If you want the Supreme Court to hear this argument please make a tax-deductible contribution for this purpose to the Downsize DC Foundation.

Why this is important

Statism is the belief that politicians and bureaucrats should have broad powers to use force against citizens. In its most virulent forms Statism killed more people in the 20th Century alone than all of the individual non-governmental murderers in the history of the world, COMBINED!

Professor R.J. Rummel estimates the total murderous death-toll of Statism at about 170 million people!

Not even the Black Death of the Middle Ages, or the Flu epidemic of 1918, can approach these numbers, even if you combine the totals from those two epidemics and reduce the estimate for the total number of murders committed by governments.

But the terrible statistics for Statist murder still only tell part of the story. We must add to them the statistics for the mass theft, imprisonment, and torture committed by governments against innocent people. These measurements of State criminality are even more vast, so much so that they are literally incalculable.

The State, and the belief-system that fosters its criminality — Statism — are the great scourges of human existence, against which no other source of death and destruction can remotely compare.

Of course, in reaction to all of these blood-curdling facts the fool argues that such things could never happen in this country. The same foolish belief was held by people in Russia, Germany, China, Cambodia, and a hundred other places, before such things DID happen in those countries. But such naivety is also exposed by one other crucial fact . . .

Murderous and violent crimes by the State have already been committed by our government, on a massive scale. A partial list would include . . .

• Our government’s eviction of the law-abiding Cherokees from the South Eastern U.S., the confiscation of their property, and the “Trail of Tears” Death March to Oklahoma that followed
• Repeated massacres of Indian women and children by U.S. Army death squads throughout the 19th Century
• Two hundred years of State-enforced, multi-generational captivity for Africans, and the continual rape and torture that accompanied this enslavement
• One hundred years of State-enforced segregation of Africans over broad stretches of the United States, including the unofficial collaboration by police in lynchings and beatings against unarmed African-Americans
• The mass murder of Filipinos in a campaign of colonial subjugation following the Spanish-American war (which was supposedly fought against colonialism!)
• The internment of innocent Japanese-Americans in concentration camps during World War II

The United States is indeed special, but not as special as blind, adolescent patriotism wants to believe. And what remains of our specialness is under relentless and increasing pressure. We have argued elsewhere that . . .

• President George W. Bush laid the basic infrastructure for a future police state, and that .
• President Obama has retained, and in some cases expanded, all the Bush-era policies — the PATRIOT Act, warrantless spying, REAL ID, imprisonment without due process, extraordinary rendition, etc.
• Some future crisis, or series of calamities, could deploy this infrastructure in a freedom-crushing, and perhaps even murderous way

What has made America special are the controls that our Founders erected against the kind of Statist thuggery so-loved by President Bush, President Obama, and nearly all politicians. It is true that these controls have always been incomplete, and have failed repeatedly, as in the examples cited above. But it is also true that . . .

They have worked better than any other system yet devised by mortal man.

To remain special, and to become more special, we must preserve and even enhance every protection we have against State criminality. Some of these protections could be thought of as a series of boxes . . .

• The ballot box
• The jury box
• The mail box (which DownsizeDC.org is using in its modern electronic forms because the ballot and jury boxes have become so corrupted)
• And finally, as a last resort, the cartridge (ammo) box

Cartridge boxes are what . . .

• Jews, Gypsies, Poles and Russians needed against the Nazi Statists
• Russians, Chinese, Cambodians, and countless others needed against the Communist Statists
• Filipinos and many other peoples needed against American and other colonial Statists

Cartridge boxes may also be what Americans need someday, against their own government, if current trends explode into the kind of mass Statist gangsterism that so many other societies have suffered.

Our Founders gave us the Second Amendment for exactly this purpose. They were not thinking of self-defense against individual criminals when they wrote the Second Amendment the way they wrote it, though they did not exclude that purpose. Instead, they were thinking about Statist thugs . . .

The American people were to be armed as a final defense against Statist aggression, both foreign AND DOMESTIC. There is a mountain of evidence to support this view, and we want to see the Supreme Court exposed to this evidence. Do you?

The Downsize DC Foundation is joining with Gun Owners of America and several other organizations in the MacDonald case, which challenges the handgun ban in Chicago — also being called by some, “Heller II.” With your help we will be the ONLY GROUP submitting an amicus curiae brief making the argument that the Second Amendment is much more than permission to have a handgun in your home.

If you want to see this evidence presented to the Supreme Court, please make a TAX-DEDUCTIBLE contribution for this purpose. You can do so here.

Jim Babka, President
Downsize DC Foundation

D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h
is the official email list of DownsizeDC.org, Inc. & Downsize DC Foundation

The reason Bob McDonnell beat out Creigh Deeds in Virginia was not because McDonnell represents some new style small government Republican. McDonnell won because Deeds made campaign mistakes. McDonnell made none. Deeds lost the race more than McDonnell won it.

The same is true for the New Jersey race. Corzine, a former chairman at Goldman Sachs, easily became a scapegoat for a failing economy and political corruption. So, he lost.

What Tuesday’s election results really demonstrated was a lack of conviction for either Democrats or Republicans. When the political spectrum shines red, then blue, then red, then blue, over and over again something tangible comes to light:

America is not rooting for either party to win. America is rooting for the underdog.

After 8 years of Clinton, George W. Bush was the underdog. In 2004, Bush was still the underdog largely due to his perceived strength (however false it was) in fighting “those who attacked us on 9/11″. That quickly soured so much that by 2006 the Democratic Party was the underdog so they won control of Congress. If Bush was up for re-election himself in 2006, he’d have lost.

The 2008 election cemented the underdog theory with America getting the chance to elect the first African American President. McCain, largely a Bush twin, had no chance.

Tuesday’s election results demonstrated that the Republicans are now, once again, the underdogs. This bodes well for them in the 2010 election and it could carry over to the 2012 Presidential contest. Of course, that depends on who has the perceived power at that time.

The point of this “underdog theory” is that we are not happy with the blue nor the red team. When the time comes we just want to take away power from whichever team has it.

For liberty champions this eternal game is growing extremely tiresome.

When everyone buys into the two team league yet no one wants either team to finish in first place, isn’t it time to expand the league?

It just so happens that there is a liberty-loving team already in place ready to be added to the league. Here are their names:

• Rand Paul
• David Hedrick
• Adam Kokesh
• Peter Schiff
• Ray McBerry
• Chris Simcox
• Debbie Medina
• Bill Hunt
• RJ Harris
• John Dennis
• David Ratowitz
• Jake Towne
• Randy Brogdon
• Robert Broadus
• Collins Bailey
• Jaynee Germond
• Bob Parker
• Bill Connor
• Peg Luksik

These are the candidates being celebrated today on the anniversary of Ron Paul’s 5th of November money bomb. To learn more about these candidates please check out ThisNovember5th.com. If you find a candidate you like, then please don’t hesitate to support that candidate with a generous donation.

These are the real underdogs and outcasts. Let’s help make them winners and keep them winning.

Citizens fed up with constitutional violations causing devastation to the economy and the Nation, are stepping up to join constitutional activist Robert L. Schulz, Chairman of We The People Foundation for Constitutional Education, to prepare for a modern-day Continental Congress to take place November 8-22, 2009 at the Pheasant Run Conference Center in St. Charles, Illinois.  Continental Congress 2009 is not political or partisan and seeks to defend, not amend, the current Constitution.

Billed as the “next appropriate step for the free people of America,” planners hope the historic national assembly will inspire the critical mass necessary to restore constitutional governance. 153 citizen-nominated-and-elected Delegates – three from each state and Washington, D.C. — will convene for two weeks to methodically and factually document constitutional abuses which have taken place over many years, across many administrations, every branch of government and both parties.   Delegates will consider specific non-violent, legal civic actions to stop the wrongs.

To help finance the historic event a .999 pure silver CC2009 commemorative round will be given for each donation of $100.00 or more. Planners are also seeking bigger donors they are calling the “patriotic, brave and wealthy” who “understand what Continental Congress can do for America.” Furthermore, a money bomb is also in the works.

The decision to convene CC2009 comes after fourteen years of filing Petitions for Redress with the federal government for repeated violations of the Constitution by We The People Foundation for Constitutional Education, a national 501 c3 non-profit with headquarters in New York. Schulz says The Right to petition was put in the First Amendment by the Founding Fathers, “who did not want Americans to ever again experience a situation where their individual rights or civil liberties were threatened.”  To date, this Right has never been recognized by the government nor defined in any court of law.  Schulz says it must now be used to hold elected officials accountable to the rest of the Constitution “which will shift the power from the government back to The People where it belongs.”

“Americans are waking up to the urgent need to stand strong for the Founding Principles and our Constitution, as every violation further devastates our economy and our way of life,” says Schulz.  “We all desire the same outcome: restoration of our Nation.  Continental Congress 2009 is the only strategy we see that is not political or partisan, does not rely on the electoral process, and can bring peaceful and legal solutions to our current situation.  We hope this effort can be the catalyst that brings the freedom-loving people of America together at this critical time,” he concludes.

Readers can learn more about CC2009,by going to www.cc2009.us

Also check out this video promoting the event:

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:

“The 72-hour rule is insufficient to prevent Congress from doing too much, too fast, with too little understanding. But it moves in the right direction, and its inadequacy will show why we need the REAL Read the Bills Act.”

H.R. 554 has 128 co-sponsors in the House. A discharge petition to force it to a vote has 181 of 218 signatures needed.

END OF RELEASE

Do you want the media to know about . . .

* Your role in making the “read the bills” idea into a national issue
* The defects of H. Res. 554
* The strength of the real “Read the Bills Act”

Public access websites such as Yahoo, AOL, and Lexis-Nexis will receive copies, but your contribution will determine how many individual members of the institutional news media will receive it . . .

* $250 will get it to the entire Beltway media, but . . .
* For just $750 more we can reach all of the media, all across the country, including in your area

Your contribution may determine which we’re able to do. Stake your claim. You can contribute at the DownsizeDC.org secure contribution page.

Jim Babka
President
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.

D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h
is the official email list of DownsizeDC.org, Inc.

& Downsize DC Foundation

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.

This is Judge Napolitano in his element and it is a beautiful thing. Every single American should watch these segments and heed the call to action the panelists suggest.

When the government fails to obey the rule of law within the Constitution it is up to the people to replace those oath-breakers with oath-keepers.

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJjhcMO0epc
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOFcECzuD9w

First, here is some audio from Guntalk, a weekly radio show hosted by Tom Gresham of Guntalk.tv, a wonderful resource for all gun-owners.

Gresham reveals the details of the previous incorporation-related cases and a new development that could have a bearing on whether or not the Supreme Court takes up the question. Before it was a no-brainer for the high court to hear the case, but now the 9th Circuit Court appears to be trying their hardest to make it a “brainer”. Listen to Gresham lay it all out in the audio below.

Download audio file (gresham-on-incorp-08022009.mp3)

Originally, the Constitution and Bill of Rights were a set of restraints on the federal government. The states pretty much had free reign on the laws they could enact. The states were governing themselves prior to the ratification of the Constitution. Our Founders (for the most part) tried to avoid trampling on states’ rights to self-govern. The amendments passed following the Civil War, particularly the 14th, set the stage for the trampling to begin.

In the 1890’s a series of Supreme Court decisions (for the first time) held that most of the Bill of Rights was enforceable against state governments. Applying the Bill of Rights to the states is called “incorporation”. The question then becomes should the Bill of Rights be incorporated (or apply) to the states?  (more details on Incorporation).

Upon first learning of the incorporation concept I was confused and had some questions. Didn’t the 10th Amendment make incorporation a non-starter? Then again, if the Bill of Rights was set up to enumerate (and protect) our own natural (or God-given) rights then how could those first 10 amendments not apply to the states? I’ve come to learn that there are at least two parallel universes where these kinds of questions get answered. There is reality where normal people live and work, and there is law where every letter of every word gets analyzed into oblivion.

The Supreme Court has ruled that just about every one of our first 10 amendments applies to the states. The 2nd Amendment is not the only exception but it is in the extreme minority. The Heller decision last year paves the way for the Supreme Court to rule in favor of incorporating the 2nd amendment to the states because of the following wording found in the decision:

“We find that they guarantee the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation. This meaning is strongly confirmed by the historical background of the Second Amendment. We look to this because it has always been widely understood that the Second Amendment, like the First and Fourth Amendments, codified a pre-existing right. The very text of the Second Amendment implicitly recognizes the pre-existence of the right and declares only that it ’shall not be infringed.”

Since the court recognizes that the right to bear arms is a pre-existing right, that it existed prior to the Constitution, it appears I found an answer to one of my questions. Yes, the 2nd Amendment does enumerate a natural human right. Of course, we already knew it did. Now it seems the Supreme Court knows it too.

I’m not one to favor letting the federal government stomp all over states’ rights, but given the 10th Amendment, and the plain truth that the Bill of Rights protects rights we already have as human beings, I’m strongly in favor of incorporating the entire Bill of Rights.

The problem is that our federal government ventures outside the scope of the Bill of Rights when wielding power over the states. That list includes conducting raids and arresting non-violent drug offenders in California even when state law says it is legal, coercing the states to abide by the federally mandated 55 MPH speed limit in the mid-1970’s by threatening to hold back federal transportation funds, and many others.

Recently, an amendment to force reciprocity on states to allow concealed carry permit holders to cross state lines legally while carrying failed in the Senate. This is one of those cases that would never even come up had we been following the 2nd Amendment as written. The 2nd Amendment doesn’t distinguish between concealing a gun and carrying it openly. This is why I supported the amendment even though it could be argued that it usurps some states’ rights.

I’m in favor of any law that makes an effort to enforce, in whole or in part, the Constitution of the United States of America. Such efforts give me hope that someday it will be the supreme law of the land once again.

At least Ryan McCain’s story (included below) ends well. My Brother-in-law was in a similar situation recently. His pickup truck broke down, he fixed it on the side of the road, and to test it out drove a bit and turned down a gravel road. When he turned around 3 police cars screeched into view, cops jumped out, guns drawn yelling. Apparently they thought he had stolen his own car. Of course, checking the registration didn’t stop them from taking him to the station before releasing him. This story, the Steve Beirfeldt/TSA story, the one included below, and countless others make me believe that these are not just isolated incidents. They are a disturbing trend.

Ryan McCain shared the following “isolated incident”:

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I had just flown in from Nashville, TN and was driving home from New Orleans Airport to my house in Baton Rouge, LA when I noticed a cop was behind me. I switched lanes and he switched lanes, about a minute later I switched lanes again and he did the same. At that time I decided to pull over to determine why I was being followed. As I pulled off onto the shoulder, the police officer finally turned his lights on and followed me until I came to a stop. I turned down my radio and was about to get out of the car when I heard “DRIVER, PLEASE STEP OUT OF THE CAR WITH YOUR HANDS IN PLAIN SIGHT.” I obeyed with my hands up high, parallel with each other, as I walked towards the police car.

He got out of the car and I asked him why he was tailing me. I had a suspicion it was my “GOOGLE Ron Paul” and “George Orwell said this would happen” bumper stickers but I wanted to hear the legal reason for being followed. He told me I was stopped because I was swerving and that multiple drivers called 911 to alert them of my “suspicious activity.” I denied that allegation and asked if he or any other police officer had witnessed me swerving. He said that no police officer had and instructed me to get my license, insurance and registration. This is when I was able to take the picture of the police officers from inside my car. I took 2-3 minutes to collect my thoughts and walked back to the police officer with the requested documents. By this time there were 3 police officers on the scene. The 2nd police officer (he seemed higher on the food chain) asked me where I was coming from. I ignored the question and told him that if I was not being arrested for anything I would like to get back on the road. He ignored me and asked if I had been drinking or doing drugs today. I again ignored him and asked to get back on the road if I was not being arrested. He asked why I wouldn’t the answer questions. I told him because I was not obligated to as a sovereign citizen of Louisiana. I asked him why he was asking me these questions? This went on for about a minute until I noticed the 3rd police officer on the passenger side of my car appearing to open the door.

I asked the 2nd officer if they had a warrant to search my car. He said no and the 3rd police officer came over to join the group. The 3rd officer also asked if I had been drinking or doing drugs. I again ignored the question and said I would like to return to the road if I was not being arrested. The 3rd officer (much more of an asshole than the other two) asked if he could search my car. I asked if he had a warrant. He said no and asked why I wouldn’t let him look in my car if I had nothing to hide. I asked him why would he want to search my car if there was no probable cause. He said my refusal to let him search my car was probable cause. This blew my mind. I explained to him how that is not probable cause and it was a circular argument and unless I was being arrested I would like to return to the road. I also asked if I was such a danger to others why didn’t the officer immediately pull me over right away rather than wait until I PULLED OVER TO FIND OUT WHY I WAS BEING TAILED. He then very sternly told me that warrant or not, a police dog could be here in a few minutes and we would get this squared away. I had nothing to worry about, I don’t drink or do drugs and told him I was fine with and informed him that I would be filming the entire incident (with my iPhone 3GS) so I can use it as evidence.

BTW, I suggest everyone get a iPhone 3GS. You can film something and upload it directly to YouTube from your phone. Using this feature, I don’t have to worry about my footage being thrown away by an out of control cop. Once it’s on YouTube, it’s out of their hands.

Anyways, he did not like this response and told me he was done playing games and I was going to be taken to the police station so he could get to the bottom of this. I asked why I was being arrested and was told “Disturbance of the Peace.” I asked whose peace I was disturbing and was basically ignored and put into the car of the 2nd officer. On the way to the police station I explained to the officer that my intent wasn’t to be a nuisance, I respected him and his occupation but felt my rights were being violated. He was actually very cool and didn’t defend the actions of the 3rd cop but I could sense he felt the guy went too far but he didn’t want to get into the middle of it. We discussed NAZI Germany, the Nuremberg trials, etc. He was fairly educated and without coming out and saying it I could tell he knew this was bullshit.

We get to the police station where I was cuffed to a bench in the hallway. A 4th officer came and spoke to me and we went over and over the same type of questions I had already answered by the first 3 officers. After going in circles, he left and I sat there for about an hour until the 2nd officer came over, uncuffed me and said I was free to go. I asked if I was going to be issued a ticket for swerving. He said no charges were being filed and I was free to go on my way because no officer viewed me swerving. I asked him what happened to my car. He went to check and found out it was still on the side of the road. I asked how I was going to get back to my car. He asked if a family member or friend could come get me. I said probably but this is not their problem, I was detained for no reason and expect the police department to provide me with transportation back to my car. He walked away them came back and said “let’s go.”

On the way back to my car he was a bit more open. He told me how the 3rd officer had been accused numerous times of abusing his power but never charged with anything. We started talking and he was curious why I put up all that resistance if I had nothing to hide. I went on to explain what rights, freedom and liberty really are and even shared with him websites such as dailypaul.com where he could better educate himself. He was open to this and seemed very appreciative of my cooperation. I had a spare copy of “The Anatomy of the State” in my car which I went and gave to him. I shook his hand before I walked back to my car and after about 2 hours I was finally on my way home.

I am not going to file any charges. The further away I can stay from a courthouse, the better. There are much bigger fish to fry at the moment.

What is the moral of this story?
-Know your rights.
-The path of least resistance isn’t always the best path to follow.
-Stay calm and never get belligerent with a police officer no matter how bad they are.
-The opportunity to educate others can come at very strange times.

Hopefully this will encourage others to practice civil forms of disobedience.

Ryan
Baton Rouge, Louisiana

http://www.reboottherepublic.com/

————————————————————–

Thanks Ryan for sharing your story.

by Jake Towne, the Champion of the Constitution

Originally published Tuesday, July 7, 2009 at http://www.nolanchart.com/article6603.html

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” – Mohandas Gandhi

“There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.” – Ayn Rand

“A man never tells you anything until you contradict him.” - George Bernard Shaw

Dear Congressman Dent -

I very much enjoyed the office hours you held Monday, July 6, 2009, in my hometown of Nazareth.  As you are now aware, from the comments there are very many concerned citizens in our district and the next town hall discussion will likely require a new venue as the hall was bursting full, even though the meeting was at 10 AM on a working day.

One of the items the group discussed was the fact that you did not have time to read the recent Cap and Trade Bill due to a last-minute amendment that added 300+ pages. While it is understandable that you cannot have time to read bills that are dumped last-minute on your desk before a house floor vote, I find it completely unacceptable that you have not taken steps to remedy the situation.

I also remark that in October 2008, that while you rejected the first version, you signed the Banker Bailout immediately after 332 pages of pork were added to it, as I remarked in “One Subject at a Time – Open Letter to Congressman Dent from Jake Towne“. May I inquire as to whether you read the complete text of this bill? As I listed just several of them in my last letter, I was horrified to see the pork barrel spending you approved.

I remind you that complaining about the status quo without proposing solutions is unbecoming someone of your experience who has spent the last 19 years in politics as a congressman or state senator.

As I related to you and the group yesterday, please read the “Read the Bills Act” available here from www.DownsizeDC.org. I request you to introduce this bill because I would do exactly the same in your shoes. If not, please reply by letter or email and inform me as to why not. A fuller description of the bill is listed below. I have some modifications I’d like to make to it, but if you do not support it then they won’t be of interest.

I have some further comments that I will send to you shortly. On Monday, I personally handed you paper print-outs of all of the un-replied letters and phone calls I have made to your office over the past three months. I understand you are very busy, but if you have time only to reply to one issue, PLEASE reply to me on my questions on your stance on monetary policy and the Federal Reserve.

After I asked you about monetary policy, you  did remark to me that you were very concerned about the monetization of debt that the FED is doing, and so am I.  I most recently wrote about that here “FED to Monetize Another $1.75 Trillion in 2009” last week. However, I really have not found any details of your thoughts on monetary policy, which I view as paramount.

I remain unclear about your level of economic understanding. During the town hall discussion, you mentioned a better way to stimulate the economy faster then Obama’s plan was to immediately purchase a bunch of brand-new military vehicles and ship them to Iraq. This comment completely contradicts and flaunts basic economic law, and makes me extremely uneasy. To that effect, at the end of this letter I will include a chapter from Henry Hazlitt’s “Broken Window” fallacy from Economics in One Lesson.

Please, Congressman Dent, I implore you to take a solid look at our nation’s fiat monetary policy and let me know what you think. I would be very happy to consult with you publicly or privately on this issue. I understand you probably view me as a small-time annoyance since I will be running against you in the 2010 election, but I really just want to help the people in our district, and I hope you believe this.

I also believe that the cumulative actions of Congress and the Federal Reserve are unleashing ill effects on our community such as high unemployment, continued outsourcing of our jobs, and the destruction of the purchasing power of the dollar and we MUST take steps to protect our community.

Please allow me to close this letter with three positive remarks. First, please continue with the town hall discussions, they’re great!! – but please spend more of your time listening. Second, I will thank you yet again for co-sponsoring HR 1207 to audit the FED our government does need more “sunshine” as you aptly put it. Third, thank you for voting against the Cap and Trade bill despite the fact that you believe carbon dioxide is a dangerous pollutant.  I will write you back separately on this matter.

I have also called your office and left a message on this matter with the attendant, who was quite courteous.

Sincerely, your fellow citizen,

Jake Towne

Jake Towne is running for U.S. Congress in Pennsylvania’s 15th District in the 2010 election as a citizen unaffiliated with any political parties.  Jake also writes at www.LibertyMaven.com and www.CampaignForLiberty.com.  A master campaign presentation for internet viewing is available. [Reach the Author Here!]

An interim campaign website is here while a dot com is being setup, due for release on July 15, 2009.

P.S. – The “Towne for Congress” Youtube Channel has just opened, you can view me give a speech on “Regaining Our Individual Rights” at the local July 3rd Tea Party rally here.  Text is here

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Summary of Articles and Bibliography for Jake Towne, the Champion of the Constitution (6/8/2009)

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From DownSizeDC.org’s “Read the Bills” Campaign:

For Members of Congress, fiduciary responsibility means reading each word of every bill before they vote.

But Congress has not met this duty for a long time. Instead . . .

• They carelessly pass mammoth bills that none of them have read. Sometimes printed copies aren’t even available when they vote!
• Often no one knows what these bills contain, or what they really do, or what they will really cost.
• Additions and deletions are made at the last minute, in secrecy.
• They combine unpopular proposals with popular measures that few in Congress want to oppose. (This practice is called “log-rolling.”)
• And votes are held with little debate or public notice.
• Oh, and once these bills are passed, and one of these unpopular proposals comes to light, they pretend to be shocked. “How did that get in there?” they say.

There’s a basic principle at stake here. America was founded on the slogan, “No taxation without representation.” A similar slogan applies to this situation:

“No LEGISLATION without representation.”

We hold this truth to be self-evident, that those in Congress who vote on legislation they have not read, have not represented their constituents. They have misrepresented them.

And since Congress has repeatedly committed “legislation without representation,” strong measures to prohibit these Congressional misrepresentations are both justified and required.

To this end we have created the “Read the Bills Act (RTBA).” RTBA requires that . . .

• Each bill, and every amendment, must be read in its entirety before a quorum in both the House and Senate.
• Every member of the House and Senate must sign a sworn affidavit, under penalty of perjury, that he or she has attentively either personally read, or heard read, the complete bill to be voted on.
• Every old law coming up for renewal under the sunset provisions must also be read according to the same rules that apply to new bills.
• Every bill to be voted on must be published on the Internet at least 7 days before a vote, and Congress must give public notice of the date when a vote will be held on that bill.
• Passage of a bill that does not abide by these provisions will render the measure null and void, and establish grounds for the law to be challenged in court.
• Congress cannot waive these requirements.

The effects of these provisions will be profound . . .

• Congress will have to slow down. This means the pace of government growth will also slow.
• Bills will shrink, be less complicated, and contain fewer subjects, so that Congress will be able to endure hearing them read.
• Fewer bad proposals will be passed due to “log-rolling.”
• No more secret clauses will be inserted into bills at the last moment.
• Government should shrink as old laws reach their sunset date, and have to be read for the first time before they can be renewed.

And all of these things will enable a larger DownsizeDC.org to more effectively lobby Congress for small government.

From Henry Hazlitt’s “Economics in One Lesson“:

THE BROKEN WINDOW

Let us begin with the simplest illustration possible: let us, emulating Bastiat, choose a broken pane of glass.

A young hoodlum, say, heaves a brick through the window of a baker’s shop. The shopkeeper runs out furious, but the boy is gone. A crowd gathers, and begins to stare with quiet satisfaction at the gaping hole in the window and the shattered glass over the bread and pies. After a while the crowd feels the need for philosophic reflection. And several of its members are almost certain to remind each other or the baker that, after all, the misfortune has its bright side. It will make business for some glazier. As they begin to think of this they elaborate upon it. How much does a new plate glass window cost? Fifty dollars? That will be quite a sum. After all, if windows were never broken, what would happen to the glass business? Then, of course, the thing is endless. The glazier will have $50 more to spend with other merchants, and these in turn will have$50 more to spend with still other merchants, and so ad infinitum. The smashed window will go on providing money and employment in ever- widening circles. The logical conclusion from all this would be, if the crowd drew it, that the little hoodlum who threw the brick, far from being a public menace, was a public benefactor.

Now let us take another look. The crowd is at least right in its first conclusion. This little act of vandalism will in the first instance mean more business for some glazier. The glazier will be no unhappy to learn of the incident than an undertaker to learn of a death. But the shopkeeper will be out $50 that he was planning to spend for a new suit. Because he has had to replace a window, he will have to go without the suit (or some equivalent need or luxury). Instead of having a window and $50 he now has merely a window. Or, as he was planning to buy the suit that very afternoon, instead of having both a window and a suit he must be content with the window and no suit. If we think of him as a part of the community, the community has lost a new suit that might otherwise have come into being, and is just that much poorer.

The glazier’s gain of business, in short, is merely the tailor’s loss of business. No new “employment” has been added. The people in the crowd were thinking only of two parties to the transaction, the baker and the glazier. They had forgotten the potential third party involved, the tailor. They forgot him precisely because he will not now enter the scene. They will see the new window in the next day or two. They will never see the extra suit, precisely because it will never be made. They see only what is immediately visible to the eye.

THE BLESSINGS OF DESTRUCTION

So we have finished with the broken window. An elementary fallacy. Anybody, one would think, would be able to avoid it after a few moments’ thought. Yet the broken- window fallacy, under a hundred disguises, is the most persistent in the history of economics. It is more ram- pant now than at any time in the past. It is solemnly re- affirmed every day by great captains of industry, by chambers of commerce, by labor union leaders, by editorial writers and newspaper columnists and radio commentators, by learned statisticians using the most refined techniques, by professors of economics in our best universities. In their various ways they all dilate upon the advantages of destruction.

Though some of them would disdain to say that there are net benefits in small acts of destruction, they see al- most endless benefits in enormous acts of destruction. They tell us how much better off economically we all are in war than in peace. They see “miracles of production” which it requires a war to achieve. And they see a post- war world made certainly prosperous by an enormous “accumulated” or “backed-up” demand. In Europe they joyously count the houses, the whole cities that have been leveled to the ground and that “will have to be replaced.” In America they count the houses that could not be built during the war, the nylon stockings that could not be supplied, the worn-out automobiles and tires, the obsolescent radios and refrigerators. They bring together formidable totals.

It is merely our old friend, the broken-window fallacy, in new clothing, and grown fat beyond recognition. This time it is supported by a whole bundle of related fallacies. It confuses need with demand. The more war destroys, the more it impoverishes, the greater is the p war need. Indubitably. But need is not demand. Effective economic demand requires not merely need but corresponding purchasing power. The needs of China too are incomparably greater than the needs of America . But its power, and therefore the,” new business” that it can stimulate, are incomparably smaller.

But if we get past this point, there is a chance for another fallacy, and the broken-windows usually grab it. They think of “purchasing power” merely in terms of money. Now money can be run off ‘by ‘the printing press. As this is being written, in fact, printing money is the world’s biggest industry-if the products measured in monetary terms. But the more money is turned out in this way, the more the value of any given unit of money falls. This falling value can be measured in rising prices of commodities. But as most people are so firmly in the habit of thinking of their wealth and income in terms of money, they consider themselves better off as these monetary totals rise, in spite of the fact that in terms of things they may have less and buy less. ‘Most of the “good” economic-results which people attribute to war are really owing to wartime inflation. They could be produced just as well by an equivalent peacetime inflation. We shall come back to this money illusion later.

Now there is a half-truth in the “backed-up” demand fallacy, just as there -was in the broken-window fallacy. The broken window did make more business for the glazier. The destruction of war will make more business for the producers of certain things. The destruction of houses and cities will make more business for the building and construction industries. The inability to -produce automobiles, radios, and refrigerators during the war will bring about a cumulative post-war demand for those particular products.

To most people this will seem like an increase in total demand, as it may well be in terms of dollars of lower purchasing power. But what really takes place is a diversion of demand to these particular products from others. The people of Europe will build more new houses than otherwise because they must. But when they build more , houses they will have just that much less manpower and productive capacity left over for everything else. When they buy houses they will have just that much less purchasing power for everything else. Wherever business is increased in one direction, it must (except insofar as productive energies may he generally stimulated by a sense of want and urgency) be correspondingly reduced in another.

The war, in short, will change the post-war direction of effort; it will change the balance of industries; it will change the structure of industry. And this in time will also have its consequences. There will he another distribution of demand when accumulated needs for houses and other durable goods have been made up. Then these temporarily favored industries will, relatively, have to shrink again, to allow other industries filling other needs to grow.

It is important to keep in mind, finally, that there will not merely he a difference in the pattern of post-war as compared with pre-war demand. Demand will not merely he diverted from one commodity to another. In most countries it will shrink in total amount.

This is inevitable when we consider that demand and supply are merely two sides of the same coin. They are the same thing looked at from different directions. Supply creates demand because at bottom it is demand. The supply of the thing they make is all that people have, in fact, to offer in exchange for the things they want. In this sense the farmers’ supply of wheat constitutes their demand for automobiles and other goods. The supply of motor cars constitutes the demand of the people in the automobile industry for wheat and other goods. All this is inherent in the modern division of labor and in an exchange economy.

This fundamental fact, it is true, is obscured for most people (including some reputedly brilliant economists) through such complications as wage payments and the indirect form in which virtually all modern exchanges are made through the medium of money. John Stuart Mill and other classical writers, though they sometimes failed to take sufficient account of the complex consequences resulting from the use of money, at least saw through the monetary veil to the underlying realities. To that extent they were in advance of many of their present-day critics, who are befuddled by money rather than instructed by it. Mere inflation-that is, the mere issuance of more money, with the consequence of higher wages and prices-may look like the creation of more demand. But in terms of the actual production and exchange of real things it is not. Yet a fall in post-war demand may be concealed from many people by the illusions caused by higher money wages that are more than offset by higher prices.

Post-war demand in most countries, to repeat, will shrink in absolute amount as compared with pre-war demand because post-war supply will have shrunk. This should be obvious enough in Germany and Japan , where scores of great cities were leveled to the ground. The point, in short, is plain enough when we make the case extreme enough. If England, instead of being hurt only to the extent she was by her participation in the war, had had all her great cities destroyed, all her factories destroyed and almost all her accumulated capital and consumer goods destroyed, so that her people had been reduced to the economic level of the Chinese, few people would be talking about the great accumulated and backed up demand caused by the war. It would be obvious that buying power had been wiped out to the same extent that productive power had been wiped out. A runaway monetary inflation, lifting prices a thousand fold, might none the less make the “national income” figures in monetary terms higher than before the war. But those who would be deceived by that into imagining themselves richer than before the war would be beyond the reach of rational argument. Yet the same principles apply to a small war destruction as to an overwhelming one.

There may be, it is true, offsetting factors. Technological discoveries and advances during the war, for example, may increase individual or national productivity at this point or that. The destruction of war will, it is true, divert post-war demand from some channels into others. And a certain number of people may continue to be deceived indefinitely regarding their real economic welfare by rising wages and prices caused by an excess of printed money. But the belief that a genuine prosperity can be brought about by a “replacement demand” for things destroyed or not made during the war is none the less a palpable fallacy.

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He’s actually making many great points about the horrible details in the bill.

What he is doing right now is giving great ammunition for supporting the “Read the Bills” Act in the near future.

“Is there anything that we aren’t regulating in this bill?”, Boehner yells.

At about 20 minutes in, Henry Waxman interrupted and asked how long Boehner would be permitted to speak. The chairwoman stated that it is customary to hear the leadership speak, forcing Waxman to sit down and allow Boehner to continue (to great cheers from the GOP side of the House).

We live in interesting times folks.

Please continue to contact the Reps who are on the fence regarding the bill. For a list see this page from the NTU.

The former president of Merrill Lynch, John Thain, is not happy that he was fired from B of A, even though he left a very wealthy man. He does not refute Ken Lewis’ statements. He only argues that Lewis and the B of A folks knew what Merrill Lynch was worth when they bought it. He may have inadvertently opened a new can of worms for himself: Did he knowingly sell an asset to a public company, which had received a huge federal investment, for $17 billion less than he knew it was worth?

The failure of the president of B of A  to have revealed the risks of the acquisition to shareholders, as the law requires, and his failure to exercise the MAC clause were acts of fraud and directly violate laws enforced by the SEC. As for Paulson and Bernanke, they were participants in a criminal conspiracy to defraud B of A shareholders. We also now know that the Fed in DC and its regional bank in Richmond threatened to fire Ken Lewis and his management team if B of A did not follow through with the Merrill Lynch acquisition for the full $50 billion.  This is EXTORTION. It is the threat to perform a lawful act in order to compel a person to exercise his free will adverse to his own interests or his fiduciary obligations.  Unfortunately for Ken Lewis, “the government made me do it” is not a defense to a criminal indictment. Ken Lewis, Henry Paulson, John Thain, Ben Bernanke, and Jeffrey Lacker, the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, should all be prosecuted for extortion, conspiracy to extort, criminal fraud, and theft of honest services; and they should be imprisoned if convicted.

Some claim taking a non-interventionist approach on the Iran election aftermath is the height of hypocrisy from someone who claims to believe in liberty. Ron Paul is being criticized for his lone “Nay”  vote on condemning the Iranian government’s heinous actions on it’s own people. On the surface it appears Obama is taking a similar non-interventionist approach for now, although there are some arguing the opposite may be true. Hopefully, Obama stands his ground (this time) against the interventionist opposition.

Those clamoring for intervention need to answer a few questions, but there is one question that trumps them all.

What is the endgame of intervening in Iran?

Is it the preposterous idea to enforce a fair election in another country and install Mousavi as President so the Iranian reformers can be “free”? Where in the U.S. Constitution that we claim is the supreme law of the land permits the U.S. government to intervene in another country’s election process (no matter how flawed it may be)? Of course that pesky Constitution didn’t stop us from doing something similar in Iran in 1953 and many other places over the years. In fact a good argument could be made that the reason Iranians are so “unfree” today was because of our own interventions in Iran beginning in 1953.

Furthermore, If we somehow magically install a new Iranian President but do nothing about the theocratic dictatorship with all the real power in Iran, the Iranian reformists would be no more free than they are right now.

Is the goal then to use force to remove the theocratic dictatorship and transform Iran into a… well… another version of Iraq? Yeah, that worked so well. It was done with minimal bloodshed, it only lasted a year, and it was cheap for the U.S. taxpayers. Oh never mind, that was the promise, not the reality. Doing this would mark the fourth simultaneous nation-building effort if you count Afghanistan in the mix. And I say fourth because we are most certainly doing our own version of nation-building right here in the U.S. with Obama’s “stimulus” plan in effect.

There’s nothing quite like some more nation-building to bring America back to economic prominence in the world by spending more money we don’t have!

Being a lover of liberty I can’t help but cheer for Iranian freedom with a full-throat, but that freedom can only be achieved by the Iranian people organizing and demanding it through whatever means they deem necessary. If the U.S. determines the means then the Iranians will be trading one dictator for another.

We need to focus on leading by example and diplomacy. This is yet another case where America can be that proverbial “shining city on a hill”, but only if we don’t send our military down that hill and around the world “in search of monsters to destroy“.

If you are for U.S. intervention in Iran yet getting yourself all in a lather over attending one of the Tea Parties which are dedicated to restoring our Constitution as the rule of law, may I suggest being cautious about whom you call hypocrites? As hard as it may be to believe, it is possible to support freedom around the world without intervention.

H.L. Mencken wrote:

“I believe in only one thing: liberty; but I do not believe in liberty enough to want to force it upon anyone.”

Couple that thought with Thomas Jefferson’s…

“…peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.”

and we have the best answer to the Iranian situation. To do otherwise, we may find that when all is said and done, the only tyrant remaining in the world lives and works in the White House. That is of course, if our economy can hold up that long.

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And about that lone Ron Paul vote, here is another quote from John Quincy Adams:

Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.

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UPDATE: Paul Kroenke, who wrote the article I was critical of above, has posted a clarification/follow-up that readers of this article should also read. Also note my own clarification in the comments section of that piece. In short, I apologize to Paul for misconstruing his article and offer up that I do agree with condemning the Iranian regime’s actions, but I disagree about doing so as an official act of Congress. Furthermore, my largest worry is that such condemnations will lead to eventual intervention.