You say you want a Revolution?

It’s a little disturbing that one of the most common web searches bringing people to this blog is, “Give me hope, please.”  But what really worries me is how many people are typing, “violence” and “revolution,” to end up here.

My fellow Americans, what are you thinking of? 

What is violence going to accomplish that your votes did not?  You got what you voted for.  You want something else?

What?!?

I have nothing to say to “centrists.”  These human dandelion seeds have no senses, apparently; and just float the prevailing wind.  I wish I did have words that’d shake them down.  But I’ve never had any luck with people who think it’s reasonable to split the difference between Hitler and Stalin. 

And true socialist/authoritarians are twisted, ruthless monsters who know that their violence and oppression is self-serving to the elite group to which they feel they belong.  They probably know what I’d like to say to them, but they’d happily have it tortured out of me anyway.

However, most people of the so-called “left” are not those socialists, and they’re not hopelessly foolish.  They don’t understand that politics/government is violence, so they simply don’t know that they are invoking, promoting and unleashing violence upon their fellows. 

The multiply-pierced, tattooed but still smiling Obama fan you see at Whole Foods really does want a peaceful society; he just hasn’t thought any more deeply about politics and market economics than he thought about that ring in his nose.  He doesn’t know that his free-love-and-world-peace dreams drag us all into Stalinist nightmares.  But so far, I’ve found it rewarding to talk to these people. 

Sadly, most of the so-called “right” are much more difficult to work with.  Perhaps they’re worse in hypocrisy and idolatry, and thus inoculated and steeled against reason.  So while many righties seem to pray to God, they put their hands on their hearts and promise to obey a symbol  instead (really; think about that). 

While the word “constitution” invokes wonderful, abstract imagery to them (Norman Rockwell paintings, Bob Hope, and of course, flags), they have no idea what the constitution is for, let alone what it really says.  Just like the lefties, they advocate bigger, costlier, more intrusive government – but they deny it!  They’re just as opposed to individual liberty – but they deny it!   They tear up the constitutions and stomp on them  – but they deny it!  

Frankly, I’d rather hang out at Whole Foods than listen to self-righteous ignorami spouting off about the “coming revolution,” or even secession.  Far-Righties are maybe not as bad as centrists, but their rising mood of undirected, goal-free violence is certainly not helpful. 

What do they suppose a revolution is going to do if they don’t even VOTE for what they say they want?  And what would secession accomplish if it creates only a self-deluded clone of our current mess?

After years of trying to find ten Republicans who know what it is that they want, I’m hard pressed to see any difference between the “right” and the “left” other than the aforementioned tattoos, piercings…and the type and degree of hypocrisy. 

Well, actually, I like Whole Foods.  The one near my work in Houston has a great selection of Belgian beers.  The GOP has nothing like it.

Of course, now that they’ve given up their catbird seat, and there’s no expectation of them actually doing anything substantial, the GOP talks (almost) like Ron Paul. 

But when they held the reins of power, they did only evil, and then chose John McCain to lead them into more of the same. 

They had a chance – a very good, record-breaking, youth-energizing chance – to set things right according to the words they speak from their mouths.  But their voting arms, inexcusably, chose otherwise.

And now they complain?  Inexcuseable.  Shameful. 

Even so, I think we’re seeing that even Republicans can come to their senses in sufficient numbers to shake the centrism tree.  The so-called “Tea Parties” may exemplify this.

We all know we have enemies and problems.  But the question in battle is never so much what to attack, as what to defend.

What do you want?  Please don’t say you want “American Exceptionalism” unless you can explain to even yourself what that really means.  

How do you want to live?  Please don’t tell me “with American Values.”  We’ve all seen plenty of American Values, and I think that’s why we’re all so hopeless, disgusted, and crying for revolution.

On these pages I’ve said that I want my rules written down, and that’s true.  I don’t think we can live in peace without some hard and fast rules.

Good fences make good neighbors.

But if I were to paint my picture of The Good Life, here’s what it’d look like:

1. Citizens can do whatever they want to do as long as they don’t harm anybody else, or take what’s not theirs.
2. We’d have no more government than necessary to maintain #1.
3. We write this down in plain speech and call it law.
4. We invite others around the world to emulate our success, but otherwise leave them the heck alone.

So caveat emptor would replace the FDA, FTC, FDIC, FCC and a zillion other F’agencies.  Common sense, competition, voluntary associations, charity and free market options galore replace union/corporate monstrosities, Medicare, Social Security, lobbyists, regulations, litigation and price controls.  And because of the preceding, you get to keep what you earn, buy what you like (smoke it if you’re fool enough – and as long as you don’t blow it in my face), and live however and with whomever you want…as long as you leave others, and their stuff, alone.

That’s all.

Is that really so bad?  Could you live with that?

Because you know that the alternative plan is not working, right?

Andy goes to the Lone Star State

¡Ya salgo para Houston!

Well, I never wanted to leave my Freedom Farm, but God has other things in mind for me.  As I can no longer stay in Indiana, I’ve flipped a coin (one with a secession-leaning state on either side).  So life is taking me and my little family to Houston, and the thing for me to do, is embrace it.

So, I’m renting the farm out – one trillion-fillion Federal Reserve dollars per month, Or Best Offer.  Actually, it’d be dirt cheap to the right person; I’m just trying to minimize my losses.  We’ll auction off a lot of stuff we’ve accumulated over the years.  We’ll sell all the animals we can sell, and then probably donate Doofus to science.* 

Anyway, we’ll sell down to our clothes and Bibles and head to the land of Ron Paul.

In some ways, nothing will change.  I’ll still be able to walk anywhere without being recognized.  I’ll still be toward the bottom of the peon, political-outsider, tax-serf class. 

Oh, and I’m still not giving up on Rule Of Law under existing constitutions, as written.

But some things will change a great deal.  I will miss all the friends I’ve made in Indiana.  I’ve made some very, very good friendships.  I hope y’all stay in touch.  Or maybe join me for the secession.  I don’t know if we’ll ever find a church like Bloomington RP, but I’m entrusting that one to God. 

I need to make a special thank you and farewell to the Indiana Libertarians.  I’m sorry I couldn’t make it to the convention this past weekend to accept the award you’d generously bestowed.  I will miss you all a great deal.  But more importantly, I’m not quitting – I’m only changing tactics and locations in the ongoing quest for Liberty and Justice for All.

While Southern Indiana summers are hot and humid, Houston does get even hotter.  And we’ve had remarkably few hurricanes in Indiana…  Yikes.  I will greatly miss the quiet, verdant beauty of our Freedom Farm…

Of course there’s Dr. No.  And I’ve been very encouraged by what I’ve seen of the Oath Keepers’ Texas connection.  I’m hoping that, while I’ll not run for public office again, I’ll be more effective, and in a better context, in my struggles for right and truth.

Doggone it; I’ve been a Hoosier (whatever that means) for over a half-century.  I don’t know how I’ll do in cowboy boots.

Please pray for me.

Oh, and if you’d like a Doofus, let me know…

 

*About Doofus – My son Hark was the one who first discovered that the so-called “puppy” we saved from destruction was no puppy at all.  He is actually a “pliffle” – a coarse lampoon of the noble canis lupus familiaris known as Man’s Best Friend.  This species of perdition, callus doofus dammitis, may look something like a dog, but unlike any dog that ever lived, he’s completely useless, annoying, unbelievably persistant and …sticky.   Yes, he’s affectionate, but you’d rather the pliffle just go away…

The media were right to dismiss our “Tea Parties”

I shouldn’t say “I told you so.”  So I’ll just say, instead, that being right has never done me any good at all.  In fact, it’s been a costly annoyance to both me, and to all my loved ones.  Being right is no advantage in the voting booth; it seems absolutely detrimental in electoral politics.  It’s no advantage in any way I can think of.  And it’s downright dangerous to be right when the government and its media are wrong.

I hope, in fact, that I’m desperately, completely and astoundingly wrong about what’s coming next.  I pray that I am very, very wrong.

So I’ll not say “I told you so” about all the warnings, predictions, admonitions and sermons I’ve written, spoken and kinetically harangued upon my friends in the ongoing battle for liberty and justice.  No, I will restrain myself by means of superhuman humility and magnanimous spirit…

But we should admit that the media got it right.  They have correctly portrayed the “tea party” hubbub, and the liberty movement in general as undirected, vague, and ultimately, pointless blather.

It pains me to say so, but my allies in liberty and justice are not just wasting their own time and money.  Rather they are destroying our combined credibility.  They discredit truth, and are, in effect, stealing from us all by spoiling the opportunity for those who’d do the right thing.

What is the right thing?  I’ve said it many times on these pages, but maybe it’s just too simple to comprehend.  Maybe it’s too basic to seem like a clever tactic or even a pragmatic first step.

We all have to agree to what it is that we want.  And there is only one thing that I am aware of that all of us actually want…Rule of Law under existing state and federal constitutions as written.

We’re out of time for all this fooling around.  We must stop thinking of tactics and games.  We must stop thinking of others as our enemies when we need no enemy other than ourselves.  We will never convince others of anything as long as we are ourselves such doddering fools that we can’t articulate for the media just what the heck it is that we want.

Before I go and say again what it is that we should be doing, here’s the setup:

“The media” are not anything other than people.  While these particular people tend very strongly toward soviet-style authoritarianism, it’s not their ideology that causes us problems.  It’s the usual human laziness, mental weakness and idolatry that plagues us all.  Like us, they worship celebrities and disparage those who attempt to become one, and fall back to earth.  They kick such people.  Trust me. 

They love excitement, but see it in all the wrong places (sports, celebrities…and weather).  And like the rest of us, it takes the firm administration of a baseball bat to make them change their ways. 

So when you get a microphone in your face, “the media” will try to label you as quickly and dismissively as possible.  If you offer ten minutes of Patrick Henry-like rhetorical brilliance, they’ll air the one point at which you stumble and say, “ummm…”  If you speak convincingly about something they don’t understand or don’t like (Rule of Law under existing constitutions as written), and offer, for example, income tax, you’ll be dismissed as a “tax protester,” and nobody will ever hear what you said about the constitutions, or the sweetness of politics on a leash.

This last point is my whole point.

We must, immediately and without any waffling, converge on a single message and deliver it without any side trips, divergence, hesitancy or missteps.  We must simply, firmly, passionately yet reasonably present the demand that politicians, policemen and soldiers keep their oaths to the laws that protect us from them.  They must obey the written constitutions, as written.  No “interpretation” from the bench, no caveats, provisos, ifs, ands or buts.

You must not protest government spending, taxation, or even overt oppression.  Do not mention Ron Paul, though this is his cause too.  Don’t talk about central banking or “The Fed.”  You must not write letters, campaign or speak to neighbors about the myriad symptoms presented by our collective social disease.  We must address only the disease.  Quit nibbling at branches; it’s time to strike the root.

What’s the root that we can all agree upon?

The existing state and federal constitutions are still the best, most practical, most proven, most fair and just social contracts ever signed into law.  So let’s agree that these are exactly, and only, what we want.

We have easy communication now.  We can still move freely.

Do not assume that this will last much longer.  And most definitely do not assume that a “revolution” will get you what you want if you can’t even agree now what it is that you hope to accomplish with violence.  The hour is late, and our side is losing.  Your choice is not up to your enemies.  It’s all up to you.  Personally.  Right now.

Indiana Greenbacks? Liberty Dollars? …Why not?

I almost always agree with Ron Paul.  Excepting his commitment to the GOP (I tried it once), I could be his understudy.  His travails against central banking, in keen particular, are right on the …er …money. 

Article 11, Section 3 of the Indiana Constitution says this:

If the General Assembly shall enact a general banking law, such law shall provide for the registry and countersigning, by an officer of State, of all paper credit designed to be circulated as money; and ample collateral security, readily convertible into specie, for the redemption of the same in gold or silver, shall be required; which collateral security shall be under the control of the proper officer or officers of State.

I’d love to see a debt-free currency issued in competition/ replacement of Federal Reserve Notes.  …Did you notice our constitution’s gold/silver valuation requirement?  Very nice. 

As Governor I would insist upon citizens’ right to barter using whatever unit of barter it chooses (such as the “Liberty Dollar” which, in 2007, was illegally stolen in Indiana by our “federal” government agents).

What’s the choice here?

A good part of any “major” party (meaning “entrenched and corrupt”) campaign is hurling and repulsing the attack that “corporate money” or “out of state contributors” have bought off the candidate.  Fair enough; we all know the problem of money in politics.  Yet politicians know that’s what we vote for, so they take the money and run anyway.  And sure enough, we vote for them anyway.

OK, that’s what we want, apparently.  We do vote for it over and over and over and over….

But especially irritating to me personally, is when journalists hurl the “not enough money to be competitive” grenade.  So a good part of any “third party” campaign is wasted trying to gain the imprimatur of legitimacy offered by all that we hate about politics. 

We try to tell voters we “mean to win” when elections aren’t even about candidates; they’re about voters.  We try to raise money in order to get the “free media” exposure obtained by attaching corrupting strings to the candidate.  We try to become, in other words, just like the fancy pants parties so that we’ll be treated to the same respect and electoral success as those evil monstrosities.

What in the world is that all about?  Are we to feign upset about the obscene, corrupting money in campaigns, and then wallow in it, and point to the pathetic challengers who “can’t raise enough money?”  Are we to demand a truly level playing field …in which all campaigns are corrupt from the start?

Or, could we perhaps undergo the long-due epiphany that the playing field is not at all level, and that the candidates who should enjoy the greatest advantage are those without strings attached, who stand for something, and who are actually candidates for public service, not Caesars in waiting.

Remember, the corporate giants who contribute to Big Party campaigns expect, and get, special deals for their investments.  Ordinary folks who contribute to Big Party campaigns probably don’t know how much of their tax money already goes to these parties, and have believed what they’ve been told about “reality,” “pragmatism” and their “wasted vote.”

Who, on the other hand, is willing to pay for a level playing field?  Who will reach into their own wallets and/or time to do what is right, as opposed to “playing the game?”

In all the years I’ve been watching, I’ve seen only one candidate who is worth more than a puddle of spit raise “enough money to be competitive,” and that is Ron Paul.  In my lifetime (50 years and counting), he’s the first guy to actually stand for something and raise huge stacks of cash.

It could be that others, like me, are just lousy at fundraising.  OK, that’s a distinct possibility.

But if people who stand for constitutions possess an unfortunate, perhaps genetic inability to raise money, what would you rather have?  An evil dictator who knows how to campaign, or a great public servant who just can’t put on a show like that?  Would you prefer a great politician/ bad candidate, or a great candidate/ deadly politician? 

Well, think about an analog in any other area of life.  If you need a delicate, life-saving surgery, would you prefer a skilled surgeon who may have a speech impediment, but has a brilliant surgucal success record; or would you choose a handsome actor who can’t hold a scalpel, but delivers inspiring lines with poise and pathos?

Is this really that hard?

Once again, the choice is yours.

 

 

What about the GOP? What about Odds? Don’t you want to WIN?

Through the upcoming campaign I’ll frequently be asked such questions.  My inclination will be to throw rotten eggs at whoever asks.  But since I do not wish to carry rotten eggs wherever I go, and since I really do understand how we have collectively fallen into a game-show/Las Vegas political stupor and helplessness, I must swallow my disgust, and answer:

 

1. Loyalty to entrenched, powerful political parties is not admirable.  It is destructive.  Be loyal to principles instead; particularly the ones proven to work (Rule of Law, Free Market economics, property ownership).
2. Elections are about voters’ choices, not about the candidates or their parties.  Let’s talk about what the choices are, not just about the candidates’ strategies, money pots and yard signs.
3. We’re facing dark, dangerous times.  Let’s be serious in the voting booth, OK?

 

And then let’s focus on just the GOP for a moment.  The party never was what most people think it was.  It is, of course, the original “tree hugging liberal” party. 

The National Park system was started by Teddy Roosevelt, and the EPA was created by Nixon.  TR also gave us anti-corporate “trust busting” and income tax while setting us up for the Federal Reserve Bank, while Nixon gave us wage/price controls.  Much of the New Deal was actually started by Hoover, who FDR called a socialist; and Eisenhower spent more money after WWII than during its peak.  And let’s not even talk about George Bush.

The GOP never was as conservative as the “solid south” or “men in sheets” Democratic Party.  “Real Republicans” like Robert Taft, Barry Goldwater and of course Ron Paul have always been marginalized by the “Mainstream Republicans” like Gerald Ford and George Bush Sr.  

 

In Indiana we have a smart, relatively conservative and well-intended Republican Governor who has given us more taxation and spending (expanding entitlements to even new healthcare and college subsidies) than did any preceding Democrats.  And I think he’s one of the best Republican politicians!

 

Ambassador, candidate and pundit Alan Keyes recently said that the “Republican Party has come to a dark and confused place.”  So he quit the GOP and joined the Constitution Party (which is not on the ballot in Indiana).  Former Georgia congressman Bob Barr left the Republican Party for the Libertarian Party (which does have ballot access all across the country).  Many celebrities, even major media journalists, have left their former fancy party allegiances behind for a new dedication to principle…and what actually works.

 

This is good news.  And not a minute too soon. 

The bad news is that, I fear, most Republicans, even as disgusted as they are with their own party, will nevertheless remain loyal to it and thus do harm to us all.

 

Oh, don’t blather on about fixing what’s broken in that party.  I tried the “change from within” thing, and found it to be a baseless, mad illusion.  No change ever happens from within.  Especially from within such a corrupt deceit as the GOP.

 

Don’t misunderstand.  I know and love many Republicans.  I greatly admire what Ron Paul is attempting to do within the GOP.  I sent him money (I almost never do that) and I will of course vote for him in the primary. 

 

That is, after all, the only primary election vote that could accomplish anything useful. 

 

Dr. Paul’s delegates and supporters can at least attempt to reshape the GOP into something better.  I do support that cause.  But I do not fool myself about the likelihood of success.

 

People may think I’m a dreamer to run as a Libertarian.  But who’s really the dreamer? 

 

I know that all change comes from the Davids who fight Goliath (see my article here; requires a free signup); not from some change of heart in Goliath himself.  And history demonstrates well that those who vote for the entrenched powers hurt themselves.  …Fatally.

 

My dear Republican/Democrat friends, you have been betrayed over and over again.  At what point will you quit dreaming and do what needs to be done?

 

I no longer need to explain why I’m running outside the corrupt, entrenched powers.  The real question is: how can you excuse voting for those corrupt, entrenched powers again?  The question isn’t, “Horning, what are you doing?”  The question is, just what are you doing to set things right?

 

There is reason to hope.  I’ve seen it in the Paul campaign, and I’ve seen it in the faces of those disgusted and enraged into action.  I’ve seen it in last summer’s tax protests, and, ironically, I see it in the trouble that’s about to be heaped upon taxpayers this coming summer.

 

My fellow Hoosiers, Americans and human beings, we have been bestowed with many wonderful advantages.  Chief among these in this nation must be the laws that protect us from our politicians.  It’s time we dust them off and insist, without equivocation, that it’s time they are obeyed, as written.

 

Don’t apply party labels to this.  Don’t attach any flag motifs.  Don’t make this an abstraction. 

Make it a demand and make it now.

Bad History + Status Quo = Bad Future

 If history demonstrates anything, it’s that politics has always been our deadliest abstraction. Your neighbor by himself can, at most, steal a few things or even kill a few people before somebody with a gun stops him. But call that same person a “politician” or a “king,” and he or she can, with our collective allegiance and in the name of the greater good, take everything, kill millions, oppress, enslave and wage war. Not only do these people often get away with it, but those not caught or killed in the midst of their evil are typically called heroes.

And history shows that politicians invoke such terror by an invariably repetitious, astoundingly simple modus operandi: they break laws, both written and moral – and they do it precisely to the degree and duration that we let them get away with it.

I’ll skip citing examples since I’m sure you can think of plenty from Nero to Stalin to George W Bush. George Orwell stated the obvious when he said that political language “is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable.” What’s hard to understand is why we keep falling for it.

The question at hand, now very pressing, is what do we do with our lawbreaking politicians? The answer is, typically, that we do nothing, and reap horrific consequences.

I’m not happy with that answer, yet I’ve had little luck trying to get people motivated to even ASK politicians for Rule of Law instead of Rule of Tyrants.

Remember, words like “holocaust” do not apply to even your worst neighbors. But such catastrophes are always on the To Do list of a politician, and apparently never foreseen by citizens.

…Or is there more hope than I’d imagined?

I never expected Ron Paul would connect to so many people with his “out of touch” message of liberty. I never expected a “throwback” or “fringe” candidate could raise so much money and cause so much excitement among so many. Of course I’m maddened that he’s treated so unfairly by both the media and his own party. But I had expected his candidacy to fizzle and disappear long ago under the combination of corrupt power and citizen stupor.

Are people waking up? Is now the time to reignite the torch of liberty?

I don’t know. But I don’t want to squander the opportunity, if it exists.

It’s getting awfully late in the 2008 election cycle, but since we currently have nobody at all even running for the constitutional office of Indiana Governor, there’s nothing for me to do but run for that office myself, right? 

I’m not fooling myself or anyone else. My chances don’t depend upon me, they depend upon voters. I’ve already thrown myself against that so-far intransigent brick wall many times, yet I’ll never again stoop to “pragmatic” pandering through “mainstream” electioneering (e.g., running as a Republican). That has never worked for any good purpose, and has always been a tool of evil.

So I’ll not sacrifice my job or anyone else’s job/sanity/health. I’ll delegate an awful lot (even public appearances, speaking, etc.) to others. If we can’t find enough people to spread that load, then we’ll have no shot on Election Day anyway, right?

We’ll play no games but we’ll have fun and do good work on behalf of liberty and justice. Who, among you who have an obvious interest in governed government, will join me?

Please send me your contact info, and we’ll get started. We can’t start too soon.  

“Find out just what the people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” – Frederick Douglass 

“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.” -Benjamin Franklin 

“A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.” -Edward Abbey

“Give me Liberty, or give me my Money Back!” –me

 

Pray without ceasing…

Maybe I’m just burnt out.  But I am weary-sick and grievous sore of going through one campaign season after another without any collective discernment or even discussion of right from wrong, success from failure…or truth, from the more common lies. 

We’ve been talking Las Vegas odds and Fortune 500 money, as usual, without ever seriously discriminating the true differences between candidates and the government they’d embody.  We’ve allowed the pundits to ask their stale, dryly stupid questions, and we’ve bought the resulting media blather about likely match-ups and political strategy on Election Day.  We have never (most of us, anyway) questioned the proper role of government, how much is too much, is war really so great, and just who are these Federal Reserve Bankers, anyway?

Damn us all as fools; this is no game. 

Those who don’t see what’s coming and vote anyway, are fools drawing the rest of us into a fatal vortex of complacency.

But then, if you’re reading this page, I’m guessing that you, like me, are equally disgusted by our antics, yet are praying on hope.

I really do hope. 

I hope that we’ll straighten our heads before next November, when the fate of the world (really) is determined.

With the brilliant exception in Ron Paul’s amazing campaign, my hope seems unfounded.  With what I know of the GOP, it seems too much to hope that the best candidate could win in such a horribly corrupt power structure.  With what I think I know of third parties and voters’ reaction to them, it seems too much to hope that third party candidates could get our attention at last.  It seems too much, in other words, to hope that God will save us from ourselves when we have shown so little interest in Him.

If you’ve a mind to, I hope you’ll join me in prayer that a sufficient number of Americans would:

• Take more interest in our future than in football.
• Push aside the silly pundits who spew irrelevance and demand real information.
• Treat our right to vote as a critical and dangerous responsibility; giving it all the attention this life and death function deserves.
• Understand that voting is just a tiny part of our citizenship and accountability to our neighbors.

Of course, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26). 

Let us pray.

If you were hiring a burger-flipper…

Some people who know that I support the Fair Tax have wondered why I’m not a fan of Mike Huckabee.  Other people, who’ve heard me go on about our wide-open borders wonder why I’m not waving a flag for Tom Tancredo.

Well, I also like the idea of UFOs sending rose-scented messages to politicians, but I just can’t rally for Dennis Kucinich.  And while I’m strongly in favor of laissez-faire individual liberties, and while Rudy does look better in drag than he does in a suit, I really can’t vote for him.

Am I picky?  Yes; but no more picky than you or anybody else …in any area other than in politics. 

Let me explain.

If you were to hire a chef, you’d want to know that he or she can cook, right?  You’d check the resume, reviews of previous restaurants, and you’d call interviews to look him or her straight in the eye and assess for yourself whether this person will be a credit or discredit to your organization.  If you were to hire a race car driver, you’d want to know all about previous results, sponsorships, injuries, ability to assess and set up a car…and whether this person will look good and present well in the team jacket.

No matter the job, you want to know that the person you’re hiring isn’t an embarrassing flake or a cagey swindler.  You want to know that the person is respected, truthful, scrupulous and disciplined enough to show up and Do The Job.

I’m no different.  I’m looking for a candidate for the constitutional office of President of the United States of America who will do the job he (or she) is supposed to do.

Sadly, there’s currently only one of those.  Happily, after a very long time without even one, there is one – Dr. Ron Paul.

How can I so boldly state that there’s only one?

Well, what’s the job of the President of the United States of America?  What does Article II, Section I of the constitution say the president must swear an oath to do?

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

So it’s simple then.  None of the candidates (excepting perhaps Hillary) has been president before, but which candidate has already proven invariably determined to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States? 

If you were to actually read the Constitution and Bill of Rights (yeah, I know; who’s got the hour or so necessary to properly read all that old stuff), then look up the career voting records, issues and even current presidential candidacy rhetoric, you’d see for yourself that only one candidate has any interest in obeying written laws as written.  Only one candidate would honor the Oath of Office.

Really.  Just one.  The other candidates are running for some other office.

I wish there were more to choose from.  But one is better than none; and now is definitely better than never.

About our “Fed…”

On the morning of November 14, 2007, “federal” “officials” (look up the meaning of both words, read the constitution, and you’ll see sad irony in these words) raided a company that produced “private voluntary barter currency” known as the Liberty Dollar that wasn’t merely “based” on gold and silver.  It WAS, exactly and only, gold and silver coin.  The “officials,” acting in violation of state and federal constitutions, stole all of it and imprisoned the proprietors.

Now many people have already said something like “well, good; only our government should make money.” 

Unfortunately, not only is that bad and anti-constitutional thinking, but also, our “government” (in any legitimate sense) is involved with our money today in only one way – it attacks nations who challenge the crony-capitalist monetary scheme called “the petrodollar” (a scheme Nixon’s administration came up with to require US dollars in OPEC trades after unilaterally ending the Breton Woods gold agreement).

Oh, I know.  We’re told that everything our government does is for a darned good reason.  To think otherwise is unpatriotic and probably even terrorism.

So, I’ll just lay out what I believe to be fact, and you can yourself determine who the bad guys really are…

Since 1913, USA money and our federal monetary policy has been created and directed by a quasi private, para-political, most-definitely-for-profit central bank; not by the US Congress as the constitution requires. 

If you’ve read The Constitution of the United States, you know that the U.S. Congress is authorized “To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures.”  

Congress, via the Treasury, of course, still makes coins (though no longer of metal of intrinsic value).  But all paper currency, and the value of both coins and paper, as well as the policies by which all money works in this country, has been unconstitutionally delegated to a “private business.”  

It is in fact, the only private business (“private business” means little anymore) I am aware of anywhere in the world, that operates completely free of external regulation.  Or audits.  Or reporting requirements.  Oh, and they don’t have to answer questions if they don’t want to.

Now, anybody who knows anything about me knows that I’m 100% Free Market right down to the subatomic level.  I know that whatever our government touches turns to blood, and I know very well that politicians:

a. Lie  

b. Have guns and bombs

So the less politicians do, the better I like it.  And my few quibbles with the Constitution for the United States are where the founders stuck their nose too far into free market domains.  

But it is exceptionally dangerous to mix free market impulses with political force.  Such hybrids end up amplifying the worst of both trade released from accountability to the market, and politicians freed of accountability for their lust of power.

And through all of recorded history there’s been a deeply spooky problem with the control of money, and how that can so quickly become a crony capitalist, politician/banker bastard; neither free market, nor under law, but a monster that lives outside all borders of law, nation, morality, or long-term economics.  And THAT is what “The Fed” actually represents.

Let me explain.

Paper currency, at its best, has no intrinsic value.  Even what we call “real money,” like gold and silver, no matter how historically stable have values that are agreed upon, not truly intrinsic.  It is an instrument of value exchange.  If everybody agrees to use it for the exchange of goods and services, then it doesn’t matter whether your money is a scrap of paper (backed by nothing), a seashell, a gold coin or even a carved stick.  All the preceding things have been used effectively in trade.  

Here’s where things get ugly, because it involves greed, ignorance, sloth and all those other failings we typically group into that curse, “human.”

If the money supply, whatever its form, is manipulated for the wrong reasons, severe oppression (like serfdom/slavery) can result.  When people are granted a monopoly in determining what money is and who can make it…oy vey…there will be trouble.  And our government granted such a monopoly, in violation of our state and federal constitutions, in 1913.

All our banks have forever run on the principle of “fractional reserve banking,” which means that they can act like they have far more money than they actually have.  This allows them to loan out the same dollar many times, charging interest along the way, in order to make far more money in profit than could otherwise be the case.  Our post-FDIC system is supposed to be that new money is abstractly “created” by loaning out more money than actually exists, but is then “destroyed” when debts are paid. 

Obviously, a “run” on the bank would be bad, since the whole scheme is based upon an abstract fib…and immense trust in the people who’re both granted the power to create money, and the responsibility to destroy it.  Theoretically, without serious runs on the banks, it could all work out; sort of.  If the money supply is kept in reasonable correlation to our transactions, then the magic works to a degree.

Ahhhh, but the central bankers, who’re never audited by anybody and are in fact mostly unknown, make most of their money from government debts, not free-market trade! 

Many people get things twisted up here, with the enemies and friends all wrong.  The central bank devised in secret by Senator Nelson Aldrich, Frank Vanderlip, Henry Davison, and Paul Warburg at Jekyll Island was actually supposed to be an entirely, truly private consortium to handle only private, free-market banking screwups – just as J.P. Morgan, pretty much all by himself did, during the Panic of 1907.

Yes.  I’m saying that J.P. Morgan was a good guy.  So was the Creature from Jekyll Island we often think is the problem.  It was politicians like Woodrow Wilson and FDR that wanted us to think they saved us from bankers by making central bankers clean up political messes!  Politicians are the ones who created The Fed as a bastardized, political version of what Aldrich proposed.

…Especially after The Banking Act of 1935 rewrote the rules, reorganized/centralized the structure, changed the titles and expanded powers of the Fed.  This, and the Federal Reserve Reform Act of 1977 pretty completely destroyed the intended function of the bank, and turned it into political scam of historic proportions.

Let me repeat this because it’s the pivot point.  The Federal Reserve is NOT really a private banking system any more than it is “federal.”  It does NOT serve the interests of legitimate banking so much as it serves the whims, unfulfillable promises and…endless wars…of politicians.  The more our government spends, the more money the cronies (both political and transpolitical) make, the more promises politicians can make, the more accountability and reality and debt our politicians can punt to the next generation.

It’s a system of nearly endless political IOUs, and of course, profits from debt.  It is, after all, a system that monetizes and markets debt!  (I say nearly, because I suspect it’ll crash in less than twenty years…maybe a lot less)

And this system has bred a concomitant system of betting houses (stock market) and investment groups that not only depend upon inflation of currency/deflation of monetary value, but also encourages “leveraged” (abstracted) financial instruments that blow up from time to time.  Look at home valuations and all the laws and loan/mortgage/contract rules and instruments that distort real valuations create false market feedback loops.  …Very dangerous stuff.

Wars are of course the biggest single money makers, since, as James Madison pointed out: “War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies and debts and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. No nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.  …In war, the public treasuries are to be unlocked; and it is the executive hand which is to dispense them.” 

As of now, the undeclared wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have racked up about $5500 in debt for every man, woman and child in the USA.  Some generation is going to have to pay this in addition to all the other stuff (like the Ponzi schemes of Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security) ratcheting up the “national debt,” or find some way to nullify it all.  And it won’t be very long at all before inflation becomes uncontrollable by any “tool” at the Fed’s disposal.

And I think it’s grimly ironic that now, with all the litigating, ballyhooing and campaigning against “big business,” “special interest” groups and “monopolistic business practices,” the most dangerous industry of all, the biggest of them all – banking (which Thomas Jefferson said was more dangerous than standing armies), is completely unregulated, monitored or even recognized as the root threat.

It’s like we’re crying about ants in our cupboard as wolves are crashing through the window.

Of course, all this was made worse (much worse) when Nixon unilaterally ended the Bretton Woods Agreement and based our “petrodollar” monetary system solely on the trade of oil, and military might.

War profiteering is a terrible thing, of course.  But war profits are, for those who can get them, a Darned Good Reason to do something. 

And war profiteers are the guys who run our money supply, and therefore our economy. 

These are the guys who fund our government.   

The good news is that for the first time in at least a half century, there’s an easy way to fix this: vote for Ron Paul.  The bad news is that if he doesn’t win, then debts, and violence, and division and corruption, will get a lot worse…

Well, now you can’t say I didn’t warn you.