About Prohibition…

Short answer: Decriminalizing pot isn’t about pot; it’s about governing our government.

If you’d like to start discussing and finding the best ways to suppress bad behaviors and promote good behaviors, fantastic!  Let’s do it!

But that’d be pretty much the opposite of what we’re doing now.  The War On Drugs is not only counterproductive, it’s also unconstitutional, illegal and immoral.

The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution for the United States of America couldn’t be more clear.  It’s just one sentence; and it was exhaustively explained at the time it was written and made a part of this nation’s fundamental law:

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

So… powers not specifically granted, are specifically denied.  If the Constitution doesn’t clearly say our federal government can do something, it can’t do it.

Simple. No “penumbras” or “emanations.” No “expansive interpretations,” no cheating. What’s not clearly granted politicians is absolutely denied.

Of course, politicians hate that.  It’s a leash on their power.  It’s a limitation.  It’s a big NO to their inevitable desire to oppress their fellow humans.  It’s a restraint that makes them public servants instead of rulers. …And if actually enforced by citizens against our foolishly reelected incumbents by electing constitutionally restrained new political representatives, it would invalidate and nullify at least 90% of what we call “government” today.

And so, they’ve been fighting the 10^th Amendment since the ink was wet.

But even with our first Prohibition, 126 years after the Tenth Amendment, our politicians were still restrained enough (and/or We The People were still wise and watchful enough, more likely), that they understood that in order to ban the sale of alcohol…or anything else, for that matter…they’d have to amend the constitution.

So they wrote, passed and ratified an amendment respectful of these fundamental principles and laws.

If you want to do something breathtakingly stupid, that is the correct way to do it.

But let’s be clear about this.  The 18^th Amendment, while composed of three sentences instead of just one, was also written clearly enough that confusion would be inexcusable:

1. The federal amendment would be null and void without concomitant and timely action from the states. “This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.”
2. Enforcement was also understood to be a shared responsibility. “The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”
3. Most importantly, this amendment was very specifically limited to only the manufacture and distribution of “intoxicating liquors.”  It did not grant any level of government any authority or power to limit the manufacture/distribution of anything else…and it did NOT take away anybody’s right to consume whatever they wanted! “After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.”

The 18^th Amendment never granted any level of government any power or authority to tell you what you can, can’t or must consume.  It never granted any level of government any power or authority to even limit the manufacture, sale, or transportation of anything but “intoxicating liquors.”

One of my favorite Presidents, Calvin Coolidge, was deadly wrong to call for the aggressive enforcement of the 18th Amendment, and invoke the agency that became the ATF to poison alcohol supplies and kill at least 10000 Americans. He actually violated the limitations of this amendment!

So let’s clear up one more thing…and it’s The Biggy:

When the 18^th was repealed by the 21^st Amendment, it was replaced by …nothing!  There is no longer any amendment, there is no authority (see the 10^th Amendment), no legal, just power to prohibit the manufacture, sale, or transportation of ANYTHING!

And there never was, and still isn’t, any constitutional authority or just power to prohibit people from consuming whatever the heck they want!

In other words, all the no-knock raids, the expanded policing powers, the incarcerations, the lives ruined by a conviction record, and of course the insane loss of life with enforcement, and the politically corrupt nature of black market trade …is all unconstitutional, illegal, immoral, and otherwise totally wrong.

It’s frustrating we even use the word “decriminalize” since what we’re calling criminal was never legally made a crime.

Legally, constitutionally, none of this should be happening. And it’s really our politicians and their enforcers who are the real criminals.

Whether people should be consuming high-fructose corn syrup or 3,4-methylenedioxy-methamphetamine is a separate topic.  How to make people stop doing bad things is a separate topic.  And I would never argue that THC and the new strains of marijuana are harmless.  They are not. 

The War On Drugs is not just an inconvenience.  A violently corrupt, deceitful, off-the-rails and ungoverned government is a civilization-destroying monster.  And a government that has the power to prevent you from putting things into your body voluntarily, is certainly powerful enough to put things into your body against your will. That’s been a Sci-Fi nightmare scenario for decades. So…

Let’s fix that.  Pronto.

Then, if we’d like a legitimate Second Prohibition, we ought to do it in the proper way.

Until we follow the procedure for this, however, there is no legal, moral, or certainly any functional argument to keep doing what we’re doing to people, all over the world, with our illegal, immoral, costly and self-destructive “war on drugs.”

 

We were railroaded.

Indiana Election Board CAUSE NUMBER: 2018-12 was dismissed on the grounds that Connie Lawson’s appointed term of office as Secretary of State was pro tempore.

But the state and anyone who follows such things would know that’s not true at all.

Because there was an actual pro tempore appointment before Connie Lawson.

Jerold A. Bonnet

While Wikipedia is not a final authority on such matters, this is a good summary of the case: “A lawyer by profession, Bonnet was the deputy Secretary when his superior Charlie White lost his position after being convicted of voter fraud, leading Governor Mitch Daniels on February 4, 2012, to appoint Bonnet until a permanent successor could be chosen. Holding the office for an uneventful term of over a month, Bonnet was succeeded by Connie Lawson on March 16. Currently, Bonnet serves as the chief legal counsel in Lawson’s administration.”

Note the wording, “…appoint Bonnet until,” and “until a permanent successor could be chosen.”  That is how pro tempore works.

…And this is of course how the GOP will make a practice of appointing incumbents.

Of course Lawson’s defenders also cited case law to weaponize their attack on The People, constitutional rule of law, decency, truth, honor and all that’s good and wholesome.  But as I’m sure YOU know, case law cannot be law!

Now, as an ordinary citizen who doesn’t have the mean$ to fight this, and without any apparent public interest in the matter, I am forced to just walk away from this example of ungoverned government.

But for anyone paying attention, you’ve been railroaded too.

It’s up to US to drain the swamp!

If there are flaws in our state and federal constitutions, they are these:

1. There are no specified remedies for violating them. Our founders assumed we’d know (i.e., nullification, impeachment, and …quit reelecting them!), but we clearly do not know!  Not surprising, after a couple hundred years of politicians’ lies.

2. Seemingly equivocal prohibitions against the “whispering down the lane” or “telephone game” judicial/ legislative/bureaucratic corruption of our constitutions by incrementally perverted interpretation.  While the constitutions do clearly say what they say, it’s obvious that with every new case, every new law, every legal argument, there are new divergences from core principles and fundamental laws.  It’s gotten so bad through the past century that instead of consulting the actual words of our constitutions, we now consider previous court decrees as the authoritative law.

So now, politicians assert in court and in practice, that whatever’s not specifically prohibited from politicians, is within their authority.

That is of course opposite of the whole point of constitutions.

Constitutions are to restrain politicians, not citizens.

Despots have for millennia gained power without elections, and made their own rules as they wished.  The USA was supposed to be better than that.

Instead, we’re drowning in corruption.  It’s been too long since there’s been any organized attempt to legitimize and govern our government by the actual words of our federal and state constitutions.

So, about now, the Indiana Election Division should receive the CAN-I candidate filing challenge I signed on July 10.

Besides the fact that it’s an obvious trick to appoint a GOP-insider/swamp incumbent for the next SOS race, there’s a legal problem with the candidacy of incumbent Secretary of State Connie Lawson.  Please note, it has nothing to do with her, personally, and everything to do with corruption of our constitutional Rule of Law:

Article 6, Section 1 of the Indiana Constitution specifies that, “There shall be elected, by the voters of the state, a Secretary, an Auditor and a Treasurer of State, who shall, severally, hold their offices for four years. They shall perform such duties as may be enjoined by law; and no person shall be eligible to either (sic) of said offices, more than eight years in any period of twelve years.” – (As Amended November 3, 1970)

Now, legislators can and do make mistakes.  Frequently.  The word “either” is, for example, a mistake.  But please note these key words and phrases:

“There shall be elected… who shall… hold their offices for four years.”

“…and no person shall be eligible to …said offices, more than eight years in any period of twelve years.”

“Shall” is a strong imperative.  It is not “may hold” or “can, if the law doesn’t prohibit it, hold.”

No, it’s SHALL, as if written in stone tablets.

The word “shall” is in all the key places of “elected,” “hold,” “perform,” and “eligible.”

So, very clearly by the letter and intent of this constitutional term limit, no person shall be eligible for election to a public role they are constitutionally forbidden from performing as mandated in the letter and intent of the law.

The state will of course claim that Lawson’s first term was pro tempore; and that it therefore doesn’t count as a term of office.  But Jerry Bonnet was the actual pro tempore SOS.  Lawson was a full replacement for the ousted Charlie White…and Jerry Bonnet! 

So, no…there is no constitutional excuse for this.

Incumbent Secretary of State Connie Lawson is constitutionally forbidden from performing the specified role in the terms clearly specified in the constitution.

She is an ineligible candidate.  And the GOP is using her situation to hoodwink us.

Again.

I say no.  I’m throwing a flag on this play.

It’s time to talk about our spies

Freedom, IN – ♬♪ They see you when you’re sleeping, they know when you’re awake; they know when you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake! ♩♫

Our US Congress is trying to give its cronies a Christmas present – re-authorization and more funding for the unconstitutional mass surveillance programs we were once told didn’t exist.

I say it’s time for what some might call a “courtesy flush.”  I say it’s time to repeal, nullify, destroy and stomp on National Security Act of 1947 so decisively that it can never take root again.  The corruption and destruction and stench of our lawless, secretive societal saboteurs has grown too great.

Thomas Jefferson wrote “…that knolege is power, and that ignorance is weakness.”

So let’s stop being ignorant about who’s got the real power here, and what they’re doing with it.

The FBI was, from its start in 1935, corrupt, snooping, deceitful, and deadly.  It took some brave thieves to reveal some of the agency’s crimes.  Truman regretted creating the CIA, and Kennedy said he would “splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds.”  The CIA and NSA have been anti-constitutionally spying on all of us, and have repeatedly lied about it…even as they paid journalists, entertainers and clerics to lie on their behalf.

Now, just think about the power of unlimited, unregulated spying, lying, and political immunity, mixed with armed force and the ability to make opposing voices go silent.  Imagine you had the power to find out everything about people, convincingly make up what you don’t find, or make even powerful people, maybe even in our own country, die…without facing any consequences.  

What government on the planet wouldn’t abuse that power? We have good reason to believe that a government that performed medical experiments on school kids, doesn’t even resist abusing it.

Could such knowledge and power actually control our elected politicians?  How about elections themselves?  They have the power to lie, to deceive, to control public opinion, to, in essence, hack our brains and control us.  

This is what people are talking about with the term, “deep state,” or probably more accurately, “shadow government.”

So-called “federal” agencies’ famous rivalries, withholding of data, rejection of congressional oversight, their anti-constitutional actions against citizens, media and foreign governments, and their trampling of local law enforcement really do make them more enemy than friend.

The greatly abused Title VII, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) is set to expire December 31.  Of course Congress should let it die and tumble back into the sulphureous depths it came from.

But I further propose we abolish the FBI and CIA, and give their money back to the states and people.  I would reinforce the constitution’s already clear ban on domestic spying, deception and subterfuge, and leave all domestic law enforcement to more local, appropriate units of government, and already-constitutionally authorized courts.

I propose that the US Congress directly manage our foreign spy operations under specific congressional warrants and limitations, including the Geneva Conventions, just as with constitutional funding and declaration of war and national defense (which hasn’t been the case since WWII, BTW).  I propose we make the process and results of FOIA requests more open and complete.

And perhaps most importantly, I propose clarifying that it is a serious crime, eligible for criminal and civil punishment, for agencies and agents of government to withhold the immediate and full release of requested information to congress, and/or in most circumstances as specified by congress, to the public.

“… we want no Gestapo or secret police. The FBI is tending in that direction. They are dabbling in sex-life scandals and plain blackmail. J. Edgar Hoover would give his right eye to take over, and all congressmen and senators are afraid of him.” — Harry S. Truman

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Liberty or Bust!
Andy Horning
Freedom, Indiana

Horning into GOP race for Indiana US Senate

For Immediate Release

December 7, 2017

Freedom, IN – Americans want options. We have unlimited choices in coffee, shoes, electronics, cell service…everything, in fact, excepting whatever politicians control.

It’s literally a shame that only two political parties can fully participate in our democratic processes. But it’s even more of a shame when both of those two parties offer only one option: more debt, more inflation, more wars, more regulations, and of course more corruption; meaning less peace, prosperity, security and freedom.

The Republican Party’s platform is actually quite good; it’s yet another shame that with a total lock on both federal and state political power, the GOP has been spitting on their own ideals.

Until today, it was hard to find any substantive differences between the Republican Party candidates for the Indiana US Senate seat.

But today, I’m throwing my hat into the ring as a Republican Party candidate for US Senate, and I have a plan to set things right. I am putting peace, prosperity, Rule of Law, real security, and (you know I’m big on this) freedom, on the ballot.

“Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.” – Lord Acton

Liberty or Bust!

Andy Horning

Freedom, Indiana

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Droning Muslims, and the Golden Rule

If all humans lived by the Golden Rule, there’d be nothing like what we call, “civil government.”

We have kings and bureaucrats and jails and armies for two main reasons:
1. Because some percentage of us behave badly.
2. Because we think that politics will somehow fix that.

Of course, there is not now, nor was there ever, a government that operated on the Golden Rule.  Governments are always, to some degree, corrupt. And that is because people (including politicians, of course) misbehave, all power is inherently for sale, and government is nothing but delegated violence.  

It’s force.  It’s the threat and use of violence, imprisonment, fines and death. That’s why a small corrupt government is much, much better than a big corrupt government.

You’d think that since human governments have a 100% failure rate, we’d have learned this by now. But we humans are a surprisingly dumb species. We tend to self-destruct in ways that make great movies, but bad reality.

So, let’s consider our current situation with the Islam that we long ago militarized for our own purposes, monetized for our own purposes, gave good cause to unite where before it kept itself divided against itself, and now consider our enemy.

Wait… Before that… let me interject one more line of thought:
The only people who ever threatened to kill me, personally, were USA Americans (no, not Mexicans, not even Canadians).  One was a black man who claimed I shouldn’t live in a black neighborhood.  But several were red-blooded Tea Party folk who said I should burn in hell for running against their Republican Savior.

The only people who tell me what I can do, can’t do and must do are USA citizens.   It’s my fellows who take away my dwindling freedoms, take my money, tell me what I can do with what little I can keep, and make sure that I know that whatever it is I think I own (including my life), will be taken away if I don’t follow their rules.

It’s my fellow Americans who divide us into three classes for the purposes of rights, privileges, electoral access, and in courts:

1. Rich People,

2. Democrat/Republicans and their cronies,

3. All the rest of us poor suckers who believe their promises and keep reelecting the people of classes 1 and 2. 

And it’s been only my fellow Americans who’ve lied and lied and lied to me about why we’ve been at war forever. 

OK, so, back to Muslims, the North Koreans, Russians, or whoever our rabid Fear-Aggression Syndrome makes us see as the enemy du jour:
They think they’re right, too, you know. They’re convinced that their corrupt, self-destructing political scheme is right, and we’re the bad guys. And they’re not living by the Golden Rule any better than we are.
Are they our enemy?

Sure they are.
Who isn’t?
Just as hammer sees everything as a nail, a government, or by extension to the root…a human, sees everything outside its limits of power as a threat.

Even within our borders we make enemies of white men, Jews, gays, Democrats, Republicans…or people who aren’t gay Jewish white Democrats or Republicans. We’ve been dividing and subdividing against ourselves for so long that we feel we must tighten the cliques in order to defend them against all outsiders.
Right?

But this is why we suffer discord, fear, and violence.
We have politics because of our discord, fear and violence. 

And governments thrive and depend upon discord, fear and violence. Governments tend to stimulate and amplify that discord, fear and violence because that means more power and money for the individual politicians and cronies who comprise governments…

But hasn’t our own government, our own society, become a vastly greater threat to our personal freedom, health, security and prosperity? Shouldn’t we address this before we go picking fights with others?

Here’s what I recommend:
The Golden Rule.
Exemplify the peace, freedom, prosperity and security that’d flow from better behavior – both personally, and then reflected in our governance (our government is, after all, just our reflection, our avatar, our sins amplified).

To whatever degree we do The Golden Rule, our debts, intrusions, deceits and aggressions would diminish, and everything else would get…better.  Other people would see that what we’re doing is working, and maybe try to emulate that to some degree.

Would that be so bad?
I’m not saying that we don’t have to go blow up half the world. Maybe we do. Maybe we’ve been equipping, funding, training and motivating enemies so well and for so long that now we really do have to unleash all the hell we’ve been summoning before it eats us up first.

Maybe.

But how about we try to do at least a little of what we say we’re all about, first?

About our nation’s violence…

Reasonable people can disagree both strongly and with facts about our political laws, of course; or about economics; or even the proper role of political government in human societies.

But even among my list of friends, (Facebook and otherwise) there is a disturbingly broad, hostile, and in practice, dangerous range of perceptions and opinions regarding the appropriate use of deadly violence; both abroad, and domestically.

The range is roughly from Peace and Love toward All – No Matter What, to Nuke ‘Em All ‘cause …whatever.  And this is both at a global level, and at a very personal, within-your-home level.

Now I don’t intend to waste time and effort discussing relative merits/ demerits in the arguments, as the divisions are so hard and deep that people hear only what they want anyway.

I just wish more of us would consider a few things when voting, speaking and otherwise enacting or supporting political violence:

1. Are you being consistent?  Are guns really an answer when we’ve eliminated the militia system (killed completely in 1903), stopped free gun training in schools, and have jacked up so many kids on psychotropic drugs, and the rest of us on political lies/divisions, that it’s amazing that there aren’t more mass murders?  Are you sure guns are the problem when you’re proposing taking guns away by force with armed force you may claim is corrupt and globally malignant?  Do you trust the politicians and armed forces who’d take our guns?  Do you trust the politicians and armed forces you say are why we need guns?

2. Are you sure your beliefs aren’t based on fear, or hate?  Does your lip curl and your fingers tighten when hearing opposing views?  Have you tried to understand why others disagree with you as violently as you disagree with them?  Is, in other words, your view on guns and armies and drones and spies based upon fear-aggression-syndrome?  Would you, as some have suggested, shoot people who want to keep their guns?  If you support guns, do you support ownership for…everybody, or are there “certain people” who you don’t want to have guns?  Are there whole countries that need to be smacked down?  Really?

3. Have the political promises you believe, and vote for, ever been kept? Have the predictions and “facts” proven true? …Ever? When?

4. Have you looked skeptically at the forces and money behind the news stories?

5. Are you so sure your opinion isn’t what some very wealthy, powerful – even rogue clandestine agents, put into your head?

If more people actually thought long and hard about the above five things, I’m convinced that there’d be substantial changes in our global and domestic war machines, and military-industrial complex.

In any case, I’m also convinced that what we’re doing right now is madness.
And we had been warned many times by many people.

I think now’s a good time to picture a world that’s more peaceful, prosperous and secure, with liberty and justice for all…and find a way to work together with your neighbor (yeah; the one you think has crazy political notions) to make it so.

They Crossed the Rubicon

For Immediate Release, October 31, 2016

Contact: Andrew Horning

They Crossed the Rubicon

Freedom, IN – What is human history but a litany of warnings? How many cassandric founders, US Presidents and activists warned us about the advancement and corruption of political/crony power against individual human rights?

Throughout all the human history we know, the default human state – the human norm, has been oppression, slavery, genocide and war. Liberty and justice have always been rare exceptions.

Throughout most of our history, and still today, most of “the media,” in whatever form reporters have existed, have been the mouthpiece of power and tribe; agents of propaganda rather than honest town criers.

I thank God for the chaotic angel called Wikileaks. But Wikileaks isn’t enough.

We find out about new “civil” police military tools and techniques (like bomb-bots!) only after they’re used. We learn about the effects of usurpation and trespass like the 2012 NDAA only after fully implemented and working against us.

In electoral politics today, being right is no advantage and being wrong is no demerit.

But you may want to look into my history of being right as I tell you that this is the truth: Our nation is in very, very serious trouble – the kind that people will some day look back upon, and shudder.

We could fix all this.  We could live in peace, prosperity, security, liberty and justice…for all.

But that would mean a very revolutionary change of heart, mind, and action.  No, not in the hearts and minds of our politicians…in us.

I pray for that change every day.  You should too; or pray that I’m wrong about what always comes next.

Liberty or Bust!

Andrew Horning

Facebook www.facebook.com/HorningForCongress/

Campaign Twitter www.twitter.com/HorningCongress 

Blog https://wedeclare.wordpress.com/

Website http://andrewhorning.wix.com/horningforcongress

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Money, Politics, and Central Banks

Politicians have robbed us for generations

Freedom, IN – I have proposed a three-step plan to fix most of our worst problems by federal legislation.  In many previous releases I detailed plans for fixing the corruption we call “the Two Party System.” That was Step #1.

Step #2 is to fix our inherently inflationary twisted-hybrid political/private crony financial system.

Money itself, as a fiduciary currency/unit of trade, can be a wonderful thing.  When scrupulously maintained as trustworthy, it facilitates honest trade, and practically guarantees peace.

Unfortunately, we’ve not had such money since 1913, though it’s still required by our state and federal constitutions.

Why?  Because the most effective way to hide the true costs of war, tax the public without their knowledge, enrich elites, and covertly monetize the massive debts incurred by impossible political promises and a military empire and industry, is to replace naturally limited money with monopolized fiat currency*, and then devalue it by making gobs of it…

And making gobs of increasingly valueless “money” is literally what inflation is.  The price of everything goes up when the value of money goes down.  And we’re headed for catastrophic hockey-stick-graph inflation very soon.  I don’t know when.  But we’ve let this corrupt, expand and fester long enough that I’m afraid it is now inevitable.

There’s a long, repetitious history of this.  In every case, from ancient Egypt to today’s Venezuela, devaluing currency represents a slide to catastrophe.

In theory, fiat currency could work fine.  But every case involving humans, the short-term political gain of devaluation outweighs the catastrophic long term costs to the society.

There are no exceptions; “fiat currency” always fails.  And it’s always by the same stupid pattern.

Politicians spend money they expect future generations to pay, so they have to find a way to devalue/inflate the supply of currency, and then point fingers of blame everywhere but at themselves when it all collapses.

The United States of America has occupied the catbird seat of fiat currencies since WWII, when our lend/lease arms trading sucked up 2/3rds of the global reserve currency, and almost 3/4 of the monetary gold.  We immediately started spending down on that when we joined the war, and through subsequent never-ending consequences of the world wars.  We spent all that gold long ago, and between the end of the Breton-Woods Agreement in ’71 and the petrodollar scheme in ’72/’73, we found a new way to further devalue what had become truly fiat currency.

But that is ending shortly, as our dollar is based purely on trust, and violence.  The world is both losing trust in us, and sick of our endless Petrodollar Wars.  We have been deceived right up to the brink of collapse, and we’re past due for some radical action.

So:

1. Audit the Fed.*  We are past-broke, and it’s time to go through an orderly and just restructuring of debts, nullifications, and dismantlings.
2. Replace the current Federal Reserve System with a truly private banking system that is not only subject to audits, reporting and SOP as with other incorporated institutions, but also has NO power to monetize political debts or create currency.
3. All money/currency authority and accountability shall be in the US Congress as per Article I Section 8:5 of the Constitution for the United States of America, so that politicians will be held accountable for greed, shortsightedness, and trans-generational theft.
4. However, people must be free to use whatever form of money or currency suits their needs.  “Cryptocurrency” (which is really a form of market fiat currency that I’m seeing as an eventual problem in itself), foreign coins, even conch shells or knotted strings are not the government’s business.  Our government’s only legitimate role in interpersonal transactions is when there is force or fraud involved.

In other words, I propose we stop lying, stealing, making promises we can’t keep, and clean our accounts for the promotion of peace, prosperity, security …and freedom.

Liberty or Bust!

Andrew Horning

*One could debate the meaning of the words and concepts “money” and “currency” forever.  But for the purposes here, currency is an “official” (mandated or agreed upon) trade instrument that has no intrinsic value.  Money is a pretty abstract concept, since value is still applied by humans, but it’s generally a scarce/limited/difficult-to-reproduce thing that therefore has by itself been granted some relative value (gold, silver, rare shells, libertarians).

*The Fed gets “audited” already, but only with many glaring exclusions and only by internal government and Fed processes.  You can look up the details.  But pretty much everything significant (like actions with foreign governments and international banking groups, internal communications and discount window operations, and monetary policy itself) is excluded from GAO audits, and all “independent” auditors are hired by…(wait for it)…the Fed’s Board of Governors.

STOP stealing our wealth, opportunity and security!

The Orwellian “Bank Secrecy Act” of 1970 forces banks to report large financial transactions to federal agents. As with all “federal” laws, since its passage, requirements have gotten tougher, more expansive, and secretive.  For example, the “Suspicious Activity Report” invokes a gag order, and nullifies the already-lowered dollar limit such that any financial activity at all may be secretly monitored by federal agents.
Some might think increasing secrecy, power and spying is good; that it keeps us safe.  

But voters make decisions on information that is increasingly missing or proven false.  It’s foolish to believe that politicians we claim we don’t trust are honest with us when it comes to programs that actually fund their cronyism; like “civil asset forfeiture” programs.

While few know it, police forces now take more money and property from USA citizens by “civil asset forfeiture” (as opposed to “criminal asset forfeiture,” which requires a conviction) than do all other criminals, combined.

This “forfeiture” at gunpoint doesn’t require charges of any crime, or any warrant.  Increasingly, this is done with foreknowledge of money movement, and taken with devices like the “Electronic Recovery and Access to Data” or ERAD (as in eradicate?) machine.

While all this was initially intended to fight drug trade and terrorism, it is in practice irrelevant to either, and is encouraged to fund police departments.

It is literally armed highway robbery. This “policing for profit” must be stopped, not expanded.

But just last week, US House Rep. Larry Bucshon touted his support of, among other anti-constitutional bills, H.R. 5607, the Enhancing Treasury’s Anti-Terror Tools Act.

ETATTA did not go through regular order, and was rushed to the floor under suspension of the rules. No amendments were considered, debate was limited, and, as usual, few representatives actually read the bill before voting on it.

This carelessness is apparent in the practical force of the law proposed – that in violation of the USA Constitution’s Article I Section I, Article II Section I, Article III Section I, and Amendment IV, bureaucrats in executive agencies are granted even more power to write rules, judge their efficacy and infractions, and at least recommend, and ultimately execute, new actions as already imposed upon Americans as by “civil asset forfeiture,” without warrant, probable cause, or conviction of any crime.  Furthermore, ETATTA expands the role of the Treasury’s power of spying and enforcement to non-monetary assets – essentially encompassing all property.

Politicians have blurred the lines between good-guy and bad-guy, dividing us by class and race, imprisoning a higher percentage of citizens than any other nation, and making us less secure and prosperous to boot.

In other words, our government has become what it’s supposed to protect us from.

I have a written plan to restore respect for the badge and restore faith in all our important institutions.  It’s an already well-respected plan to not only police the police and govern government, but also 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.

Liberty or Bust!

Andrew Horning