Change of Heart Over Stimulus and FED

In a grand turn of event's Telegraph reporter Ambrose Evans-Pritchard has reversed his pro-Fed, pro-stimulus position, issued an apology, and is now calling for an end to the central bank. This marks an important milestone for those of us who call for a return to sound money. People are starting to realize that the emperor has no clothes when it comes to fiat currency and interventionist fiscal policy and are waking up from their state-induced dream. Let us welcome these new converts as they join the battle against Leviathan's central banking and fiat currency system. 

My favorite line from Ambrose reads, "My apologies. Mercy, for I have sinned against sound money, and therefore against sound politics."

 I encourage you to read the whole piece. It begins:

I apologise to readers around the world for having defended the emergency stimulus policies of the US Federal Reserve, and for arguing like an imbecile naif that the Fed would not succumb to drug addiction, political abuse, and mad intoxicated debauchery, once it began taking its first shots of quantitative easing.

My pathetic assumption was that Ben Bernanke would deploy further QE only to stave off DEFLATION, not to create INFLATION. If the Federal Open Market Committee cannot see the difference, God help America.

We now learn from last week’s minutes that the Fed is willing “to provide additional accommodation if needed to … return inflation, over time, to levels consistent with its mandate.”

NO, NO, NO, this cannot possibly be true. (Read the rest here.)

Evangelists Suffer Fourth Amendment Violations for Phony Money

We have another one to file under ridiculous and unconstitutional government action.

WorldNetDaily reports:

A federal judge has ruled the seizure of thousands of Gospel tracts from a Texas ministry by U.S. Secret Service agents not only was illegal, it violated Fourth Amendment protections against an overbearing and intrusive government.

The decision [Monday] by Judge Jorge Solis of the Northern District of Texas came in the long-running dispute over a tract deliberately made to look like a $1 million bill. 

The Gospel tracts in question can be viewed at this link and are harmless pieces of paper used by a number of evangelists in sharing their faith. I have even passed them out myself. Don't tell the feds; I have some in my room as I write.

The tracts bear the image of Grover Cleavland--a nice classical liberal president--so you know they would never put him on a real bills, they are for the amount of $1 million, and they explicitly state that it is not legal tender. Problematic, I know...not.

The judge correctly noted, "The Million Dollar Bill, taken as a whole, poses no reasonable risk of deceiving an honest, sensible, and unsuspecting person. First and foremost is the fact that the Million Dollar Bill purports to be worth a million dollars. There is no genuine curency in this amount."

Only a federal bureaucrat could be fooled by such a harmless device. And only the government would use force against such an undeserving party. And boy did they use force!

According to the court's opinion, the agents then threatened arrest if the workers did not cooperate.

"Agent [Mickey] Kennedy was not subtle in the manner by which he implied that he was taking the Million Dollar Bills with him no matter what – even if it meant arresting Mr. [Timothy] Crawford in the process. The facts and circumstances surrounding Agent Kennedy's statements to Mr. Crawford on June 2, 2006, leave no doubt that Mr. Crawford believed he would be arrested if he did not retrieve the Million Dollar Bills from the closed closet in which they were hidden out of the agents' sight," the judge ruled.

Further, the judge concluded that the agents involved in the seizure later "conspired together to cover up the actual events that took place at GNN's office.

"Agents Kennedy and [Erin] Erdman persisted in covering up these events by being untruthful when they took the witness stand during the bench trial for this case," the judge concluded.

This is nothing short of despicable behavior. Lacking a warrant and realizing that they could intimidate the Christian evangelists, the agents knowingly violated the Fourth Amendment rights of the victims. Then they lied on the witness stand to cover their tracks.

So besides the blame that rightfully should fall upon the agents who carried out the illegal seizure, is there more blame to go around? Sure there is.

First, this happening reveals the ridiculous monopoly our government has on money and the outrageous lengths it will go through to maintain that monopoly. What we have is a government that prints worthless money attacking citizens for handing out worthless money. Can you see how crazy this is? Not only were the tracts not real money, they were not even trying to be real money. But that is not enough for our government. We are obsessed with legal tender laws, we are obsessed with monetary manipulation, and now we must be obsessed with putting a stop to the equivalent of Monopoly money.

Second, this event shows our government's disrespect for the Fourth Amendment. For far too long our civil liberties have been trampled in the name of security and justice. But violation of the Constitution can only lead to insecurity and injustice. When civil libertarians have come out against these types of violations in the past, those on the Left and Right have called paranoia and claimed that only the bad guys would suffer. Is this still the case? Are Christian evangelists the hardened criminals or vile terrorists one expected to "deserve" Forth Amendment violation? I would think not!

Thomas Jefferson once said,  "It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own." The same is true of any tenet of liberty. We must defend liberty at all turns, for another's case may, by change of circumstances, become our own someday.

We see in the aforementioned case an example of a government gone awry. It has done so because we have allowed it. If we do not truly value liberty and contend for it, we will see more of the same. Moreover, we see that not only the "bad guys" suffer when the government goes beyond its constitutional bounds; we all do.

Beltway Libertarianism vs. the Revolution: Part 2

Before I continue on with the topic of beltway libertarians vs. the Austrian libertarians, I wold like to clarify something that came up in the comments section for yesterday's post. The divide between the two strands is not merely one of demographics or some other superficial factor, it is a philosophic division.

I would also once again clarify that though I identify more with the Austrian brand of libertarians, I greatly appreciate mainstream libertarians and use their resources as well as communicate with them often. Our slight philosophical differences is not enough to put a significant wedge between us. What I do not enjoy is unfounded criticisms and ad hominem  attacks from either side. That is what brought this post about. I have seen the attacks go on for years, but the article The Ron Paul Delusion from Reason finally broke the camel's back--so to speak.

In the article, David Harsanyi goes out of his way to smear Ron Paul, who has single-handedly grew the libertarian movement in recent years by leaps and bounds.

His article begins by offering a legitimate point, which is that his CPAC straw poll victory does not mean that Ron Paul is the new leader of the Republican Party. But Harsanyi quickly turns from his subject to take a jab at the Texas congressman. After offering a rhetorical question as to whether the GOP will become the party of Paul, Harsanyi goes into the following:

Let's, for a moment, forget Paul (and how I wish this could be a permanent condition, considering the congressman is neither a serious politician nor—and I can't stress this enough—a serious thinker).

This is completely uncalled for and completely unfounded. Ron Paul is a serious politician. His not winning the presidency doesn't negate his multiple congressional race successes. If we are to measure "serious politicians" by those who have achieved the office of president, only 43 men in our history have been serious politicians.

Harsanyi then attacks Paul's credentials as as serious thinker--another unfounded claim with evidence to the contrary. Paul is an author of many works that go well beyond the level of reading many are willing to take on outside the walls of academia. Moreover, his positions are held deeply based on cohesive philosophical reasoning. That alone requires serious thought from a serious man. Moreover, the same should be said of his economic and historical scholarship. There is no reason for Harsanyi's statement. Apparently, most of us define "serious thinker" quite differently than Mr. Harsanyi.

After this tirade against Paul, Harsanyi get back on his topic, but not for long. I quote:

"Congressman Paul is committed to bringing the conservative movement back to its traditional platform of limited government, balanced budgets and a foreign policy of nonintervention," claims Jesse Benton, Paul's spokesman.

If only it stopped there. Paul isn't a traditional conservative. His obsession with long-decided monetary policy and isolationism are not his only half-baked crusades. Paul's newsletters of the '80s and '90s were filled with anti-Semitic and racist rants, proving his slumming in the ugliest corners of conspiracyland today is no mistake.

Perhaps the greatest tragedy of Paul is that thousands of intellectually curious young people will have read his silly books, including End the Fed, as serious manifestoes. Though you wouldn't know it by listening to Paul or reading his words, libertarians do have genuine ideas that conservatives might embrace.

Long-decided monetary policy? I am sorry, sir. But this establishment position on monetary policy may be popular, but things are far from decided. We have seen massive explosion of government spending and financial instability directly because of the rise of fiat currency. The monetary policy of Paul has been right all along and we are seeing the Austrian predictions unfold daily before our very eyes.

Isolationism? You must be talking about someone else. Ron Paul is far from an isolationist; he is a non-interventionist. Like Thomas Jefferson, Paul believes in "peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none." What he does not endorse is the reckless wielding of military might, imperialism, and unnecessary killing. If you hold a position counter to this, I am sorry that Paul won't play along with you war games.

I am not sure what is meant by "half-baked crusades," but I am sure based on each man's track record, I would land on the side of Paul.

Harsanyi then goes beyond attacking Paul to attacking Paul's supporters: "Perhaps the greatest tragedy of Paul is that thousands of intellectually curious young people will have read his silly books, including End the Fed, as serious manifestoes." I am sorry if we take him seriously because he speaks to issues that greatly affect us. We cannot help but take him seriously. He has seriously fought for liberty throughout his career. Mr. Harsanyi on the other hand seems content simply promoting liberty-lite. (Just read any of Harsanyi's previous work for examples.)

I believe Harsanyi is wrong to say, "Ron Paul as the leader of [the conservative movement]—or, actually, any—charge is a mistake for both parties." but I am also think that he is wrong to denounce Paul while praising Cato's David Boaz as a serious libertarian. I don't say this to downplay Boaz; has done good work for liberty. My point is merely that Harsanyi is picking a fight that need not be fought. You can have both your Paul and your Boaz and do just fine. I will do so myself, but I can't take much more of David Harsanyi or those like him.

There is a divide in libertarianism; it can be overcome. But name calling and unfounded position bashing will not do it.

Ron Ramsey Attacks Loose Monetary Policy

I am often disappointed with those running for governor in my state of Tennessee. I have spent a good amount with both Zach Wamp and Ron Ramsey over the years, and both are decent guys with whom to have a conversation. Ron is really personable and has been know to say some quite conservative things to people when not overtly politicin'. However, his voting record is a mixed bag, like all the "conservatives" in the TN legislature. Despite his flaws, he is quite conservative and appears to be a strong supporter of states' rights.

He has done some good things lately, like writing to assert state sovereignty. I just received the following short message in regard to his recent participation in a healthcare forum and was pleasantly surprised.

Last week, I was pleased to take part in a special forum on healthcare hosted by Steve Gill. It was a privilege to share my thoughts and concerns about the current reform efforts.

As our nation faces record deficits, Washington continues to print money as fast as they can. Now, with issues like healthcare, they're trying to pass the costs on to the states. We shouldn't be forced to pay for irresponsible legislation in Congress that will not produce the actual reforms we need. (My emphasis)

I find it so interesting to see Lt. Gov. Ramsey go out of his way to address our monetary woes. Could we have a hard currency man on our hands? Another FED fighter?