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As we head into next years election cycle, what is our collective plan to have real impact on the 2010 election and it's issues? Can we form the solid coalitions on issues that will give us stability, or will we speak of togetherness seperately? Can we become the movement that will change this country? This is all about direction and connection, is our direction in sync. with the publics needs and want's and are we truly connecting with the public we need to serve. Coming off a 6 year stint with the Independence Party of Minnesota the above issues are very important to me. I need to know wheather I am in a social club or a dedicated political organization with goals and a sence of direction. With over 4000 bodies here in Minnesota I find myself wondering how and when we are going to move. This is quite timely with caucuses in Feb. and all apearances indicating a need for a presence of our issues in both parties. How do you see "Campaign for Liberty", what should it do and how agressively should it be done? Are you out there willing to move off your chair and into real action? The world is full of talkers, the question here is do we have enough movers to move forward? If so we need to start connecting soon and setting realistic goals and directions. Talk to me!
Categories: Campaign For Liberty Tags: |
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So, Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize.I know what Nobel intended the prize to be, but what the "peace" prize currently amounts to nothing more than a progressive beauty contest, where what you believe is more important than what you do.
Maybe, given time, he would do something worthy of getting the Peace Prize. Maybe. They handed it out too soon. They clearly gave this award for what they want Obama to achieve - most of which would be bad for America. They seem to have a soft-spot for statists, human caused global warming advocates and anything opposed to the ideas of freedom and liberty, so Obama fits the bill to a tee -- a three-fer, if you will. It has nothing to do with peace, just as the Gore award had nothing to do with peace and everything to do with influencing American domestic policy. Of course, Nationalist in me loves the idea of an American winning; the Libertarian in me loathes the idea of a Statist winning and the Narcissist in me is kinda miffed that I didn't get more consideration for the award. After all, I like peace, too, plus I did as much to advance the cause the peace last year as Obama... well, at least Liberty (as the regional coordinator for Campaign for Liberty), and true liberty would give us the kind of peace that our blow-back filled foreign policies have definitely not achieved. Tags: statist, Obama, nobel peace prize |
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To all of those in the traditional media establishment - Categories: Miscellany Tags: media, Establishment |
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I've had some requests for help in talking to friends and family who don't get it. Here are some links to help. Here's one: Tags: FRIENDS, Family, talking, convert |
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Categories: Campaign For Liberty, Education Tags: tea party, fourth fest, 4th fest, fair |
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So I saw this today: "Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.” --Barack Obama
And we need it to save the earth, or so they say. Well, he is Barak Obama, after all. It's a bird! It's a plane! It's SuperBama!
Why do people go for this garbage any way?
Don't forget: we need volunteers for the Fourth! Categories: Economy Tags: Obama, cap and trade, |
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Louis T. McFadden's Speech In the House of Representatives 10 June 1932 Mr. Chairman, at the present session of Congress we have been dealing with emergency situations. We have been dealing with the effect of things rather than with the cause of things. In this particular discussion I shall deal with some of the causes that lead up to these proposals. There are underlying principles which are responsible for conditions such as we have at the present time and I shall deal with one of these in particular which is tremendously important in the consideration that you are now giving to this bill. Mr. Chairman, we have in this country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Banks. The Federal Reserve Board, a Government board, has cheated the Government of the United States and the people of the United States out of enough money to pay the national debt. The depredations and iniquities of the Federal Reserve Board has cost this country enough money to pay the national debt several times over. This evil institution has impoverished and ruined the people of the United States, has bankrupted itself, and has practically bankrupted our Government. It has done this through the defects of the law under which it operates, through the maladministration of that law by the Federal Reserve Board, and through the corrupt practices of the moneyed vultures who control it.
In eighteen years that have passed since Senator Lodge wrote that letter of warning all of his predictions have come true. The Government is in the banking business as never before. Against its will it has been made the backer of horsethieves and card sharps, bootleggers, smugglers, speculators, and swindlers in all parts of the world. Through the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks the riffraff of every country is operating on the public credit of this United States Government. Meanwhile, and on account of it, we ourselves are in the midst of the greatest depression we have ever known. Thus the menace to our prosperity, so feared by Senator Lodge, has indeed struck home. From the Atlantic to the Pacific our country has been ravaged and laid waste by the evil practices of the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks and the interests which control them. At no time in our history has the general welfare of the people of the United States been at a lower level or the mind of the people so filled with despair. But the whole scheme of the Federal Reserve bank with its commercial-paper basis is an impractical, cumbersome machinery, is simply a cover, to find a way to secure the privilege of issuing money and to evade payment of as much tax upon circulation as possible, and then control the issue and maintain, instead of reduce, interest rates. It is a system that, if inaugurated, will prove to the advantage of the few and the detriment of the people of the United States. It will mean continued shortage of actual money and further extension of credits; for when there is a lack of real money people have to borrow credit to their cost. A few days before the Federal Reserve act was passed Senator Elihu Root denounced the Federal Reserve bill as an outrage on our liberties and made the following prediction: "Long before we wake up from our dreams of prosperity through an inflated currency, our gold, which alone could have kept us from catastrophe, will have vanished and no rate of interest will tempt it to return." I want to say a word of appreciation to you for the silent but no doubt effective work you have done in the interest of currency legislation and to congratulate you that the measure has finally been enacted into law. We all know that an entirely perfect bill, satisfactory to everybody, would have been an impossibility, and I feel quite certain that unless the President had stood as firm as he did we should likely have had no legislation at all. The bill is a good one in many respects; anyhow good enough to start with and to let experience teach us in what direction it needs perfection, which in due time we shall then get. In any event you have personally good reason to feel gratified with what has been accomplished. The words "unless the President had stood as firm as he did we should likely have had no legislation at all," were a gentle reminder that it was Colonel House himself, the "holy monk," who had kept the President firm. The only other feature of the currency bill around which a conflict raged at this time was the note-issue provision. Long before I knew it, the President was desperately worried over it. His economic good sense told him the notes should be issued by the banks and not by the Government; but some of his advisers told him Mr. Bryan could not be induced to give his support to any bill that did not provide for a "Government note." There was in the Senate and House a large Bryan following which, united with a naturally adversary party vote, could prevent legislation. Certain overconfident gentlemen proffered their services in the task of "managing Bryan." They did not budge him.... When a decision could no longer be postponed the President summoned me to the White House to say he wanted Federal Reserve notes to "be obligations of the United States." I was for an instant speechless. With all the earnestness of my being I remonstrated, pointing out the unscientific nature of such a thing, as well as the evident inconsistency of it. Shadow and substance! One can see from this how little President Wilson knew about banking. Unknowingly, he gave the substance to the international banker and the shadow to the common man. Thus was Bryan circumvented in his efforts to uphold the Democratic doctrine of the rights of the people. Thus the "unscientific blur" upon the bill was perpetrated. The "unscientific blur," however, was not the fact that the United States Government, by the terms of Bryan's edict, was obliged to assume as an obligation whatever currency was issued. Mr. Bryan was right when he insisted that the United States should preserve its sovereignty over the public currency. The "unscientific blur" was the nature of the currency itself, a nature which makes it unfit to be assumed as an obligation of the United States Government. It is the worst currency and the most dangerous this country has ever known. When the proponents of the act saw that the Democratic doctrine would not permit them to let the proposed banks issue the new currency as bank notes, they should have stopped at that. They should not have foisted that kind of currency, namely, an asset currency, on the United States Government. They should not have made the Government liable on the private debts of individuals and corporations and, least of all, on the private debts of foreigners. In other words, the imperial power of elasticity of the public currency is wielded exclusively by these central corporations owned by the banks. This is a life and death power over all local banks and all business. It can be used to create or destroy prosperity, to ward off or cause stringencies and panics. By making money artificially scarce, interest rates throughout the country can be arbitrarily raised and the bank tax on all business and cost of living increased for the profit of the banks owning these regional central banks, and without the slightest benefit to the people. These twelve corporations together cover the whole country and monopolize and use for private gain every dollar of the public currency and all public revenue of the United States. Not a dollar can be put into circulation among the people by their Government without the consent of and on terms fixed by these twelve private money trusts. In defiance of this and all other warnings, the proponents of the Federal Reserve act created the twelve private credit corporations and gave them an absolute monopoly of the currency of the United States, not of the Federal Reserve notes alone, but of all the currency, the Federal Reserve act providing ways by means of which the gold and general currency in the hands of the American people could be obtained by the Federal Reserve banks in exchange for Federal Reserve notes, which are not money, but merely promises to pay money. Since the evil day when this was done the initial monopoly has been extended by vicious amendments to the Federal Reserve act and by the unlawful and treasonable practices of the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks. In 1928 the member banks of the Federal Reserve system borrowed $60,598,690,000 from the Federal Reserve banks on their fifteen-day promissory notes. Think of it! Sixty billion dollars payable upon demand in gold in the course of one single year. The actual payment of such obligations calls for six times as much monetary gold as there is in the entire world. Such transactions represent a grant in the course of one single year of about $7,000,000 to every member bank of the Federal Reserve system. Is it any wonder that there is a depression in this country? Is it any wonder that American labor, which ultimately pays the cost of all banking operations of this country, has at last proved unequal to the task of supplying this huge total of cash and credit for the benefit of the stock-market manipulators and foreign swindlers? Mr. Chairman, some of my colleagues have asked for more specific information concerning this stupendous graft, this frightful burden which has been placed on the wage earners and taxpayers of the United States for the benefit of the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks. They were surprised to learn that member banks of the Federal Reserve system had received the enormous sum of $60,598,690,000 from the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks on their promissory notes in the course of one single year, namely, 1928. Another Member of this House, Mr. Beedy, the honorable gentleman from Maine, has questioned the accuracy of my statement and has informed me that the Federal Reserve Board denies absolutely that these figures are correct. This Member has said to me that the thing is unthinkable, that it can not be, that it is beyond all reason to think that the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks should have so subsidized and endowed their favorite banks of the Federal Reserve system. This Member is horrified at the thought of a graft so great, a bounty so detrimental to the public welfare as sixty and a half billion dollars a year and more shoveled out to favored banks of the Federal Reserve system. My Dear Congressman: This will show the gentleman from Maine the accuracy of my statement. As for the denial of these facts made to him by the Federal Reserve Board, I can only say that it must have been prompted by fright, since hanging is too good for a Government board which permitted such a misuse of Government funds and credit.
http://www.afn.org/~govern/mcfadden_speech_1932.html Categories: History Tags: |
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Beware of the overall U.S./Mn/DOT transportation plan of which passenger rail service between Duluth and the Twin Cities is only a part. President Obama, with a corporate- sympathetic Congress and the Federal Reserve's reformed banking system of unlimited fiat currency loans are trying to convince Americans to fund the preservation and perpetuation of the unsustainable big-box Wal-Mart/McDonald post-1960 suburban sprawl that has obliterated individual proprietorship and limited-partnership non-corporate businesses in the name of democracy. This made us the world leader in energy consumption per-capita with the imperialistic determination to force our 2-party plutocratic-governed empire on the world. This is morally wrong. Categories: Ron Paul, Campaign For Liberty, Finance, Globalism, Law, Domestic Policy, Ethics, Executive Power, History, Economy, Monetary Policy, Congress Tags: corporations, legal, persons, Money |
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Since there aren't enough supporters to bring us back to private healthcare, here is a possible idea for gaining widespread support of a plan that could allow for a return of some health freedom. It's still a rough draft, but it's just meant to communicate a basic idea so far:
A Multi-Solution Healthcare Compromise Imagine if America could be divided down the Mississippi, with one half socialist, and the other capitalist. Which one would be better off in the long run? Unfortunately, we can't do that, but here's an idea that might allow us to start trying similar things. First off, I understand that the biggest obstacle to making this idea a reality is finding a governor and enough state legislators who have the guts to initiate a constitutional challenge against the federal government over 10th Amendment rights, even if it's just on one specific issue like healthcare. Secondly, I like to draw a parallel between what can happen in market oriented, unregulated healthcare and what has happened with cell phones over the last two to three decades. In other words, I predict that market oriented healthcare will become better, faster, and less expensive over time if not hampered by government interference. Maybe not Moore's law fast, but I think a similar trend will happen. There are surely many details that would have to be worked out in order to implement this plan successfully, and this initial paper is simply meant to illustrate the basic concept I have in mind.
The idea is to have a state run, socialized healthcare system, and also have room for a private, unregulated, market oriented healthcare sphere. People can have a state healthcare ID number (something other than SSN might be desirable) with which state care providers can identify those who pay healthcare tax dollars and thus qualify for state care. Those who take a write off on their state healthcare tax dollars have their ID number nullified so they don't receive services from the state any year that they take the write off. However, the number is kept available in case someone wants to opt back into the socialized system and starts paying healthcare tax dollars again to do so. Nobody is forced to be in either the state program or a private one. No one is forced to have healthcare at all if they don't want to - they can just opt out and keep their money. That and the ability of people to switch from one option to the other ensure freedom of choice among state residents. The way it works is that healthcare is completely run at the state level - no federal intervention. The state funds it all with taxpayer dollars from within its own state. If someone would rather engage in a private contract to manage their healthcare, or forgo healthcare altogether, they can take a write off on their taxes in order to reclaim all of their tax dollars that would have gone to state healthcare, up until they are claiming the per capita funding amount (ex: if state spends $10,000 per year per person, the maximum deduction for anyone is $10,000, even if paying more than that towards state healthcare annually). For that year, the person's state healthcare ID number is nullified, but still kept on record for possible further use. Since people are not forced to use private options, and since they can opt back into the state option if they want by paying their healthcare tax dollars, the government has no need to regulate market healthcare options under the pretense of "keeping the people safe". Obviously, if there is a crime like breach of contract occurring, a patient could use the courts to ensure justice for oneself. But in a private, market oriented agreement, the state would not be able to micromanage the doctor-patient relationship, and force things like doctors having to use a bureaucrat mandated checklist when seeing patients. Liberals, moderates, and conservatives all win with this plan. Liberals get to keep their socialized medicine, and conservatives get the bureaucrats out of their medical records and can have truly confidential relationships with their doctors again. Moderates can do which ever option they would prefer. Rich, middle class, and poor all win. While the rich have a limit on how much they can deduct, private healthcare options are still made more affordable for them than they would be if the wealthy were forced to pay full taxes. Private healthcare is also more affordable to those with less money, especially as private, free market healthcare options develop over time - the beauty of this idea is that people are given choices in healthcare! In America, we shouldn't have the government ramming what it thinks is "best" down our throats against our will, especially for something as personal as healthcare. I predict that as private healthcare becomes less expensive and higher quality than state care through patronage of wealthier people, it will become more popular and affordable to more people over time, until nearly all can afford private healthcare for themselves, and the few who can't will be able to maybe receive pro bono services or charitable donations for their healthcare. This is roughly analogous to the development of cell phones over the last 30 years. As fewer and fewer people use state healthcare, the rich become ripped off less and less. This is because as fewer people are in the state healthcare system (with constant or very slowly rising annual per capita spending), less total money is needed for healthcare. Assuming the number of rich people stays steady, and their level of wealth is fairly steady, the same number of rich people will be financing a steadily smaller state healthcare burden over time.
Let's work out a sample situation. First, let's say, hypothetically, that we'll spend $10,000 per person per year on state run healthcare. We'll have an imaginary group of people listed below to illustrate this with how much each person pays for state healthcare. Dale pays $22,000 in healthcare taxes each year - he's filthy rich. Jennifer pays $17,000 in healthcare taxes each year because she makes quite a bit of money. Sally pays $13,000 in healthcare taxes each year. Larry pays $12,000 in healthcare taxes each year. Jim pays $10,000 in healthcare taxes each year. Joe pays $9,000 in healthcare taxes each year. Kim pays $6,000 in healthcare taxes each year. Jeff pays $1,000 in healthcare taxes each year. Linda pays little to nothing (maybe $100 or less) in healthcare taxes each year because she's dirt poor.
So, we see that we have a total pool of $90,000 in annual healthcare tax money and nine people in our imaginary state healthcare system. Again, that's $10,000 per year per person. Now, let's say that Dale, Sally, and Larry all decide to get out of state healthcare in favor of private arrangements for their healthcare. Anyone who opts out of the state system has their healthcare ID number nullified (at least for the year) by taking a tax write off for their healthcare tax dollars. Remember, the tax write off is for all of one's healthcare tax dollars up until they've deducted the per capita spending amount. In other words, since Dale, Sally, and Larry all pay more than $10,000 in annual healthcare tax dollars, they can only deduct $10,000 a year for themselves. We'll get to this later on. When Dale, Sally, and Larry opt out for their own healthcare, each takes $10,000 worth of deductions out with them. So, in total, three people leave the system, and $30,000 also leaves the system. That means that with 6 people left in the state healthcare system, there is still $60,000 annually to go around, or $10,000 per person per year. So, even though most of the rich folks have left the system for private alternatives, per capita spending remains steady in the state program. While some liberals will undoubtedly clamor for more spending and control with each passing year, I predict that most common liberal people would support my idea, as long as they can keep their state run healthcare and not have per capita funding diminished. This is based on the assumption that average liberals really think that big government is best for us as a country, but they aren't personally interested in micromanaging the lives of others. One might ask what good this does for any of these three individuals. Why don't they just stay in the state system and "get their money's worth"? Well, perhaps they like having doctor-patient confidentiality, or they have special needs that they feel can be better met with a private healthcare arrangement. In any case, while Dale, Sally, and Larry are unable to get all of their money back, private healthcare is still more affordable to them than it would be if they were forced to keep all of their tax money in the system and then pay for private care on top of that. The reason why the maximum allowable deduction is the per capita spending amount is so that even if rich people leave the state healthcare system, per capita spending stays constant, and thus liberal politicians have less to cry about. While the rich are still being ripped off some, at least they are able to make some headway towards private healthcare, should they want it.
What happens if some of the poorer people opt out of the state health care system? Well, that's even better than when rich people opt out! Let's say that Jim, Joe, and Kim all opt out because they prefer private healthcare and found good doctors for themselves at $7,000 per year each. Kim will pay an extra $1,000 in healthcare each year by leaving state run healthcare, but to her the new healthcare is worth the extra cost. Each person who opts out of the state healthcare system gets to deduct all the money they put into the system until they reach the per capita spending amount. In this case, neither Jim, nor Joe, nor Kim pays more than $10,000 per person per year, so they would receive all of their state healthcare tax money from their write offs. Jim, Joe, and Kim go on their merry ways and take responsibility for their own healthcare, without state interference. What happens to the overall state system when they leave? Jim took $10,000 from the system with his write off. Joe took $9,000 from his, and Kim took $6,000 from hers (see above table). Three people left the system like in the previous example, but guess what? They didn't take $30,000 out of the system - they only took $25,000 out of $90,000 from the system! That means that the remaining six people have more than $10,000 per person! In fact, they would have $10,833.33 available per person ($65,000 for six people). With this money, either the state can afford to spend more on its socialized healthcare, or it can offer larger deductions to rich people who opt out of the system, or do some combination of those two things. I recommend that the extra $5,000 (65,000-60,000=5,000) in this instance to be split between expanding tax write off amounts and increasing per capita annual state healthcare spending. Why? Well, a key idea in this system is to allow a maximum deduction equal to the per capita state spending rate. That way, while deductions aren't arbitrarily expanded, they're not arbitrarily contracted either. And saying that state healthcare spending can increase under this system (aside from inflation adjustments) will hopefully further pacify liberal opposition to the plan. Conservatives can also take comfort in the fact that as state healthcare per capita expenditures increase, more people will be in a position to opt out with all of their money; as private healthcare gets cheaper than the steadily more expensive state healthcare, I predict that people will leave the state system at an ever increasing rate. To split the extra $5,000 over the remaining six people evenly, annual per capita state healthcare expenditures will increase from $10,000 to $10,416.67, and the maximum allowable write off will also increase from $10,000 to $10,416.66 for the year. We'll let the state have that extra penny for this example. If opt outers have taken their write offs already, the expansion of their maximum write off amounts may have to be refunded later on in the year, for those who qualify (assuming someone takes a $10,000 write off on their taxes right before the deduction goes up some that year). This idea is certainly far from perfect, and has a lot of details that would have to be worked out. There are tremendous obstacles that supporters of this idea would have to overcome. But, it might be a useful first step in restoring some of our lost freedoms. Categories: Civil Liberties, Domestic Policy, Health Freedom, Social Issues Tags: |
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I have had 2 requests for a link to this video, so I'm posting it for everyone. It is a great educational tool. JBS's Overview of America is 29 minutes long. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6732659166933078950 Categories: Education, US Constitution Tags: america, republic, Democracy, ecomony, Constitution |
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http://www.jpfo.org/articles-assd/wi-case-update.htm Wisconsin (West Allis) Update 2/11/09 It's less than a week until the Constitution gets another court hearing. To recap what happened, in August 2008 Brad Krause was arrested at gunpoint in West Allis, Wisconsin while planting trees in his yard. The reason: he lawfully possessed a holstered weapon. (Full story at: http://www.jpfo.org/alerts02/alert20081212b.htm ) His first hearing was December 16, where the story started to unfold under oath. The prosecution admitted into evidence a small semi-automatic handgun, positive retention holster, and self-defense ammunition, each item being the type of equipment police officers are known to use for their own protection, not the sort of thing criminals tend to carry. The first witness was the man who had called the police. Normally this person is the victim of a robbery, mugging, or other violent attack, but in this case the man testified he called the police to find out if a person could legally carry a handgun within city limits. He went on to say that although he thinks only police officers should carry weapons for self defense, it was never his intention "for Brad, excuse me, I mean Mr. Krause, to end up in court." He testified that "Mr. Krause" is a nice guy, they get along fine, and the first time they met was when "Mr. Krause" came over to help him dig his car out of the snow. There was no sign of animosity between the neighbors who apparently are still on a first-name basis. The next witness was the first officer to respond, who said he saw a man with a gun and immediately called for backup. A back-and-forth line of questioning ensued: Attorney: "Officer, you were the first person to see Mr. Krause in his yard, correct?" Attorney: "What was he doing when you saw him in his yard?" Attorney: "Was he in any way handling the gun?" Attorney: "Was the gun plainly and openly carried?" Attorney: "You had no question that was a handgun on his hip?" Attorney: "And he was not handling it, waving it, doing anything with it?" The questioning continued, eventually with the officer testifying Mr. Krause was cooperative the entire time, and never used any profanity or even raised his voice. The second officer testified what happened when they approached: Officer 2: "...we approached the person that was in the side yard of that residence." Attorney: "And how did you approach him? Was there any special precautions that you took? Attorney: "And why is that?" He continued to testify that by Mr. Krause wearing a gun visible to the public, that created a disturbance, and that was disorderly, so Mr. Krause was therefore arrested for Disorderly Conduct While Armed. Wisconsin has a unique set of laws pertaining to guns:
Confused yet? The end result is that almost anyone can carry a gun in public if others are able to see it -- no training or permit required, but stick it in your pocket and you're a criminal. What makes this case unusual is that most cases in Wisconsin are about people concealing a weapon and therefore breaking a law, but claiming they had a right under the WI Constitution due to need. This is the first case where no law was broken, but the person is being prosecuted anyway. If no law was broken and another law is being misapplied in order to prosecute the case, what happened to property rights and the right to be free from unlawful search and seizure? Apparently, like the rest of your rights, they don't exist when the government says they don't. The judge questioned the prosecutor at length about the right to expression, unfortunately using the Nazi flag as his example. Does the judge's neighbor have the right to fly the Nazi flag? "It depends," was the prosecution's answer. The judge tried to repeatedly narrow the question, and eventually the answer came down to the city claiming to have the ability to make the decision. What happens if it's just the German flag? Or the Swiss flag? Depending on who doesn't like it, the outcome might not be so good. The next hearing is Tuesday, February 17th, 2009 at 8:00 AM. It is open to the public, and you are encouraged to attend. West Allis Courthouse http://www.ci.west-allis.wi.us/about/city_maps.htm Categories: Civil Liberties, Law, Domestic Policy, US Constitution, Ethics, Federal Legislation, History, Revolution, State Legislation Tags: |
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Lessons from history learned and heeded by individuals, families or nations can serve as safety nets to avoid the pitfalls they face in the future. But very seldom has a nation listened and heeded the warnings of its prophets who warn the people of their impending doom. Duluth is fortunate to have one such prophet. From 12:45PM to 2:15PM on April 23, 2005, Gary Kohls, MD, presented his workshop entitled, "Friendly American Fascism," to us at the Free Democracy Summit 2 sponsored by the University of Minnesota at Duluth's Minnesota Public Interest Research Group (MPIRG) at Harbor City International School.
To explain why I believe American fascism is worse than Hitler's, a brief historical sketch from Germany's defeat in World War I, through the failure of the Weimar republic to Hitler's rise to power in the 1930s is instructive in showing the quick path to fascism taken by Adolph Hitler and his private corporate and banking supporters.
Coming out of WWI, given the reparations of the peace settlement forced on Germany by the victors in the 1918 Versailles Treaty, the Weimar republic tried inflating the Mark in their "stimulus package" to get their economy going again. It didn't work and the destabilizing effects of price inflation to the German economy instead created the fertile conditions for Hitler and his henchmen to defeat the republic in 1932 and institute their form of fascism on the German public.
Like what Gary Kohls is doing in Duluth today, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was doing in a similar way then by helping to frame the 1934 Barmen Theological Declaration to put Hitler on notice that his policies violated Christ's teaching. Bonhoeffer instructed students in an illegal seminary to preach in the Confessing Church that opposed the mainstream Lutheran Church's teachings that agreed with Hitler's ideology of self-preservation. Hitler's Gestapo shut down these seminaries, squelched the Confessing Church, and hung Bonhoeffer in 1945.
In comparing today's slow, friendly fascism in America to Hitler's not-so-friendly fascism's Third Reich in the 1930s, I'll begin with the erosion of our natural citizen's rights caused by the mistake made by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1886 that found corporations to be "persons" within the meaning of the 14th Amendment. Several years ago in response to this mistake, Minnesota Rep. Bill Hilty introduced a constitutional amendment in the Minnesota House to eliminate corporate personhood. Today, I'm imploring you to re-introduce this constitutional amendment to support my petition drive in Duluth to bring before Duluth city council a resolution that rejects the concept of corporate personhood.
Similar to the Weimar republic's attempt to use price inflation to stimulate the failing German economy in the early 1920s, a slower version of price inflation is being used in America by implementing the theory of British economist John Maynard Keynes who suggested "pump priming" the economy through intentional federal budget deficits that would solve the unemployment problem and bring permanent national prosperity. It worked for FDR and the private banks by removing the republic's constitutional gold dollars from circulation to pull the country out of depression to fund World War II on cheaper Federal Reserve dollars. It worked for LBJ by removing the republic's constitutional silver dollar from circulation to fund the Great Society war on poverty and Vietnam War on cheaper dollars. Like the others before him, Obama sweet-talked his way into the presidency like the earlier democratic pretenders to the presidency and has borrowed huge sums in addition to the huge sums already borrowed and monetized in Federal Reserve dollars secured by U. S. Treasury debt "securities" to cover the costs of his stimulus package. The National Debt should not be "mined" as a source for current consumption.
Very few establishment economists challenge the bogus Keynes theory that has caused this American fiscal and financial disaster. Even fewer advocate a return to the constitutional monetary price standard of a just weight and measure of gold and silver as U.S. money of account that was a foundational principle of American democratic republicanism from the very beginning. The Roman Catholic Church has abandoned its stand against usury and has embraced this financial heresy of private American centralized banking.
Rep. Ron Paul, M.D., dropped out of his recent campaign for president to initiate his Campaign for Liberty to educate the public. Bertram Gross' 1980 book entitled, "Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America," was another attempt prior to the Reagan presidency to inform a comfortable, consumerized electorate of a big American-caused world crisis about to happen.
But now the post World War II American Dream of unsustainable suburban sprawl and avoidable wars made possible by Keynes theory has fallen on hard times, the theory is being discredited by thinkers who take seriously what Jesus said about "rendering unto Caesar" and that we cannot serve two masters, money and God.
I've had the great privilege to work with two men recently in Duluth who are aware of these things. Bill Mittlefehldt, who I assisted in forming Sustainable Duluth with others in 2005, had his article entitled, "American debt soon will result in financial collapse," published in the September 10, 2006 issue of the Duluth News-Tribune. Steve O'Neil, who I worked with in Loaves & Fishes Community from 1993-95 and is currently a St. Louis County Commissioner had his article that criticizes Minnesota budgeting regarding inflation entitled, "Fantasy budget bad for taxpayers," published in the May 4, 2007 issue of the Duluth News Tribune.
And Gary Kohls, M.D., a great prophet and disciple of Jesus Christ in our midst, continues to be ignored by Duluth's and Minnesota's elected officials.
Ronald A. Miller Categories: Ron Paul, Campaign For Liberty, Finance, US Constitution, Executive Power, History, State Legislation, War/Military, Economy, Monetary Policy Tags: |
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