Thirteen Words and Three Rights

Thirteen Words, and Three Rights, by Edwin Vieira, Jr. ★★★
These two books will be reviewed together since they probably should have been published as a single text. They follow on the heels of a book I recently reviewed by Vieira on judicial supremacy. These two volumes were written within the past several years, both pertaining to similar subjects. In Thirteen Words, Vieira discusses the subject of the right to bear arms, as stated quite clearly in the second amendment. He then develops the idea of the militia in terms of the definition intended by the founding fathers. State militias were intended to be managed by the states, conduct their business entirely independent of the army, and provide the ultimate “homeland security”. Vieira calls for the resurrection of a true state militia, where the citizens of the state are encouraged to be armed, and serve as the protection against the enemies of the state and to balance the power of the central government.
In Three Rights, Vieira expounds on the right to resistance to bad government, the right to restoration of good government, and the right for renewal of the nation. These rights are found explicitly in the declaration of independence, and not in the constitution itself. Essentially, it is the people’s right to revolution against bad government. Vieira develops the thought that this is not anti-government, and not to be confused with insurrection, which the constitution explicitly protects against. Vieira completely fails in drawing a strict definition of the difference between a revolution and an insurrection, both intended to overthrow what is perceived by some to be bad government or a misinterpretation of the government. Indeed, perhaps the reason that these three rights are NOT a part of the bill of rights, is that the declaration of independence was written with revolutionary fervor, an emotion that bodes poorly when actually trying to form a stable government.
Both books were written as single chapters, and manifest free-flowing thought, rather than a highly organized argument. This is contrary to his book on overthrowing judicial supremacy, where he actually thinks things through in a methodical, sensible, and more reasoned fashion. He often uses conventions in these two books that I am not familiar with, such as the frequent use of three asterisks (***) to suggest something, which I thought was perhaps trying to make an emphasis at that particular point. He frequently speaks of “the good people of the USA”, which I’m not sure what is meant by that—except to emphasize that he certainly is NOT a Calvinist, who believes that people are at their core intrinsically bad, with a government designed to control that badness. The predicament of today is that most people really don’t care that the government today is for the most part operating in an entirely unconstitutional fashion since their personal lives seem to have sufficient affluence and contentment to not warrant a revolution. Perhaps Vieira is writing for the future when people wake up to realize that they’ve sold themselves into slavery to the state. Until that happens, both books are nothing but wishful thinking.