It is Neopopulism’ birth-day today – February 11, 2008. Recall the dictionary definition of birth: it is the process at the end of a human pregnancy that results in a baby being born. It represents an end of a 10 month long pregnancy and the beginning of life. Similarly, Tom Dahlberg and I have privately labored on Neopopulism for about 10 years and now we are proud today to announce the birth-day of Neopopulism.
To begin, we should tell you what Neopopulism is not.
Neopopulism is not a political party. Our birth-day is not similar to the Independence Party founding in Minnesota in 1992 or the Republican Party’s founding in Ripon, Wisconsin in 1854.
Neopopulism is not an ideological movement. Our birth-day is not similar to the launch of the modern conservative and liberal movements in the 1960’s.
In fact, Neopopulism’s essence is a rejection of partisanship and ideology. Like the students screaming in the movie “We are Marshall,” the Neopopulist rally cry is, “We are Civil Disobedience.”
Neopopulism’s civil disobedience is in the tradition of Henry David Thoreau’s imprisonment in 1846 and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s imprisonment in 1963. Like Thoreau and King, Neopopulists -- in the face of the government’s absence of the rule of law – will rebel even at the risk of imprisonment.
Thoreau and King did not merely play the role of rabble rousers – they redeemed a lawless government. Thus, Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” and King’s “Letter from the Birmingham Jail” serve as the modern Gospels for Neopopulists.
Neopopulists are pragmatic realists who will impose the rule of law on government. The enemies of Neopopulism are mediocre and mendacious bureaucrats – often called experts.
Neopopulists are upset when publicly-available evidence of bureaucratic mediocrity and mendacity is available and the bureaucrats keep their jobs. Think of bridges collapsing, space shuttles exploding, tigers jumping out of zoo cages.
The federal and state constitutions offer no protection for the people from mediocre and mendacious bureaucracies. For example, Minnesota’s Constitution was written to principally protect the minority from the majority. Minnesota’s Constitution was never intended as a response to today’s greater threat – protecting the people from the bureaucrats.
Neopopulists admit, along with British philosopher John Stuart Mill, that bureaucracies are necessary for a “skilled” democracy. Yet, the problem with bureaucracies is that by their very nature, they tend toward rules, routine and therefore mediocrity. As Mill stated in his Representative Government (1861), bureaucracies “perish by the immutability of their maxims; and still more, by the universal law that whatever becomes routine loses its vital principle, and having no longer a mind acting within it, goes on revolving mechanically though the work it is intended to do remains undone.” Mill’s passage describes with precision the current mediocrity and mendacity of our modern bureaucrats. Just review the publicly-available evidence.
Our opponents – the partisans and ideologues -- will say but which of their rules of law applies? But, for Neopopulists, it is the people’s rule of law that applies. Unlike partisanship which is owned by the DFL and GOP parties and unlike ideology which is owned by the liberal and conservative elites, Neopopulism is owned by the people.
Further, our opponents will say there is no Minnesota conspiracy to violate the rule of law. Neopopulists agree – but if there is a conspiracy, it is a conspiracy of mediocrity. A conspiracy of mediocrity based on the bureaucrats’ unwillingness to do more than do their job – to be excellent.
Even further, our opponents will say there is no absence of rule of law in Minnesota. That’s false. In recent memory, as documented at the Neopopulism.org website, in over twenty published court decisions, every branch of Minnesota’s government has recently violated the rule of law: Minnesota’s Supreme Court, Minnesota’s executive branch agencies, now Minnesota’s legislature and, of course, county and local governments.
As Karl Llewellyn, a great University of Chicago law teacher, once said, morals without technique is a mess while technique without morals is a menace. Don’t tell the people that the Minnesota government isn’t at the same time a mess and a menace -- it is.
What else could explain the hundreds, nay thousands, of pages of self-contradictory, vague and/or ambiguous statutes, rules and ordinances on the books? Even fishermen now contend with pages and pages of Department of Natural Resources fishing rules. Aren’t these statutes, rules and ordinances in themselves an abuse of power?
Bureaucrats, beware, it is the people who suffer due to your mediocrity, your mendacity, your meanness.
Neopopulists say that the people’s only response is rebellion. Civil disobedience – using all means of available political participation to impose the rule of law on the people’s government -- is the rally cry for the people.
Finally, as Neopopulists with the will to impose a political agenda, we admit to an internal disposition of hope. We are optimistic. Due to this hope, we have faith that we can make a difference – even though the situation, without us, would be rather hopeless.
Erick G. Kaardal
General Counsel for Neopopulism
495 Ridgeview Circle
Hamel MN 55340
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Mn Per Diem
The pdfs attached here are supporting documents supplied by the legislative finance office.
Business card of Eileen M. Lunzer
Business card of Marie A. Hawtghorne
Minnesota Senate Milage - Housing history
Minnesota Senate Expense Report
Member Senate Reimbursement Form
Friday, February 1, 2008
Bob Hanten's Letter to the MN State Legislature
Robert J. Hanten
15600 Wayzata Blvd., Suite 104
Wayzata, MN 55391
January 28, 2008
Hon. Lawrence J. Pogemiller
Majority Leader -- Senate
75 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. Capitol Building, Room 235St. Paul, MN 55155-1606
Hon. Margaret Anderson Kelliher
Speaker of the House
463 State Office Building
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
St. Paul, MN 55155
RE: Per Diem Should Be Fixed
Dear Senator Pogemiller and Representative Kelliher:
I write you this letter on behalf of Citizens for Rule of Law – a patriotic organization that identifies to public officials their violations of the rule of law.
Citizens for Rule of Law are upset because the state legislature pays per diem to individual state legislators in violation of the rule of law. First, according to the Minnesota Constitution, the 2007 increases in per diem should have taken effect only after the 2008 election. Second, according to Minnesota statutes, per diem should only be paid for reimbursable living expenses beyond housing and mileage which are otherwise reimbursed.
We ask you to stop these violations of the rule of law immediately. Please inform us of your decision on or before February 4, 2008.
If you have any questions, please call me.
Very truly yours,
Robert J. Hanten
15600 Wayzata Blvd., Suite 104
Wayzata, MN 55391
January 28, 2008
Hon. Lawrence J. Pogemiller
Majority Leader -- Senate
75 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. Capitol Building, Room 235St. Paul, MN 55155-1606
Hon. Margaret Anderson Kelliher
Speaker of the House
463 State Office Building
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
St. Paul, MN 55155
RE: Per Diem Should Be Fixed
Dear Senator Pogemiller and Representative Kelliher:
I write you this letter on behalf of Citizens for Rule of Law – a patriotic organization that identifies to public officials their violations of the rule of law.
Citizens for Rule of Law are upset because the state legislature pays per diem to individual state legislators in violation of the rule of law. First, according to the Minnesota Constitution, the 2007 increases in per diem should have taken effect only after the 2008 election. Second, according to Minnesota statutes, per diem should only be paid for reimbursable living expenses beyond housing and mileage which are otherwise reimbursed.
We ask you to stop these violations of the rule of law immediately. Please inform us of your decision on or before February 4, 2008.
If you have any questions, please call me.
Very truly yours,
Robert J. Hanten
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Speech by Tom Dahlberg, Chairman, Neopopulism Minnesota
Minnesota Neopopulism is an organization which is soon to become a movement. Our mission is to enforce the rule of law whenever and wherever, possible and when there is no rule of law, establish it, even when it takes civil disobedience to do so.
In our time, we live at the pleasure of the modern regulatory state. We have a gigantic bureaucracy, including the legislature, controlled by the bureaucratic elite. And that bureaucratic elite loves its discretionary power. Neopopulism is here it take that discretionary power away.
Our state legislatures, as a matter of moral fact, have become part of the bureaucracy they created. They serve it. They behave like it. They feed it, even when the people abhor it.
Our state legislature, like the bureaucracy as a whole, is running amok, presuming to power the state constitution does not give it. A little bit later in this program, we are going to announce what we, the people, led by Citizens for the Rule of Law, intend to do about this.
Minnesota Neopopulism is an organization that facilitates the rule of law. We help people insist on the rule of law. So when you’ve been subjected to the discretionary power of the bureaucracy, including the MN State Legislature, let us know, and we’ll help you see what can be done about it.
The constant attempt on the part of the elite bureaucratic class to erode the power of the people, is being demonstrated daily. Now we hear that a group of elitists, headed up by a former governor, and other people who are ridiculously confident that they know best, want to eliminate the power of the people to elect their judges. Why? Because, of course, they believe they know best. They want their elite friends to help the governor appoint our judges. They don’t trust the people.
Notice that this elitist initiative follows on the US Supreme Court’s decision just two years ago, to allow our judicial candidates freedom of speech so the people could in fact identify judges who actually believe in what they believe in. This decision, from the US Supreme Court, came along because of the efforts of Mr. Kaardal, among others. It transferred power to the people. Freedom of speech for the judicial candidates means that the people can find out who they really want on the bench. This terrifies the elitists. They know that when the people start getting who they really want on the bench, it’s going to have a very adverse effect on their plans. These will be judges who will not engage in the activist transfer of power to the bureaucratic elite.
This attempt, by these elitists, to reverse our progress, is utterly disgusting to Neopopulists, and if they ever succeed, we should engage in massive civil disobedience, refusing to abide by the orders of judges we didn’t elect.
Notice how this whole idea, about this elite committee appointing our judges for us, is based on all of the silly myths of modernism and the elite class. From a Neopopulist perspective, these myths are part of the intellectual scrap heap of history. The myth of objectivity, as if the elite class is the only class that doesn’t have an axe to grind or doesn’t have any power to preserve and expand. The myth of Utilitarianism, as if the elite class can calculate exactly what’s best for everyone, even when almost everyone disagrees. The myth of expertise, as if experts are non-ideological. Neopopulism urges the people to ignore the experts and FREE THEIR MINDS.
Mr. Erick Kaardal, our general counsel, and a man that I often refer to as the Father of Minnesota Neopopulism, developed one of the foundational principles of Neopopulism years ago as we thought about exactly what kind of political movement we need in America today. That principle is that government should not only respect our rights, it should respect our dignity. The bureaucracy has turned our rights into a technicality using the legislative and judicial processes to constrain them. And in doing so it demonstrates how much it despises the rule of law and craves power. This is the moral mediocrity of the bureaucracy. If government respected our dignity it would not only respect our rights, it would abide by the rule of law. When the government ignores the rule of law, and even more precisely, the rule of natural law of which our rights are a part, it strips everyone of us of our dignity, turning us into subjects as opposed to citizens. The bureaucrats don’t get it. They are morally mediocre. The people will not even have their rights respected until they begin insisting that their dignity be respected.
The defenders of the bureaucrats will protest that they are noble public servants. Well in that case, they should start acting like it by respecting both our rights and our dignity. As Mr. Kaardal has noticed, the "moderates" are just narcissists, imagining that they are superior to the demands of the people.
Neopopulists, like this committee we have with us here to today—People for the Rule of Law – are not going to take it anymore. From the standpoint of the elite bureaucratic class, including this state legislature, they are engaging in civil disobedience simply by virtue of having the pluck to object to the legislature’s violation of the state constitution. They’re supposed to be quiet. They are supposed to just sit back and take it. They are supposed to understand that their betters are doing what they think is best. Well this is the message of Neopopulism: no one is better than the people. We don’t believe in Camelot. We don’t believe in the myth of the “best and the brightest”. And the more ornery the people are the better. The people are no longer interested in being led by elitists. They are going start leading themselves. They will be explaining more about this in a moment.
The main thing that I want to do here today is announce to the people of MN, and to the people of this nation, that Neopopulism is now here to help you fight back. We’ll fight with law suits, we’ll fight with massive surveillance of the bureaucracy, we’ll fight with the alternative media, we’ll fight with education, we’ll fight with civil disobedience and we’ll fight with legislation when we can find legislators who have come to their senses.
It’s time for the people themselves to take control of the state. It’s time for the people not only to directly elect their judges, but also, to directly elect the Commissioner of the DOT, and the Commissioner of the DNR, and any other bureaucrat who otherwise thinks he’s insulated from actually serving the people.
People for the Rule of Law understand that we are now living in political conditions where only the people themselves can enforce the rule of law. These are the true patriots. If you are just listening in to politics and just voting, it’s not good enough. We’re living in a day and age when a good citizen has to do more – he has to start taking real action. If you start to follow what we’re up to in this Neopopulist movement, you’ll learn how to be what the elite class calls a “crank”. You’ll learn that the more disgusted the elites are with you, the better you are, the more effective you are, and the more powerful you are. The elites will
never free their minds, and they have no vested interest in freeing yours. So free your own mind, embrace your orneriness, go ahead and be a crank, and HAVE FUN.
In our time, we live at the pleasure of the modern regulatory state. We have a gigantic bureaucracy, including the legislature, controlled by the bureaucratic elite. And that bureaucratic elite loves its discretionary power. Neopopulism is here it take that discretionary power away.
Our state legislatures, as a matter of moral fact, have become part of the bureaucracy they created. They serve it. They behave like it. They feed it, even when the people abhor it.
Our state legislature, like the bureaucracy as a whole, is running amok, presuming to power the state constitution does not give it. A little bit later in this program, we are going to announce what we, the people, led by Citizens for the Rule of Law, intend to do about this.
Minnesota Neopopulism is an organization that facilitates the rule of law. We help people insist on the rule of law. So when you’ve been subjected to the discretionary power of the bureaucracy, including the MN State Legislature, let us know, and we’ll help you see what can be done about it.
The constant attempt on the part of the elite bureaucratic class to erode the power of the people, is being demonstrated daily. Now we hear that a group of elitists, headed up by a former governor, and other people who are ridiculously confident that they know best, want to eliminate the power of the people to elect their judges. Why? Because, of course, they believe they know best. They want their elite friends to help the governor appoint our judges. They don’t trust the people.
Notice that this elitist initiative follows on the US Supreme Court’s decision just two years ago, to allow our judicial candidates freedom of speech so the people could in fact identify judges who actually believe in what they believe in. This decision, from the US Supreme Court, came along because of the efforts of Mr. Kaardal, among others. It transferred power to the people. Freedom of speech for the judicial candidates means that the people can find out who they really want on the bench. This terrifies the elitists. They know that when the people start getting who they really want on the bench, it’s going to have a very adverse effect on their plans. These will be judges who will not engage in the activist transfer of power to the bureaucratic elite.
This attempt, by these elitists, to reverse our progress, is utterly disgusting to Neopopulists, and if they ever succeed, we should engage in massive civil disobedience, refusing to abide by the orders of judges we didn’t elect.
Notice how this whole idea, about this elite committee appointing our judges for us, is based on all of the silly myths of modernism and the elite class. From a Neopopulist perspective, these myths are part of the intellectual scrap heap of history. The myth of objectivity, as if the elite class is the only class that doesn’t have an axe to grind or doesn’t have any power to preserve and expand. The myth of Utilitarianism, as if the elite class can calculate exactly what’s best for everyone, even when almost everyone disagrees. The myth of expertise, as if experts are non-ideological. Neopopulism urges the people to ignore the experts and FREE THEIR MINDS.
Mr. Erick Kaardal, our general counsel, and a man that I often refer to as the Father of Minnesota Neopopulism, developed one of the foundational principles of Neopopulism years ago as we thought about exactly what kind of political movement we need in America today. That principle is that government should not only respect our rights, it should respect our dignity. The bureaucracy has turned our rights into a technicality using the legislative and judicial processes to constrain them. And in doing so it demonstrates how much it despises the rule of law and craves power. This is the moral mediocrity of the bureaucracy. If government respected our dignity it would not only respect our rights, it would abide by the rule of law. When the government ignores the rule of law, and even more precisely, the rule of natural law of which our rights are a part, it strips everyone of us of our dignity, turning us into subjects as opposed to citizens. The bureaucrats don’t get it. They are morally mediocre. The people will not even have their rights respected until they begin insisting that their dignity be respected.
The defenders of the bureaucrats will protest that they are noble public servants. Well in that case, they should start acting like it by respecting both our rights and our dignity. As Mr. Kaardal has noticed, the "moderates" are just narcissists, imagining that they are superior to the demands of the people.
Neopopulists, like this committee we have with us here to today—People for the Rule of Law – are not going to take it anymore. From the standpoint of the elite bureaucratic class, including this state legislature, they are engaging in civil disobedience simply by virtue of having the pluck to object to the legislature’s violation of the state constitution. They’re supposed to be quiet. They are supposed to just sit back and take it. They are supposed to understand that their betters are doing what they think is best. Well this is the message of Neopopulism: no one is better than the people. We don’t believe in Camelot. We don’t believe in the myth of the “best and the brightest”. And the more ornery the people are the better. The people are no longer interested in being led by elitists. They are going start leading themselves. They will be explaining more about this in a moment.
The main thing that I want to do here today is announce to the people of MN, and to the people of this nation, that Neopopulism is now here to help you fight back. We’ll fight with law suits, we’ll fight with massive surveillance of the bureaucracy, we’ll fight with the alternative media, we’ll fight with education, we’ll fight with civil disobedience and we’ll fight with legislation when we can find legislators who have come to their senses.
It’s time for the people themselves to take control of the state. It’s time for the people not only to directly elect their judges, but also, to directly elect the Commissioner of the DOT, and the Commissioner of the DNR, and any other bureaucrat who otherwise thinks he’s insulated from actually serving the people.
People for the Rule of Law understand that we are now living in political conditions where only the people themselves can enforce the rule of law. These are the true patriots. If you are just listening in to politics and just voting, it’s not good enough. We’re living in a day and age when a good citizen has to do more – he has to start taking real action. If you start to follow what we’re up to in this Neopopulist movement, you’ll learn how to be what the elite class calls a “crank”. You’ll learn that the more disgusted the elites are with you, the better you are, the more effective you are, and the more powerful you are. The elites will
never free their minds, and they have no vested interest in freeing yours. So free your own mind, embrace your orneriness, go ahead and be a crank, and HAVE FUN.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Rule of Law Day Flier
When the lawmakers themselves will not abide by the rule of law, only the people can enforce the rule of law.
Rule of Law Day
State Capitol Rotunda
Monday, February 11, 2008
1:30 PM
Join us as we enforce and celebrate the rule of law at the State Capitol Rotunda, St. Paul, MN.
CITIZENS FOR THE RULE OF LAW
See our blog at
http://citizensfortheruleoflaw.blogspot.com/
We will also be describing the neopopulist principles upon which our activism in behalf of the rule of law is based. You can learn more about MN Neopopulism at
http://www.neopopulism.org/
Neopopulism understands that only the people themselves can govern the governors. The people have to start taking control. And, we need to understand the role of civil disobedience in the absence of the rule of law.
The Citizens for the Rule of Law and MN Neopopulism Inc. are not think tanks. They are do tanks. Please join us in taking action against elitist disregard of the Minnesota State Constitution.
Rule of Law Day
State Capitol Rotunda
Monday, February 11, 2008
1:30 PM
Join us as we enforce and celebrate the rule of law at the State Capitol Rotunda, St. Paul, MN.
CITIZENS FOR THE RULE OF LAW
See our blog at
http://citizensfortheruleoflaw.blogspot.com/
We will also be describing the neopopulist principles upon which our activism in behalf of the rule of law is based. You can learn more about MN Neopopulism at
http://www.neopopulism.org/
Neopopulism understands that only the people themselves can govern the governors. The people have to start taking control. And, we need to understand the role of civil disobedience in the absence of the rule of law.
The Citizens for the Rule of Law and MN Neopopulism Inc. are not think tanks. They are do tanks. Please join us in taking action against elitist disregard of the Minnesota State Constitution.
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