Everything That Dazzles
Is not tender
Many folks are under the false impression that the US Constitution grants the federal gummint and/or Federal Reserve Bank [sic] the exclusive right to coin and issue money. Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution says, "The Congress shall have Power [...] To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures." There is no exclusive right to coin money, only to set the exchange rate between the States, and determine weights and measures, and the “dollar” is a weight and measure, by definition.
In fact, anyone can produce a dollar, provided it meets the congressionally approved definition of a “dollar”. It gets tricky, though, because the evil federalist dictator Abraham Lincoln destroyed the de jure Republic, and the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 mucked around with the definition of a dollar, and then the despicable statist Richard Nixon, citing executive power under the Gold Reserve Act of 1934, completely trashed it, so that today a dollar is defined as a unit of itself.
The Gold Reserve Act, enacted by the evil Socialist Franklin Roosevelt, gave the US Treasury exclusive possession of all US minted gold coins and gold certificates (warehouse receipts). The Coinage Act of 1965, enacted by the insane drunkard Lyndon Johnson, finished real dollars by removing the link to silver.
The Coinage Act of 1792 established the U.S. dollar as a specific weight of silver, with one dollar equaling 371.25 grains of pure silver or 24.75 grains of gold. A grain is defined as 1 grain = 0.0648 grams, and 480 grains equals 1 troy ounce.
The origin of the term “dollar” further tells the tale.
“Dollar” comes from the 16th century German town of Joachimsthal (now the Czech town of Jáchymov), where coins of high quality silver were minted, called Thalers. Thalers eventually morphed linguistically into “Dollars”. Though weight and purity of the thaler/dollar varied over time, it has generally been about one ounce of high quality silver, though not necessarily “fine silver” (99.9% pure).
The 1792 Coinage Act specified a silver dollar as the basic unit of money to be 24 grams of silver, alloyed with 4.5 grams of copper for durability.
The upshot of all this was that anyone — a state, a bank, a private mint — could create dollars, provided they met the specifications of the Coinage Act — 371.25 grains of silver in a 90/10 alloy with copper, and Congress had the right to set the exchange rate with the US dollar, as well as the silver weight that constituted a “dollar”.
Fast forward to 1998, and a fellow by the name of Bernard von NotHaus. He created something called the Liberty Dollar (LD), which was made of or backed by silver and gold, and came in rounds (coins), paper and digital forms. The paper dollars were not “currency,” but rather “warehouse receipts” that could be traded in for the actual metal that backed it. Von NotHaus’ vault was regularly audited and the metals were assayed to assure quantity and quality. No paper LD could be issued, except that the amount in metal was on deposit in the vault. The Liberty coins were minted of 99.9% fine silver in various denominations, as were the gold coins. The face values were deterimined by market price of bullion.
I had a Liberty Dollar redemtion center back then, where folks could trade FRNs for LDs, or vice versa. I also handled calls from merchants who had received them from customers, but found they couldn’t deposit them. I would show up and give them FRNs for the LD paper or coins, and everyone was happy. I’ve never met Von NotHaus, but someday I would like to.
Von NotHaus ended up on the wrong end of the FBI, as free thinkers often do. He was convicted of several bogus charges in 2007, including couterfeiting and fraud, and sentenced to a few months of house arrest and a couple of years’ probation. Deep State lawfare is nothing new, especially when their pyramid schemes are threatened.
His experience was not unlike the Knights Templar several centuries earlier. The Templars originated the modern banking system by doing much the same as Von NotHaus: a traveller could deposit gold and silver with the Templars in one location (a commandary), and take a warehouse receipt. The traveller could redeem that receipt at his destination for the equivalent amount, less a small handling fee.
Eventually, the warehouse receipts became a currency of their own, as bearers traded them in commerce, rather than handling the actual assets. This naturally rankled the royals and the Temple (Vatican), who liked to have a monopoly on currencies, so the Templars were attacked and slaughtered, beginning on 13 October 1307, by French king Phillip IV and Pope Clement V.
Not much has changed in 700 years.
What all this highlights is that it ain’t easy to get out of the Matrix. To completely extract one’s self from the system, one needs a complete economic ecosystem, including trade, financing, manufacturing, distribution, and so forth. This implies some authority to set standards of weights and measures.
Any attempt to mess with Uncle’s monopoly on money (power) will be met with steel traps. Uncle doesn’t like humans being free and sovereign, with multi-generational accumulation of wealth. This is why the US Constitutional government has been slowly but steadily destroyed over time, and especially since 1913. We are not meant to be free. Only the King and the Temple may enjoy that luxury.
For an in-depth and eye-opening exploration of the inseparable link between currencies, religions and the State, I highly recommend Joseph P. Farrell’s book, Babylon’s Banksters.
This screed is not intended to disuade folks from extracting themselves from indentured servitude. Au contraire, my intent is to spark dialogue among freedom-minded folks towards the goal of creating a collaborative (not collective) economic ecosystem.
I have written elsewhere that I think Bitcoin (and only Bitcoin) has many of the beneficial features of gold and silver, while offering the ability to transact at a distance, and it is self-defined and regulated, eliminating a central authority. You can store it in your possession in warm and cold wallets, and it is infinitely portable, allowing you to carry any amount of money on a microSD card — kind of a digital Knights Templar, which is likely why the Kng and Temple are so terrified by it.
I differentiate between collaborative and collective systems, with the former being voluntary and the latter being coercive. We should endeavor to extract ourselves from the collective, and form the collaborative.
The digital revolution presents both a Sword and a Shield, depending on how it’s used. It is true that if there is no electricity or connectivity, our Shields are gone, but so are the Swords we are dodging.
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Today’s cultural enrichment is a little-remembered gem called Mister 880 (1950), starring Burth Lancaster and Dorothy McGuire. The story is based on an actual counterfeiter named Samuel Adams, in the late 1940s. It makes a fun double feature with one of Burt’s strangest performances in The Swimmer (1968), co-directed by Sydney Pollock.
Building ecosystems on the Far Side:
E-book: Paper Golem: Corporate Personhood & the Legal Fiction
Contact Bernard Grover at luap.jkt @ gmail . com
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Go search the Gilligans Island
Episodes of believe it was called a little dictator
He washed the shore pretty much took over and issued currency, which was Treebark with his signature or possibly seashells, and the expected result of rapid inflation soon followed
It should be noted that the chairman of the federal reserve was named Minnow
The producer hated him and that is why their Boat was named Minnow
What are the Robin Hood episodes from the 50s or 60s with Richard Green Dealt with diluting the currency
Where Robin Hood and his band start issuing full weight currency and as usual, good money chased money off the market.
God says in the Bible, I have warned you over and over “rising up early” is the term, but we are under a delusion and are suffering the consequences
I met Von Hothaus at a meeting during the Ron Paul campaign
He was invited to speak about his work in Asheville, North Carolina on the liberty dollar.
Only two of us in the room Other than Hothaus, understood Anything about the precious metals market, and hard currency. While I wanted him to succeed with all my heart I saw his approach as deceptive and told him so. At the time you could buy his medallion, it could not be called a coin, for $20 and that was the denomination embossed on it. Price of silver was 15.
And was climbing at the time
he said when the price reached I think it was $20 on the spot market you could turn in your $20 denomination liberty dollars and they would be struck at $25 face value. I believe you paid three dollars per medallion for that, he emphasized that you would make a profit of two dollars .
I asked him what he intended to do when the price went down, but I do not recall that he had an answer.
In my conversation with him with my friend joining in, we told him his premium which is the price above spot was too high as you could normally buy silver two or three dollars above spot.
When I called him out on this being moneymaking pyramid type scheme, he was not really happy, but I could see his face change when I told him I would be all in if he took the nomination off of the medallion, removed all references to dollar and the United States and simply simply put the weight and purity On his medallion.
One would be expected to pay a premium above spot for the striking cost, and as people got a custom to trading in silver using the liberty medallion, this would quickly crossover to other medallions, struck by private mints which were cheaper to purchase per ounce than American Eagles.
Of 50 or so people in that meeting, they seem to be universal acceptance of what I was suggesting to him. None of this was hostile. Simply two people discussing how to further hard money and get the public out of the grip of the federal reserve. I bought one. It was a beautiful medallion.
After meeting a small group of us met him again talking about this and I told them he is going to be taken down by the feds because he’s competing with them using the word dollar.
It has been some years past, but I remember following some of the case when he was taken down I think they pulled the trigger because he was going to strike a one dollar copper Medallion with Ron Paul on it.
As a recall, the key point of the feds argument against him is people would be deceived into thinking his medallion was official US currency.
That is absurd on its face, and I don’t know any currency that has a web address on it.
Using hard currency will work just fine and sales and trades between individuals not intend to put any of them in the bank.
However, if I have to make a car payment, I’ve got to find somebody who will convert that silver into federal reserve notes
Same with the store owner at the end of the day he hast to go down to the bank until they accept a $1.01 ounce American Eagle or a $50 one American Eagle gold coin at the market price of the metal. I’m afraid it’s not gonna happen.
Was taken down because he was going to trade oil on the euro
His making a gold coin and I believe he had Babylon on it, would’ve been a little consequence to America.