Interesting how the United States Constitution is no longer being honored...
Preamble
"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the united States of America."
Notice the words "and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity"..."our Posterity" will be slaves to the national debt and the taxes imposed from all of the government instigated programs.
Showing posts with label liberty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label liberty. Show all posts
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Printing Money, Domestic Inflation WILL Rise.
No Sunshine and Lollipops in the U.S. Economic Future
June 4th, 2009 1:29 pm | by Mike Miller of Liberty Maven
If you’ve been following the actions of the Federal Reserve, the Treasury Secretary, and big spenders in government, it’s quite clear that our economic woes won’t be over any time soon. In fact, we’re potentially headed for a cataclysmic disaster (if that’s not repetitively redundant enough for you).
The Fed has lowered interested rates to effectively zero, and is now embarking on massive quantitative easing (a fancy euphemism for printing money) which could ultimately result in the destruction of the U.S. Dollar.
China is buying less and less of our bonds, and foreign governments are holding less and less dollars in favor of the Euro or other currencies, and there are even calls to have the dollar replaced as the world’s reserve currency.
US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has gone to China to calm the fears. However, even before he arrived, a Chinese central bank spokesman gave Geithner the message that the US should not assume China will continue to finance Washington’s extravagant budgets. The governor of China’s central bank is calling for the abandonment of the dollar as reserve currency, using the International Monetary Fund’s Special Drawing Rights in its place.
The method by which the Fed “prints money” is by creating money out of thin air and then uses this money to buy our own Treasuries.
Washington’s financial irresponsibility has brought pressure on the dollar and the US bond market. Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke thought he could push down interest rates on Treasuries by purchasing $300 billion of them. However, the result was to cause a sharp drop in Treasury prices and a rise in interest rates.
As monetization of federal debt goes forward, US interest rates will continue to rise, worsening the problems in the real estate sector. The dollar will continue to lose value, making it harder for the US to finance its budget and trade deficits. Domestic inflation will raise its ugly head despite high unemployment.
The incompetents who manage US economic policy have created a perfect storm.
…
Life for most Americans will become truly stressful.
No sunshine and lollipops here.
Read As the Dollar Falls off a Cliff… by Paul Craig Roberts in its entirety and subscribe to Liberty Maven.
June 4th, 2009 1:29 pm | by Mike Miller of Liberty Maven
If you’ve been following the actions of the Federal Reserve, the Treasury Secretary, and big spenders in government, it’s quite clear that our economic woes won’t be over any time soon. In fact, we’re potentially headed for a cataclysmic disaster (if that’s not repetitively redundant enough for you).
The Fed has lowered interested rates to effectively zero, and is now embarking on massive quantitative easing (a fancy euphemism for printing money) which could ultimately result in the destruction of the U.S. Dollar.
China is buying less and less of our bonds, and foreign governments are holding less and less dollars in favor of the Euro or other currencies, and there are even calls to have the dollar replaced as the world’s reserve currency.
US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has gone to China to calm the fears. However, even before he arrived, a Chinese central bank spokesman gave Geithner the message that the US should not assume China will continue to finance Washington’s extravagant budgets. The governor of China’s central bank is calling for the abandonment of the dollar as reserve currency, using the International Monetary Fund’s Special Drawing Rights in its place.
The method by which the Fed “prints money” is by creating money out of thin air and then uses this money to buy our own Treasuries.
Washington’s financial irresponsibility has brought pressure on the dollar and the US bond market. Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke thought he could push down interest rates on Treasuries by purchasing $300 billion of them. However, the result was to cause a sharp drop in Treasury prices and a rise in interest rates.
As monetization of federal debt goes forward, US interest rates will continue to rise, worsening the problems in the real estate sector. The dollar will continue to lose value, making it harder for the US to finance its budget and trade deficits. Domestic inflation will raise its ugly head despite high unemployment.
The incompetents who manage US economic policy have created a perfect storm.
…
Life for most Americans will become truly stressful.
No sunshine and lollipops here.
Read As the Dollar Falls off a Cliff… by Paul Craig Roberts in its entirety and subscribe to Liberty Maven.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Liberty.
"Liberty, according to my metaphysics...is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power." -- John Adams
Monday, December 22, 2008
Conformity. The Enemy of Growth.
When you think of the word "conformity", what do you think of? I picture by mother saying to me, "If your friends chose to jump off a cliff, would you follow them?" Or, I think of a herd of cows, following each other through a field to pasture. My guess is that not often do we think of society and the decisions made by our governing authorities. Do we go along blindly, or do we get involved in the process?
"Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth." -- John F. Kennedy
Let’s take a look at the definition of conformity.
"Conformity is the process by which an individual's attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors are influenced by other people. It may occur as the result of subtle, even unconscious influences, or by direct and overt social pressure. Conformity may also occur by the "implied presence" of others, when other people are not actually present.
People often conform from a desire to achieve a sense of security within a group-- typically a group that is of a similar age, culture, religion, or educational status. Conformity is common among young people as an aspect of youth culture. It is present in society as a whole and among small groups of friends. Any unwillingness to conform carries with it the very real risk of social rejection." -- Wikipedia
"Conformity, adherence to the practices or beliefs of the majority.
For information on:
*processes bringing groups and individuals within society into conformity, see Acculturation; Assimilation; Integration; Social Psychology
*ideas supporting nonconformity, see Individualism; Liberty
*political ideology of forced conformity, see Totalitarianism" -- Encarta
Please notice the “ideas supporting nonconformity”, which include “Liberty”. Within the United States of America, we know liberty because of the Founding Fathers and the sacrifices they made as nonconformists.
“Liberty, the freedom to act or believe without being stopped by unnecessary force, is generally considered in modern time to be a concept of political philosophy and identifies the condition in which an individual has the right to act according to his or her own will.” -- Wikipedia
Of course, there are guidelines for liberty. Without guidelines, we would not know as peaceful of an existence as we are blessed to experience. The guidelines are in the Constitution, and in the laws of the land. You may notice that when there are those who do not live by the laws of the land that the peace is disrupted.
“Article VI (The United States Constitution)
All debts contracted and engagements entered into, before the adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.
This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” -- Cornell University Law School
All elected officials are to uphold the laws as much (if not more stringently) than regular citizens. Unfortunately, we find that there are many who do not uphold these laws according to their oaths and therefore they are not very good examples to regular citizens. When elected officials break the laws of the land, break their oaths, they give permission to many regular citizens to do likewise. Therefore, our elected officials should uphold the oaths they have made to live according to the laws of the land, and when they break those oaths, they should have a stiffer penalty than the average citizen so that an example can be made.
Understand, conformity is important to a degree, however, conformity including redistribution of wealth and Totalitarianism is not liberty, but bondage.
“Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have... a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean the characters and conduct of their rulers.” – John Adams
"Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth." -- John F. Kennedy
Let’s take a look at the definition of conformity.
"Conformity is the process by which an individual's attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors are influenced by other people. It may occur as the result of subtle, even unconscious influences, or by direct and overt social pressure. Conformity may also occur by the "implied presence" of others, when other people are not actually present.
People often conform from a desire to achieve a sense of security within a group-- typically a group that is of a similar age, culture, religion, or educational status. Conformity is common among young people as an aspect of youth culture. It is present in society as a whole and among small groups of friends. Any unwillingness to conform carries with it the very real risk of social rejection." -- Wikipedia
"Conformity, adherence to the practices or beliefs of the majority.
For information on:
*processes bringing groups and individuals within society into conformity, see Acculturation; Assimilation; Integration; Social Psychology
*ideas supporting nonconformity, see Individualism; Liberty
*political ideology of forced conformity, see Totalitarianism" -- Encarta
Please notice the “ideas supporting nonconformity”, which include “Liberty”. Within the United States of America, we know liberty because of the Founding Fathers and the sacrifices they made as nonconformists.
“Liberty, the freedom to act or believe without being stopped by unnecessary force, is generally considered in modern time to be a concept of political philosophy and identifies the condition in which an individual has the right to act according to his or her own will.” -- Wikipedia
Of course, there are guidelines for liberty. Without guidelines, we would not know as peaceful of an existence as we are blessed to experience. The guidelines are in the Constitution, and in the laws of the land. You may notice that when there are those who do not live by the laws of the land that the peace is disrupted.
“Article VI (The United States Constitution)
All debts contracted and engagements entered into, before the adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.
This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” -- Cornell University Law School
All elected officials are to uphold the laws as much (if not more stringently) than regular citizens. Unfortunately, we find that there are many who do not uphold these laws according to their oaths and therefore they are not very good examples to regular citizens. When elected officials break the laws of the land, break their oaths, they give permission to many regular citizens to do likewise. Therefore, our elected officials should uphold the oaths they have made to live according to the laws of the land, and when they break those oaths, they should have a stiffer penalty than the average citizen so that an example can be made.
Understand, conformity is important to a degree, however, conformity including redistribution of wealth and Totalitarianism is not liberty, but bondage.
“Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have... a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean the characters and conduct of their rulers.” – John Adams
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
The Existence of Freedom
"Freedom exists only where the people take care of the government." -- Woodrow Wilson
"One flag, one land, one heart, one hand, one nation, evermore!" -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
"Then join hand in hand, brave Americans all! By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall." -- John Dickinson
"One flag, one land, one heart, one hand, one nation, evermore!" -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
"Then join hand in hand, brave Americans all! By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall." -- John Dickinson
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
We The People...
The Constitution of the United States of America, 1787
"We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our prosperity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
Thursday, November 6, 2008
What is Executive Privilege?
"In the United States government, executive privilege is the power (reserve power) claimed by the President of the United States and other members of the executive branch to resist certain search warrants and other interventions by the legislative and judicial branches of government. The concept of executive privilege is not mentioned explicitly in the United States Constitution, but the Supreme Court of the United States ruled it to be an element of the separation of powers doctrine, and/or derived from the supremacy of executive branch in its own area of Constitutional activity." -- Wikipedia
The Supreme Court confirmed that there is a qualified privilege. "Once invoked, a presumption of privilege is established, requiring the Prosecutor to make a "sufficient showing" that the "Presidential material" is "'essential to the justice of the case.'"(418 U.S. at 713-14)...executive privilege would most effectively apply when the oversight of the executive would impair that branch's national security concerns."
"In 1796, President George Washington refused to comply with a request by the House of Representatives for documents which were relating to the negotiation of the then-recently adopted Jay Treaty with Great Britain. The Senate alone plays a role in the ratification of treaties, Washington reasoned, and therefore the House had no legitimate claim to the material. Therefore, Washington provided the documents to the Senate but not the House."
"President Thomas Jefferson continued the precedent for this in the trial of Aaron Burr for treason in 1807...
During the period of 1947-49, several major security cases became known to Congress. There followed a series of investigations, culminating in the famous Hiss-Chambers case of 1948. At that point, the Truman Administration issued a sweeping secrecy order blocking congressional efforts from FBI and other executive data on security problems...
During the Army-McCarthy Hearings in 1954, Eisenhower used the claim of executive privilege to forbid the "provision of any data about internal conversations, meetings, or written communication among staffers, with no exception to topics or people." ... In the end, Eisenhower would invoke the claim 44 times between 1955 and 1960.
The Supreme Court addressed 'executive privilege' in United States v. Nixon, the 1974 case involving the demand by Watergate special prosecutor Leon Jaworski that President Richard Nixon produce the audiotapes of conversations he and his colleagues had in the Oval Office of the White House in connection with criminal charges being brought against members of the Nixon Administration. Nixon invoked the privilege and refused to produce any records....the Supreme Court rejected the notion that the President has an "absolute privilege." The Supreme Court stated: "To read the Article II powers of the President as providing an absolute privilege as against a subpoena essential to enforcement of criminal statutes on no more than a generalized claim of the public interest in confidentiality of nonmilitary and nondiplomatic discussions would upset the constitutional balance of 'a workable government' and gravely impair the role of the courts under Article III."
In 1998, President Bill Clinton became the first President since Nixon to assert executive privilege and lose in court, when a Federal judge ruled that Clinton aides could be called to testify in the Lewinsky scandal...
Later, Clinton exercised a form of negotiated executive privilege when he agreed to testify before the grand jury called by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr only after negotiating the terms under which he would appear. Declaring that "absolutely no one is above the law", Starr said such a privilege "must give way" and evidence "must be turned over" to prosecutors if it is relevant to an investigation...
President George W. Bush first asserted executive privilege to deny disclosure of sought details regarding former Attorney General Janet Reno, the scandal involving Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) misuse of organized-crime informants James J. Bulger and Stephen Flemmi in Boston, and Justice Department deliberations about President Bill Clinton's fundraising tactics, in December 2001...
Bush invoked executive privilege "in substance" in refusing to disclose the details of Vice President Dick Cheney's meetings with energy executives, which was not appealed by the GAO. ...
"Once executive privilege is asserted, coequal branches of the Government are set on a collision course. The Judiciary is forced into the difficult task of balancing the need for information in a judicial proceeding and the Executive’s Article II prerogatives. This inquiry places courts in the awkward position of evaluating the Executive’s claims of confidentiality and autonomy, and pushes to the fore difficult questions of separation of powers and checks and balances. These 'occasion[s] for constitutional confrontation between the two branches' are likely to be avoided whenever possible. ...
...on June 28, 2007, Bush invoked executive privilege in response to congressional subpoenas requesting documents from former presidential counsel Harriet Miers and former political director Sara Taylor...
...On July 9, 2007, Bush again invoked executive privilege to block a congressional subpoena requiring the testimonies of Taylor and Miers...
On July 13, less than a week after claiming executive privilege for Miers...claimed the privilege once again, this time in relation to documents related to the 2004 death of Army Ranger Pat Tillman. In a letter to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Fielding claimed certain papers relating to discussion of the friendly-fire shooting “implicate Executive Branch confidentiality interests” and would therefore not be turned over to the committee...
On August 1, 2007, Bush invoked the privilege for the fourth time in little over a month, this time rejecting a subpoena for Karl Rove.
As of July 17, 2008, Rove is still claiming executive privilege to avoid a congressional subpoena. Rove's lawyer writes that his client is "constitutionally immune from compelled congressional testimony."
Source:
Wikipedia.org
The Supreme Court confirmed that there is a qualified privilege. "Once invoked, a presumption of privilege is established, requiring the Prosecutor to make a "sufficient showing" that the "Presidential material" is "'essential to the justice of the case.'"(418 U.S. at 713-14)...executive privilege would most effectively apply when the oversight of the executive would impair that branch's national security concerns."
"In 1796, President George Washington refused to comply with a request by the House of Representatives for documents which were relating to the negotiation of the then-recently adopted Jay Treaty with Great Britain. The Senate alone plays a role in the ratification of treaties, Washington reasoned, and therefore the House had no legitimate claim to the material. Therefore, Washington provided the documents to the Senate but not the House."
"President Thomas Jefferson continued the precedent for this in the trial of Aaron Burr for treason in 1807...
During the period of 1947-49, several major security cases became known to Congress. There followed a series of investigations, culminating in the famous Hiss-Chambers case of 1948. At that point, the Truman Administration issued a sweeping secrecy order blocking congressional efforts from FBI and other executive data on security problems...
During the Army-McCarthy Hearings in 1954, Eisenhower used the claim of executive privilege to forbid the "provision of any data about internal conversations, meetings, or written communication among staffers, with no exception to topics or people." ... In the end, Eisenhower would invoke the claim 44 times between 1955 and 1960.
The Supreme Court addressed 'executive privilege' in United States v. Nixon, the 1974 case involving the demand by Watergate special prosecutor Leon Jaworski that President Richard Nixon produce the audiotapes of conversations he and his colleagues had in the Oval Office of the White House in connection with criminal charges being brought against members of the Nixon Administration. Nixon invoked the privilege and refused to produce any records....the Supreme Court rejected the notion that the President has an "absolute privilege." The Supreme Court stated: "To read the Article II powers of the President as providing an absolute privilege as against a subpoena essential to enforcement of criminal statutes on no more than a generalized claim of the public interest in confidentiality of nonmilitary and nondiplomatic discussions would upset the constitutional balance of 'a workable government' and gravely impair the role of the courts under Article III."
In 1998, President Bill Clinton became the first President since Nixon to assert executive privilege and lose in court, when a Federal judge ruled that Clinton aides could be called to testify in the Lewinsky scandal...
Later, Clinton exercised a form of negotiated executive privilege when he agreed to testify before the grand jury called by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr only after negotiating the terms under which he would appear. Declaring that "absolutely no one is above the law", Starr said such a privilege "must give way" and evidence "must be turned over" to prosecutors if it is relevant to an investigation...
President George W. Bush first asserted executive privilege to deny disclosure of sought details regarding former Attorney General Janet Reno, the scandal involving Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) misuse of organized-crime informants James J. Bulger and Stephen Flemmi in Boston, and Justice Department deliberations about President Bill Clinton's fundraising tactics, in December 2001...
Bush invoked executive privilege "in substance" in refusing to disclose the details of Vice President Dick Cheney's meetings with energy executives, which was not appealed by the GAO. ...
"The history of liberty is the history of resistance...a history of the limitation of governmental power."--Woodrow Wilson
"Once executive privilege is asserted, coequal branches of the Government are set on a collision course. The Judiciary is forced into the difficult task of balancing the need for information in a judicial proceeding and the Executive’s Article II prerogatives. This inquiry places courts in the awkward position of evaluating the Executive’s claims of confidentiality and autonomy, and pushes to the fore difficult questions of separation of powers and checks and balances. These 'occasion[s] for constitutional confrontation between the two branches' are likely to be avoided whenever possible. ...
...on June 28, 2007, Bush invoked executive privilege in response to congressional subpoenas requesting documents from former presidential counsel Harriet Miers and former political director Sara Taylor...
...On July 9, 2007, Bush again invoked executive privilege to block a congressional subpoena requiring the testimonies of Taylor and Miers...
"The land of the free, and the home of the brave." -- Francis Scott Key
On July 13, less than a week after claiming executive privilege for Miers...claimed the privilege once again, this time in relation to documents related to the 2004 death of Army Ranger Pat Tillman. In a letter to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Fielding claimed certain papers relating to discussion of the friendly-fire shooting “implicate Executive Branch confidentiality interests” and would therefore not be turned over to the committee...
On August 1, 2007, Bush invoked the privilege for the fourth time in little over a month, this time rejecting a subpoena for Karl Rove.
As of July 17, 2008, Rove is still claiming executive privilege to avoid a congressional subpoena. Rove's lawyer writes that his client is "constitutionally immune from compelled congressional testimony."
Source:
Wikipedia.org
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