Franklins Nephew's blog

 None.

The main political problem with Social Security right now and the reason the founding purposes have not been at play in the Social Security debate is that there is not an established countervailing political interest in voluntarizing the welfare state.  There is not an electorally significant voice calling for privatizing the system or needless to say demanding to be free of any government imposed regulations as to retirement.

As a result, the Madisonian design is not functioning with respect to our entitlement policies and as a result of that, the policies are poorly thought out, poorly run and soon to be out and out poor.  What the country needs is a full throated unapologetic political movement to voluntarize the participation in social security, medicare, etc.  When this counterweight is in place then and only then will there be a political solution that navigates the Scylla of the aged who lost 15% of their lifetime earnings to the state and who are now dependent on that state and the Charybdis of those who don't want to experience the same fate.

Those who are overly considerate of the first group and flinch at expressing their own interests and view of how they want to live are not exercising some humanitarianism but dooming the country to a one sided debate.  If you want what is best, pursue what is best.  That's how things will work out for the best.

For a detailed "solution" to the social security problem, see my post below:

http://www.thenextright.com/franklins-nephew/proposals-for-a-nation-gone...

Maybe this has been pointed out before, but since the Kagan hearings naturally bring Roe v Wade to the forefront again let me point out how the equal protection clause would not in fact make for a stable basis upon which Row could rest safe (contra Ginsburg among others).

What is being protected against?  Is it simply the state of being pregnant which would apply only to women?  No, in fact it is the future that is being protected against (future expenses and responsibilities) not the present --there is no substantial difference between a woman who is 8 weeks pregnant and one who is not pregnant at all.  So, if the equal protection clause becomes the basis for the constitutional right to an abortion then men also would be entitled to similar protection from future responsibilities.  In other words, if abortion is a constitutional right to protect against unwanted pregnancies then men too would need to equally be able to disown any future responsibilities towards an unborn fetus and that decision like abortion would have to be available and changeable up to the moment of birth.   Call it the male abortion.   A man would have the right to suddenly and even at the last moment abandon any responsibility for what the fetus may become (ie a legally recognized person by present norms) by means of a legal procedure of disownment just as the woman can in effect do the same through a medical procedure of disownment at any time during the pregnancy.

Would you find such an arrangement sickening?  A man acting in such a manner?  That's good, it is sickening.  It is completely sickening.  And you should find it so because such an act would fly in the face of everything good that we could possibly associate with a man.  Not that male-kind is good, but if he has such legal characteristics he is wholly bad and vile.  Any society that allowed such laws and rights would be properly doomed to a bad end.  I personally would rejoice at the news of a bad end to any society that adopted such a law to protect its worthless "men."  But that too, the ability to render any future financial claims null and void prior to birth, for men and women alike, would need to become the law of the land as soon as abortion is predicated upon equal protection.

As a matter of fact, since there is equal protection guaranteed by the constitution right now and the guaranteed right to an abortion right now one might very well sue for this "right" for men to disown the burdens of paternity to be equally recognized right now.  

Actually, the fact that equalizing protection from unwanted pregnancy would render all social norms inoperative might be a very amusing way to force the court to reverse their indefensible decision on Row v Wade.  A reductio ad nauseum.  Taken to its logical conclusion after all Roe v Wade is a recipe for anarchy, the coarsening of civilization and endless human misery, as many not on the court have already seen.

As is known the liberty choking deficits will continue to rise during the Obama administration and well after as the Social Security and Medicare schemes enter their terminal stages.  Added to the after effects of the Great Depression and the Great Society are of course the new wild eyed spending of the Great One himself.  Deficits and government debt will soon eclipse the ability of the economy itself to pay for them.

What to do?  

My advice is simple--first, what has caused the rise in spending?  Is it a matter of helpless citizens who require government intervention for the sweet pap of sustenance?  Unlikely, altough at this point there are many debilitated by their long association with that noxious entity known as the welfare state.  

No, the real cause in the increase in government spending will always be not the weak, not the poor, not the ill, not the poorly educated, no, but rather those who seek power, money, prestige and security for themselves through the otherwise legitimate purposes of government.  

Granted, it's not acceptible at this point in history, with bald face, to expect the populace to tend to your aristocratic drive for all the good things this world has to offer at minimal expense to oneself.  Needless to say, those drives have not been exteminated from the human soul, no, but they have become modulated and recast--a compensatory masquerade--as charitable concern for others.  That is, when one seeks well remunerated employment in the pursuit of aleviating the suffering of others, then one can exercise the baser drives always found in those attracted to governance--but this time with a clean, modern, enlightened conscience.  Superiority even.  What a perfect circle!  My life is to improve the lot of my inferiors, which act makes me superior, which fact guarantees that my secure job will never be done.  Therefore taxes must be levied in perpetuity!

Sad but true.  There are available to us but two ways to short circuit this vicious circle.  One, we could all demand to join this Great Effort and thereby speed it's collapse by depriving it of any honest human beings to exploit for its upkeep.  This is the scenario currently playing out in Greece, et al. in Europa where a majority work for the "public interest."  Or we could take the opposite tack--not the wholesale jumping into a sinking ship--and thereby insure that some civil society, some operation of a free economy is vestigially present before the coming dissolution of the Great Government, since that freely operating society is in fact what we truly rely on for human existence (I refer to free contract, association and speech).  

No, to rid ourselves of the burden of a government which has become the thing not agreed to (the ultimate perversion of the only valid role of govenment, namely, to protect one from the what has not been agreed upon)  then we must rid ourselves of the individuals mentioned above, that is, government workers  

Hence, to free ourselve of the deficit I suggest we as a nation sell all government workers to China as slaves in exchange for the outstanding US debt held by that nation.  Not only do we free ourselves of the source of increased government spending, not only do we enjoy a windfall to eliminate a good portion of the outstanding debt, but we also adress decisively the trade imbalance with that fast growing economy.

Which government employees do we sell?  It's simple, all who do not require a gun to do their jobs and therefore do not risk their lives to earn their pay will be culled for the slave galleys to China.  This is a very sensible distinction on all grounds.

Now, many will pause at such an act--do we really want to take a step backwards in history towards the abomination of slavery?  This is well thought.  Do we?  Is not the idea of servitude towards another human being completely loathsome to us all?  The lack of consent or written agreement?  The prospect of one generation born to shackles paying an obligation made long before they were born?  

All these things are repellent.  Utterly and definably repellant.  Repulsive.  Hideous.  Sickening to one's very soul.  Such is slavery.  And yet each and every one of these things will soon be upon us; as each free individual is cowed to the superior power and demands of an unaccountable government; as each is made to pay and lose his labour to another's interest, one generation after another born without freedom of movement or self-determiniation.  Shackled by the arrangements of the past.

Slavery is upon us, the only question is who will serve? 

Well, if there will be slavery who is better suited to it?  Those who would chose fewer guarantees, who choose to take care of themselves without complaint, who are willing to risk all to make their freedom worthwhile?  Or those, the "public servants," who have opted for comfort over challenge?  It is obvious who the slavish in our society already are.  It is merely a matter of bringing the horse to the cart and sending it down the road.  

We owe trillions to China.  China has no objection to slavery, let them be paid in flesh.  We can rid ourselves of a noxious government in an appropriate way, pay off our debt, remove the impetus for future spending and provide China with cheap labour so that they can continue to send us affordable products.  Every benefit can be realized with the simple sale of government employees.  

Let your conscience rest easy, gentle reader, this government has been for sale for a long time, here we are merely broadening the product line .

 While the right often lapses into analyzing Russia as a mischief maker, trying to expand its sphere of influence through the established means of corruption and destabilization, the reality of the Russia Iran connection grows not from Russia's depraved nature turning always to wickedness to advance a goal or injure an enemy, the Russia Iran connection is based on Russian weakness where wickedness is the only power available to them.  All this boils down to one word-Chechnya.

 Is it a coincidence that since Russia has begun its partnership of with Iran towards a nuclearly armed terrorist state, Russia has ceased to experience any more embarrassing flare-ups in Chechnya?  Why else would Russia help to proliferate nuclear arms with a terrorist state? Chechnya is clearly the pro quo is this equation.  That and the unfounded hope that Iran will use its weaponry against the West.  

Let it be remembered that Iran helped channel the Chechen freedom fighters into Iraq to fight coalition forces during the bleakest days before the surge.

The reality behind Iran's manipulation of Russia has two consequences we might want to keep in mind.  One--this is par for the course for Iran.  They use Islamism to undermine other countries--no doubt Chechnya most of all--to expand their power.  Terror is the origin of Iran's nuclear program and once they have obtained this new toy, terrorism will continue to be their reflexive gesture to their rivals.  Iran's nuclear weapons will be used aggressively, either as a backstop to prevent retaliation for lesser acts of murder or as a direct assault on Israel or the US through their terror network with deniability carefully intact.

The second consequence may have greater consequence in Russia itself but is not useless to the West.   In the Russia Iran relationship, Iran is like the sociopathic womanizer, exploiting the low self esteem of his victim to get what he wants and when it is time to make good on the implied security or love, he drops his mask and gives the female a lesson in how to further lower her already low self esteem.  Russia is not a strong country and Iran has been willing to first help create the crisis in Chechnya and then exploit it to its satisfaction--but once Iran has what it wants from Russia, once it is a nuclear equal why should it continue that relationship?  Russia with its vast Islamic population spread over strategically valuable oil fields is only going to be more vulnerable to a nuclear Iran than it was before.  Russia was too weak to deal with conventional Iran it will be every bit as weak against the Iran it has helped build up (only to be dumped).

Why is this something we need to keep in mind?  Not because of some wishful thinking that Russia and Iran will end up hurting only each other, but rather that this reality, that Russia has acted out of internal weakness needs to be broadcast more widely especially to the Russian people themselves who have been deluded into thinking that the new Putin led Russia is become stronger and more assertive of its interests.  Rather US foreign policy needs to hold up Iran as a perfect case where Russia is capitulating to a clear and distinct enemy out of weakness.  That this is what you get under a kleptocracy--illusions of strength and a heavy bill to pay when that illusion is burst.  A truly strong Russia would be dedicated to a market economy under law, a strong Russia would develop its army with the resources such an economy provides to deal with terrorism within its borders, a strong Russia wouldn't have a hand in helping a country that has done it an injury but would injure that country all the more so in turn.  But then, Russia, for all its power, is not a strong country.  Like those propagating the current Washington line that a nuclear Iran can be finessed, Russia will soon learn that in all this world nothing is so dangerous as lying to yourself.

For us today what solution is there to this mess?  There is only one.  Don't be coward in the face of aggressors.  Military strikes are the only way out and always have been the only way.  I know Iran has chemical weapons ready to fire at Israel but there are ways of communicating one's intentions that even Ahmadinejad can understand and tremble at.  They can lose a weapons program or they can lose everything.  

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Regarding the recent comments from Zbigniew Brzezinski about shooting down Israeli planes on route to Iran, I doubt this was a random unconsulted remark.   The Obama regime is trying to complicate Israel's calculus.  The good news is that I think any such order from the President will result in out and out revolt on the part of the military, if that can be called good news.  Well, we can only count that as a qualified good in truth but Israel can strike and with Washington being what it is these days, they are the last best hope.  Everything else is self-deceit.  

 A few months ago I wrote a kind of political pamphlet which was modeled after the old Federal style broadsheets.  I don't particularly know what to do with it however since I'm not a professional writer.  Originally it was posted on scribd.com but didn't get a lot of readership.  Hopefully by breaking it down into blog length entries it will find a home here.

It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that the true origins of government are in tyranny.   Government has reordered itself and adjusted to unavoidable realities to become more respectable over time but its origins are a constant threat to what is of true value in this world, in my view individual self determination.

A good government as we see it exists to protect the citizen against that which has not been agreed upon.  Foreign invasion, crime, collectivization.

Because government will always be infected by its origins however it is a constant threat to degenerate from protecting us from that which hasn't been agreed to to becoming that which has not been agreed to.  

The sense that we are today at a precipice is what led me to write what follows.  It is a series of proposals to put government back in its proper role.

The monetary system--establishing full accountability to the American people rather than our suspect representative immersed as they are in an unbreakable dynamic that seems to lead to more power for them at the expense of the individual.

The Congress--how to reform it back to human proportions and re-instill our institutions with an overriding respect to the individual.

Judiciary--Don't despair!  In a well ordered system and with a few checks to their power the days of jurisprudence for the benefit of judicial power will be over (read on).

It starts off with a critique of conservatism's shortcomings in the political arena.  If you can brave your way through that however most self-described conservatives will find a lot to agree or at least fruitfully disagree with below.  Thanks for reading.

The text piece by piece:   http://thenextright.com/blogs/franklins-nephew

Homer, the first poet of antiquity, was also its most profound psychologist in the old sense and it is in the figure of Ajax, Telamonian Ajax, the Greater Ajax, Ajax of the tower shield and the long retreat, that Homer sketched his portrait of the conservative soul.  The Ajax who was outdone in battle by Achilles and bested by Odysseus in life, this Ajax was at heart a defender and this identity was both his limitation and his ultimate humiliation.  These blog entries are addressed to the contemporary Ajax, the conservative, the soldier of the slow defeat, whose prize in battle is to have less than what he started with and at a great expense.*

Let it be noted that in itself defense never leads to victory, it is only a temporary strategy; it does not earn honors and at best it can only safeguard those won by others.  Even the best outcome of a solely defensive stance is always negative.  Ultimately, its dynamic is bound to one thing:  loss.  Eventually, total loss.  Action will be our watchword then, regardless of success.  Where it does not succeed,  if the aims are good, the action will not be wasted and will force the side of statism and the status quo nunc to do the defending.  As far as the proposals within, you may find nothing appreciably novel, still it is always healthy to reiterate true things about our world.  Additionally, since it is bedrock with our view that contemporary power grabs by the federal government are certain to both succeed in the power and fail in the stated goals used to justify that power, that we will soon be left with a larger and worse government not larger and better, there will be a real opportunity, in fact necessity, to reestablish a more perfect liberty.  As bad as bad King John may have been, the upshot of his misrule was the Magna Carta.   Offered below is groundwork for a Magna Carta Nova when the reign of our King John ends.  In bad times, preparation is also the watchword.  

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footnote:  *Those interested as to whether Homer provided a portrait for what today are called liberals will not be disappointed.  It can be found in Thersites (Iliad, 2.211-77).

 Roots and meaning of words:   a symptom of decay

A conservative is presumably one who wants to preserve something already in existence just as a liberal would be someone who wants to promote liberty.  These terms however, in their juxtaposition of root and contemporary reference, seem today to be misaligned since those who would conserve the fettering apparatus of the welfare state call themselves liberal and those who would to varying degrees reverse course and renew individualism and limited government are called conservatives.  Poor language often leads to worse politics and makes defining and furthering a just cause, perhaps even by the willful misuse of language by those who would rule, that much harder.

Of course we keep a careful eye on various people styling themselves conservative.  Some depraved conservatives, for instance, of a European mold, savor each petit-mort of slowly, fatalistically, and with loud anguish giving in to what horrifies them most.  These souls seem to us more interested in enacting a drama where they display their essential beauty before being torn apart by Maenads, which might just be what they were after all along.  After all it is so much easier to establish one’s superiority to our bad times (at least to one’s own satisfaction) than to confront those evils and forge a better polity.  Those who enjoy slow torture might be better left chained in some sad dungeon.  They are welcome to call themselves what they want however.

Let us also not forget that peculiar conservative, the Night Watchman.  This helpful creature always stands ready to scream from the bell towers, to promulgate far and wide and put in the mind of each citizen any event or trend he considers a lethal danger to public morality.  He will announce that for a girl to read even a single page of la Nouvelle Heloïse is to be lost forever and then proceed to publicly read the first ten pages to show just how right he is.  Whether or not obscure cultural artifacts are as dangerous as made out, his role in making them renowned and world famous proves him to be little more than a clownish nuisance and the unfortunate public face of “true blooded” conservatism.  Heaven help the doulish mob egged on by his toxins.

Then we have the those sad accountants who look upon their continuous political defeat and point to what little is still left as a trophy of their victory.  In 2001 there was a miserly tax cut down to some 37 percent for some earners.  The President at the time called for the rate to drop to all of 33 percent since “no one should pay more than a third of their earnings to the government.”  One third.  How about 15 percent?  How about an even tithe of ten?  That used to be the figure for generous giving.  And yet for much of the last decade, conservatives have had the odious public obligation to shill for one of the weakest tax cuts in history.  A freer age would have called it a slap in the face.  No matter the political defeat however, the diminution of the individual or compulsive nature of the state, this conservative will look upon what remains unscathed and consider themselves dignified for still having a mouse-hole when the house has been emptied by robbers.  To paraphrase Hegel, “the extent of our satisfaction is a measure of our loss.”

Others who are lumped in with the cause of liberty in fact merely lack imagination.  Take Chief Justice Renquist for instance.  When those property deeds were prevalent that restricted the sale of homes to blacks, he had such a deeded property.  When cohabitation became prevalent, he had a “girl-friend.”  When Miranda was new he opposed it, when it was old he supported it.  Such individuals are poor allies to the friend of liberty since they are not so much conservative in the good sense as just plain slow.  Their trajectory is determined.

Should we call ourselves conservative at all?  And really what about this world should be conserved?  Not the UN or a past its prime NATO, not social security or the present state of the monetary system, not our spiritually corrupt courts, not the unionized and politicized schools or much of anything really.  Those who look to emulate our nation’s founding ideals and founding practice are not conservatives in this day and age: radical is the word.  The world of 1776 is no more.  The freedoms and guarantees of 1787 are today passed over by the government in embarrassed silence, and even the dim reflection of our ideals in the present political arrangement is laughable.  The following then is a set of proposals for the instauration of liberty in the United States of America.

What government do we want? Here we advocate the twin pillars of individual self-determination and self government as the political basis of the good life.  Ultimately, so far as politics is concerned, this spells limited government.  Although few dispute the relation of individual self-determination and limited government,  it is worth rehearsing the argument that self government also is necessarily related to limited government.  

As one example, no one alive today voted for social security and it would be unlikely to pass if it were brought up for a vote (knowing what we now know), and yet it is impossible to get rid of because of the human damage it has occasioned in creating permanent dependency to the state.  There are now millions of people in this country at the most vulnerable point in life this side of birth and infancy who would (at least for rhetorical purposes) likely starve to death in the absence of a federal pension.  The result being that once passed such a program cannot be repealed* and its very existence becomes an anathema to self government.   Only those decisions which can be just as easily reversed should be taken by Congress, anything else will lead to the diminution of freedom.  That is the perniciousness of the socialist gradualism -- what is done in advance of its goals can be easily started and only with greatest difficulty arrested or reversed.  The net result however and despite its origins is not self government.

With an eye to both the ideal and the constrictions of the present we will sketch a series of worthwhile victories to move closer to what is our proper birthright.  Not to spend a life living under somebody else's bad ideas and to have our political life bound by the idiot mistakes of others but to be the author of our own happiness through the highest degree of individual liberty.  Let it be remembered in every generation, as Machiavelli noted in the Discourses on Livy, that a nation is preserved by a continuing return to its roots.  

We can discern a double purification in this return: we clear away all the detritus that has accumulated in the natural daily failings of a nation; and, also, although self-interested critics of such a return try to hide this reality, we purify the past itself be seeing what in our own roots was historically conditioned and best dispensed with.  Our nation has experienced one such return during the presidency of Abraham Lincoln and the Reconstruction era.  Some might argue that the New Deal was another such episode, but be that as it may, from the standpoint of liberty and self government we are rightly today looking askance at the past that stays with us.  The Reconstruction Era amendments have provided the basis of an imperial judiciary, the later progressive amendments have greased the wheels to massive government expansion and the New Deal made real the possibilities inherent in any government power.  Today let us only think of liberty.  The past is not only our present enemy but a witness to the origin of our principles.

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footnote:  *Except perhaps through a plan detailed below -- and that over the course of 50 years.

 A nation gone off

If we state at the beginning that our guides are individual self- determination and self governance,*  let us acknowledge that the list of items we may find wrong with this world of today will be nearly limitless, and that in general our ideals and in precious cases our reality is not a condition found easily among mankind.  

Power is the God worshipped by most and liberty is in its very definition the negation of such power.  Even if a government is established on principles of limited government and respect for the individual, the very presence of government will attract those in coming generations who by dint of their own desires will work against the foundational principles of what attracted them.  Such is the state we find ourselves in many several generations after our founding.  

Much good it should be said has been done by and through our government.  Slavery is banned.  Education, although a source of abiding controversy as to its funding, control and objectives, has brought the vast majority of Americans literacy and basic math skills.  And even in the city schools that cause so much consternation, the failure is less in the government than in the culture of those cities which for whatever perverse or prideful objectives seems to squander what opportunities are afforded -- and a great many are afforded in even the most meager education.  We have most importantly been free of foreign invasion or even influence although with the rise of China and its large holdings in US treasury bonds the latter virtue is today endangered.  

On the balance sheet of these qualified goods we should also note the rank social engineering the government is prone to (to satisfy the conscience and guilt of a few), the inordinate expense of education, the outsized power of public employee unions (when very few limbs have been mangled in the machines of bureaucracy), and the septic reality of the welfare state which is an affront to both individual dignity and liberty.  There are also troubling signs that the federal government is not what it appears when taken as a government of, by and for the people.  Take the recent controversies regarding immigration.  While we will make our specific views known in the appropriate place, when it is observed that the popular majority, the existing law, the stated promises of government officials (both to observe the laws and further the views of the public) all seem to favor limited and well-ordered immigration -- and yet the very opposite occurs -- we may well wonder what holds sway in our times if it is neither the people nor the laws nor the elected politicians.  What obscured, unaccountable force is at work?  What government is this?

A government that can seem little but an oppressive presence in the lives of each person who seeks to live freely, by their own conscience and who would form the world to that conscience within its own natural sphere.

A government that sows tares and reaps taxes.

A government that would provide a soft landing for every hard fall -- and push as many people as possible off the cliff.

A government that makes you pay for every slap in the face as it demonizes those on whom it relies most for its revenue, from cigarette smokers to the rich.

A government that holds as suspect every locus of free association:  of those it does not control, subsidize or benefit from.

A government for whom the issue of every political debate must coincide with a result prearranged to its own interests.

A government bent on importing a citizenry more compliant to its power.

A government dedicated not to the perpetuation of liberty but the perseverance of all those dependant forms of living that militate against the liberty of others.

A government that finds in human degradation the mother’s milk to its power.

A government grown ashamed of its birth.

A government that strives to be everywhere, to know all things and be all capable.

A government of the government, by the government and for the government.

A government that fancies itself a jealous god.

Yes, there is a “great deal of ruin in a nation” as an ancient sage once remarked but when the ruin has extended to liberty and limited government we are right to say that is a deal of ruin too much and take steps to prevent any further rot in what is as rare, precious and noble as human freedom and a government dedicated to its pursuit.  Let's begin with what most of our arguments come down to anyway, that measure of reality and measure of ruin, money.

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footnote:  * If socialism were perfectly and wholly voluntary, and not pursued under the auspices of the government, we would not object in the slightest.  Only associations that can be dissolved in a trice however are worthy of the name.  Government can never be dissolved in a trice.  Like death, it has the stench of permanence about it.

 Monetary system

Nowhere have such divergent principles been as thoroughly tested and just as thoroughly been found wanting as in the US monetary system -- from a full gold standard to a fully floating currency and various expediencies in between, from independent banks issuing currency to one central bank since 1913.  Given the reliance of nearly everything on a sound currency, the controversies will never fully be resolved and the proposals to follow will not promise paradise, only order and accountability, which is to say, the possibility of sound decisions and the capacity for political reckoning.  

Although the congressional charter for our central bank, the Federal Reserve, promises a currency free from political consideration, it should be obvious that anything chartered by Congress can be regulated, influenced and changed by Congress -- and be accorded the title of “independent” to boot.  Today's Reserve is fully compromised by political decisions and political goals.  Whatever danger is hoped to be averted through an “independent bank,” dangers such as the use of interest rates to manipulate the economy (referred to as stimulus*[1]) or the use of inflation to assist the central government in paying its debts -- all these dangers have been realized in our central bank.  

What is needed is not a bank chartered by Congress but one chartered by constitutional amendment and likewise protected from any interference from Congress.  What is needed is a bank directly accountable to the American people with elections every two years for the head of said bank.  And just as the sole successful entity of the US government is the armed forces*[2], accountable to one man who is in turn accountable to the entire US electorate, if the central bank is to be successful, a similar structure needs to apply -- independent from the legislature and accountable to the American people.

Here is as follows:  The national wealth of Fort Knox is hereby transferred to the United States Central Bank.  

The head of the bank will be elected by the American people for a two year term for a maximum of four consecutive terms.  The individual running will select 6 individuals to chair the reserve board and who will set policy and oversee the daily operations of the bank.  The board will serve at the head's discretion.  The number of board members can be altered by ballot initiative.  All ballots initiatives must take place at the same time as the election of the head of the bank.

One of the more offensive aspects of the current system is its sibylline quality.  Economics is not magic.  Every decision made as to interest rates must be both open to the public and formulaic, in other words, the actual results need to be based on economic data which is itself made public.  Every school child should be able to determine the overnight rate based on economic indicators found in that day’s newspaper.  There should be nothing secret about the banks operation.  No hidden signals to the market.  No secret meetings with the federal government.  The bank will publish its operating formulas used to set interest rates and each change in the rate must be preceded by an open public meeting where the change is proposed and the board is subjected to public questions as to its decisions.  

The bank has the power to print the legal tender for the United States economy, the US federal government and all state and local governments.  The bank may establish subsidiary reserve banks throughout the country in keeping with need.

The bank will set interest rates for its loans and print money for exchange in keeping with the principles of low inflation.  There should be neither inflation or deflation  It's only concern is a stable currency.  Not economic growth, not interest rates.  Certainly not the interests of politicians:  the bank head and board members are exempt from appearing before Congress and any congressional inquiry -- they are accountable directly to the American people.

The bank may not make direct loans to the US federal government or to any individual state or local government.  The bank may only loan to private entities with established private credit.  It might be a good time to reform the rating agencies as well -- AAA credit has become the mark of implausibility.

Congress may make no law abridging the Federal Reserve's right to print money, either in amount or to whom it lends.  The bank will be independently accountable to the American people and the United States Government will observe the independence of the bank.  The Government may not compel loans from the bank, seize its assets or impair its ability to perform its chartered tasks.  

The bank is to have no army or security force.  The state of Tennessee, or the state where it is located is accorded the responsibility of keeping the bank and its funds safe.  The state may bill the bank in keeping with this service.   The bank may relocate by ballot initiative at its own expense.  It may only be located in one of the states of the union.  It may not be located within 100 miles of the nation's political capitol.  Legal matters as arise can be referred to the courts.

The bank must operate on its own budget realized through its loans.  The bank employees will be paid through this same source and any outsourced needs such as security.  The bank has no power to levy taxes to support itself.

Let it be determined also to put interest to work for stability -- that the elected head of this bank shall receive in compensation 10 times to salary of the US president and his selected board of bank managers shall each receive 5 times said salary.  There is one proviso -- for every percentage point of inflation over two percent per annum, the elected head of our bank will forfeit a penalty of 20 percent of his salary, his reserve board members will forfeit 10 percent.  The same penalty applies to deflation.

It is not simply the monetary policy which will be shored up by full independence from Congress but Congress itself will be obliged to play an honest hand in its dealing with the American people.  As it is, for a government to have both the power of the purse-strings and the printing press is to have a power one too many.  Any such government cannot be relied upon to make objective decisions.  And, is this not the greatest conflict of interest in human history?  Not unique, typical rather of every government but certainly the greatest example given the sums involved.  The independence of the monetary system is as good for money as that independence is good for Congress -- to have a good Congress.  The reserves of precious metals held by the American people through the federal government will be turned over to the American people in the entity of the new US bank.  The bank can agree, as a profitable institution to take some percentage of existing US treasury debt as a farewell gesture with the understanding that any debt incurred by the federal government from that point forward is the responsibility of Congress to honor through its own revenues not through the inflating of currency or emergency loans from the bank.  Additionally, as a profit making entity, the US Bank will be expected to pay to every citizen a dividend of the profits realized on its loans to banks.  That would be the best way for the monetary supply to increase.  There probably won’t be much to split 300 million ways but the profits made from the national treasury also belong to the American people.

Given the wild eyed spending taking place in Congress, the American people need to look to their own basic interests, that of a sound currency.  There is in addition to all the practical reasons for such a change a great moral one, namely, that inflation -- the destiny we face from our expansive federal government -- injures most those who have the least.

In summation, our plan puts in action several principles which will be repeated throughout this pamphlet -- the desirability of separation of powers, not necessarily separate in insularity but agonistically separate.  In this separation reality can shine through, or at least have its say, in addition to all those fantasies that politics is heir to.  Lastly, from the day before the change to the day after it is like there is no change at all.  There will be the same currency in circulation.  There will be the same value to that currency.  There will be roughly the same amount of money in circulation.  And yet everything has changed even though the true and beneficial effects will be apparent only in time’s good work.

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footnote 1:  As opposed to the more rightful measure of tax cuts to rebalance a grown economy with a government that doesn’t need to grow along with it -- something that would obviously compromise the glorious power of the government and only benefit the citizens.

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footnote 2:   It is also one of only two, along with the monetary system, subject to and measurable by foreign competition.  Everything else can get away with not working very well without fear of being decisively replaced.  The armed forces have both features, accountability and competition, the monetary system has just competition and, given the number of socialist leaning countries, competition very friendly to inflation

Tax system

The most galling aspect of the last 30 years since the Reagan revolution is the persistent absolute growth in government.  One could point out that the percentage of the economy controlled by the federal government remains about 18 percent, but this ignores the fact that the economy has grown x-fold in this same period and therefore so has the government.  Such an arrangement would be irrational unless someone can prove a priori that every percentage of economic growth creates an equivalent increase in the need for more government.  No one ever will.  The problem we set before us here is how to de-couple economic growth from government revenue.  

Instead of today's multiple federal taxes for social security, medicare and general withholding, let us pool all government revenue derived from individuals through income tax into two pots, one for the military and one for everything else.  Now we propose two flat taxes -- the same percentage for every level of income.  Three percent of every dollar earned will go to the military budget.  For everything else, a second tax -- a percentage to be determined to cover current non-military expenses (debt, social programs, roads, etc), let’s say 15 percent for a total of 18 percent for starters.  

As the years follow, the military will receive its steady percentage of every dollar earned which will hopefully go towards improved pay as well as improved technology.  The general fund however will be strictly indexed to inflation and as the economy grows, the percentage of that economy dedicated to this general fund will shrink -- the amount adjusted for inflation will stay the same, the percentage as of the economy will decrease as will its importance and glamour.  The “surplus” this index will realize year in, year out,  

as the economy grows should be returned to the people by way of yearly cuts in the general pool tax rate -- this is not a tax cut per se since year over year each will pay an equivalent amount in taxes adjusted for inflation but the percentage of one’s income that goes to government will decline and it will result in the individual enjoying the full benefit of their participation in our economic growth.  If we start with a 3 percent military tax and a 15 percent general fund tax in the first year, after ten years of 3 percent annual economic growth, the tax rate will remain 3 percent for the military and for the general fund that flat rate will have shrunk to roughly 10.5 percent.

The government is as fully funded as it was in the beginning:  after all if Washington cannot address the nation’s collective problems with 3 trillion dollars then those politicians are massively incompetent or massively corrupt, probably both.  Incidentally, it is our view that the present arrangement of growth harnessed tax rates are the primary cause of economic downturns -- instead of giving the economy the rightful benefit of its growth, the government insists on an ever larger sum and, when the business cycle circles around, it is monetary policy that is used to right the ship instead of cutting back the ill gotten gains of government.  Government will have the same amount of money as it started with under this plan, the rest of us will have much more.  The downward pressure this plan will place on government revenues will force a scale back in personnel.  If bureaucrats want raises they must be efficient enough to displace some of their colleagues and feed from that surplus.   Let, “Demobilization of the Bureaucracy” be our daily rallying cry.

What of the great dual messes of social security and medicare?  First the pressure on government revenue will as it does everywhere create opportunities for innovative thinking.  Second, the ending of specific taxes for these programs will demystify them in the public mind and perhaps allow for less emotional thinking:  if I'm not paying into “my fund,” I may be more receptive to its diminishment over time.  Thirdly, through this diminishment, without the prestige of a Great Program, we can slowly move away from social security, first with means testing and then with needs testing.  After fifty years of economic growth unbarnacled by further government growth, the opportunities should be manifold for each individual to attend to their own needs throughout their lives.  

What of emergencies?  First let it be spoken aloud that most government crises are not national crises.  The constant shrieking from Washington may be a national headache but we can just rename that city Xanthippe and attend to our own business.  But in the unlikely event that 3 trillion dollars will not make do, let the guilty Congress obtain permission from the American people to increase spending and taxation (everyone’s taxation) in a ballot initiative.  If their initiative can garner not a majority of voters but a majority of all eligible voters whether they bothered to vote that day for or against that particular measure, then Congress can have its candy.  Any successful politics must eventually be allied to inertia and the monumental hurdle presented here will have several very healthy effects.  One, the difficulty of duping the American people into giving it more money will reduce the likelihood that Congress will concoct crises or do much to bring any real ones about.  Also, there will be little incentive to increase by fraudulent means the number of eligible voters by those forces in favor of more and more and more government spending since they would only be raising the bar to the fulfillment of their shoddy dreams.  

The important thing however is to put gradualism to work for liberty.  Order, balance and liberty should be the watchwords for the decline and dissolution of these noxious government programs.  A battleship at sea can take 50 miles of ocean to turn around.  Likewise we are suggesting small changes that will reverse course from the last generation.  Not one dollar less is proposed in spending. In one way everything remains the same, in another everything has changed.  We will no longer be headed in the same direction.  

Righting the ship and re-setting its bearing is the critical thing.  It is axiomatic with us that prosperity is prospective.  This is sometimes referred to as “animal spirits.”  A poor country where the future is bright is more attractive and dynamic than a rich country in a state of decay.  The later, despite its temporary wealth is not prosperous.  Prosperity refers to future ability.

Let us also turn to corporate taxation.  Many have written as to the deleterious effects of corporate taxation with respect to the economy and also government revenue, let us here address the more pernicious effects on our political culture.

Corporate taxation for us ultimately becomes a question of good government.  If government is to be good we need to have accountable government and that means accountable to the voter/taxpayer.  Since corporations should not have the franchise (Should they?  No!), they should not be taxed.  Too often, companies are emotionalized and seen as moral agents instead of what they are, efficiency processes.  Individuals should pay taxes and the government should be accountable to individuals.  

When one taxes an otherwise “voteless” entity to shift the tax burden away from those who do have the vote, two things happen; one, that voteless entity finds a way to influence politics to its liking and given the stakes involved has every incentive to do so.  And frankly, if they are providing a good deal of “our” government revenue, who are we to object?  The result being that political corruption associated with lobbyists, etc.  Secondly, those who are ultimately responsible for the soundness of our domestic affairs, the individual citizens, tend to get comfortable with someone else paying for government when in reality it is a responsibility rightly shared by those enfranchised to effect that government.  

Every citizen needs to pay taxes and understand directly the costs of government. To shift costs to the politically palatable is both immoral and leads us upon a road paved by incomprehension and irreality.  Everyone pays and everyone pays at the same rate -- that is sunlight.

Every citizen needs to pay their taxes -- we mean by this also that the present day expedience of having taxes deducted from one’s salary and passed directly to the government, instead of passing through one’s own hands first, is an affront to the individual and an invitation to a government a little too comfortable with handling people’s substance.  The individual in this present arrangement is little more than a tax serf.  He creates the wealth which his employer and government dispose of in a transaction out of his keeping.  Good government and good citizenship require that the individual be paid his full wages and then pay his own taxes with his own hand and not otherwise.  Our proposal for the double flat tax and modern payments methods should make this a useful and civic minded inconvenience.  If this makes possible tax rebellions, so be it.  Better to live in reality than block it off.   

Here we recommend the feint of making corporations list in the employees’ pay voucher a pro rated amount paid in corporate taxes, then as those taxes are eliminated there will result a higher take home pay for the employee.  It is often enough said that corporate taxes come from two sources:  lower salaries and higher prices.  When eliminating corporate taxes it should be done in a way to make sure that the beneficiary is the wage earner.  That would help minimize hardships created by the transition from corporate taxation to the taxation of citizens only.

As a further example of the twisted corruption and emotionalism that takes place with respect to taxation, what are “child tax credits” but the subsidizing of those companies who pay poor wages?  If it is true that corporate taxes are paid out of lowering wages and raising prices, the role of the child credit can also be abolished along with corporate taxes.

Incidentally, this pamphlet stands opposed to “sin” taxes for much the same reason as it opposes corporate taxation.  What is the sin tax but the setting up of some behavior or group of people who are seen as undesirable and then making sure the government profits from them?  (!)  Not only that but the sin tax puts government in the position of profiting off human misery.  Alcoholics, people who have squandered their family's fortune at the roulette wheel -- and just wait till drugs are legalized -- these wretched people are for some reason looked upon as a golden opportunity by the government to increase its revenue.  Truly, such a government can only hope to make itself despicable.  In our view, any activity which is legal should not be taxed any more or less than any other activity.  We only favor the legalization of gambling, recreational drugs, alcohol, etc., if it generates no additional tax revenue.  As a matter of fact, the dangers are so great in the exploitation of drug addicts that recreational or narcotic drugs should be legalized or “decriminalized” if no revenue is realized whatsoever from its use or importation.   Human dignity demands a much, even the dignity of a broken down addict not to subvent a great power.

There's little point in discussing the noxious phenomena of lotteries.  The lottery is a tax on stupid people.  We favor neither stupidity nor the taxing thereof.

Honesty is also our watchword.   The goal here can be reduced to reforming the tax system in a way that brings the government back to its proper relation towards the citizens who pay for it.  Honesty, clearly seeing what the government is doing, will also help inhibit the exploitation of those who live in the realm of private free exchange, the realm of persuasion, from those who live in the world of public compulsion.