If you are a doctor, medical technician, nurse, other health care practitioner, or if you are in the field of finance, a non-attorney trying to assist others with their legal needs, business owner, any field of human interest, or a homeschooling parent looking to protect your educational activities, a Private Membership Association will allow you to practice with the added protection of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and our Constitutionally guaranteed Rights.
Since 1803, and a famous Supreme Court case Marbury v. Madison, the Constitution as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court, is the Supreme Law of the Land.
Over the past several decades, due to favorable rulings, opinions and interpretations by the Supreme Court, the law of the land has highlighted our constitutionally guaranteed rights to conduct business in a PMA, or private membership association. Private membership associations exist under many different titles including PMA, Private Education Association, Private Ministerial Association, Private Health Association, Private Social Club, Private Drinking Club, and many more, When operating under a properly formed PMA, we are operating in the private domain versus the public domain.
In the public domain you must operate under the jurisdiction of the regulatory agencies designed to protect the public. In the private domain you can operate outside the jurisdiction of those same agencies, as long as there is not clear and present danger of substantial evil.
Preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America:
"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
The Preamble to the Constitution is an introductory, succinct statement of the principles at work in the full text. It is referred to in countless speeches, judicial opinions, and in a song from Schoolhouse Rock. Courts will not interpret the Preamble to confer any rights or powers not granted specifically in the Constitution.
You Can Protect Your Practice and Yourself With A PMA
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Private Membership Association
While not explicitly defined in the Constitution, the Supreme Court has acknowledged that certain implicit rights, such as association, privacy, and presumed innocence, share constitutional protection in common with explicit guarantees such as free speech. Specifically, the Supreme Court has described the right to associate as inseparable from the right to free speech.
The right of association under the Constitution was heavily litigated in the 1950’s and 1960’s, and association members’ rights were consistently upheld by the Court. In fact, the right of association became a cornerstone of the civil rights movement.
In general, members of an association do not fall under the jurisdiction of local, state, and federal governments and corresponding laws and regulations. The exception to this general rule is when the activities of the private membership association "present a clear and present danger of substantive evil".
A simple example of private associations is drinking clubs in Texas. Since prohibition was repealed in 1933, regulation of the alcoholic beverage industry was delegated to individual states. Some states, such as Texas, allow individual counties and cities to govern the sale of alcohol. As a result, 46 out of Texas’ 254 counties are dry, meaning that sale of alcohol is forbidden. However, you can go to virtually any restaurant in the dry counties and simply by joining their private associations or "drinking clubs", they can sell you and other members alcohol even though it is prohibited by local law!
It is important to note that the right to associate is not limited to social or political activities. According to the Supreme Court, this right can be utilized for business activities (e.g. sale of alcohol). Members of a private membership association have the right to private contract under the due process liberty clause of the 5th and 14th Amendments, and states may not pass laws that impair the obligation of a contract.
In Thomas v. Collins, 323 U.S. (an important Supreme Court case) it was determined: "Great secular causes, with small ones, are guarded. The grievances for redress of which the right of partition was insured, and with it the right of assembly, are not solely religious or political ones. And the rights of free speech and a free press are not confined to any field of human interest".
Under the guarantee of the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution and equivalent provisions of your State Constitution, you have the right to associate with fellow members and offer benefits and services that are outside of the jurisdiction, venue and authority of State and/or Federal agencies. What could come under scrutiny and in some cases be considered a criminal act outside the association can be perfectly legal within the protection of a private association.
Most Common Benefits of Operating Under a Private Membership Association
· Operate a health (or other type of business) association outside the jurisdiction and authority of federal and state government and agencies involving association activities.
· Maintain greater privacy of financial and business affairs of your association activities.
· Greater security of being able to continue operation in a world of changing laws and politics.
· Increased profits due to unrestricted and beneficial structuring and strategies not available to regulated health association.
· Instead of conducting business under a legal loophole, operate under a legal exemption decided by the supreme law of the land, i.e., the Supreme Court decisions interpreting the U.S. Constitution.
A PMA does not need any authority or permission, of any kind whatsoever, from any government for its creation or in order for it to continue to exist and function.
A PMA is created by and exists upon the contract authority and power that people have reserved for themselves.
PMA members are free to exchange any information whatsoever on any topic they choose and can speak or write about, listen to, or read any information, use or obtain any information, product, or service on any terms agreeable to any member who chooses to provide that information, product, or service within the private membership association.
PMAs are under no general lawful/legal obligation to recognize any statutory title of public competency,
education or training (licensed persons/experts).
Public Law, Regulations and internal Rules of administrative agencies that regulate the public do not generally reach a PMA because they would impair, impede, obstruct or defeat the PMA members’ ability to discuss, hear, read or speak about, print, obtain and use things which may be prohibited to be disclosed to or used by the public unless the private membership association commits a nefarious act which means some form of human rights violation or evil act against another human.
Maybe it would benefit you to keep your business and activities a private matter.