Liberty Maven

When thinking of unconstitutional federal agencies I’d like to abolish, so many come to mind: IRS, DEA, Dept of Education, etc.

But what about the department of energy? A little snippet from Doug Casey’s Daily Dispatch answer this one quite succinctly:

Does anybody remember the reason given for the establishment of the Department of Energy…. during the Carter Administration? Anybody? No?

Didn’t think so! Ready??It was very simple… and at the time, everybody thought it very appropriate.
The  Department of Energy was instituted on 8-04-1977… to lessen our dependence on foreign oil.

Hey, pretty efficient, huh???

And now it’s 2009 – 32 years later – and the budget for this “necessary” department is at $24.2 billion a year. They have 16,000 federal employees and approximately 100,000 contract employees. And look at the job they have done!

Good ole bureaucracy.

And now we are going to turn the banking system, healthcare, and the auto industry over to the same government? Hellooo! Anybody home?

D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h

You should ask Congress to give you the same option for your own transactions. Otherwise, you risk losing everything you’ve worked for.

Send another letter to Congress asking them to repeal the legal tender law that forces you to do business ONLY in Federal Reserve Notes. In your personal comments use the latest news about countries dropping the dollar for oil transactions.

Here’s what I wrote in my letter to Congress . . .

Several countries are making plans to stop using Federal Reserve Notes for oil purchases. I want the same freedom for my personal transactions.

The Fed has nearly doubled the money supply since last Fall. This will cut the future value of my savings in half and send my cost of living through the roof. Add to that . . .

* The $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities for Social Security and Medicare
* Your big bailout schemes,
* Your so-called stimulus package,
* Your cap and trade boondoggle,
* Your disastrous healthcare plans, and the result is . . .

I see no hope for the dollar. You guys have ruined our currency, and I WANT OUT.

If foreigners can stop using Federal Reserve Notes, I should have the same freedom. Why should foreigners have more right to control their own economic destiny than I do?

Many in Washington claim they want to protect the Fed’s independence. What about my independence? I just want you to repeal the legal tender law so I can use forms of money other than Federal Reserve Notes (like gold and silver for instance). Doing this would also moderate the Fed’s behavior. If they want me to keep using Federal Reserve Notes then they’ll have to stop their legalized counterfeiting activities.

Please represent me. Break the Federal Reserve’s money monopoly. Give me the same right that foreigners have.

You can send your own letter to Congress using DownsizeDC.org’s Educate the Powerful System.

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D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h

Quote of the Day: “Quality questions create a quality life. Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers.” — Anthony Robbins

Now that the concept of requiring Congress to read the bills has caught on, it’s being seriously debated.

Some are pretending that they have THE objection that demonstrates how “silly” it is to require members of Congress to pause and read their bills. They write things like,

“Would you also require the legislator to understand the bill? Or is mere reading, with no comprehension, enough? And if comprehension is required, how much comprehension is required, and how would you test that?”

This clever questioner is asking a question to which he already knows the answer. But it has nothing to do with a well-designed law to Read the Bills.

Would this questioner oppose the Constitution because…

* Politicians don’t like to be constrained by it?
* Incumbents have too much important work to do and that document gets in the way?

Sometimes people try to sound clever, and manage to do so, by half. But we should instead ask a better question.

Can we rely on the good nature and intelligence of persons handed the immense power to legislate the lives of others?

No, we can’t. This is not an attack against politicians. No human being can understand all the details they’re called upon to understand. Others will have to help them with details. So let’s ask an even better question:

“Should well-informed citizens be able to help Congress understand the bills, or should Congress only listen to lobbyists?”

Members of the media, watchdog groups, and YOU should be able to view the bill and see what they’re up to — before they get to vote.

DownsizeDC.org’s Read the Bills Act (RTBA) allows citizens to express not only their opinion on how Congress should vote on a bill, but why. RTBA requires . . .

1. A seven day waiting period before a bill is voted on
2. Posting the bill online for every Internet user to read

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D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h

Quote of the Day: “I want a government small enough to fit inside the Constitution.” — DownsizeDC.org co-founder Harry Browne (1933-2006)

You can read our response here.

What we didn’t mention in the previous Dispatch was the Constitutional problem of the War on Drugs. That’s because . . .

Many people seem not to care what the Constitution requires. Today’s message is for those who do care.

Drug control is NOT a Constitutional power of the federal government. At the very most the federal government could, perhaps, ban the importation of drugs, and prohibit their sale across state lines under the Commerce Clause of Article I, Section 8.

But nowhere in the Constitution is Congress empowered to prohibit the sale or possession of any item within state boundaries. The Tenth Amendment dictates that whatever Congress is not empowered to do must be left to the States, or to the people. This means Congress cannot . . .

* forbid the personal possession or use of drugs
* prohibit drug sales within the same state
* intervene in other countries with money or troops to fight undeclared drug wars

This means that drug prohibition laws can only exist at the state level. Imagine what could happen if some states had no prohibition laws, while other states had prohibition laws of differing severity. Competing claims about drug prohibition could be tested, in the real world. As it is . . .

Federal prohibition laws not only prohibit the sale and use of drugs, they also prohibit us from learning what would work best.

The 10th Amendment’s Constitutional restrictions on federal power used to be well-known and understood. For instance, those who wanted to prohibit alcohol in the 1910’s knew that the Constitution didn’t give Congress the power to do this. So they had to pass the 18th Amendment, ratified in 1919.

Alcohol prohibition was a failure, so in 1933 the 21st Amendment repealed the 18th Amendment.

If prohibiting alcohol required a Constitutional Amendment, how does prohibiting other drugs NOT require a Constitutional Amendment?

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What an interesting discussion Judge Napolitano had with the wonderful Robert Higgs on Freedom Watch last Friday.  They discuss how Barack Obama is more easily compared to Herbert Hoover than FDR.

Speaking of Robert Higgs, he will deliver a lecture on Monday evening at George Mason University. The event is free and is hosted by the Mason Economics Club and the Future of Freedom Foundation. For more details see the FFF web site and scroll down to the events section.

D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h

Subject: Our first press release to the national media

Your work has made “reading the bills” a national issue. You accomplished this with zero help from the media. Now Congress and other groups are piggy-backing on your work, attempting to steal both your steam and your thunder, pushing non-reforms like H. Res. 554. Do you . . .

* Want to stake a claim to the results of your work and the need for the real “Read the Bills Act?”
* Let the media know what the “real deal” is

If so, here’s what we want to send to the national media early next week . . .

“It will pave the way for our Read the Bills Act,” declared Jim Babka, President of DownsizeDC.org.

DownsizeDC.org created its “Read the Bills Act” (RTBA) in 2005. Constituents have bombarded their representatives in Congress with a quarter-million letters supporting RTBA. Babka has also presented it to beltway groups.

“Public pressure and my presentations are what led the Republicans to pick-up ‘reading the bills’ as a talking point. But when the people witness how worthless their approach is, demands to pass our RTBA will increase.”

The 72-hour rule makes cosmetic changes to House rules.

House members are supposed to receive readable copies of bills three days before a vote. The rule is rarely followed.

The rule changes that time requirement from 3 days to… 72 hours.

It also requires that the public gets the bill at the same time. Babka likes this real change, however…

“It’s only a rule; not a law. So it can be waived in many instances, and doesn’t apply in others. There’s no enforcement mechanism to penalize Congress when they violate their rules. And three days isn’t nearly enough time to read the monster-sized bills Congress routinely passes.”

DownsizeDC.org’s ‘Read the Bills Act’ can’t be waived and requires Congress to…

* Read the entire bill out-loud before a quorum
* Post all bills on the Internet for seven days before voting

If ignorance of the law is no defense for citizens, such ignorance must not be permitted to Congress. That’s why RTBA also provides citizens with a solid legal defense against laws passed in violation of these requirements. Babka concluded:
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D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h

Quote of the Day: “While few would argue that criminals ought to be able to keep the proceeds of their crimes, civil forfeiture allows the government to seize and keep property without actually having to prove a crime was committed in the first place. . . . Proceeds from civil forfeiture at the state and local level usually go back to the police departments and prosecutors’ offices, giving them a clear and unmistakable incentive to seize as much property as often as possible.” – Radley Balko

Such outrages are nothing new in the War on Drugs, but we’re seeing more abuses as criminal law becomes increasingly federalized. For instance, federal agents are now exploiting the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act to seize bank accounts and computers.

The leader of a new Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering task force admits that unlike criminal cases where the suspect is presumed innocent until proved guilty, in civil asset forfeiture cases . . .

* if you lose property to an asset forfeiture seizure you must prove your innocence in order to get it back
* you have no 5th amendment protections — even your silence can be used against you

Civil asset forfeiture is also alive and well at the local level, where police steal money from citizens in order to pay for new equipment.

Under Illinois law, the state can withhold cash, cars, or other property for six months without even a preliminary hearing! Under the law, three innocent people had to wait over a year to get their cars back. They, along with three innocent people who had money stolen from them, have argued the Constitutionality of the Illinois law.

The “good” news is that this law will be argued in the Supreme Court this month in Alvarez v. Smith.

The bad news is that the most positive outcome is likely to be only a reduction of the time you must wait before a preliminary hearing. The Court isn’t expected to strike down the law, even though civil asset forfeiture proceedings clearly violate the 14th Amendment provision that no state “can deprive any person of . . . property, without due process of law.”

Congress can do what the Court will not. Tell your representatives to abolish Civil Asset Forfeiture using our Educate the Powerful System.

Use your personal comments to mention the example of the widow who may lose her home because her now dead husband grew marijuana that he used to ease his pain from cancer.

You can send your message here.

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This is very good news for gun rights fighters. The Supreme Court has accepted the case to answer the question on whether the 2nd Amendment applies, or is “incorporated”, to the states.

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court agreed Wednesday to decide whether strict local and state gun control laws violate the Second Amendment, ensuring another high-profile battle over the rights of gun owners.

The court said it will review a lower court ruling that upheld a handgun ban in Chicago. Gun rights supporters challenged gun laws in Chicago and some suburbs immediately following the high court’s decision in June 2008 that struck down a handgun ban in the District of Columbia, a federal enclave.

The new case tests whether last year’s ruling applies as well to local and state laws.

While this is good news for hopeful gun rights activists it raises questions for die hard Constitutionalists. The dirty details of “incorporation” reveals some divisions among us. I’ve previously discussed my own thoughts on “incorporation”, but I can certainly understand the opposing viewpoint. The question came up earlier this year when the states rights argument was utilized by the anti-gun rights Senators in reference to the Thune amendment that would have permitted concealed carry reciprocity between the states.

The conventional wisdom is that the Supreme Court has a very good chance of voting in favor of 2nd Amendment incorporation. Perhaps, the more interesting thing, similar to Heller, will be what the majority opinion says at the conclusion of the case.

Glenn Beck had Ron Paul on his radio show this morning to discuss Paul’s new book “End the Fed“. The discussion turned toward predicting what America will look like within the next 3-5 years. Unsurprisingly both Beck and Paul do not have a rosy prognostication. In fact their discussion was downright scary.

The discussion lasts about 14 minutes. Following the interview Beck reiterates that he doesn’t agree with Ron Paul on some things, but when it comes to the Fed Glenn says he is “Dead Right.” Following that Beck goes into a discussion on foreign policy as it relates to Afghanistan.

Listen to the audio below.

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Ron Paul appeared on Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central last night to discuss his new book “End the Fed“. It was quite a stellar interview. Paul used the opportunity to educate Jon Stewart’s viewers about moral hazard, among other topics.