End the War on Freedom

Ron Paul at LewRockwell.com - Paper Money and Tyranny - A speech Dr. Paul gave to The House on Friday. Why we're heading towards a second Great Depression. Wealth and liberty require persistent hard work. Paper money destroys economies. Deals with money as a moral, political, and economic issue. Long. [lew]

Alan Greenspan, years before he became Federal Reserve Board Chairman in charge of flagrantly debasing the U.S. dollar, wrote about this connection between sound money, prosperity, and freedom. In his article "Gold and Economic Freedom" (The Objectivist, July 1966), Greenspan starts by saying: "An almost hysterical antagonism toward the gold standard is an issue that unites statists of all persuasions. They seem to sense...that gold and economic freedom are inseparable." Further he states that: "Under the gold standard, a free banking system stands as the protector of an economy's stability and balanced growth." Astoundingly, Mr. Greenspan's analysis of the 1929 market crash, and how the Fed precipitated the crisis, directly parallels current conditions we are experiencing under his management of the Fed. Greenspan explains: "The excess credit which the Fed pumped into the economy spilled over into the stock market -- triggering a fantastic speculative boom." And, "...By 1929 the speculative imbalances had become overwhelming and unmanageable by the Fed." Greenspan concluded his article by stating: "In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation." He explains that the "shabby secret" of the proponents of big government and paper money is that deficit spending is simply nothing more than a "scheme for the hidden confiscation of wealth." Yet here we are today with a purely fiat monetary system, managed almost exclusively by Alan Greenspan, who once so correctly denounced the Fed's role in the Depression while recognizing the need for sound money.

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Printing money, which is literally inflation, is nothing more than a sinister and evil form of hidden taxation. It's unfair and deceptive, and accordingly strongly opposed by the authors of the Constitution. That is why there is no authority for Congress, the Federal Reserve, or the executive branch to operate the current system of money we have today.

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The money issue should indeed be a gigantic political issue. Fiat money hurts the economy, finances wars, and allows for excessive welfarism. When these connections are realized and understood, it will once again become a major political issue, since paper money never lasts. Ultimately politicians will not have a choice of whether to address or take a position on the money issue. The people and circumstances will demand it.

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Many sincere politicians, bureaucrats, and bankers endorse the current system, not out of malice or greed, but because it's the only system they have known. The principles of sound money and free market banking are not taught in our universities. The overwhelming consensus in Washington, as well as around the world, is that commodity money without a central bank is no longer practical or necessary. Be assured, though, that certain individuals who greatly benefit from a paper money system know exactly why the restraints that a commodities standard would have are unacceptable.

Though the economic consequences of paper money in the early stage affect lower-income and middle-class citizens, history shows that when the destruction of monetary value becomes rampant, nearly everyone suffers and the economic and political structure becomes unstable. There's good reason for all of us to be concerned about our monetary system and the future of the dollar.

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Today's economic conditions reflect a fiat monetary system held together by many tricks and luck over the past 30 years. The world has been awash in paper money since removal of the last vestige of the gold standard by Richard Nixon when he buried the Bretton Woods agreement -- the gold exchange standard -- on August 15, 1971. Since then we've been on a worldwide paper dollar standard. Quite possibly we are seeing the beginning of the end of that system. If so, tough times are ahead for the United States and the world economy.

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Monetary policy today is designed to demonetize gold and guarantee for the first time that paper can serve as an adequate substitute in the hands of wise central bankers. Trust, then, has to be transferred from gold to the politicians and bureaucrats who are in charge of our monetary system. This fails to recognize the obvious reason that market participants throughout history have always preferred to deal with real assets, real money, rather than government paper. This contest between paper and honest money is of much greater significance than many realize. We should know the outcome of this struggle within the next decade.

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Curbing the scope of government and limiting its size to that prescribed in the Constitution is the goal that we should seek. But political reality makes this option available to us only after a national bankruptcy has occurred. We need not face that catastrophe. What we need to do is to strictly limit the power of government to meddle in our economy and our personal affairs, and stay out of the internal affairs of other nations.

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If unchecked, the economic and political chaos that comes from currency destruction inevitably leads to tyranny -- a consequence of which the Founders were well aware. For 90 years we have lived with a central bank, with the last 32 years absent of any restraint on money creation. The longer the process lasts, the faster the printing presses have to run in an effort to maintain stability. They are currently running at record rate. It was predictable and is understandable that our national debt is now expanding at a record rate.

Jeff Head - Terror at the Lincoln Memorial - this is a new (to me), second excerpt from Dragons Fury - The Long March, volume four in Mr. Head's World War III series, due to ship in November.

Claire Wolfe - "I WANT TO POST AN ARCHIVE OF PATTY NEILL'S WRITINGS." - Claire advertises my Wolfe's Lodge Mirror. Thanks Claire! [claire]

Paul Harris at The Observer - Big Brother takes grip on America - more on the U.S.A. P.A.T.R.I.O.T. act. [whatreallyhappened]

The message of the posters on the walls of Skokie library is plain: Big Brother is watching you. The signs, put up by librarian Caroline Anthony, warn of the radical new laws that have given the American government power to monitor the reading habits of its citizens without telling them.

Now the FBI can also secretly record what websites people look at. And what books they buy. Or videos they hire. 'Libraries are all about freedom of knowledge and not having Big Brother watching you. We had to warn our users,' said Anthony.

She believed Skokie was particularly at risk. The Chicago suburb has a large population of immigrants, including many from countries such as Iraq and Iran. Two years after the terror attacks of 11 September, 2001, Anthony and many others think America is in the grip of a frightening extension of state power.

What Really Happened - 9/11 - Are Americans the Victims of a Hoax? - from back in March of 2002. The official story doesn't jive with the facts. So who really planned it? Follow the money... [whatreallyhappened]

And one more thing. Take a good look at the map of Eurasia and plot out where the United States has military deployments. They march in a straight line through the middle of Eurasia, Macedonia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenia, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan.

The United States is prepared to cut the Russian Federation off from the oil rich middle east, and to control transportation routes from China and India into the Middle East. When Russia realizes that this is the real agenda, that's when "Dubya Dubya Three" will really get going!

WCCO TV - Bush To Address Nation On Iraq - tonight at 8:30 EDT. WhatReallyHappened says about this: [whatreallyhappened]

LATEST WORD IS THAT BUSH'S SUNDAY NIGHT SPEECH WILL INCLUDE A "SURPRISE" ANNOUNCEMENT THAT IRAN IS CLOSE TO BUILDING AN ATOMIC BOMB. BUSH HOPES THAT THIS NEW "THREAT" OF IRAN'S WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION WILL DISTRACT AMERICANS FROM THE LIES ABOUT IRAQ'S WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION.

William Stone, III at The Libertarian Enterprise - Professional Paranoid, Part II - Tom Daschle, senator from Mr. Stone's home state of South Dakota, and an unnamed libertarian author protested the thesis of last week's column that there are no terrorists in the United States. Well, there have been a few over the years, but your chances of getting killed by a terrorist are at this point so low that it's hardly worth thinking about. It's doubtful that even GW is dumb enough not to realize this. Hence, we can only conclude that he is only using the threat of terrorism to destroy what remains of our liberty.

Prior to 9/11, one could drive the 500 miles across South Dakota to the Black Hills and enjoy the scenery. Now one runs the risk of having to drag out two weeks worth of vacation packing and let State bullies sift through it. It's axiomatic among South Dakota natives that during tourist season, you'll see at least one car with all its contents strung out behind it on I-90 while a team searches through it, dogs sniff around it, and Mom, Dad, and their 2.3 children looking frightened and disgusted, wishing they'd never come here in the first place.

That's what Federal "security" has accomplished in South Dakota.

Then there's the philosophical end: it's quite clear that the USA PATRIOT Act violates literally every single one of the Bill of Rights. Does violating what's left of the Bill of Rights enhance or degrade security?

I would suggest that it degrades it. Look what happened when the Second Amendment was immorally suspended on aircraft. Over 3000 people would be alive today, but for that particular violation of the Bill of Rights -- not to mention all the victims of violent crime who die every year because they're unable to protect themselves.

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