From Wikipedia:

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress is a 1966 science fiction novel by American Robert A. Heinlein, about a lunar colony’s revolt against rule from Earth. The novel expresses and discusses libertarian ideals in a speculative context. writer

Originally serialized in Worlds of If (December 1965, January, February, March, April 1966), the book received the Hugo Award for best science fiction novel in 1967, and was nominated for the Nebula Award in 1966.

“If you follow the instructions in this guide, produce a creative and thorough application, and collect petition signatures on your campus; you will have a real opportunity to bring Dr. Paul to your school. He loves the enthusiasm of young people and enjoys speaking on college campuses more than anywhere else — but it’s up to you to convince him to visit yours.”

Full article.

Demagoguing the Mosque and Islam

Is the controversy over building a mosque near ground zero a grand distraction or a grand opportunity? Or is it, once again, grandiose demagoguery?
It has been said, “Nero fiddled while Rome burned.” Are we not overly preoccupied with this controversy, now being used in various ways by grandstanding politicians? It looks to me like the politicians are “fiddling while the economy burns.”

The debate should have provided the conservative defenders of property rights with a perfect example of how the right to own property also protects the 1st Amendment rights of assembly and religion by supporting the building of the mosque.

Instead, we hear lip service given to the property rights position while demanding that the need to be “sensitive” requires an all-out assault on the building of a mosque, several blocks from “ground zero.”

Just think of what might (not) have happened if the whole issue had been ignored and the national debate stuck with war, peace, and prosperity. There certainly would have been a lot less emotionalism on both sides. The fact that so much attention has been given the mosque debate, raises the question of just why and driven by whom?

In my opinion it has come from the neo-conservatives who demand continual war in the Middle East and Central Asia and are compelled to constantly justify it.

They never miss a chance to use hatred toward Muslims to rally support for the ill conceived preventative wars. A select quote from soldiers from in Afghanistan and Iraq expressing concern over the mosque is pure propaganda and an affront to their bravery and sacrifice.

The claim is that we are in the Middle East to protect our liberties is misleading. To continue this charade, millions of Muslims are indicted and we are obligated to rescue them from their religious and political leaders. And, we’re supposed to believe that abusing our liberties here at home and pursuing unconstitutional wars overseas will solve our problems.

The nineteen suicide bombers didn’t come from Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan or Iran. Fifteen came from our ally Saudi Arabia, a country that harbors strong American resentment, yet we invade and occupy Iraq where no al Qaeda existed prior to 9/11.

Many fellow conservatives say they understand the property rights and 1st Amendment issues and don’t want a legal ban on building the mosque. They just want everybody to be “sensitive” and force, through public pressure, cancellation of the mosque construction.

This sentiment seems to confirm that Islam itself is to be made the issue, and radical religious Islamic views were the only reasons for 9/11. If it became known that 9/11 resulted in part from a desire to retaliate against what many Muslims saw as American aggression and occupation, the need to demonize Islam would be difficult if not impossible.

There is no doubt that a small portion of radical, angry Islamists do want to kill us but the question remains, what exactly motivates this hatred?

If Islam is further discredited by making the building of the mosque the issue, then the false justification for our wars in the Middle East will continue to be acceptable.

The justification to ban the mosque is no more rational than banning a soccer field in the same place because all the suicide bombers loved to play soccer.

Conservatives are once again, unfortunately, failing to defend private property rights, a policy we claim to cherish. In addition conservatives missed a chance to challenge the hypocrisy of the left which now claims they defend property rights of Muslims, yet rarely if ever, the property rights of American private businesses.

Defending the controversial use of property should be no more difficult than defending the 1st Amendment principle of defending controversial speech. But many conservatives and liberals do not want to diminish the hatred for Islam — the driving emotion that keeps us in the wars in the Middle East and Central Asia.

It is repeatedly said that 64% of the people, after listening to the political demagogues, don’t want the mosque to be built. What would we do if 75% of the people insist that no more Catholic churches be built in New York City? The point being is that majorities can become oppressors of minority rights as well as individual dictators. Statistics of support are irrelevant when it comes to the purpose of government in a free society — protecting liberty.

The outcry over the building of the mosque, near ground zero, implies that Islam alone was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. According to those who are condemning the building of the mosque, the nineteen suicide terrorists on 9/11 spoke for all Muslims. This is like blaming all Christians for the wars of aggression and occupation because some Christians supported the neo-conservatives’ aggressive wars.

The House Speaker is now treading on a slippery slope by demanding an investigation — a bold rejection of property rights, 1st Amendment rights, and the Rule of Law — in order to look tough against Islam.

This is all about hate and Islamaphobia.

We now have an epidemic of “sunshine patriots” on both the right and the left who are all for freedom, as long as there’s no controversy and nobody is offended.

Political demagoguery rules when truth and liberty are ignored.

More information on Ron Paul and Campaign for Liberty can be found at:

http://www.ronpaul.com

http://www.campaignforliberty.com

-The Onion News Network

Unfortunately, that is just a satirical newspaper heading, but in many ways, it describes perfectly the situation with which the United States is faced with today. Our whole monetary system is based upon the public’s unwitting faith in pretty pieces of paper. The dangers of allowing a government to have complete control over the currency are uncountable and Baron M.A. Rothschild once said it best, “Give me control of a nation’s money supply, and I care not who makes the laws”.

Those who strive to gain power over other men know that the most important thing of all is to control the money supply. If any entity (public or private) has a monopoly on the money supply, economic freedom is in mortal peril. However, what kind of money that the entity has a monopoly on makes a very large difference. Prior to 1913, the government had central banks, but none were set up in a way that allowed them to retain their power over the long run. By and large, people mistrusted them. In the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, however, the statists of the day really did things right. Most people do not know that the Federal Reserve is an unconstitutional organization that is neither federal nor a holder of any reserves.

I have become increasingly aware over the last few years that saying this or that is unconstitutional really has no meaning anymore. There is such widespread and blatant disregard for the Constitution that it is almost a waste of breath to try to explain to someone why the federal government has no business trying to enforce laws that it has no authority to create in the first place. However, since the Constitution is still technically the law of the land and Congress is bound to uphold it, it is necessary to examine what it says about the nature of money.

First and foremost, the most important thing to realize is that the Constitution is not a list of things that the federal government cannot do. It is a list of things that the federal government can do. Here is what the 10^th Amendment says:

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

Clearly, the Constitution is no list of prohibitions on the federal government. Indeed, anything not specifically authorized is denied by default. In order for the federal government to enforce something that is not in the Constitution, it must pass a Constitutional Amendment. As I mentioned before, this process has been largely ignored. Even so-called “conservatives” will look the other way if it is legislation that they agree with. The government is growing at an ever-increasing rate, and I believe that the process was set in motion the first time a law was passed that Congress had no authority to make.

It is also important to look at what the Constitution says about money. Here are two more very important excerpts:

Article I, Section 8, Clause 5: “The Congress shall have power… To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures.”

Article I, Section 10, Clause 1: “No State shall… coin money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debt.”

An interesting distinction presents itself here. The federal government is authorized to coin and regulate the value of money but states are not. States are prohibited from making anything but gold or silver coin legal tender in payments of debts. States, do, however, have the power to determine what can be used as tender by default, because the federal government is not given that power of determination. This means that as long as the states are using some form of gold or silver, the federal government has no say in the matter.

It is easy to see that the Federal Reserve is in clear violation of several different clauses in the Constitution. Our currency is not backed by gold or any other commodity anymore. Although originally the Fed did resolve to keep our currency backed by gold, it soon became apparent that they could not truly manipulate the economy without having the ability to create an unlimited supply of dollars. More disturbingly, the federal government did not even have enough respect for the Constitution to make an amendment. The power to coin and regulate money is reserved only for Congress. It did not even have the power to give this responsibility away. The Federal Reserve is made up of private bankers who answer to Congress only in theory, but not in practice. Also, since our money is backed only by trust in the federal government, there are no reserves for the Fed to safeguard. Truly, the Federal Reserve is a “federal reserve” in name only.

The most insidious act that the Fed commits is one that is done day in and day out, year upon year. The continual growth of the money supply constantly rewards bankers and the politically well connected. What happens is that at any given time, our dollars are worth a certain amount. When the Fed decides to increase the money supply, the very first people who receive the new dollars get to spend that money at its current value. As the money trickles through the economy, equilibrium is again reached, and every dollar is worth less than it was before. As if that weren’t bad enough, the process does not even happen all at once. Wages are the last thing to increase, so for an extended period of time, Americans pay an increased price for goods and services while their income remains static. Even without the Constitutional problems, this simple fact alone should be enough to warrant a close examination of what should and shouldn’t be happening in our country today. It is no wonder that the value of today’s dollar in terms of the 1913 dollar is $0.05. The constant expansion of the money supply means bankers and politicians become constantly wealthier. Interestingly, one ounce of gold will purchase the exact same amount of goods and services today that it would in 1913, and even hundreds of years before that.

Now that I have presented the case for complete abolition of the unconstitutional Fed, it is important to introduce a system that can correct the deficiencies of the current system while still remaining Constitutional. When I started researching for this project, I was convinced that the best thing to do would be to return to a gold-backed dollar and essentially be done with it. There is a problem with this solution, though. It gives a monopoly on the money supply to the federal government, which in the long run will fail one hundred percent of the time. Eventually, politicians would find a way to regain their power by creating another central bank or by some other more crafty method. The only way to keep people honest is for no one to have the power. Therefore, I submit that the best solution is to have a system of competing currencies.

In Denationalisation of Money, F. A. Hayek laid out a plan to rip the state of their monopoly control of money. He wrote it in 1976 and to date, it is the most free market approach ever conceived. Even though many libertarians disagree with some of the facets, the danger remains that any other plan would still allow someone to eventually regain monopoly control. There are two main characteristics that a system of competing currencies would have.

First, banking would be completely “free”. Services would not be provided free of charge, but banks would have no restrictions placed on them by the state, such as reserve ratio requirements. They would have to act completely in their own interest in order to stay in business. They would also be able to issue their own currency. This is one of the fundamental requirements of a free banking system. If banks are allowed to issue currency backed by their own reserves, then they have every incentive in the world to not devalue their currency. If a bank starts increasing the amount of currency it has in circulation at a rate that the market cannot sustain, then that currency will be discounted and the bank will have a real problem keeping its currency in circulation at all. In the event that this should happen, the bank would have to take steps in order to regain value in its currency, so the money supply would decrease and equilibrium would be restored.

Second, the state should not force banks to denominate all currencies into a single unit. Free market trading could not occur if the system were designed this way. With modern computers and cell phones, there is not reason at all why currencies could not quickly and effortlessly be exchanged for each other. Citibank’s Wristons and Chase Manhattan’s Rockefellers would be traded in the market just as dollars and euros are traded today. There is no need for any denomination to be required to be backed by anything. Some currencies could be backed by faith in the bank only, others gold and silver, and maybe even some with oil or other commodities. Market efficiency would most likely dictate that only a few currencies would be universally accepted, though, and because gold and silver are such wonderful commodities to back currency with, it is very likely that they would become the standard. The point is that the market would figure out the best way to do it, not the state.

As you can see, this is not exactly the plan that I would have come up with at the beginning of the semester, but after careful research, I believe that there is just no matter what kind of currency a government may choose to nationalize, it will never be the best and most efficient way to promote economic freedom.

Works Cited

Brimelow, Peter. “Ron Paul’s Competing Currencies.” LewRockwell.com. Lew Rockwell, 29 Jan 2008. Web. 5 Apr 2010. http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/brimelow3.html>.

Greenspan, Alan. “Gold and Economic Freedom.” Objectivist. 5.7 (1966): 11-16. Print.

Paul, Ron. Freedom under Siege: the U.S. Constitution after 200 Years. Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig Von Mises Institute, 2007. Print.

While it is hard to claim this granted title is inaccurate, as Marshall’s tenure as Chief Justice saw him preside over some the most significant cases in the relatively young court’s (as well as the nation’s) history, there is definitely contention among the conflicting ideologies as to whether or not his contributions to understanding the Constitution left in his wake a positive or negative legacy.

It is no secret that Marshall was himself a Federalist.  He was undoubtedly an advocate of a strong, central government with supreme authority over the states.  And with these convictions came a belief in a liberal, or “loose,” interpretation of the Constitution.

We often hear pretentious and politically expedient “conservatives,” both in the Congress and on television, radio and in newspapers, complain and lambast the current federal leviathan for having strayed too far from the Founders’ vision, no longer consistent with the outline of the Constitution, and grown to such a size that would make them turn over in their graves.

Of course, all of this is right before they vote to give the Executive Branch more emergency power to essentially spy on their constituents and deny basic, bedrock due process rights to accused terrorists, who are being unlawfully and indefinitely held in prison, all in the name of “national security.”

But while this petty political posturing is not entirely off the mark, it is misleading in that takes the argument in the wrong direction, placing emphasis on the wrong group of people.

When considering the intended purpose, powers and function of the federal government as spelled out by the Constitution, rather than drawing on the Founders, the authors of the document, it is more consistent with its letter and spirit to focus on the document as interpreted by the ratifiers, the state conventions that made it binding.

The Founders, James Madison in particular, simply wrote the Constitution.  They put the concepts into words and laid them out on paper.  This act alone, according to Constitutional Law scholar Kevin Gutzman, did nothing.  The state ratification conventions gave the words their authority.  So it would be more important to consider the document as they envisioned it, because they otherwise would not have ratified it, had they feared it would simply be construed to mean something other than what they were being led to believe.

Enter John Marshall.  As an adherent to Hamiltonian monarchist-nationalism, Marshall’s vision of the federal government was at direct odds with that of the ratifiers, where the Republicans, the former Anti-Federalists, won the day (temporarily) in that the federal government was one of the states with expressly delegated and limited powers, the explicitly enumerated, with all else left to the states or the people, as underscored by the adoption of the Tenth Amendment.  As even further protection against the possibility of an about-face by the Federalists, who, led by George Washington, would ultimately be in charge at the start, several states included secession clauses in their ratification.

Marshall’s contrary views would take hold soon enough though, in a series of controversial and landmark cases that would transform the nation.

The first among them, Marbury v. Madison, is the one he is given the most accolades for, yet it is probably the least controversial and most sensical of all of them.  Sparing all the minute details, the decision formally established the concept of judicial review on the part of the Supreme Court, the ability to review federal law and decide whether or not it was consistent with the powers delegated by the Constitution.

This decision is trumpeted by many as Marshall’s defining moment, his genius exemplified in the manner in which he, in the words of a former and prominent political science professor here at the university, “created the Supreme Court’s power out of nothing.”

But the reality is that judicial review was not a new idea, nor the brainchild of Marshall alone.  During the ratification process, Federalist sympathizers had intended for federal courts to hold the power of review, and this was accepted and shared by Republican heavyweights, most notably Patrick Henry.

And, if one really thinks about it, the idea makes sense.  What is the point of having a government of specific, limited powers if there is no instrument in place to enforce that upon it.

Marshall’s next most famous decision as Chief Justice, and the one that would perhaps set the movement of big government into near perpetual motion is that of McCullough v. Maryland.

This case involved the constitutionality of chartering a bank by the federal government.  In short, the state of Maryland argued that it was not and the feds argued it was.

Marshall, writing for the majority, opined that the chartering was, in fact, constitutional.

He rejected the notion that the federal government had only expressly delegated powers, arguing that the Constitution was created by the “one” American people, and thus, it must be supreme in and of itself.  

He went on to contend that charting a bank was implied in the enumerated powers of Article 1, Section 8; which, among many other things, deals with monetary issues, and that chartering a bank was the proper means to achieve that end.  And because the Constitution was ratified by the “one” American people, state governments could not interfere.

Marshall’s reasoning is, quite frankly, seriously flawed, and it opened a serious Pandora’s box with regards to federally implied powers.

First off, the Constitution was not ratified by the American populace.  It was ratified by state conventions, each by and on behalf of itself.  And seeing as how only 9 of the original 13 were required to make it the law of the land, the idea that the entire population ratified it falls a little short.  If that were the case, then wouldn’t requiring all the states ratify it make more sense?

Further more, Marshall’s idea of implied federal powers is contrary to his own previous position, as well as other prominent Federalists, such as Edmund Randolph, William Cushing and Charles Pinckney, at their ratification conventions.  Randolph himself used the words “expressly delegated” when referring to the powers vested in the Congress.  And that takes us back to argument involving the intent of ratifiers against founders, and whose carries more weight.

Marshall’s argument also totally dismissed the Tenth Amendment, as if it didn’t even exist, which of course, was put in place to specifically detail that those powers not granted to the Congress are left to the states.

In short, Marshall’s opinion in the McCullough case was a dramatic revision of very recent history and a rather liberal interpretation of the Constitution.

Even James Madison, once a staunch Federalist, protested the decision, claiming if such a thing such as Marshall’s opinion had been foreseen, the Constitution would have never been ratified.

There are several other cases in which Marshall laid claim to dubious constitutional grounds, and to be fair, some that are not.  Not everyone is wrong all the time.  But the two that have been highlighted are among the most well known, being probably the farthest reaching, both in their implications and consequences.

Marshall is considered the first, of many to come, imperial judge that used broad interpretations of the Constitution in an effort to usurp power from the states, and grant it to the federal, or as he would have preferred it, national government.

Personally, I reject the view that the Constitution allows for broad federal power of any kind, as placing a limit on the scope and reach of the federal government was the very purpose of the document.  The colonists then recent run-ins with King George’s soldiers had a way of largely turning them off to strong, centralized forces.

Granted, the idea of revising the Articles of Confederation because of their supposed inefficiencies would justify creating a stronger federal government, but that does not mean it was given a blank check with which to do what it pleased.  That kind of arbitrary authority was what was escaped upon secession from the British Empire.

So while the argument can certainly be made for John Marshall as a definer of the Constitution, his definitions were often at odds with just what it was and was supposed to be.

He defined it, particularly in the McCullough case, and his precedents allowed for future justices to define it, in ways that were in spite of itself.

As she and my father scoured the store for everything needed, I went to the book and magazine aisle to look around.  The selection was pretty slim, as usual, filled with health & fitness and pop culture magazines, not much for a somewhat dedicated reader of Time, Newsweek and the like.

But there was one that did catch my eye and prompt me to pick it up and skim its pages.

It was an issue of Life, a dedication in photos to the years 2000 through 2009, subtitled “The Decade That Changed The World.”

Among the events depicted were the attacks on 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, the elections of George W. Bush and Barack Obama and the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The collection from the most latter of the aforementioned are those that struck within me the very dissonant chord progression that now guides the inspiration for the words flowing forth from my mind, through my fingers and onto the page.

The most compelling of them all though was not the iconic image of Saddam Hussein’s monument to himself being torn from its pedestal or of President Bush’s premature declaration of victory aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.

The photo, of which I may never forget, featured an American soldier sitting cross-legged on the ground holding an Iraqi child – an infant girl -  in his lap.  The child’s clothes were stained with blood, though she appeared to be alright, and the soldier simply gazed down on her with a mixed look of seeming confusion, melancholy and sorrow.

On an impulse, I decided not to purchase the magazine and placed it back on the shelf.  Upon returning home, I regretted the decision, unable to find an online edition.  But I managed to find something else just as moving.

Searching the magazine’s Web site, I came across a photo taken at Arlington National Cemetery of a woman, lying face-down in grief in front of her fiancé’s grave, an Army Ranger killed in Iraq in 2007(Life).

These images will in all likelihood never lose their relevance, as they illustrate the true cost of war.  Dollars and cents are real, but they can be skewered, fudged, massaged and ultimately, their impact hidden.  Violence, blood, death and displacement are not as easily manipulated.

Other reasons these images stuck out to me were not only their relevance to the theme of war in general, but also to the current climate and situations surrounding the escalation in Afghanistan and lead-footed withdrawal from Iraq.

As everyone may know, President Obama has ordered 30,000 additional American forces be deployed to Afghanistan to help train the Afghan government forces to fend off insurgencies and to try to eradicate al-Qaida’s influence in the region.

Once upon a time, the neo-conservative in me would have been in broad favor of such a measure, but no longer.  I now believe that it is time to bring home every troop from Afghanistan as well as Iraq.

While I am not a pacifist by any stretch of the imagination, I do not think that either of these wars are worth fighting anymore.

The Iraqi conflict should have never been fought in the first place, but that is neither here nor there.  The American public may never truly know what happened in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion.  The only sure thing is that it was a giant mistake.

The invasion of Afghanistan was originally one of justifiable nature.  But it has been so badly mismanaged, I fear it is a lost cause.  The mission is too broad and its objectives frankly not feasible anymore, if they ever were.

To assume that the Taliban and Islamic fundamentalism can forever be purged from the Afghan culture and that an indefinite American presence is needed to do so is very simply wishful and flawed thinking.  The same goes for thinking that the Karzai government is a competent partner in all of this as well.

And as far as dealing with al-Qaida, all evidence points to the fact that their Afghanistan presence is currently minimal at best.

These wars have cost us too much, and it’s time they end.  We went into them (at least one anyway) to punish those who mercilessly slaughtered almost 3,000 innocent Americans.

But Thomas Jefferson once said that war is “as much punishment to the punisher as to the sufferer.”  The woman mourning the loss of her future husband in the picture I mentioned above would probably agree.

In a short and scripted film clip, our President Obama addressed the panel, as well his fellow Americans, with a clarion call, “When we talk about the future of health care, we are talking about the future of America.”

The president continued, “There are those who argue that we cannot afford to confront the challenges of health insurance reform.  But the bottom line is this: deferring the reform is nothing more than defending the status quo and the status quo is unsustainable.”

Two distinguishing remarks deserve mentioning.

Firstly, deferring one is not equivalent to defending the other;–if one so weighs the proffered reform the lesser against the current set of circumstances and affairs, no defense exists for the so-called “status quo,” only simple rationality.

For example, why would one individual acting rationally purchase a new calling plan for her cell phone wherein she will be paying substantially more for a coverage area that appears unchanged, however, now she will experience a guaranteed rise in dropped calls and additionally have more of her incoming calls sent directly to voicemail?

She simply would not, as a rational consumer.  The current calling plan, no matter its shortcomings, persists as the better buy.

The task is gravely more subtle and difficult: to provide her with greater coverage with fewer dropped calls for lower the cost.

Yet, the health care reform pushed by Progressives and modern Liberals does not meet this task.  These advocates forget economic data.

For example, health economist Linda Gorman notes, since “health coverage stabilized in the 1980’s,” only thirteen to sixteen percent of people have at any given time been not covered, “despite numerous expansions of government coverage programs and a massive increase in illegal immigration.”

Moreover, the only increase with government’s expansion into the health care sector has been costs.  There surfaces an inverse relationship between the number of those covered and the cost of said coverage, as predicted by elementary economic theory.

Secondly, if the status quo is unsustainable, then even a “cost neutral” plan is unsustainable;–that is, if costs and the rise therewithal remain the same, then per capita costs and GDP percentage remains the same.

As Washington Post columnist, and once medical physician, Charles Krauthammer points out, “[T]he president argues that health care is killing the economy–that the costs are–and he is right in that, absolutely right.”

Krauthammer though adds, “If health care today is destroying our economy because of its costs, revenue neutrality leaves us on the same net trajectory to insolvency and ruin [the president] himself has said is going on right now.”

Only two major schemes prove to reduce costs: free markets and government rationing.  The former, unlike the latter, also supports and delivers technological and procedural innovations, in so doing drives costs even further downwards.

For example, health economist John Goodman identifies lasik eye surgery–a section of health care not covered by government or even private insurers–and its rapid innovation as examples of freer markets at work.

Yet, more importantly, he mentions, compared to health care funded by government programs or paid for by insurance, the “prices on average have gone down by 30 percent.”

In sum, when President Obama says he will “not accept the status quo,” or opponents only think it is “better politics to kill this plan than improve it,” he conveniently misses that his current plan with its dubious measures is equal to, if not worse than, the status quo.

And he, therefore, overlooks the “rational consumer” in each of his fellow Americans.