Happy Reformation Day! Enjoy...

In 1659, John Bunyan wrote "The Doctrine of the Law and Grace Unfolded," which was his last book before entering Bedford Prison for twelve years. In one section of this discourse, he shows how the Ten Commandments were punished before Sinai. There are some Christians who believe that the Ten Commandments were only for Christian or only for Israel. But God did not limit himself to Israel when punishing sins against these laws.

In Exodus 12:12, the Lord said, "For I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the LORD." The Lord executed judgment against the false gods of Egypt.

This was before the Lord said, "You shall have no other gods before Me," in chapter 20, and this was a judgment against Egypt, not Israel.

In 5:2, Pharoah had said, "Who is the LORD, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the LORD, nor will I let Israel go." Oh, well, Pharoah didn't know the Lord, so he was off the hook, right? He can't be held responsible for what some God of another religion said, could he? Well, God certainly believed he was responsible.

So the LORD said to Moses: "Pharaoh's heart is hard; he refuses to let the people go. Go to Pharaoh in the morning, when he goes out to the water, and you shall stand by the river's bank to meet him; and the rod which was turned to a serpent you shall take in your hand. And you shall say to him, "The LORD God of the Hebrews has sent me to you, saying, "Let My people go, that they may serve Me in the wilderness"; but indeed, until now you would not hear! Thus says the LORD: "By this you shall know that I am the LORD. Behold, I will strike the waters which are in the river with the rod that is in my hand, and they shall be turned to blood. And the fish that are in the river shall die, the river shall stink, and the Egyptians will loathe to drink the water of the river.""'

Then the LORD spoke to Moses, "Say to Aaron, "Take your rod and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt, over their streams, over their rivers, over their ponds, and over all their pools of water, that they may become blood. And there shall be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, both in buckets of wood and pitchers of stone."' And Moses and Aaron did so, just as the LORD commanded. So he lifted up the rod and struck the waters that were in the river, in the sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his servants. And all the waters that were in the river were turned to blood. The fish that were in the river died, the river stank, and the Egyptians could not drink the water of the river. So there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt.

Then the magicians of Egypt did so with their enchantments; and Pharaoh's heart grew hard, and he did not heed them, as the LORD had said. And Pharaoh turned and went into his house. Neither was his heart moved by this. So all the Egyptians dug all around the river for water to drink, because they could not drink the water of the river. And seven days passed after the LORD had struck the river.
Exodus 7:14-25

But everyone has their own beliefs, right? Just let everyone believe what they want. One religion's as good as another, right?
After hearing what occurred in Egypt, Moses' father-in-law Jethro said, "Blessed be the LORD, who has delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of Pharaoh, and who has delivered the people from under the hand of the Egyptians. Now I know that the LORD is greater than all the gods; for in the very thing in which they behaved proudly, He was above them." (Exodus 18:10-11)

The third commandment is, "You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain." (Exodus 20:7)

Yet, already Abraham's reputation for keeping this commandment was so great that his oath was all the surety Abimelech needed. "And it came to pass at that time that Abimelech and Phichol, the commander of his army, spoke to Abraham, saying, 'God is with you in all that you do. Now therefore, swear to me by God that you will not deal falsely with me, with my offspring, or with my posterity; but that according to the kindness that I have done to you, you will do to me and to the land in which you have dwelt.'" (Genesis 21:22-23) The same was true with Jacob: "'The God of Abraham, the God of Nahor, and the God of their father judge between us.' And Jacob swore by the Fear of his father Isaac." (Genesis 31:53) Moses had the same reason for carrying Joseph's bones out of Egypt: "And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for he had placed the children of Israel under solemn oath, saying, 'God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here with you.'" (Exodus 13:19)

We can see from these examples that all men everywhere must know God as the one true God and worship Him accordingly. All men must also worship Him only as He has directed us to worship Him and not by idols or any way that He has not directed us to worship Him. All men must keep God's name holy.

In the case that Switzerland were ever invaded, Major H. von Dach Bern wrote Total Resistance: Swiss Army Guide to Guerrilla Warfare And Underground Operations in 1957. What I find particularly interesting are the details given to how an occupying force undermines the society and brings the culture to its side. Note particularly how the Church is fought:

A. Enemy operations against the church

The totalitarian enemy will always label the church as a potential "enemy" and will fight it accordingly. He will proceed with the greatest cunning and will implement the dechristianization of life in stages so as not to be too conspicuous. He will not destroy the church in one attempt but will undermine it slowly over a period of several years. If he proceeds too quickly, general resistance would result.

Under the concept of "church" one must include the Catholic church, reformation church, and independent religious movements (i.e., Methodist church, Christian Science, Jehova's Witnesses, etc.).

Operations against the church will take approximately the following form: (1) slandering the church; (2) making the church an object of ridicule.

In an effort to prevent creation of martyrs, if at all possible, he will attempt to portray the church figures as common criminals. For instance, morals charges will be brought against priests or they will be accused of misdemeanors such as embezzlement.

B. Special measures

The enemy will resort to chicanery of all sorts to suppress the church, such as the withdrawal of coal allotments or the reduction of power supply. He will discontinue religious instructions in schools and will eliminate special religious instructions such as "chatechism lessons," "confirmation lessons," etc. Possibly he will replace it for instance by a state "youth initiation" or similar action.

The enemy will suppress Catholic schools and institutions; dissolve religious associations; remove Christian symbols (crosses, pictures, etc.) in public (for instance, schools, hospitals, etc.); prohibit religious magazines and books; limit and finally prohibit church services. Parents will be pressured to quit sending their children to church or religious instruction. After a while, such instruction will also be discontinued under the pretext that it is no longer necessary since it is attended only by a backward minority or not at all.

Similar procedure will be used to reduce church attendance. Church goers may be threatened with being black listed. They may be considered unsuitable for certain offices and positions for being a "backward church goer."

In many cases a so-called "public peace" is negotiated with the church after the initial wave of persecution. This is especially the case when subordinate elements have exposed themselves too much by their anti-church attitudes and have caused great attention. The subsequent period of calm is to smooth over the waves of indignation and pacify the aroused public. The church itself will, based on experience, strictly adhere to the agreements made so as not to bring on new persecutions. Through this action its hands are often tied for long periods of time.

C. Attitudes of Church in the Fight against Church

The fight against the church also has its positive aspects. It separates the former followers from the truly faithful. When the church makes sacrifices it will gain a closer relationship to those portions of the population which, until now, have remained aloof from its efforts and aims. When the church is being persecuted it will be able to do real missionary work. Greatest difficulties and highest chances of success are thus directly related.

The church must concentrate upon fighting against intolerance and a personality cult.

The church must emphasize the fact that each of God's commandments will be revenged sooner or later.

It must cultivate the concept of "help thy neighbor" and designate as such all persecuted persons.

It must call attention to the responsibilities of a Christian, such as resisting the misuse of power, disobeying edicts impinging on freedom to worship; and must remind the people that children not only belong to their parents but should be brought up by them.

From the Preface to Forgotten Features of the Founding by James Hutson

The first three chapters in this volume identify and explicate religious themes which prevailed during the Founding Period but which are of scant interest to today's scholars. These themes are: the conviction that the doctrine of a "future state of rewards and punishments" provided religion with the means of producing social and political benefits; the assumption that the civil magistrate should play the role of "nursing father" to religious institutions; and the belief that rights were moral powers, grounded in religion.
These themes are related, in one way or another, to the widespread conviction during the Founding Period that, since religion produced public policy benefits, government should enlist it as a partner and support it vigorously, even with tax revenues if possible...
... Just as [William] Penn did not confuse the disestablishment of religion with secularism, so were his intellectual heirs in the new republic not reluctant to acknowledge that the social and political benefits of religion would and should continue after disestablishment. Many of the most ardent advocates of disestablishment during the Founding Period -- Isaac Backus, for example -- saw no contradiction between opposing state-sponsored religion and in considering magistrates as nursing fathers and in commending a system of divine rewards and punishments as a means of promoting the public welfare.
The most radical church-state idea during the Founding Period was James Madison's view that religion produced no social or political benefits, a conclusion 75 years in advance of a similar argument offered by John Stuart Mill in the mid-nineteenth century. Madison's view, as the sixth chapter shows, was so far outside the Founding Era consensus (as many of his other religious ideas also were) that he prudently declined to acknowledge it publicly.

From August 2006 -

Read this now

From LewRockwell.Com
"Capitalism Without Capital?" by Ron Paul

It has been long understood that our federal government is going deeper into debt, consistently raising the debt ceiling and demonstrating no fiscal restraint. In recent years, debt ceiling increases have been placed in 'must pass' legislation as a means to guarantee that Republicans as well as Democrats would vote for them when Congress was under Republican control.

We also know our nation's 'negative savings rate' reflects the habits of private citizens, showing those habits to be not tremendously different than the habits of the public sector. Yet, the signs of decline are becoming ever more apparent. So apparent, in fact, that it seems unlikely that bailouts or other gimmicks will have even short-term success.

read the rest here

From AntiWar.com
"Cheap Thrills" by Nebojsa Malic

Almost eight months after the US -- followed by most NATO members -- recognized the occupied Serbian province of Kosovo as a dependent state, the Serbian government finally did something about it. On October 8, the UN General Assembly approved Serbia's request to seek the opinion of the International Court of Justice about the legality of Kosovo's separation. Albania, the US and four Pacific island nations in its orbit were the only votes against. For a moment, Belgrade basked in victory, no matter how feeble or immaterial.

The Empire would not be denied, however; within hours, recognitions of Kosovo's 'independence' came from Portugal, Montenegro and Macedonia. A day after that, the announcement came that this year's Nobel Peace Prize winner was none other than Martti Ahtisaari; the official explanation listed Ahtisaari's peacemaking activities in Namibia, Aceh and Iraq (!?) but it is plain as day that the Nobel was a direct reward for his efforts to establish occupied Kosovo as a separate state.

read the rest here

From Reason Magazine
"Either a Borrower or a Lender Be" by Jacob Sullum

John McCain calls his promise to help millions of Americans with their mortgages the McCain Resurgence Plan. Ostensibly, the 'resurgence' has something to do with home values, but his poll numbers are what he really has in mind.

This desperate ploy, unveiled at last week's presidential debate, speaks volumes about McCain's readiness to forsake his avowed principles and his supposed commitment to candor. Meant to bribe swing voters with taxpayers' money, it should repel anyone who considers its rationale, its fairness, and its fiscal implications.

read the rest here

From the Ludwig von Mises Institute
"Henry Hazlitt on the Bailout" by Scott A. Kjar

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson needs to change his reading list. Instead of reading the balance sheets and income statements of the failing banking industry, he needs to read Henry Hazlitt's classic book Economics in One Lesson. It will cost Paulson far less than the $700 billion that he is spending on the bailout, and he might just learn a little economics in the process.

read the rest here

Wow! I've just discovered James Hutson's work Forgotten Features of the Founding: The Recovery of Religious Themes in the Early American Republic (2003).

From the back cover:

Forgotten Features of the Founding: The Recovery of Religious Themes in the Early American Republic explores the deep significance of previously neglected religious themes in the Founding Era. James Hutson convincingly argues that without understanding these themes, it is impossible to comprehend the religious mentality of that period. Among the themes elucidated and explored are the doctrine of the future state of rewards and punishments, the civil magistrate's idealized role as the nursing father, and the conception of rights as moral powers grounded in religion. Hutson's thought-provoking and exhaustively researched work challenges current scholarship on the Founding Era, which often downplays the importance of Christian ideals in the formation of the United States government. Forgotten Features of the Founding is a must-read for scholars of American history and those interested in the role of religion in American life.

James Hutson is Chief of the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress. He received his Ph.D. from Yale University and has published many well-known works on the Founding Era.

I've been reading through II Kings in my personal devotions lately. I was intrigued this morning to see the conclusion of a story arc which is, unfortunately, more than applicable to situations we see today, ignoring the Bill of Rights, specifically the Fifth Amendment.

And it came to pass after these things that Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard which was in Jezreel, next to the palace of Ahab king of Samaria. So Ahab spoke to Naboth, saying, "Give me your vineyard, that I may have it for a vegetable garden, because it is near, next to my house; and for it I will give you a vineyard better than it. Or, if it seems good to you, I will give you its worth in money."

But Naboth said to Ahab, "The LORD forbid that I should give the inheritance of my fathers to you!"

So Ahab went into his house sullen and displeased because of the word which Naboth the Jezreelite had spoken to him; for he had said, "I will not give you the inheritance of my fathers." And he lay down on his bed, and turned away his face, and would eat no food. (I Kings 21:1-4)

Of course, Jezebel could not leave her husband sulking. She reminded him, "You now exercise authority over Israel!" She wrote letters to the elders, and sent two scoundrels to frame Naboth for blasphemy and treason, and he was stoned to death. And so, Ahab gained Naboth's vineyard.

But, today, I read the happy ending. (I recommend playing the movement "O Fortuna" from Orff's Carmina Burana in the background as you read the following.)

So Jehu rode in a chariot and went to Jezreel, for Joram was laid up there; and Ahaziah king of Judah had come down to see Joram.

Now a watchman stood on the tower in Jezreel, and he saw the company of Jehu as he came, and said, "I see a company of men."

And Joram said, "Get a horseman and send him to meet them, and let him say, "Is it peace?"'

So the horseman went to meet him, and said, "Thus says the king: "Is it peace?"'

And Jehu said, "What have you to do with peace? Turn around and follow me."

So the watchman reported, saying, "The messenger went to them, but is not coming back." Then he sent out a second horseman who came to them, and said, "Thus says the king: "Is it peace?"'

And Jehu answered, "What have you to do with peace? Turn around and follow me."

So the watchman reported, saying, "He went up to them and is not coming back; and the driving is like the driving of Jehu the son of Nimshi, for he drives furiously!"

Then Joram said, "Make ready." And his chariot was made ready. Then Joram king of Israel and Ahaziah king of Judah went out, each in his chariot; and they went out to meet Jehu, and met him on the property of Naboth the Jezreelite. Now it happened, when Joram saw Jehu, that he said, "Is it peace, Jehu?"

So he answered, "What peace, as long as the harlotries of your mother Jezebel and her witchcraft are so many?"

Then Joram turned around and fled, and said to Ahaziah, "Treachery, Ahaziah!" Now Jehu drew his bow with full strength and shot Jehoram between his arms; and the arrow came out at his heart, and he sank down in his chariot. Then Jehu said to Bidkar his captain, "Pick him up, and throw him into the tract of the field of Naboth the Jezreelite; for remember, when you and I were riding together behind Ahab his father, that the LORD laid this burden upon him: "Surely I saw yesterday the blood of Naboth and the blood of his sons,' says the LORD, "and I will repay you in this plot,' says the LORD. Now therefore, take and throw him on the plot of ground, according to the word of the LORD." (II Kings 9:16-29)

From AntiWar.com
"Goodbye, GOP" by Justin Raimondo

Barring a catastrophe -- a terrorist attack on American soil, a calamitous gaffe, or the documented revelation that he really is a Muslim after all -- it looks like Barack Obama is going to be the 44th president of these United States. Not only that, but I'd bet the farm we'll have a Democratic Congress, one with a working majority that relegates the Republicans to the role of back bench naysayers whose dissent barely registers. Last year, Paul Craig Roberts expressed the hopes of many American voters when he wrote:

"If we are fortunate, Republicans will complete their self-destruction before they extinguish the Constitution and destroy America."

It looks like he's going to get his wish.

read the rest here

From LewRockwell.com
"... its hour come round at last ..." by William Norman Grigg

Our just-in-time commercial supply system runs on just-in-time financing. And most American households, which are operated on a paycheck-to-paycheck basis, are woefully unprepared to deal with the shortages and dislocations that would result if store shelves were suddenly denuded, and gas station fuel tanks went dry.

If, as we have reason to fear, municipal and state governments start to default on their debts, then the teeming hordes of public employees may be left without their share of official plunder. We're being advised that crime rates among the, ahem, common people tend to soar during times of severe economic hardship.

What would be the result were widespread unemployment suddenly to hit the huge and ever-growing population of tax-feeders -- who are often well-armed people with an exceptionally well-developed sense of entitlement, and accustomed to a living based on coercive extraction, rather than mutually beneficial free commerce?

read the rest here

From Mother Jones
"The ACORN Controversy: A Tough Nut to Crack" by Jonathan Stein

For years, conservatives have grumbled about voter registration efforts aimed at low-income citizens, particularly those mounted by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), claiming these campaigns are rampant with fraud and corruption that benefits Democrats. On Tuesday, this low-grade battle became a headline-making clash, as the McCain-Palin campaign blasted ACORN and the Obama-Biden campaign and ACORN responded in kind.

read the rest here

From Reason Magazine
"Every Man a Derrida" by Tim Cavanaugh

Are the great American habits of directness, foursquare honesty, and a hearty handshake being undermined by fancy-pants French critical theory? You betcha! From the Obama-McCain struggle to find the proper meta-analysis of the word celebrity to the deconstruction of the mainstream media's treatment of John Edwards, from the "framing" and "repackaging" of political constructs to the rise of identity politics for white people, the trend is clear: We are all postmodernists now.

read the rest here

From LewRockwell.Com
"How To Fix Our Depreciating Money" by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

Here's the core problem of the gold standard idea. It is indeed the best path. But the people charged with implementing it will invariably be the very people who have caused the current problem, and have the least incentive to change the system. We've seen in the last several weeks how these people are willing to blow up the world rather than face liquidation. So the question becomes: how can we take steps toward sound money and banking without depending on the goodwill of the officials in charge?

read the rest here

From AntiWar.Com
"Liquidating the Empire" by Patrick J. Buchanan

Uncle Sam's Visa card is about to be stamped 'Canceled.'

The budget is going to have to go under the knife. But what gets cut?

Social Security and Medicare are surely exempt. Seniors have already taken a huge hit in their 401(k)s. And as the Democrats are crafting another $150 billion stimulus package for the working poor and middle class, Medicaid and food stamps are untouchable. Interest on the debt cannot be cut. It is going up. Will a Democratic Congress slash unemployment benefits, welfare, education, student loans, veterans benefits -- in a recession?

No way. Yet, that is almost the entire U.S. budget -- except for defense, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and foreign aid. And this is where the ax will eventually fall.

It is the American Empire that is going to be liquidated.

read the rest here

From the Orange County Register
"Bingeing and purging" by John Stossel

The bailout passed!

Too bad.

When so many politicians speak with one voice in support of the biggest act of government intervention in the economy in generations, I cringe.

Everybody talked about the 'freeze' in the credit markets, but why, I wonder, were the cable news programs that repeated the credit-freeze mantra pausing for commercials from companies trying to lend me money? Ditech and LendingTree still hawk mortgages at under 6 percent. Some credit freeze.

read the rest here

From Foundation for Economic Education
"The Goal Is Freedom: Theory and Crisis" by Sheldon Richman

If you are a glutton for cable news-talk shows, you know it's been little more than a parade of 'experts' declaring the absolute imperative of government bailouts. Many of these experts preface their remarks by saying how much they hate the idea of government intervention to save business from its mistakes. 'I'm a free-market, small-government advocate, but ....' Jack Welch, formerly head of government-contractor GE, and columnist Lawrence Kudlow are among many who have said things like that. Since they spoke on television programs, I can't quote them verbatim, but the tenor of their remarks is that the free market is great when things are going well, but this is an emergency and we don't have the luxury of theory.

read the rest here

From LewRockwell.com
"How Do We Get to Anarchist Utopia?" by Wilton D. Alston

I don't want to be stolen from, enslaved, or unfairly imprisoned. I don't want to steal from anyone, enslave anyone, or imprison anyone, particularly for a behavior, that while possibly unwise, infringes upon no one else. I believe in private property. Just because you and a couple of other folks supposedly voted to steal that property from me doesn't change the morality of the action. (If it does, then this whole discussion is moot.)

If we start there -- with the argument from morality -- I'm willing to take my chances that the polar bears, the Rain Forest, and the planet will survive just fine. Given the amounts of my own money and time I've voluntarily invested, I'm also pretty confident that the poor and the sick will be cared for as well. I'll even admit that some issues with which mankind might be faced in the future might be large enough to require cooperation. Here's the thing. Cooperation doesn't come out of the barrel of a gun. Is it too much to ask that the self-righteous busy bodies spend only their own money (or money given voluntarily to them) and stop making war on the rest of us?

read the rest here

From Reason Magazine


From AntiWar.com
"Watching Ukraine" by Justin Raimondo

During the heyday of the 'Orange Revolution,' Western money and other aid flowed into Yushchenko's party coffers, and also in the direction of his ally at the time, Yulia Tymoshenko, the 'gas princess' whose anti-Russian rhetoric and fiery campaigning style made her the co-star in this Western-sponsored narrative of 'We Beat the Russkies -- On Their Own Doorstep!' Now, however, Tymoshenko has turned against her former ally, blocked his power-grabbing schemes, and defied his order to dissolve parliament and call new elections.

Significantly, the Yushchenko-Tymoshenko alliance was finally wrecked on the shoals of a foreign policy question: what stance to take in regard to the Georgian invasion of South Ossetia and Abkhazia? Yushchenko, who knows what side his bread is buttered on, unhesitatingly supported his fellow 'revolutionist,' Mikheil Saakashvili, whose reckless military assault on the defenseless Ossetian capital city of Tskhinvali was quickly beaten back by the Russians. Tymoshenko, on the other hand, took a neutral stance, averring that Ukraine has too many of its own problems to get involved in Georgia's internal political troubles.

read the rest here

From Financial Sense
"The Party is Over" by Peter Schiff

The intention of all these daily federal interventions is to keep the credit spigots open so Americans can go even deeper into debt to buy more stuff they can't actually afford. This should be clear enough to anyone who listens to what our leaders are actually saying. When speaking about the need for an even larger fiscal stimulus package, Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said, 'We have to prop up consumption.' He has it backwards. The government has been propping up consumption for far too long, and the best thing they can do now is remove the props so spending can be replaced by savings.

... Were the government to allow market forces to work, Americans would now have to pay cash for their consumption. That would mean no instant credit for new cars, plasma TVs, appliances, consumer electronics, clothing, furniture, etc. Unless buyers actually had the cash in their checking accounts these purchases would have to be deferred. From an economic perspective this is precisely what the doctor ordered. But for an economy based 72 percent on consumer spending, the medicine will go down hard.

read the rest here

From The Independent Institute
"The Great Escape from the Great Depression" by Robert Higgs

Questions about the Great Depression may be usefully framed as pertaining to three distinct issues: the Great Contraction, the extraordinarily severe economic decline from 1929 to 1933; the Great Duration, the persistence of sub par economic performance for more than a decade; and the Great Escape, the ultimate recovery from this uniquely deep and long depression. Although economists continue to debate the causes of the Great Contraction and the Great Duration, a rough consensus has emerged that major policy blunders of various sorts deserve most of the blame for these calamities. With regard to the Great Escape, economists have also reached substantial agreement, but unfortunately they have come to agree on an interpretation that is almost completely wrong.

read the rest here

From AntiWar.Com
"The American Empire, RIP" by Justin Raimondo

...Huntington denies that military spending is a drain on the economy, and blames 'consumerism, not militarism,' for America's status as the world's number one debtor. Yet how does he imagine we financed the biggest military build-up in world history? How did we manage to bloat our military budget until it grew larger than the defense expenditures of all the rest of the world combined?

We rang it up on our national credit card. We built an empire on a mountain of debt, and now it's all come tumbling down. Yet it's more than an economic debacle: the Greenspan Bubble was made possible by a certain kind of psychology, a cultural ethos that gave little thought to the long-term consequences of US monetary and military policy, and lived only in the here-and-now. The Bubble pumped up not just the stock market, but also our pretensions, our hubris, our sense of entitlement -- not only to big overpriced homes and a dozen different credit cards, but also to our global preeminence as world policeman. If pride really does cometh before a fall, then one can only observe that we had plenty of warning.

read the rest here

From LewRockwell.Com
"Blame the government" by Murray Sabrin

As Rothbard documents in his 1963 study, the financial bubble of the 1920s was caused by the Federal Reserve's easy money policy that pumped up real estate and stock market prices. When the bubble burst in 1929, Hoover did all he could to prop up prices in the name of stability and recovery.

All his efforts failed.

The economy continued to spiral downward. Hoover's legacy was sealed.

However, court historians and mainstream economists have been blaming Hoover's 'inaction' for nearly eight decades instead of his big government policies that turned a much needed correction into a full-scale panic and massive depression.

read the rest here

I've realized recently that my efforts in effecting the US Government have been misapplied. I've been writing to my Senators and Representatives on every issue that matters to me. The writing has not been the problem. The problem is in the intended audience.

This should be painfully evident to every American. As we have seen, even when the opposition is as high as 300 to 1, Senators and Representatives will do what they want to do.

My carefully constructed arguments and quotations from Founding Fathers and founding documents were wasted. Why? Because, by and large, Senators and Representatives are illiterate. After all, why should they be literate? They have aids for such menial tasks. And those aids scanned my carefully constructed messages, and to the best of their abilities, correctly or incorrectly, entered "Yea" or "Nay" into a database of constituent opinions.

I do not need to write carefully constructed messages to my "representatives" (I use that term loosely) anymore. I merely need to say something to the effect:

"Please vote NO on the latest $700 billion Wall Street bailout bill."

As you can see, this is courteous, I said, "please." My opinion is highlighted, "NO" is in all caps. And I briefly reference the bill in question. Had I known the number, for example, I could have written:

"Please vote NO on S.2433, Obama's Global Poverty Act of 2007."

But what about those carefully constructed letters I so enjoy preparing? Well, that's the best part of this new strategy. Not only did the recent bailout blunder reveal the incompetence of our elected officials, it also revealed the competence of as much as 99.66% of the American people (or, at least of the American people who contact their elected officials.)

So those carefully crafted letters will now be going to the editors of papers and magazines. Liberty must be built from the ground up, so I will begin informing the literate of the issues that matter to me and should matter to them.

Of course, all such letters will also appear here.

Before 1933...





After 1933...




“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. 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 [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.”


"Banking was conceived in iniquity and born in sin. Bankers own the earth; take it away from them but leave them with the power to create credit; and, with a flick of a pen, they will create enough money to buy it back again. Take this power away from them and all great fortunes like mine will disappear, and they ought to disappear, for then this world would be a happier and better world to live in. But if you want to be slaves of bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, then let the bankers control money and control credit."

Recommended audio:

What Has Government Done to Our Money? by Murray N. Rothbard

For a New Liberty by Murray N. Rothbard

The Law by Frederic Bastiat

Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt (part 1) (part 2)

Of course, I cannot recommend highly enough the video The Philosophy of Liberty. Watch it regularly.

Found at the Internet Archive:

Yes, I'd say Order 66 has been executed. No, they're not purging the Jedi. But they are purging all semblance of a free market from America.

As Biggs (a.k.a., "Red Three") told Luke Skywalker, "What good's all your uncle's work if the Empire takes it over? You know they've already started to nationalize commerce in the central systems? It won't be long before your uncle is just a tenant, slaving for the greater glory of the Empire."

Today the House passed the unconstitutional, socialist bailout.

United States House of Representatives
Ron Paul's Statement on HR 1424
October 3, 2008

Madame Speaker, only in Washington could a bill demonstrably worse than its predecessor be brought back for another vote and actually expect to gain votes. That this bailout was initially defeated was a welcome surprise, but the power-brokers in Washington and on Wall Street could not allow that defeat to be permanent. It was most unfortunate that this monstrosity of a bill, loaded up with even more pork, was able to pass.

The Federal Reserve has already injected hundreds of billions of dollars into US and world credit markets. The adjusted monetary base is up sharply, bank reserves have exploded, and the national debt is up almost half a trillion dollars over the past two weeks. Yet, we are still told that after all this intervention, all this inflation, that we still need an additional $700 billion bailout, otherwise the credit markets will seize and the economy will collapse. This is the same excuse that preceded previous bailouts, and undoubtedly we will hear it again in the future after this bailout fails.

One of the most dangerous effects of this bailout is the incredibly elevated risk of moral hazard in the future. The worst performing financial services firms, even those who have been taken over by the government or have filed for bankruptcy, will find all of their poor decision-making rewarded. What incentive do Wall Street firms or any other large concerns have to make sound financial decisions, now that they see the federal government bailing out private companies to the tune of trillions of dollars? As Congress did with the legislation authorizing the Fannie and Freddie bailout, it proposes a solution that exacerbates and encourages the problematic behavior that led to this crisis in the first place.

With deposit insurance increasing to $250,000 and banks able to set their reserves to zero, we will undoubtedly see future increases in unsound lending. No one in our society seems to understand that wealth is not created by government fiat, is not created by banks, and is not created through the manipulation of interest rates and provision of easy credit. A debt-based society cannot prosper and is doomed to fail, as debts must either be defaulted on or repaid, neither resolution of which presents this country with a pleasant view of the future. True wealth can only come about through savings, the deferral of present consumption in order to provide for a higher level of future consumption. Instead, our government through its own behavior and through its policies encourages us to live beyond our means, reducing existing capital and mortgaging our future to pay for present consumption.

The money for this bailout does not just materialize out of thin air. The entire burden will be borne by the taxpayers, not now, because that is politically unacceptable, but in the future. This bailout will be paid for through the issuance of debt which we can only hope will be purchased by foreign creditors. The interest payments on that debt, which already take up a sizeable portion of federal expenditures, will rise, and our children and grandchildren will be burdened with increased taxes in order to pay that increased debt.

As usual, Congress has show itself to be reactive rather than proactive. For years, many people have been warning about the housing bubble and the inevitable bust. Congress ignored the impending storm, and responded to this crisis with a poorly thought-out piece of legislation that will only further harm the economy. We ought to be ashamed.

"The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away." - Grand Moff Tarkin

That seems like a strange question to ask. Anyone who has turned on a television, a radio, or talked to a coworker at the water cooler, or passed one of the thousands of "action alert" emails knows this matters. Of course, it matters, and it should matter.

But why does this matter at "Growing Vertical." After all, as the name of my blog indicates, this is supposed to be about growing vertically, growing towards God, or sanctification. (The name is a spin on the old Mountain Dew ad about "going vertical with Dew.") So, what does the bailout or the price of gold have to do with sanctification?

I would say everything.

Our Lord said in Luke 14, "For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it-- lest, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, "This man began to build and was not able to finish.'" (v. 28-30)

When we set out to follow Christ, we must count the cost. Following Christ entails many things. One of those very important principles is honesty.

If I sell you a box of jewelry and you open it only to find that it is full of corn flakes, I have been dishonest with you. I have sinned.

In Leviticus 19:35-36, the Lord said, "You shall do no injustice in judgment, in measurement of length, weight, or volume. You shall have honest scales, honest weights, an honest ephah, and an honest hin: I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt."

In Exodus 22:10-12, the Lord said, "If a man delivers to his neighbor a donkey, an ox, a sheep, or any animal to keep, and it dies, is hurt, or driven away, no one seeing it, then an oath of the LORD shall be between them both, that he has not put his hand into his neighbor's goods; and the owner of it shall accept that, and he shall not make it good. But if, in fact, it is stolen from him, he shall make restitution to the owner of it."

The 8th commandment clearly states, "Thou shalt not steal."

So, if I make a gold coin that is only 50% gold, and sell it to you as if it were 100% gold, I have stolen from you. If I counterfeit a gold coin with brass, I have stolen from you.

If a government counterfeits its own money by printing more of it than there is precious metal on reserve, it has stolen from you.

When a counterfeit is initially made, the counterfeiter prospers. But as that counterfeit makes its way into circulation, everyone begins to suffer as the exchange rate is effected. We call it inflation.

As Murray Rothbard said in What Has Government Done to our Money?

Inflation, then, confers no general social benefit; instead, it redistributes the wealth in favor of the first-comers and at the expense of the laggards in the race. And inflation is, in effect, a race—to see who can get the new money earliest. The latecomers—the ones stuck with the loss—are often called the "fixed income groups." Ministers, teachers, people on salaries, lag notoriously behind other groups in acquiring the new money. Particular sufferers will be those depending on fixed money contracts—contracts made in the days before the inflationary rise in prices. Life insurance beneficiaries and annuitants, retired persons living off pensions, landlords with long term leases, bondholders and other creditors, those holding cash, all will bear the brunt of the inflation. They will be the ones who are "taxed."

And yet the Bible tells us to care for the widows and orphans. "You shall not afflict any widow or fatherless child. If you afflict them in any way, and they cry at all to Me, I will surely hear their cry; and My wrath will become hot, and I will kill you with the sword; your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless." (Exodus 22:22-24)

What about price controls? That trickles down, too. If you can't raise the price of a product, you have to cut the quality. Ever notice how much smaller Little Debbie cakes are now than when you were a kid? Soon you won't know the difference between a snack cake and a Tic Tac.

Those who still believe in honest money and are willing to take the risk, sell their products in an alternative market, also known as the "black market."

I'm not going to take the time now to get into the sins of fractional reserve banking. Read Rothbard.

I just pray that the Church in America will wake up, and with the rest of America, stop drinking the Kool-Aid.

From Murray N. Rothbard's What Has Government Done to Our Money?

Since the U.S. went completely off gold in August 1971 and established the Friedmanite fluctuating fiat system in March 1973, the United States and the world have suffered the most intense and most sustained bout of peacetime inflation in the history of the world. It should be clear by now that this is scarcely a coincidence. Before the dollar was cut loose from gold, keynesians and Friedmanites, each in their own way devoted to fiat paper money, confidently predicted that when fiat money was established, the market price of gold would fall promptly to its non-monetary level, then estimated at about $8 an ounce. In their scorn of gold, both groups maintained that it was the mighty dollar that was propping up the price of gold, and not vice versa. Since 1971, the market price of gold has never been below the old fixed price of $35 an ounce, and has almost always been enormously higher. When, during the 1950s and 1960s, economists such as Jacques Rueff were calling for a gold standard at a price of $70 an ounce, the price was considered absurdly high. It is now even more absurdly low. The far higher gold price is an indication of the calamitous deterioration of the dollar since "modern" economists had their way and all gold backing was removed.

It is now all too clear that the world has become fed up with the unprecedented inflation, in the U.S. and throughout the world, that has been sparked by the fluctuating fiat currency era inaugurated in 1973. We are also weary of the extreme volatility and unpredictability of currency exchange rates. This volatility is the consequence of the national fiat money system, which fragmented the world's money and added artificial political instability to the natural uncertainty in the free market price system. The Friedmanite dream of fluctuating fiat money lies in ashes, and there is an understandable yearning to return to an international money with fixed exchange rates.

Unfortunately, the classical gold standard lies forgotten, and the ultimate goal of most American and world leaders is the old Keynesian vision of a one-world fiat paper standard, a new currency unit issued by a World Reserve Bank (WRB). Whether the new currency be termed "the bancor" (offered by Keynes), the "unita" (proposed by World War II U.S. Treasury official Harry Dexter White), or the "phoenix" (suggested by The Economist) is unimportant. The vital point is that such an international paper currency, while indeed free of balance-of-payment crises (since the WRB could issue as much bancors as it wished and supply them to its country of choice, would provide for an open channel for unlimited world-wide inflation, unchecked by either balance-of-payment crises or by declines in exchange rates. The WRB would then be the all-powerful determinant of the world's money supply and its national distribution. The WRB could and would subject the world to what it believes will be a wisely-controlled inflation. Unfortunately, there would then be nothing standing in the way of the unimaginably catastrophic economic holocaust of world-wide runaway inflation, nothing, that is, except the dubious capacity of the WRB to fine-tune the world economy.

While a world-wide paper unit and central bank remain the ultimate goal of world's Keynesian-oriented leaders, the more realistic and proximate goal is a return to a glorified Bretton Woods scheme, except this time without the check of any backing in gold. Already the world's major central banks are attempting to "coordinate" monetary and economic policies, harmonize rates of inflation, and fix exchange rates. The militant drive for a European paper currency issued by a European central bank seems on the verge of success. This goal is being sold to the gullible public by the fallacious claim that a free-trade European Economic Community (EEC) necessarily requires an overarching European bureaucracy, a uniformity of taxation throughout the EEC, and, in particular, a European central bank and paper unit. Once that is achieved, closer coordination with the Federal Reserve and other major central banks will follow immediately. And then, could a World Central Bank be far behind? Short of that ultimate goal, however, we may soon be plunged into yet another Bretton Woods, with all the attendant crises of the balance-of-payments and Gresham's Law that follow from fixed exchange rates in a world of fiat moneys.

As we face the future, the prognosis for the dollar and for the international monetary system is grim indeed. Until and unless we return to the classical gold standard at a realistic gold price, the international money system is fated to shift back and forth between fixed and fluctuating exchange rate,s with each system posing unsolved problems, working badly, and finally disintegrating. And fueling this disintegration will be the continued inflation of the supply of dollars and hence of American prices which show no sign of abating. The prospect for the future is accelerating and eventually runaway inflation at home, accompanied by monetary breakdown and economic warfare abroad. This prognosis can only be changed by a drastic alteration of the American and world monetary system: by the return to a free market commodity money such as gold, and by removing government totally from the monetary scene.