Special Report Citizens group seeks to convene Continental Congress

By Susan Johnson

Copy Editor

We The People Foundation, an independent citizens group that wants to reclaim the U.S. government for its citizens, held an informational town hall discussion at 7 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 24, at Veterans Memorial Hall in Rockford.

The group’s objective is stated as
… striving to hold our elected officials accountable. … After years of rationally and intelligently petitioning the government for redress of violations of numerous provisions of the Constitution with no reasonable response, and especially now as violations to the Constitution escalate with devastating effects on our country and citizens, we have turned our focus to Continental Congress 2009. … Since last December, we have been diligently working to convene a Continental Congress for America from Nov. 9th through the 24th.

Panel discussion members were: Dale Kallenbach, Kurt Kallenbach, Robert (
Bob

) Pfluger, Ray Swenson and Rick Wos. Jonathan Cobb was host and moderator.

As the meeting opened, Cobb said that at previous town halls, some questions were being raised such as: was this health care reform bill even constitutional?

Dale Kallenbach, a local citizen who had studied at Rock Valley College, had asked for volunteers to be delegates to the Continental Congress. (Local voting for three Illinois delegates will take place from 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 10, at Veterans Memorial Hall, 211 N. Main St. No federal or state politicians are allowed to serve in this Congress. To vote, you only need to be a citizen of Illinois and at least 18 years old. No voter registration card is required.)

Kallenbach said he was not an expert, but he was concerned about our country and what
we the people

have allowed the government to do. We need to find a way to get back to the constitutional standard that has not been in force for more than 150 years.

Bob Pfluger, a retired dentist who had practiced 45 years, traced the origin of the problem back to the Fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. He said he believed Christ came to show us how to live, since man has been misusing power ever since the Fall.
Controlling another person is wrong, and that is what our problem is—our representatives succumb to that desire for power and want to control us rather than keep us free,

he said He observed that some people think we have a
living

Constitution, but he said there is no such thing; it is static.

A living Constitution means it can change according to the way society lives,

he explained.
I say no, it is a fixed set of principles—such as the government should not tax an individual and give the money to another. That is robbery,

and he cited a case in Topeka.
Our founding fathers felt that if they had direct taxes and indirect taxes equal, that would stop the government from taking money from you and giving it to that person over there. That person would have to pay the same amount. But along came the 16th Amendment, which did not change the intent, but when [President Franklin D.] Roosevelt got in his Supreme Court nominees, they began to say that the government could have benefits for other people; we could tax a person and give it to someone else. That is one example of what should be corrected.

Ray Swenson, a history professor at Rock Valley College, said:
The more you study history and start making comparisons of what happened in 1898 versus 1998, we see Samuel Clemens was right after all; history does not repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme… [the Constitution] is in a hermetically-sealed glass container so it does not decompose. But it is what is written on the paper that is important. When playing any game, you have to read the rules. That is the Constitution—the rules of government; what the government can and cannot do.”

To be continued…

From the September 30 – October 6, 2009 issue.