The Gift of Liberty

This is an exact copy (I edited the closing two paragraphs for clarity 12/24/2009) of a message I sent to friends in April 2008. It was not an edited document, but rather simply a message that I typed because this was on my mind, and quite frankly, I was a little more angry than normal about how my fellow citizens, my friends, are being abused.

You will see that I hold a Christian Worldview. I draw certain conclusions regarding liberty, government, taxes, etc. that may be the same as another person, but perhaps from a differing foundation or perspective; i.e. from a different worldview.

To those who are Christian, you will recognize the language and ideas. To those having another worldview, some statements and ideas will seem wrong by your measure. Thankfully we live in a nation that allows freedom of speech, which most certainly rests on freedom of thought. We each are able to choose our own filter through which we see the world.

While each person may have a different basis for his views, I believe that we all desire liberty; the freedom to live responsibly among others, living as we see fit within the reasonable constraints of society.

I share this text as a way of sharing the passion I have for the well-being and rights of the people in our state and nation. In the following text, the ideas presented are general because at the time I was refining my thinking and testing the conclusions which I had drawn.

After more than thirteen years of intentional study, thought and research I know with certainty, through the filter of math, reason and logic, the actions that we must take in order to remain free and strong as a state (Georgia) and nation. I look forward to opportunities to communicate, share and defend my conclusions and claims.

So here is what I was thinking one evening in April 2008.

April 6, 2008

If you recall the key focus of the American Steward Initiative, it is about repairing belief systems and damaged social structures. In my research I have uncovered what I believe to be the temporal systemic root of our problems. These discoveries present realities which are more painful and alarming than I imagined.

There is an intentional war being waged against liberty and we are engaged in the battles whether we realize this or not.

Perhaps you know this is true. That is not good enough. To have meaning and impact beyond trivia, this reality should be table talk in every household. The talk and beliefs should be rooted in knowledge and understanding.

These battles for liberty play out over the course of decades and generations. If as a nation we are unaware of what is really going on around us, then we lose by default. With regard to loss, I speak not of God’s Sovereignty over all, but rather of our responsibilities with regard to our call to be good stewards and Christ-like sons of our Father in Heaven. Reduced to a specific situation involving a choice on the part of the individual, we can easily construct analogies and examples that clearly show our obligation to make choices. I.e. Shall I stop a mugging?

We must take action. We must lead intelligently. We must know where we are going and why. We must know our obstacles; spiritual, temporal, historical, behavioral, geographical, economic, technological, ideological, political, social, systemic, beliefs, education, propaganda, resource, etc.

We must integrate education into the culture. This objective will involve low tech, high tech, media, books, cartoons, seminars and training sessions, etc. The call to action must be understandable and sustainable. Behaviors must change, but calling for change is meaningless without a clear understanding of the problem, a clear solution and a workable, realistic and step-based plan to achieve change and reach the goal.

In the past I have asked: “How many people are sitting on the deck, watching the bright blue sky, while the ship sinks?”

What good does it do to swab the deck, polish the silver, tuck the baby in the crib, plan tomorrow’s breakfast menu, etc. if we are onboard the Titanic? If the ship is sinking, our apparent security is but an illusion at a point in time.

Study history and one will find that the enemy of liberty is real and effective. Do we, today, have the wisdom and fortitude to respond?

Oppressive institutions win over time by wearing people down. Oppressive institutions must be purged at minimum and often must be destroyed.

Have we really done our job in education if students receive a diploma, or more so leave our homes, without understanding the raging battle for sovereign control over their own, personal life, liberty and property?

In this age, established sovereign control over these three elements shall belong to the ruling class or the individual. Apart from constant vigilance, a perverse ruling class will win. Your life will be owned by another. Your liberty will be defined not by law, but by another individual. Your property will be deemed to be or not to be by whim of the powerful.

The 20th Century terminated upwards of 100 million lives at the hand of a perverse and destructive ruling class. These powers currently lay claim to life, liberty and property of billions more.

Imagine, dear friends, boldly claiming to provide for your family and their future while a hidden tube is attached to your vein slowly drawing the blood from your body. While your spirit may be strong, soon your body will be too weak to provide. Your strength will be slowly, but completely, taken from you. Your claim and desire to care for those you love will become nearly meaningless.

America is being robbed and used.

Not only are the wealth, morality and beauty of America being slowly drained by corrupt and ungodly practices, America and her citizens have been used. We have been made unwilling dupes in a plot to deprive people of life, liberty and property. I know what that looks like. I have personally experienced being the specific individual who wanted to do what was right, who worked hard and sacrificed for a false objective, only later to find I had been manipulated into supporting evil. That, my friends, is a very bad place to be. This very thing has been done to the citizens of the United States of America.

Is our ship sinking? If our view is simply that this degradation is what is called for in scripture, then Nero should have been only the beginning and the middle ages should never have ended; those oppressed people should have done nothing, since the end was obviously near. The truth is that brighter days did lie ahead and much good has been done because of the labors of strong Christian leaders and by others who adhered closely to the Judeo-Christian God’s guidance on liberty.

There are specific problems that must be corrected – or else those who love liberty lose. There is a hole in our ship, below the water line. The ship is not just a metaphor. It is a metaphor for the actual reality that you and your children and their children do experience or will experience. We have a serious, life and death, real, actual, tangible problem facing us.

We argue over policy and rules about how to manage the ship, fighting amongst ourselves, while the actual enemy destroys the very ground on which we stand. And do you know what else? They are laughing at the American serfs; and the term serf includes everyone who is not currently wielding useful power, deployed in the service of the ruling elite.

If an actual ship is sinking, what are the first five things that should be done, ordered by priority? Perhaps more to the point, what would not be on the list of activities? What are we doing today that doesn’t matter until the ship is made seaworthy again?

We may be able to take action and win the great battle of our generation, but there is no chance whatsoever if we deny the conflict, are not on the field of battle and don’t know our enemy.

We must act. We must intelligently engage.

If we are without glorious days of freedom and liberty between now and the end of the age, let it not be because we failed to vigorously pursue and fight for those bright, good and productive days. Let us wrap the gift of liberty and place it under the Christmas tree for our posterity, in remembrance of the One who makes men free. Can you see with your mind’s eye the light that would burst forth from a gift of liberty; a package held in the tiny hands of a child or the strong hands of a young father? Imagine the grandfather on his last Christmas finding that liberty had indeed been secured, for another generation, in the hearts of the people; incorporated once again in a limited government which derives its just powers from the labor and consent of the governed.

This possibility shall soon be lost if we keep our present course. Instead, a tattered box in a cold house will be opened to find only grief, pain and need. I acknowledge with gladness that the light of Christ always shines through and many miracles accompany the persecuted church. Even so, let’s secure our freedoms while we have strength to win, rather than wait to incur wrath when we resist, because resistance is all the power we have left, having failed to overcome when we could have made a difference and achieved victory.

Regression to Productivity

Based on math, reason and logic the argument I am presenting here can be sustained.

The intent in this article is not to prove the claims, but simply to state them in simple terms.

If you disagree, please begin by explaining your case for how our current system is working well and is not to blame for the current bust.


Very simply put, money must always originate through voluntary exchange of a commodity which initially has other uses.

A simple paradigm breaking example is butter. It begins as something that people produce to serve a particular purpose and then, because of certain attributes like fungibility, divisibility and reasonable durability, it rose in some markets as a commodity used in indirect exchange, i.e. money.

Which came first, a) the usefulness for other purposes, b) usefulness as a commodity for indirect exchange or c) were these uses concurrent? In the case of butter, the rise to money would be sequential, while in the case of gold or silver, I consider the rise concurrent.

In either case, the commodity is the original money because government cannot introduce an unlinked currency to market. The link always regresses to a commodity which was respected and accepted in exchange because of various attributes, number one among them being the productivity filter. There was no need for a government agency to ensure the "value" of a commodity that everyone clearly understood required productive labor to acquire.

Compare these two questions:

Hey buddy, did you just get that gold out thin air, or did you work for it?

Hey buddy, did you just print that dollar, or did you work for it?

The gold had to be mined. The paper costs nearly nothing to produce. In a matter of milliseconds enough "dollars" can be produced to buy entire countries. Try that with gold or any other natural money. Society can't get around the productivity filter with natural money.

Today we suffer under the abuses of an unlinked fiat currency. This means the government does no work in order to produce their claims to our labor. Fiat money is also called costless money.

Prior to that we had a linked currency, i.e. notes that were linked to a reserve of gold and silver. With our linked currency there was at least the claim that some quantity of gold or silver was stored somewhere that someone worked to produce.

Prior to that we had the age of coins. These were diluted with base metals as a crude and unsophisticated form of inflation. The king would collect 100 gold coins in taxes, melt them down, mix in some cheap base metal and then produce 150 new coins to spend. Basically if the coins were purified and separated, the king would have the 100 original coins which would spend fine, but then also 50 coins made of tin. The effect is the same as if he came to purchase goods from you using his 50 tin coins (covered with gold paint of course) and expected you to treat the tin as though it were gold. Spending the tin as though it were gold is no different when a little is mixed in with every coin than it is if it all resides in a few. It is theft either way.

Prior to that were commodities. Natural money, honest money, sound money. People used gold and silver, sometimes copper or other commodities, as a medium for efficient indirect exchange.

And prior to that came productivity. One person raised sheep, another wheat and yet another mined gold and silver. There would be no gold to trade unless someone dug it up and refined it. That is hard work.

I am aware of no case in which a government has ever successfully introduced a money token that was not dependent on a commodity, which was originally introduced in voluntary exchange and secured by the productivity filter.

Therefore, when the government decrees quantities of costless money, they are actually decreeing their claim to your productive labor and through this decree of quantity, the government demands and ensures confiscation of your property by force.

We must understand that no productive labor is exempt and no one can opt out of working specifically for the destruction of what they hold dear, unless they are among the few whose goals are in alignment with the actual and intentional product of our present monetary system. To support this costless money system, which bypasses the productivity filter, is to promote systemic theft and scheduled destruction of nations.