Stephen Emery has been married for 21 years and has three minor children and two adult children. He grew up on grain and livestock farms. He has an Associate of Applied Science degree in Animal Science, a Bachelor of Science degree, majoring in Agriculture Education with minors in Agronomy and Animal Science. He has a Juris Doctor degree and is licensed to practice law.
Stephen has professional work experience as a County Agent (an agriculture consultant and a local leader in a youth leadership organization), a Sales Representative selling herbicides for American Cyanamid, and a Medical Representative promoting vaccines, antibiotics, and antihypertensive drugs for Lederle Laboratories. For the last 28 years, Stephen has worked in the legal field. The last 25 years has been invested in doing legal analysis and writing.
Just eight men own as much wealth as 3.6 billion people–about half of the world population. In the United States, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffett are wealthier than half of everyone else. The wealth of the top 1 percent surpasses $100 trillion which is more than the global GDP and all central bank balance sheets. Amassing this kind of wealth, and therefore power, in a few hands could not occur apart from the private corporation.
This kind of accumulation of wealth and power seems inequitable to many people, but it is not new. It would have seemed inequitable to the Founders of this nation too. They recognized that the corporation essentially is a tool to enslave the masses. They fought the Revolutionary/American War, in part, to free themselves from the private corporation—the East India Tea Company. The company rose to account for half of the world’s trade. The company subjugated the colonists economically and the Colonists’ response to it was the Boston Tea Party and then the War.
After the War, the Founders of this nation addressed this issue, and others, through the Title of Nobility Clauses (anti-nobility clauses ) in the Constitution to prevent economic slavery from reoccurring through the private corporation. The nobility of the British empire also were aware of the excesses of the private corporation and big government. Lord Acton captured the sentiment of the Founders in his statement that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. History supports his claim.
Government needs to be decentralized and economic/business activity needs to be decentralized too. The private corporation is a fictional creation of the government to limit liability, provide for a perpetual existence, and provide a mechanism that allows wealth, and therefore power, to concentrate in a few hands. Each of those characteristics works counter to individual liberty and the proper purposes of government. The proper purpose of government is to hold people accountable for their actions, not to control entire industries or allow people to escape responsibility for their misconduct through use of the corporate form. The private corporation essentially is mind control on steroids for redistribution of wealth and power to the elite through the misuse of governmental power. Redistribution of wealth to the elitists, or even the poor, is not a proper function of government.
President Eisenhower warned us of the oppressive nature of the “military-industrial complex.” It couldn’t exist but for the private corporation. It demands to be fed massive amounts of money from the federal treasury and it advocates for war. It is a threat to the well-being of this nation’s citizens and people throughout the world.
I have observed that catastrophic environmental damage occurs through the private corporation where it otherwise would not have. If the “bottom line” favors polluting, corporations pollute due to the limitation-of-liability shield. Much legislation, including that which allows for H1-b visas and O-1 visas that give our jobs to foreigners, is passed to promote the interests of the corporation.
President Eisenhower also warned us of the oppressive nature of the “scientific-technological elite.” We are nearly in “full flower” now. They have combined with the media to push a false narrative to support these “shelter in place” orders that have destroyed our civil rights, including our First Amendment right to associate and our rights under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to earn a living. Karl Procaccini, who now is an associate justice and is up for election this cycle, was Walz’s staff attorney who drafted many of the COVID-19 orders. He must be held accountable by voting him out of office. Vote for his opponent.
Currently there is no such thing as a “free press” as referenced in the Constitution—at least not as the Founders understood that term. Just six companies control more than 90 percent of the news media. This is a relatively recent phenomenon. The “press” used to be extremely decentralized, and that is the way it should be. Essentially, only the unelected decision-makers in the private media corporations currently have a “free press.” Even though they, along with the legal profession, are not elected, they effectively are arms of the government and have as much, or more, influence as any elected official.
Many years ago, Congress provided at least a partial remedy by passing the Sherman Antitrust Act to address the excesses of the “robber barons” of the mid to late 1800s, but the federal courts, which are in favor of big government and big corporations to expand their power, refuse to enforce it as written. The courts enforce other Acts of Congress as written; in fact, judges openly state that they must enforce statutes as written unless it would be illogical to do so. Judges do not claim that enforcing the Sherman Act as written would be illogical. Judges say only that they don’t want the Act to have the expansive affect that it would have if they did so. Congress has the prerogative to determine the affect of legislation, not judges. History has repeated. The Judiciary and the Executive must be compelled to enforce the Sherman Act as written to address the modern day “robber barons.”
I would advocate for, and vote to apply, the Title of Nobility Clauses broadly. Enforcement of the anti-nobility clauses would be an effective remedy to address the economic slavery of today through the corporation and government. I would advocate and vote for the courts to be directed to enforce antitrust laws as written to diminish the mega multi-national corporation, which ships American jobs overseas, imports foreign workers under H-1b and O-1 visas, and is a hindrance to economic growth, so that we can have an economic structure that favors individuals and families having their own businesses.
Thomas Jefferson wrote to Mr. Hammond in 1821: “The germ of dissolution of our federal government is in … the federal judiciary; an irresponsible body … working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped from the states.” In writing to William Jarvis, Jefferson said, “You seem … to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy.” It seems to me that he was prophetic! He was not alone. Alexis De Tocqueville, a disinterested observer of early American government, wrote in Democracy in America that “. . . if the Supreme Court is ever composed of imprudent or bad men, the Union may be plunged into anarchy or civil war.” We have had imprudent and bad people in the federal courts which led to the Dred Scott v. Sanford decision, and therefore we had civil war. We most certainly will have civil war again and even more anarchy than we have now unless the issue with the federal courts is addressed immediately. The degeneration of the nation is largely due to the federal courts. De Tocqueville also said, “When the American republics begin to degenerate, it will be easy to verify the truth of this observation by remarking whether the number of political impeachments is increased.” He hit the proverbial “nail on the head” in making that comment nearly two hundred years ago!
I would advocate and vote to repudiate Marbury v. Madison, a decision issued many years ago by the United States Supreme Court that was used to establish federal courts as the ultimate decision-maker in government. Even though the Constitution itself provides a mechanism for amendment, and it has been amended many times, federal judges are so pompous that they say they can change it as they wish. To take this ultimate power is tyrannical and despotic (anti-nobility clauses ).
In issuing the Marbury decision, the United States Supreme Court did not have the support of the Constitution, the Executive, or the Congress to do so. The very structure of the Constitution establishes Congress and the President as preeminent to the courts, which is eminently logical because they are closest to the people in that they are elected and judges are appointed. The President has to be elected by the entire country, and for Congress to make a decision, it takes 269 votes in favor of it. With the United States Supreme Court, it only takes five votes, and many times a binding decision circumventing the will of Congress and the President rests on the vote of one Justice. What’s worse is that one unelected federal district court judge circumvents the will of Congress and the President, and therefore the will of the people. That is outrageous! At the time the Constitution was formed, for the courts to declare something “unconstitutional” would have been completely foreign to the Founders. The Executive Branch and Congress have the right to determine the Constitutionality of their own decisions and act accordingly.
According to the Constitution, the existence of lower federal courts is completely discretionary. It doesn’t make any sense to consider them superior to Congress or the President and determine that an Act of Congress or the President is unconstitutional. Congress must repeal the Judiciary Act of 1789 and terminate the existence of the lower federal courts. The repeal would have the salutary effect of transferring more power to the States and begin their restoration to their proper status under the Constitution as originally intended.
The Constitution also requires the elimination of ABC federal agencies. Rather than federal agencies, it provides for “Compacts” between States for any governmental activity beyond the very limited authority given to the Federal Government and beyond State borders. A little over 100 years ago, the courts resisted big government and ABC Federal agencies, knowing the Constitution did not support it, but they eventually yielded to FDR’s imperial presidency.
In shaping the Constitution, the Founders were extremely concerned about preventing tyranny and despotism through application of government power. Thomas Jefferson, who was President when the Supreme Court issued the Marbury decision, had the view that it was illegitimate, as did Andrew Jackson when he was President. Early observers of the American way of life and government warned that the structure of the courts was the weak link of our system of government and would lead to civil war. History has proven them correct at least once, i.e., Dred Scott v. Sanford. This tyranny must be addressed.
Governmental power must be returned to the people. One way is to limit the federal government as understood by the Founders. This would include empowering the people by requiring the courts to have the jury determine the facts and the law before the coercive power of the government can be applied to any person or situation. As it is now, the jury is rarely used, and then only to determine a few facts. I will advocate and vote along these lines. Alexis-de-Tocqueville-Democracy-in-America.pdf page 310.
Judges, federal and state, are responsible for making it practically impossible to defend yourself. They have created doctrines that punish the victim if a firearm is used in the slightest way against their criminal-friendly rules. This is another reason why judges’ role in society must be completely revamped to limit them to administrative functions only and the jury reestablished to make all decisions on the application of the law. Federal judges, trial lawyers and bureaucrats, though not elected, have far more influence on the direction of government than elected officials or even bodies of elected officials. That has to end if the nation is to survive.