Friday, March 15, 2013

CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED

by James Craig Green


Fifteen years before the Bill of Rights was added to the U.S. Constitution in 1791, the foundation of the American Republic was built on the most radical idea in human history – that government exists to serve people - not the other way around. This idea was brilliantly stated in the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, 1776:

Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed

CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED are the four most important words in American History. Although other governments have paid lip service to the people, none has been formed from scratch, without the remnants of monarchy or other old tyrannies, based on this principle. Unfortunately, the principle of consent has been so widely confused and corrupted that today, it is no longer believed to be required by many Americans. This lack of explicit consent by citizens is one reason why government today is so large and invasive, regulating virtually every aspect of human behavior, as an abusive parent dominates his children.


America’s Forgotten Courage

On July 4th, 1776, a handful of brave men openly committed high treason to pledge - in their words ...our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor to the cause of liberty. The Declaration of Independence was the most important and unique political document in human history. It did not form a new government, but simply rejected an existing one. 56 Americans signed the Declaration of Independence. It is rumored that John Hancock, first to sign, used a large, sweeping script so King George III could read it …without his spectacles.

According to the Founders Almanac (Heritage Foundation, 2002), seventeen of the signers served in the military, five were captured by the British during the war, some were killed, several had to move their families repeatedly, many donated large sums of money never repaid and eleven had homes and property destroyed. THESE, my friends, were patriots - unlike the Red and Blue demagogues who pimp for your votes today.


Remnants of Liberty’s Past

American governments today promise to give their most favored citizens - and others - almost anything, for “free.” Of course, government largesse is not really free. Someone else has to pay for every dollar you receive from government – after it skims half for itself. Gullible voters continue to participate in the charade of political elections, in which candidates selected by powerful elites compete to see how much of other people's money (forced by threat of imprisonment) they can promise to their constituents, which now don't even have to be citizens. The most honest word for this is plunder.

Political elections pretend to demonstrate control of government by the people, but one vote in 60 million or so every few years is trivial compared to the daily influence that lobbyists and other power brokers have on legislators and other government officials. Government by the people today is actually government by special interests, whose private wants are sold to a gullible public as needs. All you have to do is say your private want is in the public interest, and politicians of every stripe will stampede to sponsor a bill in your behalf. The trouble is, this also works for every petty tyrant who wants to control every aspect of your life, or force you to pay for his failures. After an income tax was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1894, the Constitution was amended in 1913 to allow it (16th Amendment). 

 
The Big “D”
 
The word democracy comes from the Greek demos, meaning people, and kratien, meaning rule. Literally, democracy means people rule. Today, however, democracy is a smokescreen to perpetuate the false idea that citizens control government. To the chagrin of thinking and productive people everywhere, the most democratic governments in the world today are controlled by self-absorbed special interests, who successfully manipulate public servants into believing their selfish agendas are somehow in the public interest. As a card-carrying member of the American Communist Party told me in 1985, communists believe the PUBLIC should own the means of production. No clearer statement of the reality of modern politics in so-called democratic states was ever made. It is not citizens who control today’s governments, but lobbyists, who seduce your favorite politicians and their minions for the 364 days in the year you are NOT voting. The idea that pulling a lever in a voting booth once every two, four, or six years by one out of five people to elect a public servant is citizen control of government is preposterous. BUT, it is widely believed and promoted by those educated in government schools to conform, not think. 

 
It’s not democracy that creates prosperity, but freedom's productive commerce.
 
The false promises of democratic government today are prosperity without effort, freedom without responsibility and security without risk. America, the cradle of liberty, has become the most shining current example of lynch-mob collectives, led by dictatorial demagogues from the Roosevelts, to Nixon, to Obama. It was Republican President Nixon (my Commander-in-Chief) who unconstitutionally - without serious challenge - removed the last bit of gold backing from the dollar in 1971.
 
 
Galt's Gulch?

John Galt, the heroic figure in Ayn Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged,” figured the producers, workers and thinkers of the world could bring governments, tyrants and agencies to a halt by simply withholding their services. As America continues its destructive path of seemingly endless consumption while inhibiting production, this may soon be more realistic than you ever imagined.

Until Americans and other hard-working, independent and productive people of the world can legally say “NO!” to the funding of government, they will not be free, independent or “democratic.” In case you were educated in government schools like most of us, you may not realize that America's founding was not based on democracy, except for the House of Representatives. The Constitutional Republic founded in 1787, modified by its Bill of Rights in 1791, was a Republic, not a Democracy. This means government limited to certain listed powers granted to it by the sovereign people, who retain all rights not granted to government by the U.S. Constitution. This concept was lost long before your grandparents were born, though it is still right there, unchanged, in the Bill or Rights... especially Amendments IX (nine) and X (ten). Not one word of the Bill of Rights (first ten Amendments) has ever been changed.

Today, it is the height of arrogance, duplicity and insanity that the President and every member of Congress, plus all other federal and state officials, take an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution, while they implement unconstitutional programs faster than ever before. It would be funny, if it were not so ironic - and tragic.

As the unfunded liabilities of the federal government continue to bankrupt it, the Founding Fathers' vision of the American Republic has been almost completely lost. About 40% of every dollar spent by the federal government today is borrowed. America transformed itself from the world's largest creditor, to the world's largest debtor, in a few decades.

Only by returning to government with limited powers focused on protecting its citizens instead of plundering them, will the productive spirit of the American Revolution return to its rightful place in history... and posterity. Until then, the worst among us will continue to abuse the U.S. Constitution, produce more and more unconstitutional laws, ignore the rule of law and continue America's century-long march down the road to fascism, toward its cousin socialism.

In 1850, one of my favorite freedom thinkers in history - Frenchman Frederic Bastiat, published a little book called THE LAW. I have said many times, and continue to believe - that American government today is hopelessly corrupt, violent and oppressive, because it has lost the original vision of its Founders.

I hope you will read THE LAW to better understand the point at which a government - like the one begun in America more than two centuries ago - goes beyond its legitimate purpose (to protect people and property), to turn precious liberty into tyranny, as it has today. This happens once the government and a minority of its citizens discover that it is cheaper and easier to petition government for special favors (Always at the expense of others by force), instead of promoting policies that either benefit all, or are left to the private sector which produces ALL wealth.
 

“Make government what it ought to be, and it will support itself.”
-Thomas Paine

 

Sunday, March 10, 2013

BONNER: The Core of American Liberty

Introduction by James Craig Green

Today, I subscribed to Bill Bonner's Diary.

I can't remember when I became aware of Bill Bonner (more than a decade ago), but I remember a few years ago buying his book, EMPIRE OF DEBT, an expose' of the American Empire, which long ago replaced the American Republic created by America's Founding Fathers.

Bill explicitly allows his articles to be reproduced on blogs, with appropriate links to his online newsletter.


I begin with the following article, which originally appeared at:
http://www.billbonnersdiary.com/articles/bonner-american-freedom.html


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Bill Bonner founded Agora, Inc in 1978. It has since grown into one of the largest independent newsletter publishing companies in the world. He has also written three New York Times bestselling books, Financial Reckoning Day, Empire of Debt and Mobs, Messiahs and Markets.

His free daily e-letter Bill Bonner’s Diary of a Rogue Economist is your gateway to Bill’s decades of accrued knowledge about history, politics, society, finance and economics. Sometimes funny, sometimes frightening – but always entertaining and packed with useful insight, Diary of a Rogue Economist can help you make sense of the complex world we live in today.



THE CORE OF AMERICAN LIBERTY
Friday, 08 February 2013 10:20



Founder Bill Bonner

I've been at the beck and call of rich men all my life. But I'll be damned if I'll be at the beck and call of every son-of-a-bitch with a 3¢ stamp.

– William Faulkner on losing his job at the Oxford, Miss., post office

One of the rarely cited advantages of having money is that you're less beholden to others who have it too. The more you have, at least in theory, the more you can ignore the other fellow with it, and go about your business. Nor need you drink the same cocktail or rush to the same mall so you can outfit yourself in the same duds.

In short, with a little capital of your own you can do what you want.

And the fellow who said "money can't buy happiness" has apparently not read yesterday's New York Times:

Broadly speaking, the data now indicate that as people get richer, they report getting happier too. Though it's not quite that simple.


Justin Wolfers, an economist at the University of Michigan who helps advise the U.S. government on happiness statistics, told me that poor people in poor countries are not unhappy simply because they don't have wads of cash. They are more likely to have fewer choices, more children who die in childbirth and other grave problems. And while wealthier nations are generally happier, there is no evidence, Wolfers says, that an artist would be happier if she became a hedge-fund trader.


The Importance of Capital


But we're talking capital, not cash flow. The trouble with cash flow is that it doesn't spring ab ovo from nowhere. It comes to your hands from the greasy mitts of someone else.

If they don't keep the cash flowing, you may not have any. Unless you're a government employee or a tenured professor, a job is just a job. You serve at the pleasure of others. If you give them displeasure, they can cut off your income.

Capital is different. If you have enough of it, you don't have to work for anyone. You can go fishing, pick your teeth and maintain unpatriotic opinions.

Capital frees you from politics too. According to the most recent numbers, nearly half of U.S. households now rely on other people's money for some or all of their income. They are beneficiaries of one or more of the feds' transfer programs. Money is taken from others; it is transferred to them, as if to a getaway car.

The feds even have the chutzpah to give the recipients of this stolen loot an electronic card called the "Independence Card." Independent is exactly what these people aren't. Instead, says Charles Hugh Smith over at OfTwoMinds.com, they are like feudal serfs.

"The core of American liberty is widespread private ownership of property," he writes. If you want to be free you have to have your hands on the "means of production." Otherwise, you've got to learn to bend.

Imagine that you have zero equity in the house you own, Hugh Smith suggests. How free are you then?

Or imagine that you need to buy a house and need a mortgage. The mortgage market is almost 100% controlled by the feds. How free are you?

The Rise of "Neo-Feudalism"


Hugh Smith does not mention it. But imagine that you rely on the feds for unemployment benefits, food stamps, healthcare or Social Security. Are you a free man? Or a serf?

Smith says we live in a condition of creeping "neo-feudalism." A few people own a lot of property. Most own very little. His attention is focused on housing, where he believes the feds are quietly taking more and more property out of private hands and putting it in the hands of rich, concentrated elites.

He's probably right about that. But it seems to us that even more neo-feudalism is taking place right out in the open – where large groups now depend on the feds... and on Fed's EZ money... to maintain their current standards of living.

Balance the federal budget? Stop the Fed's printing presses? Let interest rates rise to a normal level?

Forget it. The serfs can't afford it.

Regards,

Bill Bonner

Bill