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“We both at one time took an oath to defend the Constitution. Her oath took her to Washington; my oath took me overseas with a rifle.” – Paul Curtman

We the People bring you a special interview with Paul Curtman, the U.S. Marine who has become an internet sensation. Curtman asked for an apology from Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri during a town hall meeting. We get the inside scoop as to what he was thinking at the time, and what larger message he has for America.

Transcript:

Donatelli: You’re listening to a special broadcast of We the People, live from the Radio America studios in Washington, D.C.  And now a special interview with Paul Curtman, the U.S. Soldier heard in this clip all over the world today.

Play clip from McCaskill Town Hall

Curtman: I know that in my Constitution, that I took an oath to – I know that all the powers of the legislative branch of government are confined in article I section VIII, and they have less than 20 enumerated powers. And nowhere in there, as was already touched on earlier, nowhere in there is healthcare mentioned, which is also health control, which isn’t also mentioned. It’s not mentioned in there, so she has no business except fighting against it.

…Applause…

And I’ve mentioned this to politicians before, and they the Constitution and they turn it into some kind of huge elastic document that they try to wrap around everything. If you read our founding fathers even they said that the general welfare clause, which she’s probably going to try to use to explain – even the general welfare clause – our founding fathers Thomas Jefferson, James Madison the father of the Constitution, Benjamin Franklin, and so on, so on, so on. Every one of them said that the general welfare clause was only to be used within the confines of the enumerated powers in Article I Section VIII.

Claire McCaskill. I’m not so much looking for an explanation from her, as I’m looking for an apology, because this shouldn’t even be introduced.

End clip from McCaskill Town Hall

Donatelli: That was Paul Curtman, and he joins us now on the phone. Paul what branch of the armed services did you serve in?

Curtman: I was in the United States Marine Corps. I was in 0311, that infantry, and I joined in 1999 and I left active duty in 2003. I never actually made it to Iraq and Afghanistan, that’s just the straw I drew. I did anti-terrorist operations in Africa and the Southern Middle East for the most part.

Donatelli: Well thank you very much for serving.

Meyer: So Paul, you were attending a town hall meeting for Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri somewhere I guess in the St. Louis area. Now did she not show up?

Curtman: I understand she was never scheduled to be there, however I got an e-mail earlier in the day and they said that she was going to be there. So then when I showed up and she wasn’t there I was kind of disappointed.

Meyer: Well, what brought you to the town hall in the first place. Was it just that you wanted to hear what her opinions were, or did you want to go make a statement, or what was the deal?

Curtman: No. I don’t really care what her opinions are, because the Constitution pretty much tells her how she’s supposed to legislate. The reason I went to the town hall meeting was I just kind of wanted to show my support for some other people who I knew were going there. I’m opposed to this whole health care reform that they’re trying to get through, so I went with them and it just so happened that where I sat down was about 3 feet in front of a microphone.

Meyer: Well let’s talk a little bit about that Constitutional message. It seems like Matt [Donatelli] and I have been trying to forward this message of enumerated powers, and following in the strict reading of the Constitution as James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, John Jay, and the rest of them all wanted – but it seems it’s been catching on with a lot of people, but I didn’t know it had spread this far. Are you hearing a lot of people talking like this with the enumerated powers?

Curtman: No unfortunately I’m not. I wish more people would talk about it. Unfortunately for America, I think a lot of people and pretty much every one of our elected officials are completely out of touch with the U.S. Constitution and the enumerated powers. A lot of people haven’t heard of it at all.

Donatelli: You mention that the politicians are out of touch with this message. Do you think it’s something that is going to resonate with the youth?

Curtman: That’s a really good question, and something that really concerns me. It’s just my own personal conviction, but I would say that it would for the youth that are paying attention. But every time you know…. when I was in the Marine Corps, there was a Marine Corps General that was famous for saying America is not at war, America is at the mall. And I think that’s where too many Americans are today.

Donatelli: I’m going to have to agree with you there.

Meyer: It seems like maybe they can go to things like “hope” and “change,” but it seems like no-one has adopted, and I always talk about this on the show too, that no party has really talked about the Constitution, no one has claimed it as their own. I’m guessing you lean a little bit conservative possibly, but are you disappointed that no party has talked about the Constitution? Or has talked about the fundamental mandate for small government?

Curtman: Yeah I am disappointed about it. Everyone thinks that the Constitution is some kind of magic elastic document that they can… you know and this is one of the things I said there to Claire McCaskill’s representative… I said people think they can stretch it and wrap it around whatever they want. The Democrats, they try to stretch it to the left and wrap it around whatever they want. And to combat that, the Republicans come out and they try to stretch it to the right and say no this is how it’s supposed to work, we have to stretch it to the right and wrap it around whatever we want.

But the truth of the matter is that the Constitution is not an elastic document. Thomas Jefferson, he said that the Constitution is a chain. You know? You don’t bind people down with elastic; you bind them down with chains. The Constitution is not supposed to be moved at all. It’s supposed to be followed right down the line, 100%.

Meyer: Well and it’s so funny that people talk about it being a living document or an elastic document that’s supposed to be changing with the times. Thomas Jefferson, as you said, and James Madison went on in a whole Federalist Paper about this, about the amendment process and how if the times change you make an amendment. That’s what they did with slavery and civil rights, but no! People are too lazy to do amendments now. They’re just going to say “Well we’ll put Supreme Court Justices in who think we can do whatever we want to sort of thing.” And it’s really disappointing that, why aren’t we hearing any pundits talking like this? It has to come from, I mean, young people now? That’s the only people talking about the Constitution? That seems ridiculous to me, you know?

Curtman: That’s because pundits… This is what I don’t like about the Democrats or the Republicans. Each one of them has their own agenda, OK? The Constitution is not their agenda. You know, they’re in it for the party. I’ve been to central Republican committee meetings for my county and for other counties. You know, and there’s people in these committee meetings even at the local level and they’ll say, “Well this is what the Republican Party says this is what we should do.”

Well this is what the Republican Party says; this is what the Democratic Party says… I’m just sick and tired of hearing about political parties. And it’s always changing, but then we’ve got thousands of men and women who took an oath to the Constitution and they’re sent overseas, and thousands of them have come back in pine boxes, because they took an oath to the Constitution. And I seriously believe that every one of our elected officials, the least they can do, is have that same sense of duty, that same sense of loyalty and allegiance to the Constitution that we issue body armor for, for our men and women in uniform.

Donatelli: Amen my brother. So what can we, as young conservatives in the media, do to help forward this message with you? What do you want us to do to help support the troops and help get this message out?

Curtman: Good question. I’d say that people need to call into the talk shows! Get on the internet and write, and whenever someone starts pushing an agenda, or whenever they throw out that that’s just liberal or just conservative, just shout out, “Well what about the Constitution?” Open the minds of some people.

Ron: This is exactly why I wanted to bring you on, because this is what we’ve been trying to do for so long it seems like. And I think that it has started to stick, but we are what we are, a college talk show it’s hard to spread this word, and it’s good to know that other people around the country are thinking this. It’s interesting, the general welfare clause, do you think that people are ever going to be able grasp concepts like that?

Curtman: I think they will be able to grasp the concepts, because it’s not really a clause. It’s not some huge concept that people have to study out! They’re just saying for the general welfare, that’s why these enumerated powers are here. James Madison, the architect of the Constitution, one time he elaborated this in a letter to one of his fellow founders, but he said that the general welfare clause is meant specifically for the enumerated powers in Article I Section VIII, and anything else other than that is a metamorphosis of the Constitution that was not intended. He actually wrote that.

Meyer: Well and it’s funny because people talk about the President, “you know he was given executive power,” and then they went into details later, but executive power means whatever we want it to mean… The way the founding fathers wrote – they said something in the first paragraph saying well here’s what we’re going to do, we’re going to lay out – and then they gave the general idea of what they were going to do, whether it was the general welfare, national defense, or in the case of the President, executive power. And then they went on to list what that meant. And James Madison as you just said in that letter, and other places in the federalist papers, laid that out. But why don’t we look back to history? And why do you think people have been ignoring this? I guess you’re right. It comes down to ideology.

Curtman: Yeah, it does come down to ideology. Our founding fathers were extremely wise, and they studied this thing out, and they studied history because they knew they were at the point where they had to form a new system of government, they just had to do it. They’d been in the trap of having a monarch, you know with King George III. So you got people like James Madison, I think, if I’m not mistaken, I think he was only 26 years old. You know at the Constitutional convention.

Meyer: Yeah, I think he was actually pretty young. I think he was young during the Revolution and he actually got people to show up [to the Constitutional Convention] because he got George Washing to say he would come. It’s really fascinating that people, it seems like it would be so fundamental to your history, to how you were founded, but Republicans, the supposed party of small government, they don’t talk about this. They’re supposed to be the party of history. Conservative means someone who likes the establishment. What about the original establishment the Constitution?

Curtman: I agree with you 100%

Meyer: Don’t you think that the Republicans should use the Constitution more in their platform, or as their platform?

Curtman: *sigh* There’s a novel idea. Whoever would have thought of that? Right now we’ve got things like universal health care that’s just going to give more money and more power to the government. Cap and Trade: more money more power to the government. Hate crimes legislation: more power to the federal government. The more money and the more power you give to the government, the more money and the more power they have to abuse. Think Freddie May… and…

Meyer: Freddie and Fannie

Curtman: Just think about that whole problem right there.

Meyer: No, but you don’t understand. Barack Obama comes out and says it was the lack of regulation and the tax cuts that caused this crisis. What a joke! I mean, Fannie May and Freddie… no one was accountable when it came to lending. You could give out loans to anyone and just dish them off to Fannie and Freddie and not worry about the risk involved because the government would take care of it. And they funded this bubble, and it’s so obvious to people that think about it. I mean, don’t fall for the rhetoric. And this comes down to the problem we were at before, and that’s how we get the message out, and how we can reach people on this. Do you have any ideas about that?

Curtman: I’m trying to remember who it was. I’m trying to remember the quote. I’m in my truck right now. I don’t have my papers with me or anything else, but one of our founding fathers. I think it was John Adams he said, what’s necessary to prevail is not a majority, but an irate minority keen on setting brush fires of freedom in the minds of men. And the only way you can do that, and there’s huge organizations out there, you know I’d stay away from those super huge organizations, the giant national organizations because the bigger they are, the more leverage they’re going to be for somebody else to use in order to gain power of some sort or another.

You need to get smaller groups where people just talk to each other. Call into the local talk shows, write editorials for the paper, and write opinion editorials, letters to the editor. Opinions to the editor is the most read part of a newspaper, so people can do a lot of good just by writing in there and talking about the Constitution a little bit. The Constitution is the umbrella for which all of us can exercise our freedom underneath it. The most important part of it is the Constitution, and people need to have that message drilled back into their heads just like it was for our founding fathers.

And we don’t need Supreme Court Justices to interpret it for us. The Constitution is good enough for any American that can read that can figure it out that can understand it. There were colonists that didn’t have Supreme Court Justices following them around interpreting everything they read. They read the Constitution for themselves and decided, yes, this is what we want. So it’s not a living document that we need someone to constantly interpret for us. I have the freedom of speech, that’s it, that’s final! I have the freedom to keep and bear arms and it shall not be infringed, that’s it, that’s final! Anything to the contrary is unconstitutional.

Donatelli: You’re preaching to the choir here man.

Meyer: Where did this whole Constitutional argument originate for you? Where did you start picking up on this stuff?

Curtman: Of what exactly?

Meyer: I mean on the enumerated powers. It seems to me… I remember when I first fell upon it, and someone explained it to me, and I started looking things up… what was that process for you when it came to finding, rediscovering, or discovering the Constitution?

Donatelli: How did you fall in love with the Constitution?

Curtman: That’s a good question. I used to just fall for whatever the Republicans told me. And for my whole life it was just, I’m a Republican, if you have a little (D) next to your name, I’m against you, I don’t know why. That’s it. But as I was in the Marine Corps, and then just recently seeing how things have been done unconstitutionally, and then one day here’s an amazing idea – I just decided I was going to sit down and read the Constitution. I took an oath to it; I better know what it means.

Meyer: What a novel concept! You took an oath, you should read it. I guess reading things that are key to the country is so passé. We had Conyers come out yesterday and say, oh reading the bill, who does that? Reading the Constitution? Pssh.

Curtman: Yeah, exactly. I was always for the Constitution; I just didn’t know exactly what it meant. So when I started reading it… you can talk to my friends and family, I’m not the kind of guy that likes to be put in a box. The Constitution is not my box. That is their box. They’re supposed to be in it.

Thomas Jefferson said, “Let no more be heard of confidence in men, but bind him down from his mischief by the chains of the Constitution…” That Constitution is there for them. My rights are granted by God according to the Constitution, but the Constitution guarantees them to us – guarantees a government that keeps those rights free for us.

Meyer: So you must also be a big proponent of states’ rights and the 10th amendment and all that, because obviously, the 10th amendment says whatever power is not delegated to the federal government go to the states or to the people. So it seems the states should be handling, going back to the Republican party, more of these issues like abortion or gay marriage and social issues like that, maybe they should be decided on the state level cause they really aren’t there…

Curtman: It should all be handled at the state level. If it’s not found in article I section VIII, it should be handled at the state and local levels, period. No matter what the issue is, no matter how strongly somebody feels about it. This is a Constitutional Republic.

Meyer: It’s the law of the land!

Curtman: Exactly. Any path anybody else takes from it is dangerous to all of us as citizens.

Meyer: And it seems like this has been happening for so long, if you look back at history, it seems like the Constitution seems to have deteriorated so long ago that how do you think we can change the tide? You know I guess I kind of asked you that earlier, but it seems like it’s such a hard thing, looking at my future plans, I know it’s so tough to think about how am I going to actually be able get us back to the Constitution?

Curtman: That’s a really good question. I’ve thought about that a lot before, and then I just start thinking about our founding fathers, and maybe what those people were going through back in the 1760′s and 1770′s. There was a time where they were just sitting around the kitchen table just talking, and then it turned into tea parties, and then it turned into Committee of Correspondence, and the Sons of Liberty. Right now I think that’s where we are. We’re in the committee of correspondence stage. We’re in that Sons of Liberty stage. Charles Carol was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, I think I got the name right, and he sent to King George what’s called the Olive Branch Petition. They wanted their freedom, they did not want to secede, they did not want a revolution, they wanted to continue in the system of government.

It’s really not a revolutionary war so much as a war for independence. They weren’t trying to overthrow the aristocracy, they just wanted their freedom. And since they weren’t getting it from the king, they decided to give it to themselves. Right now we are in that state of committee of correspondence, tea parties, people are keeping each other aware and informed, people are showing up and public buildings, public official’s buildings, and right now we’re letting our voice be heard. And if our leaders don’t listen, there’s going to be consequences one way or another.

Meyer: Let’s hope so. I think freedom is getting sexier and we have to keep working in that direction. Paul Curtman thanks for joining us. I hope you are a frequent contributor on We the People. We hope to talk to you again soon, and we’ll be posting those links up on our site wtpshow.com on your show appearances, and keep forwarding the cause.

Curtman: Alright, no problem. I sure will. Semper fi.

Donatelli: That was a We the People exclusive interview with Paul Curtman. For more We the People content go to wtpshow.com