Disclaimer:
This article neither constitutes nor should it be relied upon
as legal, investment or tax advice.
Almost
everyone uses the dollar to calculate, plan and settle transactions in the
United States and beyond. Likewise feet or meters are commonly used to
calculate, plan and construct many building and engineering projects.
If units of length were
mired in definitional chaos then the buildings and
other contraptions humanity builds would be unsound, unstable and
prone to chronic failure. But when it comes to units of monetary calculation
the current worldwide state of definitional chaos, a floating illusion
currency system, is taken for granted. Therefore, is it any surprise
then that the current worldwide monetary system is unsound and unstable
resulting in a chronically failing system?
IRS V.
KAHRE
Robert
Kahre, a dutiful Atlas, is once again being leeched by immoral tax
eaters in United
States District Court. Earlier in 2007 he was harassed because of
his use of a particular
type of legal tender. In his construction business Kahre
used gold and silver instead of the predominant brand of paper tickets.
Two
years earlier nine people were tried with Kahre for over 160 counts and there
was not a single conviction. As if in complete disregard for the
principle of res judicata he is once again being assailed by parasites.
At issue is how Kahre is to define the dollar because a $50 gold coin
and a $50 Federal Reserve Note do not have equal purchasing power.
WHAT IS
A DOLLAR?
Dr.
Edwin Vieira, J.D. holds four degrees from Harvard and practices law before
the United States Supreme Court. I highly recommend reading Dr.
Vieira’s entire essay, What Is A Dollar?, which is quoted only in small part
here:
2. Do
the present monetary statutes intelligibly define the
“dollar’”?
Unfortunately,
the present monetary statutes do not define the “dollar” in an
intelligible fashion.
a. Federal Reserve Notes. Most
people associate the noun “dollar” with the Federal Reserve Note
(“FRN”) “dollar bill,” engraved with the portrait of
President George Washington. This association is mistaken.
No
statute defines – or ever has defined – the “one dollar”
FRN as the ”dollar,” or even as a species of
“dollar.” Moreover, the United States Code provides
that FRNs “shall be redeemed in lawful money on demand at the Treasury
Department of the United States * * * or at any Federal Reserve bank.”4 Thus, FRNs are not themselves
“lawful money” – otherwise, they would not be
“redeemable in lawful money.” And if FRNs are not even
“lawful money,” it is inconceivable that they are somehow
“dollars,” the very units in which all “United States money
is expressed.”5
b. United States coins. The
situation with coinage is more complex, but equally (if not more) confusing.
The United States Code provides for three different types of
coinage denominated in “dollars”: namely, base-metallic coinage,
gold coinage, and silver coinage.
c. Currency of “equal
purchasing power”. The UnitedStates
Code provides no answer to this perplexing question. Indeed, it mandates
that the question should not even be capable of being asked. For the Code commands
that “the Secretary [of the Treasury] shall redeem gold certificates
owned by the Federal reserve banks at times and in amounts the Secretary
decides are necessary to maintain the equal purchasing power of each
kind of United States currency.14
The
term dollar
is used in Article 1 Section 9 Clause 1 and the Seventh Amendment.
Neither the slave-trade faction nor the right to trial by jury would
have accepted these provisions without a clear definition of what the dollar
is.
Therefore,
their support of these provisions inferentially establishes what a literal
reading of them straightforwardly suggests: to wit, that the noun
“dollar” refers, not to a mere name applicable to whatever
Congress whimsically might decide thereafter to call a “dollar,”
but instead to a particular coin so familiar in American experience as to be
beyond political transmogrification. … Obviously,
Jefferson’s free-market, scientific approach is a world apart from the
arbitrary way in which Congress has set up the mutually incompatible and
internally irrational sets of silver, gold, and base- metallic coins that
exist today.
2) The
Coinage Act of 1792. Little more than a year after
Hamilton’s Report, Congress
enacted its principles into law.
Section
9 of the Coinage Act of 1792 contained the monetary definitions
for the United States monetary system and defined
DOLLARS
or UNITS – each to be of the value of a Spanish milled dollar as the
same is now current, and to contain three hundred and seventy one grains and
four sixteenth parts of a grain of pure, or four hundred and sixteen grains
of standard silver.
Section
19 provides the death penalty for government officials who debase the
coinage.
THE
RON PAUL EFFECT
During
the 2008 Republican Presidential Primaries it was often cited that
Congressman Ron Paul has not accomplished anything regarding legislation
during his decades in Washington. Well, Dr. Paul is a like Spanish Moss
that clings to a roadside sign, refusing to go away and as a result has
harrowed the ground and laid powerful seeds for helping the American people with
how
to buy silver and gold.
To my
knowledge the only legislation he has introduced that has been approved and
enacted is Public Law 99-185 and Public Law 99-61 which provide under 31
United States Code 5,112:
(e)
- Notwithstanding any
other provision of law, the Secretary shall mint and issue, in quantities sufficient to meet
public demand, coins which— (1) are 40.6 millimeters in diameter and weigh 31.103 grams; (2) contain .999 fine silver; (3) have a design— (A) symbolic of Liberty on the
obverse side; and (B) of an eagle on the reverse side;
(h)
- The coins issued under this title shall
be legal tender as provided in
section 5103 of this title.
(i) (1) Notwithstanding
section 5111 (a)(1) of this title, the Secretary shall mint
and issue the gold coins described in paragraphs (7), (8), (9), and (10) of
subsection (a) of this section, in quantities
sufficient to meet public demand, and
such gold coins shall— (A) have
a design determined by the Secretary, except that the fifty
dollar gold coin shall
have— (i) on
the obverse side, a design symbolic of Liberty; and (ii) on
the reverse side, a design representing a family of eagles, with the male
carrying an olive branch and flying above a nest containing a female eagle
and hatchlings; (B) have
inscriptions of the denomination, the weight of the fine gold content, the
year of minting or issuance, and the words “Liberty”, “In
God We Trust”, “United States of America”, and “E
Pluribus Unum”; and (C) have
reeded edges.
Dr. Paul has
given America an easy path for clearing up the monetary chaos and it would
require the adoption of gold and silver as currency in ordinary daily
transactions. This would be extremely easy with digital commodity
currency services like GoldMoney. Dr. Vieira has
even authored a bill for States to use in adopting the use of digital
gold and silver currencies as legal tender. But instead it appears that
America will choose the hard path.
JOHN
LAW PROVOKES THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
Harvard
Professor Niall Ferguson wrote on page 149 of The Ascent Of Money:
Not
surprisingly, some people began to anticipate a depreciation of the
banknotes, and began to revert to payment in gold and silver. Ever the
absolutist, Law’s initial response was to resort to compulsion.
Banknotes were made legal tender. The export of gold and silver
was banned as was the production and sale of gold and silver objects.
By the arrêt of 27 February 1720, it became illegal for a private
citizen to possess more than 500 livres of metal coin. The authorities
were empowered to enforce this measure by searching people’s houses.
Voltaire called this ‘the most unjust edict ever rendered’
and ‘the final limit of a tyrannical absurdity’.
As
Congressman Ron Paul said on 19 May 2009 before the Congress:
The
sad part of all this is that we have forgotten what made America great, good,
and prosperous. We need to quickly refresh our memories and once again
reinvigorate our love, understanding, and confidence in liberty. The status
quo cannot be maintained, considering the current conditions. Violence and
lost liberty will result without some revolutionary
thinking.
We
must escape from the madness of crowds now gathering. The good news is the
reversal is achievable through peaceful and intellectual means and,
fortunately, the number of those who care are growing exponentially.
Of
course, it could all be a bad dream, a nightmare, and that I’m
seriously mistaken, overreacting, and that my worries are unfounded. I hope
so. But just in case, we ought to prepare ourselves for revolutionary changes
in the not-too-distant future.
The
pattern is common. Like the scoundrel John Law the
ultra-scoundrel King George issued Writs of Assistance which provoked
the American Revolution. When those exercising monetary rights are
punished under penalty of death by criminal gangs costumed in government
regalia then the reaction by the populace is usually the legitimate use of
deadly force in self-defense.
Perhaps there is a need after all for survivalism in the suburbs as the probability of
disturbing events increases. It may be wise to at least pick
up a 72 hour kit.
CONCLUSION
American
monetary jurisprudence is in utter disarray being mutually incompatible and
internally irrational. Criminal gangs costumed in government regalia
are strutting around with their IRS hats harassing, intimidating and
threatening with deadly force completely peaceful producers who are acting
completely within the bounds of the internally irrational law.
The Great Credit
Contraction has begun and will likely lurch from the financial to the
economic to the social to the political to the geo-political and most likely
culminate in geo-strategic chaos. Dr. Vieira has authored a suitable
bill States could adopt to help America find her way home with less pain.
These undesirable future realities need not unfold. If the
costumed criminal gangs that swore to uphold the United States Constitution had
a shred of integrity and honored their oath then much of the misery could
easily be avoided.
But
while the baton, taser, assault rifle or stealth bomber may be used in lieu
of conversation words will always retain their power. Ideas can only be
overcome by other ideas. Words proffer the instruments to meaning.
Equity, freedom, justice, peace and prosperity. These are not
mere words; they are vantage points.
As
fiat currency acts like the common stock of the issuing nation and because
during this decade the FRN$ has been evaporating at an ever increasing pace
against the ancient metal of kings it is no surprise that the probability for
‘revolutionary changes’ is increasing. As the situation
intensifies the purchasing power of gold will continue increasing while the
purchasing power of the FRN$ will continue evaporating.
Disclosure:
Long physical gold and silver with neither a position in the problematic GLD and SLV ETFs nor
any association whatsoever, except perhaps that of victim via
assault and robbery, with any of these aggressive sociopathic criminal gangs
costumed in government regalia.
P.S.
Because individuals are endowed with certain unalienable rights and
because the people use those rights to create governments therefore it
follows that people should not be afraid of their governments but that
governments with their silly little costumes should be afraid of the people.
Trace Mayer
RuntoGold.com
Trace Mayer,
J.D., holds a degree in Accounting from Brigham Young University, a law
degree from California Western School of Law and studies the Austrian school
of economics. He works as an entrepreneur, investor, journalist and monetary
scientist. He is a strong advocate of the freedom of speech, a member of the
Society of Professional Journalists and the San Diego County Bar Association.
He has appeared on ABC, NBC, BNN, many radio shows and presented at many
investment conferences throughout the world.
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