When the US Government Gets Desperate, They'll Steal Your Money!

I'm not speaking of indirect theft through taxation, bailouts, or inflation due to government interference in the real free-market. I'm talking about robbery through coercive force.

Investors and everyday wage laborers have long tried to protect their assets through the conversion of week or unstable government currencies into gold and silver. Why? For many reasons, but in the simplest terms:

1. Gold & silver have always been accepted world wide as a valid currency.
2. Gold & silver have traditionally increased in value when the dollar (or any fiat paper currency for that matter) falls due to inflation.

For these reasons, if no others, many people today are flocking to precious metals due to the current economic crisis. What many do not realize however is that twice in American history the government has invoked emergency powers and confiscated, by force if necessary, the people's gold (and at a later date silver). And what compensation do the people receive? The face-value of the coins in question. So, if you purchased an American Silver Eagle (1 troy oz of 99.9% pure silver) today you might pay almost $30 (even though the current spot price is around $12.75) and, if the US gov were to confiscate it today, would pay you only $1. And gold? A 1oz US double eagle, market value of almost $1000 would bring you a mere $50 of rapidly depreciating paper.

Don't believe me? View the 1933 executive order from your favorite Socialist and mine, FDR! So much for asset protection!

Do you really think it can not happen again?

When it comes, it will come wrapped in the flag and a solemn face. It will come with a promise that it is necessary to protect our freedom. It will come with the phrase, "I believe in the free-market, but ...." And all those who do not rush to the bank's doors, throw their gold and silver at the feet of their sovereign, while out of love for the State their hearts burst forth with adoration thanking their country for the opportunity to serve, will be labeled unpatriotic or even traitors punishable by heavy fines (possibly requiring more confiscation) and imprisonment.

Welcome to tyranny.

About Men and Presidents

Given the salvific and almost messianic accolades given to President Barack Hussein Obama upon his election and inauguration, I thought it wise to share this quote in the hopes that it would bring some back down to earth. Enjoy!

(The following is excerpted from Country Squire in the White House, by John T. Flynn)

1
A Tide and a Name

THE CITIZEN WHO SETS ABOUT forming a judgment on a president—something every American citizen is called upon to do—must brush away many illusions, good ones and bad.

A president is a party leader. His own party is forever busy displaying him in a favorable light. The opposition party is equally busy blotting out these friendly colors and putting in others of a more forbidding hue. Both hire publicity men; both have powerful journals on their side. One party woos the imagination of the voter with ceaseless stories of the leader's wisdom, benevolence, courage and vision. The other as continuously exploits fictitious tales of his folly, selfishness, weakness and shortsightedness. In the end the figure that emerges is apt to be very far from corresponding with the flesh-and-blood occupant of the White House.

It is probable that no such person ever lived as that strong, silent combination of homespun wisdom and superhuman cunning known as Calvin Coolidge. The figure in the public mind was created by advertising, publicity, twice-told tales. The image that most people had in their heads and that they named Calvin Coolidge was as completely a fiction as Lydia Pinkham, Father John, Dr Munyon or any of the other characters of advertising fiction. One can get a picture of the true Calvin Coolidge— the man who really existed, not the imaginary one in the White House—by reading that delightful and wise biography by William Allen White, A Puritan in Babylon.

To be fair, however, we must recognize that much of this fiction about presidents is not the work of paid propagandists. There is the unconscious propaganda that newspapers, radio, movies and people generally carry on without plan or direction from anybody. Republican critics of Mr Roosevelt are greatly wroth at what they call the "five hundred newspaper publicity men carried on the pay rolls of various New Deal bureaus, passing out daily hand-outs to the press proclaiming the glories of the New Deal." But they seem to me unduly disturbed. It is of course true that the President has organized an immense battalion of publicity men in the numerous bureaus of the government. But it is doubtful if all this army of puffers accomplish very much for or against their chief. A far more effective force is to be found in the wholly uncontrolled, undirected build-up that takes place with very little external stimulation in the minds of the people.

The office of the president is the most powerful on earth. No sooner is a man made president than he is at once caught up in a glamorous cloud of popular esteem. The people generally pay homage to the great office. But men do not distinguish very nicely between the office and the man. And so the man himself becomes the beneficiary of the esteem that originates in the office he holds.

He moves about amid scenes of power. Senates, courts, diplomats rise at his approach. Multitudes gather to see the human being who wields such power. Everything he does, even his slightest whisper, is reported. If he speaks publicly, every radio station carries his words to every home. If he has a fine voice, like the President, the effect will be attributed to that. But we must remember that people gathered reverently around their loudspeakers to listen to the dry, rasping Yankee cackle of Calvin Coolidge coming through primitive microphones mixed with a heavy ingredient of static. If the President goes in his motorcar from one place to another, crowds gather in the streets, scores of roaring motorcycles precede and follow him, and a scene of great power and majesty is created.

Now all this may very well do the President a very great injustice and often a great disservice. It is inevitable that people get the impression after a year or two of this that the man who is president is a figure of heroic mold—a greater orator, a greater student and thinker, wiser statesman, more resourceful leader than other public men. They therefore expect him to do only wise and resourceful things. Having made a hero of him, they insist on his performing like one. They are prone to measure what he says and does, after a while, alongside this enormously exaggerated pattern of a leader. It is hardly fair to him. As a rule he is just a human being, usually honest, patriotic, intelligent and eager to do what he thinks is right and frequently as completely bewildered as any other public man. This very excess of adulation and dramatization provokes a corresponding vehemence among his critics. His supporters rhapsodize about him, calling him the greatest of all presidents. Obviously it is in the light of this estimate that he is judged, first by those who hold this estimate and second by those upon whom it is imposed. Presidents get blamed for not solving problems that no man can solve.

That is what has happened to Mr Roosevelt. His opponents point with glee to the great army of unemployed, to the rising national debt, to the still suffering farmer, to the stagnation of business and a score of other problems that remain unsettled. The President's supporters reply, and with much justice, that perhaps he did not solve these problems but that at least it must be conceded that he has tried and with the best intentions; that he has done his best in every direction; that whatever may be said of the final result, he has been on the side of the poor and the underprivileged and, even though he has not been able to bring recovery, he has brought into being a number of splendid reforms in the interest of social justice.

This is a rational argument, and any honest-minded citizen seeking light will see the basis on which it is made. But this does not correspond with the picture of the superman who, we were told, was going to bring abundance. This description of a perfectly well-intentioned man who tried to end our woes and didn't is quite different from the vision of the giant of statecraft who was going to do it. The practical student of affairs will see at once the disadvantage at which this places the President. It makes it difficult for his supporters to claim credit for a good measure of performance because they had expected and promised so much; it makes it difficult for them to defend the President as a generous and well-intentioned person when they had built him up into one of the great statesmen of all times.

We shall all do the President—this one and all to follow—more justice and we shall serve the cause of the people more justly if we recognize that we are dealing, not with a superman, but rather with an ordinary man who, for the moment, holds vast power—a plain American citizen.

In Light of the Recent Events ...

(An excerpt from John T. Flynn's As We Go Marching (Doubleday, 1944), p. 161-162)

[Fascism] is, put briefly, a system of social organization in which the political state is a dictatorship supported by a political elite and in which the economic society is an autarchial capitalism, enclosed and planned, in which the government assumes responsibility for creating adequate purchasing power through the instrumentality of national debt and in which militarism is adopted as a great economic project for creating work as well as a great romantic project in the service of the imperialist state.

Broken down, it includes these devices:

1. A government whose powers are unrestrained.
2. A leader who is a dictator, absolute in power but responsible to the party which is a preferred elite.
3. An economic system in which production and distribution are carried on by private owners but in accordance with plans made by the state directly or under its immediate supervision.
4. These plans involve control of all the instruments of production and distribution through great government bureaus which have the power to make regulations or directives with the force of law.
5. They involve also the comprehensive integration of government and private finances, under which investment is directed and regimented by the government, so that while ownership is private and production is carried on by private owners there is a type of socialization of investment, of the financial aspects of production. By this means the state, which by law and by regulation can exercise a powerful control over industry, can enormously expand and complete that control by assuming the role of banker and partner.
6. They involve also the device of creating streams of purchasing power by federal government borrowing and spending as a permanent institution.
7. As a necessary consequence of all this, militarism becomes an inevitable part of the system since it provides the easiest means of draining great numbers annually from the labor market and of creating a tremendous industry for the production of arms for defense, which industry is supported wholly by government borrowing and spending.
8. Imperialism becomes an essential element of such a system where that is possible—particularly in the strong states, since the whole fascist system, despite its promises of abundance, necessitates great financial and personal sacrifices, which people cannot be induced to make in the interest of the ordinary objectives of civil life and which they will submit to only when they are presented with some national crusade or adventure on the heroic model touching deeply the springs of chauvinistic pride, interest, and feeling.

Where these elements are found, there is fascism, by whatever name the system is called. And it now becomes our task to look very briefly into our own society and to see to what extent the seeds of this system are present here and to what degree they are being cultivated and by whom.

THE SOIL OF FASCISM: ITALY, I The Bad Word

excerpted from
John T. Flynn's
As We Go Marching

PART ONE

THE SOIL OF FASCISM: ITALY

I · The Bad Word

FASCISM HAS ATTAINED to the dignity of a cuss word in America. When we disagree with a man's social or political arguments, if we cannot reasonably call him a communist, we call him a fascist. The word itself has little more relation to its original and precise object than a certain well-beloved American expletive has to the harmless domestic animal it actually describes. But fascism is something more than a bad name. If we are to have an eye cocked for fascism and fascists in this country we had better be sure we know a fascist when we see one. Of course we will recognize him in an instant if he will go about in a Bundist uniform or storm trooper's black shirt. But what if he wears no such uniform, has never learned to goose step, speaks with no German gutturals or Italian gestures but in excellent seaboard English and is, in fact, a member of a patriotic American society or labor union and actually hates Hitler and Mussolini and wants them trapped, tried, and strung up—how then will we detect him?

There is a difference between a fifth columnist working in America for Hitler, Mussolini, or Stalin, and an American who would give his life for his country but would also like to see its social and economic life changed in the direction of the fascist pattern. You will get no such American to admit that what he believes in is fascism. He has other and more agreeable names for it. He would be provoked to knock you down if you called him a fascist. That is because he does not know what fascism is and makes the mistake of supposing that a fascist is one who is on the side of the Führer or the Duce. Dollfuss was a fascist and so was Schuschnigg, but neither of them was noticeably on the side of Hitler and one was assassinated and the other seized and imprisoned by Hitler. Metaxas in Greece was a fascist, but he was far from being a champion of his warlike neighbor who finally drove him from his fascist dictatorship and his country.

There are far too many misconceptions of the meaning of this explosive word. Many suppose that fascism is just a trade name for the modern, streamlined dictatorship. Hence they see little difference between the fascist Hitler and the communist Stalin. Both are dictators. They preside, however, over very different systems of society. They are despots ruling over totalitarian states, but the social structure of Russia is no more like the social structure of Germany and Italy than the State of Stalin resembles the State of Nicholas II.

Because our attention is fixed upon the element of dictatorship— which is just one ingredient of that order—we dismiss the whole thing as merely a form of gangsterism. Hence we hear such loose and superheated definitions as this: that it is a "revolt against Western culture" or "an attack upon our civilization." It is, alas, not a revolt against Western culture but a fruit—bitter and poisonous— of that culture.

We get far too much of our information about fascism from the daily reports of its dramatics—its marching black or brown shirts, its saluting legions, its posturing leaders, its violent techniques for obtaining power, its persecution of Jews, its suppression of free speech, and, finally, its inevitable adventures in the dark field of imperialism. These are the products of regimes that are built on violence; and violence is the essential weapon of every kind of dictatorship whether it be the dictatorship of the royal Louis XIV or the proletarian Joseph Stalin. It is violence and force that create the incidents and episodes that make the material of news. There are other weapons and instruments of policy in the arsenal of the fascist besides the castor-oil bottle, the torch, and the sword. What we must seek are those other instruments which distinguish the fascist dictatorship from all other dictatorships. What we must understand is that these fascist dictators are popular dictators, by which I mean dictators who, though by no means loved by the people, nevertheless hold their power through them. They are demagogic dictators as distinguished from purely military dictators. The regime includes a group of social and economic ingredients without which the dictatorships could never have been established and without which they could not have lasted so long.

There is a whole library of pamphlets, books, and orations produced to prove that fascism was caused by the Treaty of Versailles or by the greed or stupidity of Britain and France, or by the ingrown wickedness of the German or the supine flabbiness of the Italian, by anti-Semitism or munitions profiteers, by the conspiracies of business magnates or the rising hatred of the free world of the scholar. Yet fascism grew up in Italy without any push from anti-Semitism and it flourished there before it did in Germany, which is supposed to be the peculiar victim of Versailles. It has made its appearance in Greece and the Slavic Balkans as well as in "Nordic" Germany and Latin Italy and in Portugal where there were no munitions magnates to stir the broth.

You may hear any day angry discussions of the course of events in Washington. You will hear ardent New Dealers assert that the government is building a great buttress around the crumbling walls of democracy. Others tell you, with equal assurance, that the order being fashioned there is obviously National Socialism, while still others are quite as sure that it is communistic. Certainly it cannot be all these things. It is, I fear, reasonably certain that most of those who damn the present Washington regime look upon it as Red—and take Mr. Dies's revelations of the number of Communist party members and fellow travelers who have penetrated the bureaus as evidence that we are on our way to bolshevism. The fears of these critics are very much alive, and they grow in virulence. Yet we cannot afford to be in doubt about the real meaning and direction of our policies.

If we have any doubt, therefore, about what fascism is we would do well to resolve them. And the best way to do that is to examine it in the land where it began. If we will look at it in Italy, how it rose, what produced it, and what it in. turn created as a system of national life, we cannot possibly be in doubt about what it is. It was in Italy where it was first established, where it reached its full flower and had its longest experience. If we will look at it there we can isolate its essential elements. And when we do this we will perceive that its roots run deep and long through the very structure of that society; that they are roots not indigenous to Italy but are to be found in all Western societies.

What follows, therefore, is not a history of fascism or the story of Mussolini's rise to power, but rather a search for the elements of this outrageous growth in order to make a list of those elements that must be united to produce it in America.

AS WE GO MARCHING by JOHN T. FLYNN

"The Senate on Tuesday approved new rules for government eavesdropping on phone calls and e-mails, giving the White House much of the latitude it wanted and granting legal immunity to telecommunications companies that helped in the snooping after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks." (http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080213/D8UP3K000.html)

Okay, so in addition to the removal of habeas corpus, the ability of the gov. to confiscate land at will (even if it is simply to bring in more tax dollars), the government can now legally eavesdrop on any and every phone and email conversation. And all of this from our "conservative" President and Congress.

In my first post on this blog, I wrote:

America has embarked upon a path of socialism and every year she is gaining speed toward that mark. The people of America and her governmental institutions have forgotten “the Christian foundation upon which this nation is reared and the importance of its relation to the form of government established by the Constitution. We as a people, [are] allowing ourselves to become separated from the keystone of our national structure – our Christian heritage.... By omission, America [has] deflected into socialism.”[1] Our omission is that we have failed to acknowledge Jesus as Lord in all things. That includes government.

The only thing that I'd like to change about the above statement is that America has past becoming Socialist, is now full into fascism, and fast on its way to totalitarianism.

What does this have to do with Faith and Dominion, you might ask?

Everything!

No, my solution is not to take up arms and forcibly institute a Christian take over of the government. This would be a metaphysical solution to an ethical (i.e. moral) problem. Just as I discussed in my first post, the problem is with the issue of Sovereignty. In our present time the State believes that it is sovereign over all things. They are wrong, dead wrong. Only God is Sovereign. It really is that simple. Unless our nation bows the knee to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords and recognize Jesus as the only true Sovereign (Matt. 28:18, Phil. 2:9-11, others), He will crush her with a rod of iron (Ps. 2).

"When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan" (Pro. 29:2). The State which thinks it is God, is a fearful thing because to be God, one must have the ability to both save and destroy (James 4:12). But since the State cannot really save anyone from anything, the full force of its power is focused into the act of destroying. For God to say He is Sovereign means that His laws never change. For the State to say that it is sovereign means that its laws must forever change and even be self contradictory to prove its absolute power.

It is for this reason that I first suggest you read Sovereignty by R.J. Rushdoony, and second will begin posting chapters to John T. Flynn's As We Go Marching. As far as I know, As We Go Marching is in the public domain. If one can provide proof that it is not, I will gladly remove this and subsequent posts.

Here is the first post from the book -- the author's note:

Author's Note

THIS BOOK is divided into three parts. One is about Italy, another about Germany, a third about the United States. But actually the book from beginning to end is about the United States. It has to do with the direction in which America has been drifting and in which she now moves with accelerated pace under the drive of war. When the war ends, in what direction will she go? Toward socialism or fascism? Or into some heroic struggle to reinstate the capitalist society? What socialism is, is fairly well understood. But this is not true of fascism. And we cannot have an intelligent answer to this question unless we know precisely what fascism is.

This book is about fascism in America. The fascism of Italy and Germany is examined because that is the only way in which we can decide what fascism is. Having examined it in Italy and Germany, not to tell again the oft told story of Hitler and Mussolini but to isolate the essential ingredients of fascism, we will be in a position to put our own society under the glass to determine whether any or all of those essential ingredients are here.

Books about Mussolini and Hitler are countless. Mostly they deal with the foreign aggressions of these men and the brutalities with which they maintain their regimes at home. Those offering a sober analysis of the whole structure of the societies they have built are not nearly so numerous. I have, I believe, examined patiently all or nearly all of these volumes. I have treated them as the testimony of witnesses and I have sought to study, to sift, and to arrange these testimonies in order to make the picture as clear as possible, so that the reader may himself apply the tests to his own or any other country to identify there the fascist state or partisan.

The European war may end quickly. But we must not make the mistake of supposing that because Mussolini has been unhorsed or that when Hitler is finally destroyed this will mark the end of fascism or national socialism in Italy or Germany. Fascism, as we shall see, is nothing else than an expansion of forces and techniques in government which have been developing in Europe for decades.It is something we shall have to fight for many years to come—long after the war is over—here as everywhere. We are not fighting fascism when we fight anti-Semitism. They are quite different evils though they may be found together. We probably shall see men set about the impossible task of purging fascism of its ugly features, cleaning it up, offering us a polite, religious, democratic fascism. It is a hopeless task. But we cannot have intelligent opinions about the problem today or in the future unless we know first what fascism is. The first objective of this book, therefore, is to define it and then to search for its elements in America.

JOHN T. FLYNN
Bay side, L. I.
October 19, 1943

Biblical Self-Government

Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled, either by a power within them, or by a power without them; either by the word of God, or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible, or by the bayonet. —Robert C. Winthrop, Addresses and Speeches on Various Occasions, 1852

Biblical Self-Government: The desire and the ability to willingly submit to God-given authority without being forced, coerced, or constantly reminded to do so.

When man refuses to be self-governed, he asks to be a slave. This sums up the whole history of mankind. It started in Eden, and it is still true, even in our country today.

When God created Adam in the Garden of Eden, Adam was to be self-governed, ruled only by God. God gave him the law by which he was bound, “And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Gen. 2:15–17). Once Adam had received the law, it was up to him to willingly submit to God and obey His law. God did not stage guards around the tree forcing Adam to stay away. God did not place a fence around the tree of the knowledge of good and evil keeping Adam at arm’s length. Self-government is the primary means by which man was to be governed.

Go to Chalcedon's website to read the rest of my article >>

Thought Police Strike Again

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 5, 2007

Thought Police Strike Again
Newest 'Hate Crime' Bill Violates Constitution: Attempts End-Run Around Free Speech

Lancaster, PA: The Constitution Party, the country's third largest political party in terms of voter registration, warns Americans that the latest federal 'hate-crime' bill introduced in the House of Representatives is a dangerous threat to Constitutionally protected rights.

H.R. 254, introduced by Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, D-Texas, is another version of proposed legislation passed by the House in 2005 and the Senate in 2004. Only strong public outcry and a Republican controlled Congress kept this type of legislation from becoming law. Now that Democrats are in charge there's a tough fight ahead to keep this dangerous bill from passing. H.R. 254 would make certain types of speech a federal offense. So-called 'hate crimes' legislation is dangerous for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the blatant unconstitutionality of such laws. 'Hate crime' laws would allow federal "thought police" to interfere in the law enforcement authority of states and localities - something our founders were clear was NOT to be allowed.

H.R. 254 would require every state to pass and enforce 'anti-hate' laws. It would outlaw stating a "bias" against certain 'federally protected' groups such as homosexuals.

Constitution Party National Chairman Jim Clymer warned "So-called 'hate crime' laws could mean the Bible would be considered 'hate literature' and preaching from it would be 'hate speech' because of references to religious teachings on homosexuality or other behaviors. The Orwellian implications of these types of laws mean Bible-believing Christians could become criminals simply because they spoke out about their beliefs."

Citing a 2004 case in Philadelphia, where 11 Christians were charged under a
'hate-crimes' statute for peacefully protesting at a gay rights rally, Mr. Clymer, a practicing attorney, said "Law-abiding Americans became criminals because they exercised a right our forebears fought and died for".

"By introducing the Anti-Defamation League's (ADL) federal 'hate crime' bill into Congress for the second time, Rep. Jackson-Lee shows she's bound and determined to stifle your First Amendment Rights no matter how many times she has to make a run at it", noted Constitution Party Communication Director Mary Starrett who added: "The Constitution Party condemns H.R. 254 as an affront to our liberty. Today, ADL-inspired 'thought crime' laws are stripping nations of free speech.

"In Canada and many European countries, it is a crime to use the internet to
criticize 'federally protected' groups, such as homosexuals and Muslims. In England, two men who called Islam 'wicked' were indicted under Britain's 'hate crime' law and now face seven years in prison. Those horrors do not belong in America!"

Referring to the group behind this bill, Clymer noted: "Congresswoman
Jackson-Lee's H.R. 254 is being pushed by the same group, ADL, responsible for the British law that says truth cannot be used as a defense in court. only the complaints by members of specially protected groups who say their feelings have been hurt are being allowed. The reality of what these types of laws are doing and have done to people across the world should be a chilling reminder to Americans to oppose these laws while we still can" warned Clymer.

-30-

To interview Constitution Party National Chairman Jim Clymer on 'hate crime' legislation and other issues of vital importance to Americans, contact:
Mary Starrett, Communications Director (602) 315-6195 mstarrett@constitutionparty.com