As part of its call for drastic reduction of the U.S. government, Guardians of the Free Republics, a political extremist group, called for North Carolina Gov. Beverley Perdue’s resignation last week.
The governor expected such a letter after a warning from the Federal Bureau of Investigation last week, Perdue spokesperson Chrissy Pearson said. The Guardians told Perdue to resign within three days.
“She has obviously not resigned, but we are treating this like any other threat and her security detail has been informed,” Pearson said.
Similar letters had been sent to dozens of other governors across the United States, and the FBI is investigating the incident, Pearson said. According to the groups’s Web site, the organization is non-violent.
The Guardians believe that the United States was dissolved in 1861 when House and Senate delegations left for the Confederacy, Michael Munger, chair of the political science department, wrote in an e-mail. From the group’s perspective, this left no quorum in Congress and there has been no de jure national government since that date, Munger explained.
The Guardians consider the national and state governments de facto governments organized around the federal law of corporations, Munger said.
He said it seems that the Guardians believe the federal judiciary will actively support their views.
“The claim is utterly [without] merit under any reading of American history, not just a reading of constitutional law,” Munger said. “The letters to the governors, in short, are either a rather pathetic publicity stunt, or evidence that one can come to some truly strange conclusions if one thinks and writes too long in isolation.”
On their site, the Guardians call themselves “original government” revolutionaries, guided by a broad “Restore America Plan.” FBI Special Agent J.J. Klaver told The Philadelphia Inquirer that the group rejects all forms of government and the responsibilities associated with being a U.S. citizen.
The Guardians’ site openly rejects the role of today’s American government.
“If you are tired of being subjected to a corporation posing as a legitimate government that would arrest you for refusing to pray to corporate courts or give up your land or pay taxes to the Rothschilds or exhibit a state-issued confession of subject-class citizenship, then we invite you to read the one page [unanimous Declaration],” the site reads.
According to the Web site, restoring the “wealth of the People” requires stripping the national government of its taxing ability and disbanding federal organizations such as the FBI. They note that most of the work required to make this happen will occur in private.
“Restoration will occur behind the scenes in a manner designed to get results, not glory,” according to the group’s declaration.
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