, as well as utter degradation of humanity itself.
  • Lying to the people of the US, the UN and people of the world to provide false and deceptive rationale for war.
  • Instituting secret and illegal wiretapping and spying operations against people of the US.
  • Violation of the rights of US individuals under the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments of the Constitution, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
  • Making, ordering and condoning false statements and propaganda about the conduct of foreign governments and individuals and acts by US government personnel; manipulating the media and foreign governments with false information; concealing information vital to public discussion and informed judgment concerning acts, intentions and possession of weapons of mass destruction in order falsely to create a climate of fear so as to destroy opposition to US wars of aggression and first strike attacks.
  • Violations and subversions of the Charter of the UN and international law, both a part of the "Supreme Law of the Land" under Article VI of the Constitution, in an attempt to commit with impunity crimes against humanity and war crimes, and usurping powers of the UN and the people of its nations by bribery, coercion and other corrupt acts and by rejecting treaties, committing treaty violations and frustrating compliance with treaties in order to destroy any means by which international law and institutions can prevent, affect, or adjudicate the exercise of US military and economic power against the international community.
  • Acting to strip US citizens of their constitutional and human rights, ordering indefinite detention of citizens without access to counsel, without charge, and without opportunity to appear before a civil judicial officer to challenge the detention, based solely on the discretionary designation of the Executive of a citizen as a suspected "threat" to the US.
  • Ordering and authorizing the Attorney General to override judicial orders of release of detainees, even where the judicial officer after full hearing determines a detainee is wrongfully held by the government.
  • Ordering indefinite detention of non-citizens in the US and elsewhere, without charge, at discretion of the Attorney General or Secretary of Defense.
  • Authorizing secret military tribunals and summary execution of persons who are not citizens, designated solely at discretion of the Executive who acts as indicting official, prosecutor and as the only avenue of appellate relief.
  • Refusing to provide disclosure of identities and locations of persons who have been arrested, detained and imprisoned by the US government in the US.
  • Use of secret arrests of persons within the US and elsewhere and denial f right to public trial.
  • Authorizing the monitoring of confidential attorney-client privileged communications by the government, even in absence of court order and even where incarcerated persons have not been charged with a crime.
  • Ordering the seizure of assets of persons in the US, prior to hearing or trial, for having had lawful or innocent association with any entity that at discretion of the Executive has been deemed a "terrorist."
  • Institutionalizing racial and religious profiling and domestic spying by federal law enforcement officials on persons based on their engagement in non-criminal religious and political activity.
  • Development of diverse nuclear weaponry in direct violation of the UN Charter even as it decries other nations for attempting to acquire their own nuclear weaponry in order to defend themselves from pre-emptive strike by the US.
  • Issuing Executive Orders that legalize criminal corporate collusion with the government in war crimes and finance of war crimes and concealment of the records thereof.
  • Employing vast sums of money and large numbers of people to conduct research and development of weapons of mass destruction, and to create a stockpile thereof sufficient to destroy all of humanity.

By forcibly taking from me the product of my labor, under penalty of loss of liberty and confiscation of property, and employing these funds in execution of war crimes and crimes against humanity, the government has made it impossible for me to earn my livelihood without thereby becoming an accomplice to murder. This is an abomination, a violation of life itself.

In addition to these violations of humanity and of conscience the government has violated my natural and human rights in other ways too numerous to account. A few incidents are listed below as "tip of the iceberg" examples.

• Classifying documents as "secret" to remove them from public view, their contents and actions described therein having been financed by the public notwithstanding.
• Manipulation and falsification of government statistics on employment, commerce, money supply, public debt.
• Keeping a double set of accounts for government financial operations, one being obscured from public view
• Diversion of the Social Security Trust Fund to general government operating expenses.
• Creating and operating sub-rosa "off-budget" government operations.
• Using the monetary authority of the Federal Reserve to print new money which depreciates the currency and robs the people of their savings, as well as permitting war finance without taxes.
• Using banking regulations to prevent the free movement of capital and to spy on people.
• Issue Executive Orders to authorize the President – at his sole recognizance of "National Emergency" – to seize property, organize and control the means of production, seize commodities, restrict travel, take control of the stock market, institute rationing, and more …
• Using the powers of Eminent Domain to transfer property to the hands of favored insiders.
• Using the powers of regulation and monopoly to advance the business interests of large corporate contributors at the expense of the public welfare.
• Denying by law and regulation my freedom to contract; defining the terms thereof as legal only in Federal Reserve Notes, a medium of depreciating value; and imposing other strictures on the freedom to contract on mutually agreeable terms in free and voluntary exchange .
• Obstructing my right to free and peaceful enjoyment of my property by imposing ubiquitous and onerous regulation of nonsensical building codes, ridiculous and counter-productive safety regulations, and everywhere posting regulations and limits of action under the guise of health and welfare.
• By operation of the "Plunge Protection Team" and "Economic Stabilization Fund," intervene directly in stock and commodity markets to favor the government agenda and favored clients.
• Using government (public) funds to finance huge developments that profit a few at the cost of massive destruction of the ecology of the human commons.
• In an act of outright theft, confiscating all the privately held gold of US citizens in 1933, which included the property of my parents’ generation, and maintaining to this day the executive authority to repeat this grand larceny.
• In an act of outright chicanery and breach of faith, abrogating the redemption of dollars into gold by foreign governments, thereby initiating world wide economic instability and loss of faith in the US since the order by Nixon in 1971, with effect upon my personal livelihood.
• Forced payroll deductions for Social Security, a trust now on the road to bankruptcy.
• Obstructing my right to educate my children as I see fit; instead, subjecting them to government brainwashing and outright falsification and censorship of textbooks.
• Made it quite impossible to lead a decent, quiet, productive life in any ordinary sense. Any person of integrity must devote most of his energy to protecting himself from direct predation of the State upon his property and common facilities of life – and if be of morally compassionate character, he must devote whole of life work to resisting the State’s lust for its hideous foreign wars and exploitations of the rest of humanity.
• Breach and violation of my substantive rights to control my own life and property, to wit:
1. Unimpeded right to life, liberty and property
2. Freedom of speech and press
3. Right of Habeas Corpus
4. Right to trial by jury
5. Freedom to travel
6. Freedom to educate my children as I see fit
7. Unimpeded right to own and operate my own business
8. Right to defend myself, including the right to bear arms
9. Right to security of my home and papers against government intrusion
10. Right not to be spied upon.

The government has perverted justice and the public morality into such grotesque forms as to be unrecognizable by a rational man with a conscience. The preceding list is by no means exhaustive. I doubt that I would live long enough to complete a full tabulation.

This government is an abomination so vile, corrupt, vicious, destructive and murderous that it is unfit to exist. It has become the single greatest threat to survival of the human species. As will be set forth, I renounce it.

MY PERSONAL DECLARATION OF SEVERANCE AND INDEPENDENCE

(In practical effect since 1996)

by Jeff Knaebel

"Conscience does not exist if not exercised"

For a time beyond memory of people now living, the government of the United States has committed a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing the object of reducing to absolute subordination and servitude the individuals subject to its power. It has methodically undermined and abrogated its foundation documents, comprising the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. It has systematically violated established and long standing principles of the international community of nations. It has committed heinous crimes against humanity and its own citizens as partially listed in my Statement of Abuses and Violations. It has so perverted the precepts of justice, liberty, public morality and human rights as to make them unrecognizable to a rational man with a conscience.

Sincere respect for my fellow human beings – brothers and sisters during this earthly sojourn – demands that I declare the causes which impel my severance of relations with the government of United States, and my assumption of an equal and independent station free from the domination and subordination to which I have been subjected. These causes are enumerated as Statement of Abuses and Violations in that certain booklet authored by me under the title Experiments in Moral Sovereignty – Notes of an American Exile, by this reference incorporated herein and made a part hereof.

I hold these to be self evident truths: that all people are endowed at birth with equal, inalienable and independent rights, among which are sole possession of their own life, liberty and the seeking of happiness in their own way. That to secure these rights, associations may be formed among humans, deriving their just delegations of responsibility from the full consensus of their members; that it is the right of any member to secede from any such association without reason given, to cease all relations of any nature whatsoever, and either to abstain from or to create or join different associations which adopt such precepts and principles, and organize their responsibilities in such form, as to their members shall seem most likely to effect their safety, enterprise and happiness.

The Remedy of Wisconsin Is Also Remedy of Jeff

The Constitution has no inherent authority unless as a contract between man and man. It does not purport to be an agreement among persons now living. Those persons, if any, who gave their consent, are all long since dead. The Constitution, so far as it was their contract, died with them. They had no natural right or legal power to make it binding upon posterity. The instrument does not purport to be an agreement between anyone except "We the people of the United States" then existing. It cannot be said that the Constitution formed "the people of the United States" into a corporation extending to perpetuity. No assemblage of men – existing at any one time – has the power to create a legal perpetuity. As a matter of law and reason, this instrument cannot bind its posterity.

Furthermore, according to the present writer, "We the people" is a legal non-entity with respect to making a contract or entering any binding agreement whatsoever. "We the people" is no more than an abstract term for a loose conglomeration of independently acting individuals. It has no intrinsic reality. It is merely a slogan devoid of content. Exactly who is "we the people?" Who signs for and assumes the responsibility and liability of "We the people?" Who steps up and bears the burden of accountability for actions of "We the people?" Where is there any accountable, responsible, liable individual or group of individuals who physically signed or co-signed an instrument and took upon themselves the burdens of its performance?

And still further, in the particular events under discussion, those men who allegedly established an agreement binding upon not only several millions unknown to them (those millions having had no voice or participation whatsoever), but also upon their unborn posterity for all time to come – met and negotiated on behalf of their unknowable clients in secret, and made an oath of secrecy. They left no record of their proceedings, and they signed no document purporting to be an agreement even among themselves, let alone millions of unknowable others and posterity for all time to come.

That "We the people" have put up with this nonsense for so long is truly an absurdity that boggles my mind.

Referring now to The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, by Tom Woods:

• A statement by the Wisconsin legislature in 1859 said, "Resolved, that the government formed by the Constitution of the United States was not the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself (I ask, delegated by whom?); but that, as in all other cases of a compact among parties having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions, as of the mode and measure of redress. The individual states, being sovereign and independent, have the unquestionable right to judge of the Constitution’s infractions; and that a positive defiance of those sovereignties, of all unauthorized acts done or attempted to be done under color of that instrument, is the rightful remedy."

Thus I conclude that the maximum possible validity of the Constitution – notwithstanding my understanding and belief that it has no validity whatsoever – is that of a compact among parties having no common judge.

Therefore, just as the state of Wisconsin is an independent sovereignty in relation to the United States, so also am I as an individual. If I am not recognized as an individual sovereignty, then I am a nullity – for all purposes of law and reason a non-living being, an entity to be dealt with as an object or a piece of inanimate property.

And therefore, just as the remedy of Wisconsin is "positive defiance," so also is positive defiance my remedy as a sovereign individual.

The foregoing notwithstanding, my understanding and belief is that the Constitution is of no authority over me, or anyone.

At the end of the day, I return to thesis of Michael S.Rozeff published by Lew Rockwell: the whole game finally comes down to power relations among individuals. Constitutions, legislatures, parliaments and all such are merely facades to create an aura of legitimacy. This comports with my personal experience across a span of years and roles in society including compulsory education, university, military conscription, corporate employee, political party worker, government employee, citizen’s commission member, husband, independent entrepreneur, licensed professional, father, private school executive trustee, professional institute office-bearer, registered lobbyist, cofounder of 501c (3) tax-exempt charitable foundation, community volunteer worker and office-holder, co-petitioner for secession from the union (we came close to a ballot), and emigrant-immigrant.

Anyone wishing to read more about the quest for individual moral sovereignty is invited to check my website at www.freeofstate.org.

THE TRUTHS OF A PROPHETIC PETITION CONTINUE TO UNFOLD

Act Now, Before It Is Too Late

Almost sixty three years ago, on 17 July 1945, twelve of the most senior scientists on the Manhattan Project – who had been responsible for development of the atom bomb – delivered an appeal in the form of a petition to the President of the United States not to employ the atomic bomb against Hiroshima. One of the most familiar names on the petition is Leo Szilard.

We know – from documentation provided on Lew Rockwell.com, Antiwar.com, freeofstate.org and other sources – that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not militarily necessary to bring the war to a rapid close. Japan had already prior delivered a petition for surrender. Nonetheless, the horror that may haunt mankind to its grave was unleashed.

Now Hear These Excerpts from the Petition, and ask if a system of rogue Nation States is a proper way to organize a human society that will provide for the peace and prosperity of coming generations:

"The development of atomic power will provide the nations with new means of destruction. The atomic bombs at our disposal represent only the first step in this direction, and there is almost no limit to the destructive power [emphasis added] that will become available in the course of their future development. Thus a nation which sets the precedent of using these newly liberated forces of nature for purpose of destruction may have to bear the responsibility of opening the door to an era of devastation on an unimaginable scale [emphasis added].

If after this war a situation is allowed to develop in the world which permits rival powers to be in uncontrollable possession of these new means of destruction, the cities of the United States as well as the citizens of other nations will be in continuous danger of sudden annihilation...."

My fellow sojourners on this small planet, we now face the situation foretold by the petition-signers, yet incalculably magnified in scope and danger, because these weapons are now in the hands of men who are moral midgets and certifiably insane by clinical standards (Tolle and Pinter, 2005, 2007).

Come out of denial: our situation is continuous danger of sudden annihilation at the hands of mad men.

What Action?

Only individuals possess moral agency. Only individuals can act. Here are a few ideas:

• Keep this in mind: what we vote for, and what we pay for, we are responsible for. It is us.
• The only ways to have clean hands are not to participate, or actively resist.
• Quit tax payments, and thus quit supporting organized crime.
• Boycott the State. Do not vote. Do not ask it for anything. Do not petition it. Give it no energy.
• To extent possible, abstain from all interaction with the State. Try to become self employed so you are out of the paper trail corporate-State surveillance net.
• Quit credit cards and all financial operations that are easy for the State to surveil.
• Avoid doing business with banks to the extent possible. They are spies and bag men of the State.
• One cannot be free so long as he uses credit cards and banks.
• To extent possible, create a livelihood based upon work trade and barter exchange.
• Look for a piece of land in a wholesome and supportive community and nourish yourself from a garden.
• If there is a secessionist movement in your state or nearby, join it. Check the website of The Middlebury Institute.
• In every way possible, become a moral sovereign and join in voluntary cooperation with like minded others.
• Educate and promulgate the ethics, values, and truths of Liberty.
• Read The Mad Farmers Liberation Front by Wendell Berry, a great poet. Practice resurrection.

May you live long, live free.

May 28, 2008

Jeff Knaebel [send him mail] is an expatriate American domiciled in India since 1995. He formerly practiced as a registered professional engineer, having been trained at Cornell Univ. and the Colorado School of Mines. Visit his website.

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