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Earlier this year Utah passed a legal tender act authorizing the use of federally-minted gold and silver coins as
money within the state. Seeking to expand this idea to other states, sound
money advocates from across the country met at the University of Utah campus in
Salt Lake City on Monday, September 26, 2011 and drafted a declaration they
are urging people to circulate as far and wide as possible, but especially to
their state representatives.
Special thanks to Ron Hera
for making this issue public.
Here is the Utah Monetary Declaration:
Utah Monetary Declaration
WHEREAS, money, as a medium of exchange, a store of value, and a unit of
measure promotes economic activity, growth and productivity by facilitating
specialization and trade, the accumulation of wealth and its long-term
investment, as well as accountability in setting prices, tracking progress,
and settling accounts;
WHEREAS, natural money – precious metal coin – by virtue of its
inherent qualities of recognizability,
measurability, uniformity, divisibility, durability, portability and scarcity
has reliably retained its purchasing power, notwithstanding periodic
fluctuations, over the centuries and millennia of human history, serving as
an effective medium of exchange and store of value often without any
governmental declaration to require, legitimize or perpetuate its adoption
and operation as such;
WHEREAS, sound money, by retaining stable purchasing power over time, best
serves societal needs by substantially reducing the uncertainty of inflation
risk for creditors and deflation risk for debtors as well as encouraging saving
and investment among the general populace and benefiting the economic zone in
which it circulates by stimulating the economy and by attracting foreign
capital and commerce to the region;
WHEREAS, history attests that monopolistic monetary systems frequently
engender currency debasement, resulting in serious consequences such as lost
purchasing power, inequitable wealth redistributions, misallocation of
productive resources, and chronic unemployment, and that, as the cornerstone
of a free market and society, the right to choose, whether between suppliers
of goods and services, political parties and candidates, or between
alternative media of exchange, effectively promotes the general welfare;
WHEREAS, for the equal protection of all people, rich and poor, the open
circulation of complementary and competing currencies should be fostered and
promoted by every sovereign state, including those of The United States of
America pursuant to their monetary powers (expressly reserved in article 1,
§ 10 and in the 10th amendment of the United States Constitution) to
monetize gold and silver coin as an alternative, voluntary medium of
exchange, and as an effective check and balance against debasement of the
national currency by the national government which is constitutionally
precluded from demonetizing state legal tender, through disparate tax
treatment, discriminatory regulation, the threat of suppression and seizure,
or otherwise;
NOW THEREFORE, we the undersigned hereby declare and affirm that:
1. As an essential element of true liberty and of the pursuit of happiness in
a free society, all people enjoy the inherent and unalienable right to
lawfully acquire, hold and use as a medium of exchange whatever form or forms
of money they may prefer, including especially gold and silver coin.
2. All free and sovereign states bear the moral, political and legal
obligation not only to refrain from debasing their own currencies (except
under the most exigent circumstances) and from erecting barriers to the
unfettered circulation of monies issued under the authority of their
sovereign trading partners, but also to affirmatively defend and protect
against fraud, counterfeiting, uttering, passing off, embezzlement, theft or
neglect by requiring full transparency and accountability of all state
chartered financial institutions.
3. No tax liability nor any regulatory scheme promoting one form of money
over another should apply to: (a) the holding of any form of money, in a
financial institution or otherwise; (b) the exchange of one form of money for
any other; or (c) the actual or imputed increase in the purchasing power of
one form of money as compared to another.
4. Except in the case of governmentally assessed taxes, fees, duties,
imposts, excises, dues, fines or penalties, the authority of government
should never be used to compel payment of any obligation, contract or private
debt in any specific form of money inconsistent with the parties' written,
verbal or implied agreement, or to frustrate the intent of contracting
parties or impair contractual obligations by invalidating the application of
a discount or surcharge agreed to be dependent upon the particular medium of
exchange or method of payment employed.
5. The extent and composition of a person's monetary holdings, including
those on deposit with any financial institution, should not be subject to
disclosure, search or seizure except upon adherence to due process safeguards
such as requiring an adequate showing of probable cause to support the
issuance by a court of competent jurisdiction of a lawful warrant or writ
executed by legally authorized law enforcement officers.
We hereby urge business leaders, educators, members of the media,
legislators, government officials as well as judicial and law enforcement
officers to use their best combined efforts to reinstate and promote the
legal and commercial framework necessary to establishing and maintaining
well-functioning, sound monetary systems based on choice in currency.
The signatories hereto concur in the general principles expressed in the
foregoing declaration notwithstanding specific reservations some may have as
to how such principles should be interpreted and applied in practice.
George
F. Smith
Read
his book : The Flight of the Barbarous Relic
Visit his website
Read
his blog
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