I need to speak frankly about some very dangerous attitudes I continue to see exhibited by Americans today including, unfortunately, some of the same patriots involved in the fight against the illegal alien invasion.

The attitude I'm speaking of is complacency in the face of tasks which require some level of personal research and self-education. Let me share my thoughts on why I feel it is imperative that I address this issue with you now. First, a quick history lesson:

According to Thomas Jefferson's 1812 "Manual of Parliamentary Practice for the Use of the Senate of the United States" (Jefferson's Manual) it was the practice for both the House and Senate to conduct at least three full verbatim readings of each bill proposed.

Also according to Title 1, Section 106 of the United States Code, each bill must be made available in written form to each member of Congress before final passage.

For decades now, however, our government has departed from these practices, or at least found "effective" loopholes around them. In the case of the full verbatim readings by the clerks of each house, these practices have been abandoned altogether. In the case of the requirement for written copies to be delivered to members of Congress, both houses by concurrent resolution, have allowed for passage of a bill in the final six days of a session without the bill being in final form.

These dangerous departures from best practices have paved the way for many treasonous bills and amendments to weasel themselves through Congress in the past several decades. More importantly, I will submit to you that these departures make it easy for Joe and Jane Citizen to offer up the excuses that reading the bills would take too much time, and they are just too confusing.

Yes, just the way the process has been designed.

There are only two groups of people that are truly important in this process: 1) We the People, and 2) the people we elect.

If neither of these groups are reading the bills that the Washington lawyers and special interest groups are drafting, yet lending their support and votes to the same (sometimes sight unseen), does that not explain, in part, how we have arrived to this dangerous precipice we are hanging from?

Further exacerbating this disaster-in-the-making, "white knights in shining armor" have appeared in the last two or three decades to "save us." These knights have boldly proclaimed, "Let us take this extraordinary burden from you citizens. We'll read the bills and let you know which you should support...after all, we're on the same side of this fight"

Over the years, however, citizens have just become accustomed to getting spoon-fed the "right answers" on all of the bills, further separating us from the legislative process that was designed and intended for our active and individual involvement.

It was James Madison, author of the Constitution, who said, “It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man who knows what the law is today can guess what it will be tomorrow.”

Just in the past year, there have been two cases which highlight the need for me to reinforce the importance of taking seriously your personal responsibility to do your own research.

The first of which is the SAVE Act (H.R. 4088 & S. 2368). Many of you know the FIRE Coalition has taken a seemingly unpopular stance against the SAVE Act. Though the bill was touted as a tough enforcement-only bill, it amounts to another piece of feel-good legislation with a provision that gives an active legal defense to religious institutions for "enourag[ing] or induc[ing] an alien to come to or enter the United States…” Not only is this a bad idea, it's unconstitutional. You can read our analysis at http://www.operationbodycount.com/saveact2.pdf, but we encourage you to read the bills for yourselves.

The second bill that has more recently surfaced is H.R. 5515, the "New Employee Verification Act of 2008". This bill, while tough-sounding, actually has language that would nullify and pre-empt any local or state ordinances or statutes that are being enacted across the country and reserve the right to enforce anything having to do with immigration violations to the feds...and we know what a great job they're doing! We will likely be releasing a similar analysis of this bill in the days tocome, so stay tuned.

All of the preceding bills are being backed not only by the "white knights," but even some of our champions in Congress that we have come to trust based on their historical votes. This makes it even easier for Joe and Jane Citizen to throw their collective hats behind bills like these without a second thought...and feeling good about it.

The bottom line is this behavior and apathetic attitude has to stop. For sovereignty's sake, we must pick back up the mantle of responsibility for the direction our republic.

How do we fix this? It's really a very simple 2 point plan in the words of former First Lady Nancy Reagan:

1) "Reading is fundamental"--you have to read these bills yourself, and
2) "Just say No!"--Say "NO" to blindly supporting legislation

The FIRE Coalition will continue to lead by example. We will alert you to any "shenanigans" we see coming out of Washington, DC, and we'll give you our own independent analysis, but we'll expect you to read the legislation for yourself as well, and alert others to your findings.

Thank you for allowing me to address this with you today. We look forward to hearing any comments you may have at feedback@firecoalition.com.

Keep up the fight!

Jason Mrochek
Co-founder & Executive Director
FIRE Coalition
http://www.FIRECoalition.com