Liberty Maven

“If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.” – Thomas Paine, “The American Crisis,” 1776

September 20th, 2009

I just returned from a fantastic and successful conference at Campaign for Liberty’s Regional Conference at Valley Forge for the past 3 days.  I will write about it later after I have a few pictures to share.

Last week YAL Arlington contacted the campaign by email and requested an interview, which I gave today.  I was pretty busy this week, so I did not have a chance to look at their website.   I had made a mistake in that I had thought YAL was limited to colleges, and after I gave the interview with Kyle, Michael, and a third person (bio info below), I was thinking to myself – “boy, for a bunch of college guys, they sure are pretty organized with their questions.”  In 40 minutes we covered everything from derivatives to the FED to income tax to the Open Office concept to doubling the size of the US House.  The two derivatives articles I referenced can be viewed here.

After the interview, I found out that these young men are all attending Arlington High School.  Take a listen and see if you agree with me!

However, I must say this is certainly NOT the first time I have been pleasantly surprised.  Perhaps the two most extreme examples of my campaign so far was meeting an 11-year-old boy gave me a run for my money with his knowledge level on the FED, and at a different meeting an 9-year-old who outdid me since she had memorized the Bill of Rights in the Constitution.  (What a show-off!!)

As I continue my campaign against an incumbent who has trampled repeatedly all over the Constitution, I must remark that surely, with smart, well-educated, young men like Kyle and Michael engaged in the fight for our liberties and freedom, America’s future will be very bright indeed!!!

http://yalarlington.org/home/podcast-2

Kyle Peabody – President

kyle@yalarlington.org

Kyle is a founding member of YAL and is currently a senior at Arlington High School. He spends his summers rowing on the USRowing Junior National Team.

Michael Lei – Vice President

michael@yalarlington.org

Michael is a founding member of YAL and is currently a senior at Arlington High School. Michael is the Senior Class Treasurer for the Class of 2010 and a senior editor of the award winning school newspaper, The Arlingtonian.  He is also the National Development Director for Year of Youth.

Originally published September 20, 2009 at http://towneforcongress.com/economy/the-open-office-an-open-letter-to-congressman-dent-1

Dear Congressman Dent -

I have noticed from my correspondence with you that you do not have time to reply back, or spend time with me personally to cover the issues I have highlighted to you. I have even gone to the admittedly rather extreme effort of attending five of your town halls and handing my eight (8) open letters to you in person, as well as sending them by email and phone (in addition to many other letters).

Again, my key concern is I have no idea where you stand on monetary policy, and as this dollar crisis unwinds I am quite concerned that you are doing absolutely nothing to help the residents of our district and our country.   In fact, the actions you are taking are having the exact opposite effect of helping.  Ranging fromyour recent approval $50+ billion in foreign aid spending (much of it military aid to countries such as Egypt, Israel, Guatemala, Jordan, Indonesia, and many, many others) to many other votes for rampant Big Government spending (like your vote last week to spend $4.125 for government sponsored research on car technology in HR 3246), your continued silence on this issue makes me conclude that you certainly do not stand for a sound money as I do.

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A recent article by Anthony Gregory in the Christian Science Monitor examines the constitutionality of Obama’s desire to intervene in the Health Care industry:

Many liberals lambasted the Bush administration on detention policy and warrantless surveillance, often arguing that they violated the Constitution. Now the Obama administration is pushing ahead with plans to require every American to purchase health insurance.

Doesn’t that also violate the Constitution?

The Constitution created a federal government limited to its enumerated powers. Everything Congress is allowed to do is spelled out in Article I. The 10th Amendment makes it explicit: “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.”

Nothing in the Constitution authorizes any federal involvement in healthcare – yet Congress may soon require everyone in America to buy insurance.

Continue reading here.

D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h

Share this message with friends: http://www.downsizedc.org/blog/could-they-speak-if-they-didn-t-lie

Quote of the Day: “How do you know a politician is lying? His lips are moving.” — a proverb

* There’s too much profit in the health insurance business
* We need more non-profit health insurance providers
* The government should foster non-profit insurance by creating co-ops

John Lott punctures these claims in a column that’s well worth reading . . .

“Given all the attacks on profit-making insurance companies, what is possibly more surprising is that by far the dominant players in the “full” insurance market are non-profits…in 29 of the 43 states that data are available for in the American Medical Association report…the dominant company in the “full” insurance market is a non-profit company. In state after state, Blue Cross and Blue Shield hold the largest market share. On average, the largest non-profits hold over half of the “full” market share in those 29 states.”

In addition, as we’ve pointed out before, profit margins for the health insurance industry rank only 85th among American business sectors!

The politicians are trying to deceive the American people in order to profit by acquiring more power over your life. And they may profit in monetary ways too. Just watch what happens if the Big Government health care bill passes . . .

A lot of politicians are going to end up with big-paying jobs as lobbyists, or on Corporate Boards in the healthcare industry when they retire. Count on it.

Please share the Lott quote above, and the fact about insurance industry profits, with your Congressional employees. Send them a letter through DownsizeDC/org’s Educate the Powerful System, using our health care campaign.

Use your personal comments to tell your Congressional employees that . . .

* We don’t need non-profit government insurance co-ops because we already have plenty of non-profit insurance providers.
* Tell them profits aren’t the problem.
* Back up your claims by cutting and pasting into your comments the Lott quote and the fact provided above about the low ranking for insurance industry profit margins.

Public pressure has already forced the politicians to moderate their claims about the number of people who lack health insurance. We can also force them to stop making deceptive claims about the need for non-profit government insurance co-ops.

If the politicians know that you know the truth, it will make them very nervous, and may even change their behavior. You can send your letter here.

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Daniel Hannan was one of the guest speakers at the Ron Paul sponsored Campaign For Liberty regional conference in Philadelphia over the weekend. In light of that it appears that Daniel Hannan has Ron Paul on his mind. Hannan wrote a piece profiling Ron Paul on his Telegraph UK blog yesterday.

Ron Paul is an unusual phenomenon: a politician who always answers questions fully and honestly. This tendency often gets him into trouble: although people say they want straight-talking representatives, they often react with horror when they get one.

Dr Paul’s ruthless application of his convictions – minimal government, localism, personal freedom and adherence to the letter of the US Constitution – alienates many of the conservatives who might have been expected to back him.

For example, although he doesn’t agree with abortion – as a GP, he says, he delivered thousands of babies, and never came across a case where a termination was necessary for the mother’s physical or psychological well-being – he insists that abortion law ought not to be a federal prerogative and, during his 2008 presidential bid, resolutely refused to give the Pro-Lifers the assurances they wanted.

Similarly, when almost every conservative legislator, including a great many Democrats, supported a law to prevent gun-shops being sued for crimes committed with weapons they had sold legally, he voted against the measure on grounds that it represented a usurpation of jurisdiction from the 50 states

You can read the rest of it here. I don’t think many can argue with Hannan’s assertions about Dr. Paul in the piece. While there is some obvious disagreement on specific issues Hannan is obviously a Ron Paul fan.

“I stand for the Restoration of the Republic, a return of Honest Money to We the People, and a swift end to the Global War of Terror. I hope you are standing beside me as this battle is joined with our domestic enemies, our very own government… If those in power actually intend the best for the American people, but their behavior is so contrary, so immoral, and so unconstitutional with my positions, the government ceases to be my government in all but name. In my writings I unceasingly demonstrate that the federal government no longer heeds the Constitution with any type of respect. An unconstitutional government is not my “friend” or “protector” or “mommy;” it is my bitter enemy.”

- My personal vow from my October 3, 2008 article on the passage of the bailout bill

Originally published September 16, 2009 at http://towneforcongress.com/economy/bailout-and-corporatism-plank-1

I opposed all the unconstitutional bailouts and stimulus plans of the Republican-Democratic Establishment. I stand against government-assisted cartelization of our nation’s industries and businesses. The actions taken so far by the government will only serve to worsen the economy. Government’s responsibilities should be limited to establishing a framework of laws to protect individuals from fraud, coercion, and aggression against the rights of individuals — life, liberty, and justly acquired property.

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On Friday, September 25th the House Financial Services Committee has scheduled a full committee hearing on Ron Paul’s HR.1207 to audit the Federal Reserve. The hearing is slated to begin at 9am eastern time. For details and a link to the (eventual) live streaming video of the hearing check out the committee website.

As with many of these committee hearings the schedule is tentative and right now there are no witnesses listed.

By now we know what the opponents of the bill will argue, but it doesn’t change the fact that the bill has over 290 bipartisan cosponsors and 75% of the American people want a Fed audit.

The conditions are ripe for passing some form of Federal Reserve audit. Rahm Emanuel has been criticized for not wanting to allow our economic “crisis to go to waste”. In turn, Obama has largely been capitalizing on his honeymoon in popularity coupled with the economic crisis to push his agenda through Congress. The health care debate has stifled that strategy for now.

Without the economic crisis I doubt Ron Paul’s Fed audit bill would have more than 290 cosponsors. So, in a way, Ron Paul is not letting this crisis go to waste either. It is a perfect bill for the America we live in today.

It is Ron Paul’s job to convince others that his bill would not allow Congress to interfere with monetary policy. This is the lone argument against his bill and it’s quite a weak argument.

Friday’s hearings mark a major battle in the long term effort to “End the Fed“.

by Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital and author of The Little Book of Bull Moves in Bear Markets

As we pass the one year anniversary of the fall of Lehman Brothers, journalists, politicians and market analysts have seized on the occasion to offer seemingly sober assessments of what went wrong and what went right in the lead up and aftermath of the biggest financial event since Black Tuesday.

The most popular storyline offered by these Monday morning quarterbacks is that the mistaken decision to allow Lehman to fail resulted from the Bush Administration’s misplaced faith in the free markets. In this telling, the real crises began in the days following the Lehman bankruptcy, which unleashed a financial panic that would have caused complete economic collapse – if not for the subsequent federal intervention.

In reality, Lehman’s demise was simply the result of an unfolding crisis that began years before. Popular belief aside, allowing the institution to succumb to the overwhelming debts on its balance sheet was perhaps the only correct decision made by government since this crisis began. The propagandists’ complete reversal of cause and effect now threatens to spur the government to compound prior mistakes and bring on the next phase of the financial crisis. Unfortunately, this chapter will likely be much more dangerous than what we saw last fall.

In March of 2008, in the aftermath of the Bear Sterns “bailout” (which itself was a major mistake), equity shareholders walked away with a generous ten dollars per share, all creditors were made whole, and most employees got jobs and bonuses from JP Morgan. As a result of this largess, the Fed created a very serious problem for itself. After Bear, the perception took hold that investment banks were too “interconnected” to fail. The resulting moral hazard decreased the financial stability of the banking system and exposed taxpayers to open-ended risks. The Bush administration rightly determined that a message needed to be sent that Bear was an isolated case, and that capitalism still held sway on Wall Street. The fall of Lehman, which was helped along by the unrealistic recalcitrance of its chairman Richard Fuld, would be that clear signal.

However, politics quickly trumped economics, and the Lehman trial balloon soon turned into the Hindenburg. Washington had no stomach for the ensuing financial carnage, and when other institutions began to topple, Bush, Paulson and Bernanke abandoned their prior convictions and threw all they had into the ensuing bailout bonanza. As a result, the moral hazard that they had sought to avoid now exists on a scale unprecedented in our history. Capitalism has been extinguished on Wall Street, and our financial institutions now exist as public utilities. The presidents of our biggest banks are now the highest paid civil servants in the world!

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Judge Andrew Napolitano takes a look at the Wilson fiasco from a different angle than most of the mainstream media, which tends to focus on the “respect” that the [office of the] President of the Unites States “deserves”.  The Judge points out that Wilson shouted “you lied!” while the president was claiming that illegal aliens would not receive health care benefits under the “public option” proposal, and then examines this with respect to the Constitution’s “Equal Protection” provision.

The Constitution imposes on the government numerous burdens that we as individuals do not have. For example, I can tell my nephew to keep quiet at the dinner table because I don’t like what he said about grandma, but the First Amendment prevents the government from keeping him silent on a street corner when he criticizes it. Similarly, I can give a gift to some of my nephews and nieces because they are great kids, but I don’t need to give gifts of equal value, since I can spend my money on gifts however I wish. But the government has some burdens here that individuals do not. The Constitution requires that the government treat all persons similarly situated in a similar manner. This is the essence of “Equal Protection,” which the Constitution requires of the states and the federal government.

Napolitano goes on to cite case-law in which the Supreme Court has ruled that states may not deny people the right to an education based on citizenship status, and undoubtedly  “an education is in the same class of social benefits as providing health care.”  He points out that Obama with all his collegiate accolades certainly must know this.

Can anyone really suggest that the Harvard Law School-educated University of Chicago-employed professor of constitutional law did NOT know the law when he contended that the Congress can keep universal health care away from illegals? He must have known that, short of amending the Constitution to re-define “persons” and “Equal Protection”, whatever the Congress makes available by way of social services to the general population, it must make available to all persons.

There is no question that under the present law, Congress simply cannot pick and choose which “persons” to whom it will afford social benefits and to which “persons” it will not. How could the president not have known that?

Read Judge Napolitano’s article at FoxNews.com.

The American Conservative has posted an except of Ron Paul’s new book End the Fed in which Paul gives a short history of our nation’s monetary policy and how the Fed came to be. Then of course he goes on to explain why the Fed is the #1 culprit in why our currency has lost 95% of its value in the past 95 years.

But how much do we really know about what goes on inside the Fed? Even with the newest round of bailouts, journalists had difficulty determining where the money was coming from and where it was headed. From its founding in 1913, secrecy and inside deals have been part of the way the Fed works.

It says that its job is to keep inflation in check. But this is like the car industry claiming to control road congestion. The Fed might attempt to stop the effects of inflation, namely rising prices. But under the old definition of inflation—an artificial increase in the supply of money and credit—the reason for its existence is to generate more, not less.

The banking industry has always had trouble with the idea of a free market that provides opportunities for both profits and losses. The first part, the industry likes. The second is another matter. That is the reason for the constant drive in American history toward the centralization of money, a trend that not only benefits the largest banks with the most to lose from a sound-money system, but also the government, which is able to use an elastic system as an alternative form of revenue support.

Whenever instability turns up, we see efforts to socialize the losses, but rarely do people question the source of instability. Economist Jesús Huerta de Soto places the blame on the institution of fractional-reserve banking. This is the notion that depositors’ money in use as cash may also be loaned out for speculative projects, then re-deposited. The system works as long as people do not attempt to withdraw their money all at once. In the face of such a demand, banks turn to other banks to provide liquidity. But when the failure becomes system-wide, they turn to government.

Read the full excerpt here, and then purchase the hardcover version of End the Fed for only $12.09 here.