Outrage: Another disgusting example of Federal tyranny

"There are plenty of good five-cent cigars in the country. The trouble is they cost a quarter. What this country needs is a good five-cent nickel." 
 --Franklin P. Adams, 1881-1960

The leader of a group that marketed a fake currency called Liberty Dollars in the Asheville area and elsewhere has been found guilty by a federal jury of conspiracy against the government in a case of “domestic terrorism.”


Bernard von NotHaus was convicted Friday at the conclusion of an eight-day trial in U.S. District Court in Statesville. The jury deliberated less than two hours, according to the Department of Justice.


Charges remain pending against William Kevin Innes, an Asheville man who authorities said recruited merchants in Western North Carolina willing to accept the “barter” currency, according to court records. Innes was indicted along with von NotHaus in 2009.


“Attempts to undermine the legitimate currency of this country are simply a unique form of domestic terrorism,” U.S. Attorney Anne Tompkins said. “While these forms of anti-government activities do not involve violence, they are every bit as insidious and represent a clear and present danger to the economic stability of this country.”

Rest of the article at the Asheville Citizen-Times


Most of the comments after the article are heartening.  


Here are some observations:


1. I find it difficult to believe that a jury would convict a man of this "crime" without a lot of information about law and their ability to nullify an unjust law being purposefully blocked from them by the U.S. attorney and federal judge.  The information fed to the jury is so selective that they feel they have no choice to convict.


2.  Look at the coins in question:  they have the appearance of many currently manufactured gold and silver rounds, used to trade in bullion at near-melt value prices.  These coins purported to be nothing more than gold and silver rounds of a certain value.


3. Consumers and business owners are free to choose what they consider "money".  
Money is nothing but a promise of future value.  It represents something that a merchant is willing to exchange with a buyer for his goods, if he believes that he, at some future time, can exchange that "money" for something he wants to buy.  That can be seashells, bushels of wheat, pounds of salt, quantities of copper, silver, or gold, or just pieces of paper.  All such matter for exchange is based on faith.  Because of the portability and usefulness of both gold and silver, humans have returned again and again to it's use as "money".  The purity of the metals determine their estimated value in paper money.


4. The most outrageous statement that I have heard uttered by an officer of the federal government recently:


“Attempts to undermine the legitimate currency of this country are simply a unique form of domestic terrorism,” U.S. Attorney Anne Tompkins said.  “While these forms of anti-government activities do not involve violence, they are every bit as insidious and represent a clear and present danger to the economic stability of this country.”


Talk about a stretch, this is an outrage!


If a farmer takes feed in exchange for milk, is he also a clear and present danger to the economic stability of this country?


If a Niagra Falls, NY vendor accepts Canadian currency to buy goods in his store, is he participating in a unique form of domestic terrorism?


Using gold and silver at current melt weight to exchange for goods and services is part of our Natural Right to Property.  Do we or do we not own the fruit of our labor?  Are we to be arbitrarily dictated to by the Federal Reserve, that by its own admission, purposefully devalues the dollar it is supposed to suppport?  As each dollar is devalued by the Federal digital printing press, it undermines our ability to save their so-called "money" that they demand a monopoly to counterfeit.  If you have $1000 in the bank, and the price of gas goes from $3/gallon up to $4/gallon, and the price of bread goes up 30% in a year because of several factors, your savings will buy less and less when you want to use it.  Meanwhile silver and gold will go up in dollar value when each dollar is devalued by the government, and is therefore a better means of "savings".


The Federal government's own actions in this matter are creating an environment of hostility and outrage of the citizenry, and are their own worst enemy.  They have a monopoly of their own "unique" non violent "domestic terrorism";  their actions in devaluing the dollar is its own "clear and present danger" to the existing Federal system of government.

79 year old Jury nullification activist cant be brought to heel...

A true activist, a man with real cojones, Julian Heicklen:

Feisty jury nullification activist Julian Heicklen, a 79-year-old former chemistry professor, is facing federal charges of jury tampering up in New York for the act of handing out pamphlets advocating the power and responsibility of juries to judge the law as well as the facts (that is, to acquit if they think a law is unjust even if they think a defendent violated that law).

But his attempts to get arrested again for violating Judge Belvin Perry's ban on nullification pamphleteering near his courthouse in Orlando have so far failed. He's violated the order, but no one's arrested him.

read more here 

Fully Informed Jury Association FIJA:

"The primary function of the independent juror is not, as many think, to dispense punishment to fellow citizens accused of breaking various laws, but rather to protect fellow citizens from tyrannical abuses of power by the government.  The Constitution guarantees you the right to trial by jury.  This means that government must bring its case before a jury of The People if government wants to deprive any person of life, liberty, or property.  Jurors can say no to government tyranny by refusing to convict."

Quote of the Day 3/17

THEOPHILUS PARSONS (2 Elliot's Debates, 94; 2 Bancroft's History of the Constitution, p. 267): "The people themselves have it in their power effectually to resist usurpation, without being driven to an appeal to arms. An act of usurpation is not obligatory; it is not law; and any man may be justified in his resistance. Let him be considered as a criminal by the general government, yet only his fellow citizens can convict him; they are his jury, and if they pronounce him innocent, not all the powers of Congress can hurt him; and innocent they certainly will pronounce him, if the supposed law he resisted was an act of usurpation." 

(Parsons was a leading supporter of the Constitution in the convention of 1788. He declined President Adams' nomination to be Attorney General and became Chief Justice of Massachusetts).

League of the South on Jessie Jackson

Jesse Jackson and the Confederate Agenda

14 March 2011

Jesse Jackson accused Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker of having a "Confederate agenda" in his recent dealings with labor unions and the State budget crisis.

The League of the South calls upon Mr. Jackson to define what he means by a "Confederate agenda," beyond general accusations of anti-labor, anti-civil rights, anti-voting rights, and pro-States Rights sentiments.

"It is clear," said League President Michael Hill, "that Jesse Jackson loves centralized power as long as it benefits him and his liberal constituency. We see that as a "Union agenda" in more ways than one. If by a Confederate agenda, he means a belief in local self-government, the rule of a fundamental law, State right-to-work laws, free markets, and the consent of the governed, then we proudly claim such a position. And we hope that a northern Governor like Scott Walker will continue to see the wisdom of doing the same."

League of the South post here

Quote of the Day 3/16

'''Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you—
Ye are many—they are few.'' 

Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792-1822

Broken window fallacy in Japan

It takes a crisis, such as the financial meltdown in 2008, to rally support for a Keynesian style fiscal stimulus.

It takes another kind of crisis, specifically the earthquake and tsunami that devastated the northeastern coast of Japan last week, to expose the Keynesian fallacy that the government can spend its way to prosperity.

For that reason, Acts of God provide a teaching moment. They make the distinction between spending and wealth so blatantly obvious that even the most dyed-in-the-wool believer in the value of digging holes and filling them up will be hard pressed to deny it.

Bloomberg article here

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Frederic Bastiat in 1850 France:

Have you ever witnessed the anger of the good shopkeeper, James Goodfellow, when his careless son happened to break a pane of glass? If you have been present at such a scene, you will most assuredly bear witness to the fact that every one of the spectators, were there even thirty of them, by common consent apparently, offered the unfortunate owner this invariable consolation—"It is an ill wind that blows nobody good. Everybody must live, and what would become of the glaziers if panes of glass were never broken?"

Now, this form of condolence contains an entire theory, which it will be well to show up in this simple case, seeing that it is precisely the same as that which, unhappily, regulates the greater part of our economical institutions.

Suppose it cost six francs to repair the damage, and you say that the accident brings six francs to the glazier's trade—that it encourages that trade to the amount of six francs—I grant it; I have not a word to say against it; you reason justly. The glazier comes, performs his task, receives his six francs, rubs his hands, and, in his heart, blesses the careless child. All this is that which is seen.

But if, on the other hand, you come to the conclusion, as is too often the case, that it is a good thing to break windows, that it causes money to circulate, and that the encouragement of industry in general will be the result of it, you will oblige me to call out, "Stop there! Your theory is confined to that which is seen; it takes no account of that which is not seen."

It is not seen that as our shopkeeper has spent six francs upon one thing, he cannot spend them upon another. It is not seen that if he had not had a window to replace, he would, perhaps, have replaced his old shoes, or added another book to his library. In short, he would have employed his six francs in some way, which this accident has prevented.

Ce qu'on voit et ce qu'on ne voit pas (1850)

 

Quote(s) of the Day 3/15

"For somehow this is tyranny's disease, to trust no friends."

"Death is better, a milder fate than tyranny."

Aeschylus 525-456 BC 

Quote of the Day 3/14

U.S. v. DOUGHERTY, 473 F.2d. 1113, 1139 (1972): "The pages of history shine on instances of the jury's exercise of its prerogative to disregard instructions of the judge...."

Update: kidney stone was more fun.

Ok, so I got T-boned by a guy going 50 mph. He went through the red light. Airbags went off. When I came to in the car, heard animal like grunting noises. After a few seconds, I realized the sounds were coming from me. That's when I realized I was in a world of sh*t.

Then I smelled and saw smoke coming up at me from my dash. I thought, "no way I'm catching on fire" so I tried my caved in door-- jammed. I pulled my legs out from the steering wheel and shakily over the middle column, and out the other door. Some good Samaritans stopped and helped me to the ground. It was pouring rain, and I soaked to the skin in cold water. The people around me, all strangers, covered me with coats, blankets, called my wife, and called the ambulance.

In the hospital, they found bruises up my left side, lung contusion, torn left kidney, bleeding adrenal, internal bleeding, and concern was raised for an injury to the wall of the aorta.

My wife and transferred to the university hospital. The angiogram was negative, thank G-d. My internal bleeding stopped. They decided I could eat (43 hours without), and get out of bed.

I was later sent home. Stiff, bruised, sore to cough, but feeling lucky and thankful to G-d.

Then, last evening, I sneezed suddenly and was introduced to a whole new world of pain; I think I broke a couple of weakened ribs with the sneeze. Passing my kidney stone a few weeks ago was piece of cake compared to the new rib pain.

Anyone got suggestions for dealing with rib fractures?

Thank you for your kind comments and suggestions.

Car accident

I was in an accident where my car was totaled and I was hospitalized with internal bleeding.

I won't be posting for a few days; I will post when I can.

My best to you all in the meanwhile.

Our Republic of Dunces

Consider what happened recently when the Intercollegiate Studies Institute gave a 60-question civic literacy test to more than 28,000 college students:

"Less than half knew about federalism, judicial review, the Declaration of Independence, the Gettysburg Address, and NATO. And this was a multiple-choice test, with the answers staring them right in the face," said political scientist Richard Bake, co-chairman of ISI's Civic Literacy Board.
"Ten percent thought that 'we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal' came from the Communist Manifesto," Bake added during a recent interview with my Examiner colleague Barbara Hollingsworth.

Even the smart kids at Harvard failed the test, scoring on average 69, which is a D. Since the vast majority of the students tested are products of public schools, the results represent a comprehensive indictment of public education, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers.

These are the people who year after year graduate classes in which one of every four kids cannot read at even a basic level. If you can't read the Constitution, or the Declaration, or The Federalist Papers, you won't understand their essential concepts or why they represent so much wisdom.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: here

The Spirit of Runnymede lives on in the UK--kindred constitutional conservatism

Maybe you've seen this over the last couple of days, either from Lew Rockwell or Drudge:

About 600 members of a constitutionalist pro-Liberty group in England stormed a courtroom in County Court, Birkenhead, Merseyside.  They were attempting a citizen's arrest of a judge who was conducting a hearing about one of the members not paying a local council tax.

I thought you might like to know more about the group itself, the British Constitution Group.

The group advocates lawful rebellion, claiming the right originates from the Magna Carta of 1215, signed at Runnymede, England. 

From their website:

"We, the British People have a right to govern ourselves. That right has been subjugated as a consequence of acts of treason having been committed by the collective political establishment, aided and abetted by corrupt segments of the judiciary, the police, the Church and the civil service.

We are no longer prepared to tolerate the subjugation of our rights to satisfy the demands of the shadowy elite of the supranational and criminal banking cartel.

We are no longer prepared to tolerate the lies, deceit and shady practices of politicians that are the hallmarks of corrupt governance around the world.

We are no longer prepared to accept a compliant and colluding media that has been complicit in the aforementioned criminal acts by a lax and pathetic coverage of vital issues.

The collective political establishment has for the past four decades conspired to transfer our national sovereignty into the hands of foreign governance, without our consent and against the rule of law.

We are demanding that our sovereignty be reinstated, our rights be respected and the rule of law upheld."

http://www.thebcgroup.org.uk/

Sounds familiar to me...

Harry's Law

A worthy libertarian show, with quirky characters...

Written by David E. Kelley, creator of L.A. Law, Boston Legal, Ally McBeal, Doogie Howser, MD, Picket Fences, and Chicago Hope.

It stars Kathy Bates.

In the several episodes that I've watched, there have been a few worthwhile themes:

Jury nullification, private policing of one's community, the right of small businesses to hire and fire whom they please, legal ethics when the main character denounces her own client as a murderer in court, to name a few.

A great scene: While her secretary is screaming, Kathy Bates calmly pulls out a revolver and shoots a rat across the room of her office.

For those of you who bother to watch TV at all, I recommend the show-- Monday's at 10 pm on NBC.

Quote of the Day 3/10

Motto of an American

I am against unchecked, concentrated power in all forms and permutations. In other words, I am an American who understands the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. 

--Blogger K_Yew, gotshares.com

Project Gunwalker : An international incident

Turns out the Mexicans werent included on the information the American government was allowing semiautomatic rifle to "walk" across the border into the hands of criminals and murderers.  Think about how you would feel if the opposite was true: fighting mad?

Yahoo News item via Sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com

– Tue Mar 8, 7:38 pm ET

MEXICO CITY – Legislators from all of Mexico's three major parties in congress are calling for a joint U.S.-Mexico working group to examine accusations that U.S. federal agents allowed hundreds of guns to flow into Mexico.

Congressman Humberto Trevino estimated Tuesday that 150 shooting injuries or deaths have been linked to guns that were allowed to proceed into Mexico as part of a U.S. effort to build cases against traffickers.

Two of those weapons were involved in the killing of a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent in December in southeastern Arizona.

Mexican drug cartels frequently pay straw purchasers to buy weapons at U.S. gun stores and smuggle them south to avoid stringent gun-control laws in Mexico.

The ATF royally screwed up, after so many previous screw ups. Too bad the lousy gun grabbing laws wont go down the drain with the ATF. 

Update from David Codrea, National Gun Rights Examiner:

ATF is “closing ranks and circling the wagons,” William La Jeunesse of Fox News reports.

“This is much bigger than Brian Terry,” he concludes, with an assessment that the failed ATF policy of letting guns be sold to cartels through straw purchasers is “becoming a major scandal.”

Hoard nickels, silver, older pennies

For those of us mortal mundanes that don't have enough income to buy even the smaller amounts of gold, there are other ways of storing wealth in commodities: older and even current US coins.

The concept: commodities, which have a value in the marketplace for either manufacturing or as money itself, have been increasing in dollar value as the value of each dollar plummets.  This should be the way you think of it: hedge against inflation or the value of the coin.  

The beauty of the concept: even if the value of the coin drops to or below the face value, the coin still has the face value.

Right now, the value of a 1946-2011 nickel is greater than 5 cents, closer to 7 cents, because of inflation of the price of nickel.  

Older pennies from 1909-1982, made mostly of useful copper, are worth 2.8 cents now.  In 1983, pennies became 97.5% cheaper zinc.

Silver US coins from 1964 and older, are currently more than 2600% greater than face value, e.g. a silver dime from 1964 or before, is worth $2.60.

Your paper money in the bank loses value every day, every time the government does a "quantitative easing".  Change what you can into coinage and find a safe way to store it.

So follow Gresham's Law: 

Gresham's law is an economic principle "which states that when government compulsorily overvalues one money and undervalues another, the undervalued money will leave the country or disappear into hoards, while the overvalued money will flood into circulation." It is commonly stated as: "Bad money drives out good", but is more accurately stated: "Bad money drives out good if their exchange rate is set by law."

Check out current values of these coins, updated as the value of copper and silver fluctuate:

www.coinflation.com

Quote of the Day 3/9

"We hang the petty thieves, and appoint the great ones to public office"
-- Aesop

Secession: "The American Civil War [sic] answered that question"

Truth crushed to the earth is truth still and like a seed will rise again.

Jefferson Davis

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As popular respect for political systems continues to erode, you may have noticed the statists frantically trying to deflate emerging inquiries and debates on the topic of secession. Their principal argument has been the non sequitur "the American Civil War answered that question." Such a response presumes that history expresses immutable principles that transcend time, a proposition that would at once be seen for its inherent absurdity were it applied to scientific understanding. Who was Copernicus to suggest that we live in a heliocentric universe after Ptolemy informed us of the geocentric nature of our world?

Furthermore, the American Revolutionary War was premised on the right of people to secede from existing political systems; and yet the statists are not to be heard using that period as precedent for condemning Lincoln’s suppression of that principle.

If history is to be the standard for propriety in our world, would we not have to defend the principle of slavery, given that the 1857 U.S. Supreme Court case of Dred Scott v. Sandford upheld the legality of the practice? And wouldn’t the fate of Joan of Arc have "answered the question" that political dissenters could be burned at the stake? Or are we, like lawyers, entitled to pick and choose the precedents that serve our particular cause, while carefully "distinguishing" other instances that don’t serve our purposes?

Read Butler Shaffer at LewRockwell.com

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"The American Civil War [sic] answered that question"

How closed and complacent a mind must be to think this way...The same mind assumes or believes that the war was fought solely or primarily over the morality of slavery.

What is right for one group of people is not right for another.  

One thing is for certain:  What is wrong for most Americans is centralized power. 

Some Americans do not mind being granted privileges from Washington, rather than exercising Natural Rights; some do not mind 9 Justices in the Supreme Court making one decision that binds 250 million.  

Some do not mind non representative government;  some do not mind giving up freedom for (what they perceive to be) security."

But I think most Americans do mind these things.

Most of us would prefer to be free to decide what is right for ourselves, our families, and our communities.  Most of us want to be able to decide how best to spend our money and keep most of what we earn.

The only way to assure this is to dismantle centralized power.

Some Maine Yankees remember the Constitution, Ninth and Tenth Amendments

On Saturday morning, Sedgwick became likely the first locale in the country to pass a "Food Sovereignty" law. It's the proposed ordinance I first described last fall, when I introduced the "Five Musketeers", a group of farmers and consumers intent on pushing back against overly aggressive state food regulators. The regulators were interfering with farmers who, for example, took chickens to a neighbor for slaughtering, or who sold raw milk directly to consumers.

The essence of local government, town hall, Sedgwick, ME

Citing America's Declaration of Independence and the Maine Constitution, the ordinance proposed that "Sedgwick citizens possess the right to produce, process, sell, purchase, and consume local foods of their choosing." These would include raw milk and other dairy products and locally slaughtered meats, among other items.

The rest of the article

This is what I am referring to when I talk about local government.  

I consider this an example of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments of the Bill of Rights: Assertion of a right not specifically enumerated to the Federal government.  

Taking this to the logical conclusion of original intent, the local government ordinance should also trump a law of the State of Maine, as the ultimate sovereignty is with the people, then the State, then the Federal government.

Consumers are free to opt out;  if the strategy is economically non-viable, it will terminate itself.  If it works, good for them, because their overhead will decrease, allowing them more to live on.

Quote of the Day 3/8

"I consider the foundation of the [Federal] Constitution as laid on this ground: That "all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people." [10th Amendment] 

To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specifically drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition."

-- Thomas Jefferson, "Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank" [February 15, 1791]