From the November 2005 Idaho Observer:

The "ist" of it

The problem, since the dawn of civilization, is that tyranny is organized and liberty is not. By its own nature tyranny must be well organized to succeed. Inversely, liberty diminishes as societal structures increase. It is natural for liberty and tyranny to be in opposition. Each could be defined as the absence of the other.

by Hari Heath

Tyranny vs. liberty

Tyranny is defined as the arbitrary exercise of power, or despotism. Black’s Law Dictionary (6th) defines it as "arbitrary or despotic government; the severe and autocratic exercise of a sovereign power, either vested constitutionally in one ruler, or usurped by him by breaking down the division and distribution of governmental powers."

This could logically be extended to include our current "government" which is not a single ruler but a collective usurpation of constitutionally vested sovereign powers. This exercise of "severe" autocratic and arbitrary power is made possible by breaking down the constitutional division and distribution of governmental powers.

Common definitions of liberty include: freedom; exemption from restraint; the total rights and privileges of a free people; freedom from occupation or unwanted engagements. Black’s, among its several pages defining liberty, adds: "freedom from restraint, under conditions essential to the equal enjoyment of this same right by others."

The state of nature

John Locke, in his Second Treatise on Government (1690), describes man living freely in the state of nature and the nature of civil government. According to Locke, in a state of nature, man has whatever rights and property interests he can acquire and hold against other men and the beasts in the jungle. Defense of life, liberty and property is a direct responsibility of each man living in the state of nature and limited to each individual’s ability to defend. The weak fail and the strong succeed.

In Locke’s view, the purpose of civil government is to organize for the collective defense of these interests by and for each individual who is a member of a given civil society, and no more. Strong or weak, the collective defends the rights and interests of the individual. But Locke also admonishes against too much civil society.

As Locke would suggest, the ongoing challenge for humanity is how to maintain the balance between the rights and liberties of the individual and the organization of a civil society which will collectively protect those rights. In the due course of time, the collective tends to subjugate individuals, who eventually lose their rights to life, liberty and property.

"Government is the only agency that can take a useful commodity like paper, slap some ink in it, and make it totally worthless. "

~Ludwig von Mises

Civil failure

Historically, in nearly every case since Locke’s time, the organization of civil government has failed to achieve its declared purpose and has fallen by various mechanisms and to varying degrees into despotism: An arbitrary, unaccountable governance by an organized elite.

We can look to the fascist examples of Mussolini and Hitler, or the communist examples of Mao, Stalin and Pol Pot to see how far civil government can fall. But give the Declaration of Independence a read and then contrast it with the events portrayed in a current newspaper or broadcast. Do those exercising governmental power in America today ever consider any of the declared purposes for the institution of the American government?

Our "civil" society has become a beast. We may have been better off, fending for ourselves in the jungle and, if the present trends continue, we may be doing just that.

$ilent tyranny

The "collective," in our current age is more about commerce than government. This commerce collective, with the various "free trade" agreements and the proposed economic unions are poised to eclipse what is left of American"government." Our governments no longer adhere to their founding principles, but exist now to serve the interests of the commerce collective.

The new collective, at least on its face, is a sedate, even benevolent tyranny. In an obscenely abundant America, the commerce collective can hardly be called a tyranny. And most are oblivious to its mode of operation. The fictional wealth and abundance from borrowing doesn’t even seem tyrannical, until we look at the details.

The violent oppression of past tyrannies is rarely necessary with commercial conquest and subjugation. An overtly oppressed people will rebel, so history tells us, but incremental and obscure oppressions are often overlooked and simply endured if enough cash is available. In time, no one notices—and no one remembers.

The death of the dollar

We might call this collective an "econotyranny." But to understand it we must look back in time.

In the early years of Congress, it exercised its constitutional power to "coin money" and "regulate the value thereof." The "dollar," as it was defined in 1792, was a coin with 371 ¼ grains (a little over three-quarters of an ounce) of silver and an additional ten percent copper alloy for durability. Many of these constitutional dollar coins still exist today.

With silver dollars our nation enjoyed more than a century of a consistently valued "dollar" with stable purchasing power.

When the Congress fraudulently passed the Federal Reserve Act in 1913, allowing a private banking cartel to usurp our nation’s economy, the "dollar" began its slide into oblivion. By 1933, the American people realized the Federal Reserve’s "notes" were being issued in excess of the real dollars with which to redeem them.

This created panic and a run on the banks. The solution mandated by the Congress and President Roosevelt was to absolve the Federal Reserve system of its obligation to redeem its notes for dollars, usher in the fiat money age and confiscate the people’s gold.

By 1963, silver dollars, quarters and silver certificates were discontinued, closing the book on the American dollar. Today, Federal Reserve Notes are "notes" in style only, not substance. "Cash," as we have come to know it, is only paper now, and the "cash" component of our "economy" is only a few percent of the total "dollars" we have come to pretend are money.

Reduced to barter

A sad fact is that the real American dollar is no longer money in America. The purpose of money is to have a recognizable third medium of exchange so we can step beyond the confines of a barter economy. Barter requires a double coincidence of wants—each party must want what the other has to trade. With money as a third medium of exchange, open commerce is made possible.

But what if you had real, constitutional silver dollars and wanted to engage in commerce with them? You would have to negotiate them as a barter commodity—subject to a barter transaction’s double coincidence of wants. The real dollar has been reduced to a barter item. It’s no longer recognized as money. And worse, the "money" we use today is not a dollar, even though we call it that. How did we get here from there?

The "ist" of it

The number one definition for the suffix "ist" is "an adherent of a system." There are many "ists" in this world, but the one responsible for our current inverted condition is the econom-"ist." Without the economists of the world there couldn’t be a "dollar" that isn’t really a dollar.

Many people think you are crazy if you tell them the dollar isn’t really a dollar. It’s their god, they worship it, and to question it is tantamount to heresy. And the preachers that maintain their faith are the economists. How?

"All the perplexities, confusion, and distress in America arise, not from defects in the Constitution or confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation."

~John Adams

The system’s program

Market updates, "real money" programs and talking-head "round table" discussions with economic experts provide constant indoctrination, which reinforces the false notion that there is a "dollar." Infomercials parade normal people—just like you and me—whose testimonials describe how they followed the program and received unbelievable wealth—you can too! The economists tell us we have a bright future—invest and get rich—everything’s fine—go back to sleep.

Some of the largest buildings in town house banks, mortgage lenders, brokerage firms and accountants. Are they large to store their vast wealth holdings in vaults? No, they house bean counters and their managers. And their managers.

It looks impressive. With all those people keeping busy and looking important in those tall buildings, it must be real.

Economists become economists by being students of economists. The system indoctrinates new adherents to perpetuate the system. Economists can elaborate on all manner of equations and economic factors that validate the reality of the system to which they adhere. The complexity of their system can make quantum physics seem simple in comparison. All the better to keep us confused and ignorant of their economic mystery.

Without a foundation

But what, dear economist, is a "dollar," under your system? Where does it come from? What gives it its value? Does it really have any value? Why is it always losing value—and to whom is the value being lost?

The entire economic system we find ourselves under has a serious foundational flaw. There is no dollar!

The "dollar" we use is manufactured from the say-so of the economists. All the economic theories vanish when it is realized that the "dollar" they are based upon is a fiction.

Can you do math without using numbers? Bake bread without flour? Breathe without air?

Without a dollar there can be no economy, and economists, whether they know it or not, are the overseers for the masters in this age-old system of tyranny.

Get our "ists" together

It’s time to put our "ists" together. An economist may as well be a fascist or a communist. The eventual results are the same. By granting the power of monetary creation to a private banking cartel, we allow engineered inflation to redistribute our productive wealth into the hands of the elite few who operate the commercial collective.

Inflation equals $lavery! Slavery is compelled submission to a master. It doesn’t matter whether the master is a dictatorial fascist, a gang of communists, or a cadre of bankers and economists.

And this public/private partnership of monetary creation allows government to be an unfettered borrower, resulting in the ever-expanding tyranny of our times. The fascist/communist economists make it all possible.

Meanwhile, we have a government at war with everything that moves, whether real or imagined. And this war government is funded with an endless ocean of "dollars" borrowed into existence from the creative imagination of economists.

Do the math. Our national "government" is more "dollars" in debt than there were seconds between now and the time Adam and Eve were in the garden. That’s the "ist" of it.