Thomas Jefferson in 1937?

If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered...I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies... The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs. 

Is this a quote to be attributed to Thomas Jefferson or is it to be attributed to writing since 1937. Which, shouldn't be forgotten, was in the middle of the Great Depression and more than 100 years after the passing of the scribe of the Declaration of Independence.

Many people like to argue it was in a letter that Jefferson wrote on May 28th, 1816 to John Taylor (as seen here) which is available in the Library of Congress. Now, if the quote was there they'd may have a case for it being attributed to him, however, you cannot even find the word private in the entire letter, but here's the quote on banks:

And I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.

Quite a bit different, and definitely can see how the first quote and the one that is always attributed is more influenced by the 20s and 30s. While, I agree that there is some merit to what is said in the quote, it is also equally important to credit these merits to the correct people. Otherwise, you lose credibility in an intellectual manner, it is important. It'd be far different if Jefferson picked apart this process in 1816 than if some book wrote about it in 1937 in the middle of a major recession about the Central Banking elite.

I would quote the book, but I don't know what book it is so I will take this sites fact as what it says, but I may be wrong. I do know however, it is not in the letter on May 28th, 1816 with John Taylor.

   

Imagine...

Occupy Wall St.; Occupy Nothing

Recently there has been a movement known as Occupy Wall St. where tons of people gather in cities in the Northeast (D.C., New York, etc) to protest against capitalist greed, governement run amuck and whatever else. To me, it seems to be like the Tea Party, a good idea driven by special interest and driving home a message that is more of the same.

The Tea Party was named after an event at the Boston Harbor that sparked the revolution that created a folklore of heroes and villians. It was meant to spark a revolution of ideas, but was hijacked by the GOP and Fox News and turned into a mob of warmongers who won't a cut a thing. (How Rick Perry could be considered anything but establishment is beyond me, but not Fox News.)

The whole name of this movement seeks to blame capital greed of Wall St, which is very bad. However, we should note that you have to get an addict off a drug, before you can address the problems it causes (such as suicide) and not treating the other problems. If we continue to regulate Wall St., it will continue to stifle small business and destroy the middle-class.

I know some of these people marched on the Federal Reserve, but the majority of this movement is anti-capitalism and pro-Obama, but without knowledge that Wall St. is a symptom and not the problem, we will continue to see boom-bust cycles and the destruction of people's lives.

I personally recommend, to those who want to read an argument for smaller government to read Rollback by Tom Woods. It's the best argument I have ever read in that field and if you haven't read it on any part of political philosophy, I think it should be given a try.

Ron Paul Message to Occupy Wall Street- LETS END THE FED!

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Is the War on "Terror" worth it?

We’ve been at war with Terrorism since 2001, and it has not defeated it, misplaced it or diminished it. If anything, we’ve given specific terrorists more incentives for recruitment and perhaps led a small number of countries to feel ever more intimidated by American Foreign Policy.

However, is this really a War on Terror? Perhaps, it’s the ever expanding War for “Democracy”.. remember we defended Kuwait (a monarchy) to help defend Saudi Arabia (another monarchy) from Saddam’s Iraq. Was this war worth the lives lost?

Remember, from 1991 to 2003 we continued to bomb and disallow volunteer groups to help those innocent Iraqi children, women and even men. Over 500,000 children were killed and when asked about it, our government says it was worth it.

When you have a government willing to say 500,000 dead people are “worth it”, I think you have lost your moral compass. We were not at war with Iraq, we were supposedly at “peace” with them from Desert Storm. I’ve never heard of a peace settlement where you get to drop bombs on the loser. I don’t even think Germany got that after the dismantling of stability after the Great War.

Even Clinton bombed Afghanistan, which was years before the attacks in New York. (Not only that but Ron Paul clearly estimates that it hurt our national security and it’s pretty hard to argue it didn’t.) So my question really is, in what world is the United States acting in favor of “Democracy”, the American people or in favor of a morally better world?

Ron Paul CPAC 2011 Speech

The Compromise of 1787

The Compromise of 1787, which is the Constitution in effect today and was ratified in 1789. It is arguably on the best Constitutions in effect throughout the world today, but is it a good one? I think for the most part it is a decent one, but I don't think it's one worth fighting for. It's definitely better than having one with such things as mandatory military service or in it's original form no income tax, however...

There was a popular political force in America during the 1780s known as the Anti-Federalist, and it wasn't that they opposed confederation, which is what Federalism meant at the time, but opposed to the rampant centralization in the Federal Constitution proposed by Madison, Hamilton and the Convention in Philadelphia. They were popular and came very close to winning enough states to prevent the ratification, but in the states they thought would win saw narrow losses.

What did they have against the Constitution? It starts as "We, the People", but Patrick Henry argued that it should say "We, the States" as considering the People the political body that passed it was a dangerous statement and it implied we were a consolidated nation, when in fact we were a confederated nation.

I'm going to focus on this point, because I think it is that important. This country was not founded on consolidation and even James Madison believed that Patriotism was a feeble dream to be had of being an American. Most people during this time were more loyal to their state than their "country". Even during the Civil War, Robert E. Lee made his decisions based on his affiliation with Virginia and not the United States. This is what made the United States so unique, it wasn't just a country made up of people of different regions, the regions held very unique power within their own country.

If say, Missouri, did not want to enact a Federal law, they didn't need to, as during the year 1798, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison came up with the idea of nullification which had nothing to do with slavery and everything to deal with unalienable rights that they fought so hard to earn from the United Kingdom. Thomas Jefferson even said, ""To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy." (letter to William C. Jarvis) In other words, the Federal Government can't be trusted to tell the Federal Government can do, seems so logical but, it takes some trying with some people these days.

Many liberal interpretations of the tenth amendment deny that the State's can nullify an action and frankly, it is becoming a dooming enactment towards tyranny. Without State's rights and our confederation within this Federal Republic, we will see our rights go away and our freedoms dissipate. Give me liberty or give me death could not be more apt now, as it was 250 years ago.

We need our Patrick Henry's, Thomas Jefferson's, James Madison's back. We need our Republic back, lest we delve into a consolidated Republic and dive into the well of despotism.

Statism or Anarchy?

Is it necessary to involve ourselves in Statism or is Anarchy a better alternative? States have been known to abuse their powers over a given region to extort money and rights from its citizens. They essentially becomes minions of the Overlords and bend to the will of their master.

Anarchy is intent on ending this, intent on bringing about real freedom and real choice. Letting free markets reign, and letting people be people. However, is it really? Why did government exist in the first place if Anarchy was so successful? Was it through ignorance of pre-historic people who were deceptively led into this union of Society or was it a failure?

I have much trouble believing that it is simply because of ignorance. I think people's ignorance of Anarchy is profound and that belief is the statism that is rampant in today's world is far too profound,as well. However, I believe in micro-statism, in that there should be laws and regulations over things like fraud, but that private sector can more than deal with poverty and retirement.

The Commonwealth of Iceland, which is as close as any recorded nation as come to a successful "Anarcho-capitalistic" society has been. It had a very weak government, it wasn't even central, and the only real part of government was the court system that was more of a "he did this" than to indict anyone on anything. It worked, up until other nations began to find political intrigue and desire to destroy the nations fabric from within.

These were the problems with the Articles of Confederation, which again were a loose set of laws binding the nation together but, not actually being a central government. It wasn't nearly as successful as Iceland and political intrigue already had begun. Especially, considering it was in a much more interesting part of the world.

In any case, I think micro-statism, with soft central government is what we should strive for and not Anarchy which would devolve into a much worse situation. I think the founders had been on the right track, anyway.