Patriots: A Novel of Survival in the Coming Collapse

CHAPTER 32 The Amendments

Continental Region 6—the former United States, Mexico, and Canada—was gradually falling into the hands of guerrillas. Even formerly pacified areas saw increasing resistance, both passive and active. Guerrilla bands were operational as far south as theYucatan peninsula, and as far north as upper Newfoundland. The UN was steadily losing its grip on the region, and could do nothing about it.

A particularly embarrassing incident for the UN came the day that President Hutchings was to give one of his biannual “State of the Continent” speeches. When Hutchings and his entourage arrived at the Fort Knox TV studio in their APCs, they found the studio staff and several MPs attacking two of the building’s steel doors with crowbars and a sledgehammer. An empty tube of “Krazy Glue” cyanoacrylate epoxy was found near one of the doors and bagged as evidence. The lock cylinders of every door were frozen in place.

After resorting to using a cutting torch, they finally got into the building twenty minutes before Hutchings was scheduled to go on the air.

Once inside, the studio staff found some of the inner door locks similarly jammed, but they were less of an obstacle. A couple of quick blows from a sledgehammer opened each door. The staff fumbled with flashlights, trying to determine why the lights weren’t working. They soon found that the saboteur had removed all of the circuit breakers from the main breaker box. The floor cameras had their lenses smashed, but a spare handheld camera from the mobile van was brought in and set up on a tripod. Maynard Hutchings finally went on the air twenty-five minutes late, “due to technical difficulties” and without his usual makeup. In his speech, he glowed about the “outstanding cooperation” shown by the UN Partners for Peace, recent victories over bandits in Michigan and Colorado, and the “rapidly decreasing rates of terrorist acts.” He promised regional elections “real soon.”

The following week, a firing squad from the Fort Knox Provost Marshall’s office executed the TV studio saboteur. He was the thirteen-year old son of an Ordnance Corps major who was stationed at the Fort and lived in nearby Radcliffe, Kentucky. The major and his wife were executed by another firing squad two days later. President Hutchings was quoted as saying, “Parents should be held accountable for their children’s actions.” Throughout the North American continent, a pattern was clearly evident.

Resistance was the strongest, the best organized, and the most successful in rural areas. Unable to wipe out the elusive guerrillas, the UN administration and their Quislings began to concentrate on eliminating the guerrillas’ food supplies.

In areas where resistance was rampant, “temporary detainment facilities” were constructed to house anyone thought to be politically unreliable. Special emphasis was placed on rounding up suspect farmers or ranchers, or anyone remotely connected with food distribution businesses. When farmers were put into custody, their crops were either confiscated, plowed under, or burned.

Bulk food stocks were carefully monitored by the authorities. Despite these efforts, the guerrillas rapidly gained in numbers.

As the war went on, resistance gradually increased beyond the UN’s ability to match it. Every new detainment camp spawned the formation of new resistance cells. Every reprisal or atrocity by the UN or Federal forces pushed more citizens and even Federal unit commanders into active support for the guerrillas. Increasing numbers of commanders decided to “do the right thing,” and support The Document (The Constitution) rather than the Provisional government’s power elite at Fort Knox. Units as large as brigade size were parlaying with the guerrillas and turning over their equipment. In many instances the majority of their troops joined the resistance. County after county, and eventually state after state, was controlled by the resistance.

The remaining loyal Federal and UN units gradually retreated into Kentucky, Tennessee, and southern Illinois. Most held out there until the early summer of the war’s fourth year. Militias and their allied “realigned” Federal units relentlessly closed in on the remaining Federal territory from all directions.

When word came that Hutchings, his cabinet, and most of the senior UN administrators had flown to Europe on the night of July first, the UN and Federal forces capitulated en masse. There was no final battle. The war ended with a whimper rather than a bang. The resistance army units rolled into Fort Knox on July fourth, unchallenged. They lowered the UN flag and raised Old Glory without much fanfare. Resistance soldiers cut up the UN banner into small swatches for souvenirs.

The capitulated armies were soon disarmed and demobilized. Apart from a few soldiers that were put on trial for war crimes, the rest of the U.S.-born soldiers were allowed to return to their home states by the end of August. The UN’s own barbed wire internment camps made a convenient place to put the UN soldiers while they were waiting to go home. It took more than a year to send the UN forces back to Europe by ship and airplane.

The Europeans chafed at being billed for the demobilization and troop transport. The “return bounty” reparation was fifty ounces of gold per enlisted soldier, two hundred ounces per officer, and five hundred ounces per civilian administrator, payable before delivery. The new interim Restoration of the Constitution Government (RCG) made it clear that if the bounty payments stopped, the demob flights would stop.

Maynard Hutchings committed suicide before his extradition process was completed. Most of his staff and a few divisional and brigade commanders were eventually extradited from Europe, given trials, and shot. Hundreds of lower-ranking military officers and local Quislings were arrested and similarly put on trial. Sentences included head shavings and brandings. In a few rare cases, there were death sentences. Only a few UN troops who professed fear of retribution if they were returned to their home countries were granted asylum. Each of these individuals was given separate hearings by the RCG. Most of them eventually bought citizenship.

The first elections since before the Crunch were held in all fifty states in the November following the Federal surrender at Fort Knox. The Constitution Party and Libertarian Party candidates won in a landslide. A former Wyoming governor—a Libertarian—was elected president. Based on rough population estimates, the new House of Representatives had just ninety seats.

In the three years following the elections, nine constitutional amendments were ratified by the state legislatures in rapid succession. The Document went through some major changes.

The 27th Amendment granted blanket immunity from prosecution for any crimes committed before or during the Second Civil War to anyone who actively fought for the resistance.

The 28th Amendment repealed the 14th and 26th Amendments. It also made full state Citizenship a right of birth, only applicable to native-born Citizens who were the children of Citizens. It allowed immigrants to buy state citizenship. It clarified “United States citizenship” as only having effect when state Citizens traveled outside the nation’s borders, and outlawed titles of nobility such as “esquire.”

The 29th Amendment banned welfare and foreign aid, removed the United States from the UN and most foreign treaties, capped Federal spending at 2 percent of the GDP, capped the combined number of foreign troops in the fifty states and on Federal territory at one thousand men, and limited the active duty Federal military to a hundred thousand men, except in time of declared war.

The 30th Amendment amplified the 2nd Amendment, confirming it as both an unalienable individual right and as a state right, repealed the existing Federal gun-control laws, preempted any present or future state gun-control laws, and reinstituted a decentralized militia system.

The 31st Amendment repealed the 16th Amendment, and severely limited the ability of the Federal government to collect any taxes within the fifty states. Henceforth, the Federal government’s budget could be funded only by tariffs, import duties, and bonds.

The 32nd Amendment outlawed deficit spending, put the new United States currency back on a bimetallic gold and silver standard, and made all currency “redeemable on demand.”

The 33rd Amendment froze salaries at six thousand dollars a year for House members and ten thousand for Senators, limited campaign spending for any federal office to five thousand per term, and repealed the 17th Amendment, returning Senators to election by their state legislatures.

The 34th Amendment restored the pre-Erie Railroad v.Tompkins system of Common Law, invalidated most Federal court decisions since 1932, and clarified the inapplicability of most Federal statutes on state Citizens in several states.

The 35th Amendment reinstated the allodial land-title system. Under a renewed Federal Land Patent system the amendment mandated the return of 92 percent of the Federal lands to private ownership through public sales at one dollar in silver coin per acre.

The nation’s economy was slowly restored. But with the nine new amendments, the scope of government—both state and Federal—was greatly reduced from its pre-Crunch proportions. Small government was almost universally seen as good government. For the first time since before the First Civil War, it became the norm to again refer to the nation plurally as these United States, rather than singularly as The United States. The change was subtle, but profound.

Two years after the Fort Knox surrender, NET produced a three-hour documentary entitled CW II:The Resistance War. The documentary included extensive on-camera interviews with resistance fighters. The pro-militia bias of the producers was evident, but they in no way tried to portray the resistance as angelic. Notably, one of the many video clips included was of a raid on a Federal supply depot near Baltimore. In this footage, a group of five unarmed Federal soldiers could be seen slowly walking out of a warehouse with their hands raised, only to be shot down by resistance fighters.

The vast majority of the atrocities documented in the film was committed by the Federals and various UN military units. An amateur video shot by an Austrian UN soldier showed a protest at a relocation camp in Tennessee being quelled by copious RPK machinegun fire. Some of the most damning footage was filmed by the Federals themselves—including the notorious Chicago Blindings, and graphic scenes of reprisal executions in Florida, Texas, Illinois, and Ohio. The footage from Florida showed more than a hundred bound and gagged men, women, and children being shot and pushed into a waiting mass grave with a bulldozer. Interviews with “turned” UN soldiers revealed that local unit commanders had filmed the mass executions to gain favor with their higher-ups. As one former British airborne regiment Captain put it, “These videotapes of the executions were a way of earning Brownie Points. ‘Look what a good boy I’ve been! Look how I achieved such a high reprisal body count.’ It was sickening, but that was the norm.”

Todd and Mary Gray watched the film at Kevin Lendel’s ranch house, using a newly purchased DSS satellite dish. Kevin taped it with a VCR that he had bought for a dollar-fifty in silver coin just two weeks before the grid-power came back on line. The Grays were surprised and proud to see how much of the resistance video in the documentary came from action in their own region. It included gun camera footage from the Doyles’ Laron ultralights, the snowy ambush and capture of Major Kuntzler, the implosion of the Spokane UNPROFOR headquarters, and the final assault on the UN barracks in Moscow.

As Todd tried to get to sleep that evening, memories of the recent war came flooding back. Mary sat curled beside him on the bed, under a small twelve-volt DC halogen reading light—her usual evening habit. She was rereading one of her favorite novels, The Red and The Black, and nibbling on dried apple slices. Noticing that Todd wasn’t asleep, she asked, “What’s the matter, hon?”

“It was that film we saw today. It made me think of all the friends that we’ve lost since the Crunch. I really and truly miss them. It was quite a price to pay for our freedom. All over the country folks lost family in the Crunch, and then more in the war. And across the Atlantic Ocean, there are thousands more that lost sons in the war. The Europeans will hate our guts for at least a generation, maybe a lot longer.”

Mary closed her book with a loud thump and set it aside. “Let ’em hate us! If the ‘You’re-a-peons’ can’t stomach a sovereign and freedom-loving nation, then that’s their problem. I think that deep down they must envy us. We looked tyranny in the eye and said,‘No way. Your day is done, Mr. Tyrant. Adios.’ There’s nothing wrong with that, Todd! And we can be proud of our militia’s record.

There are no skeletons lurking in the closet. We didn’t shoot anybody that was trying to surrender. And today, as a nation, we can be proud that we liberated Canada and are supporting and supplying the resistance movements in Switzerland, and Finland, and Spain. We can do that with a clear conscience.”

Todd nodded his head, but the expression on his face showed that he was still concerned. Mary ran her fingers through Todd’s graying hair and said consolingly, “Our son Jacob is growing up in a free and God-fearing country.

That’s the bottom line.”A moment later she added, “And as for what happened during the war, we can’t change that. It’s fodder for the history books, and will be neatly analyzed by ‘Monday Morning Quarterbacks’ in more documentaries like the one we saw today. We can count on it.”

Todd sighed. “You’re right. I can’t go back in time and fix any of my mistakes. But I wonder if Jacob or our grandchildren will ever have to go through the same thing?”

Mary didn’t answer Todd for a full minute. The only sound in the room was the ticking of a clock on the bedside table. Finally, she said, “It’s in our fallen, sinful nature for tyrants to rise up in every nation. And unfortunately, it’s also in our nature that the vast majority in every nation is either too stupid or too apathetic to do anything about it until the tyrants have put up their barbed wire and spilled a lot of blood.

“Grandpa Krause liked to quote a stand-up comedian from back in the ’80s who said, ‘There are three kinds of people in this world: Those who make things happen; those who watch things happen; and those who just wonder what the heck happened? ’”

Todd nodded and chuckled at Mary’s quote. He had heard her recite it before, but under different circumstances.

Mary continued, in a more serious tone, “While most people were still wondering what the heck happened, we made something happen, Todd.”

Todd breathed, “Yes, we made it happen. And you’re right. Tyranny is a product of our sinful nature. Hopefully films like we saw today will be reminders that will keep people vigilant, so tyrants don’t spring up so often.

Thank God for our Constitution. It kept us from having to confront tyranny on our own soil for a lot longer than the average European. And hopefully now that it has been restored, we’ll have another two or three centuries of uninterrupted freedom. From now on, the Federal government is not going to be allowed to corner the market on coercive force. Far more force is being retained by the states, and by the people. That’s why we keep that APC out in the barn. And there are thousands of other APCs and tanks in private hands scattered all over the country. There may be more rough times ahead, but we’re ready for whatever might come. And when we go to God, we’ll go knowing that our children are prepared, too.” Todd stroked his hand across Mary’s belly, and smiled. It was beginning to swell with their second child. “We’ll raise them up solid. Just like us, they’ll have the faith; they’ll have the friends; they’ll have the skills; and they’ll have the tools they need to pull through.”

Mary smiled and kissed Todd. She reached up and switched off her reading light. She whispered, “I love you darling.”

“I love you too. With all my heart.” He was soon asleep. And he slept well.