From Pine View Farm

Funny Money 3

Two interesting stories today about “Liberty Dollars“:

As preamble, at one time, almost any United States bank was allowed to issue its own money. Congress put a stop to that in the early days of the Republic. It caused monetary chaos and, if a bank failed, as happened from time to time in recessions, the money it issued became worthless.

From the Local Rag, a story about NORFED (the National Organization for the Repeal of the Federal Reserve Act and Internal Revenue Code) and its funny money.

Privately minted in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and made of silver, Liberty Dollars are a hedge against inflation because they have intrinsic value, according to the Indiana organization NORFED – the National Organization for the Repeal of the Federal Reserve Act and Internal Revenue Code – which began distributing them eight years ago.

Today, with more than $20 million in Liberty currency in circulation, the group claims a network of about 100,000 people who collect Liberty medallions, (known as “specie”; don’t call them coins), and 2,500 merchants nationally who accept them in trade. Pennsylvania is among the group’s 10 fastest-growing states, a spokesman said. (By comparison, a federal official said, there is an estimated $700 billion in official U.S. currency in circulation.)

Though competing with the almighty dollar might seem like a crackpot’s game, the U.S. Mint, fearing pollution of the wider money supply, takes the group seriously.

“We don’t want consumers to be fooled,” a mint spokeswoman said in a recent alert, adding that the Justice Department says it’s a crime to use Liberty Dollars as legal tender.

The Washington Post emphasizes the crime aspect more heavily:

The U.S. Mint acted after federal prosecutors around the country began forwarding inquiries about the coins. “We don’t take these consumer alerts lightly,” said spokeswoman Becky Bailey. “Merchants and banks are confronted by confused customers demanding they accept Liberty Dollars. These are not legal coin.”

NORFED responded to the Mint on its Web site. “Here it is in plain sight . . . the Liberty Dollar is not a coin, not legal tender, and backed with inflation proof gold and silver!”

(snip)

Norfed encouraged people to keep doing “the drop,” referring to its advice to drop the coin into merchants’ hands so they can feel its weight.

That could land the dropper in prison, Bailey warns, for up to five years.

The U. S. Constitution seems to put the lie to NORFED’s claims that what it is doing is legal. NORFED can claim it’s not a coin, but, if it walks like a coin and quacks like a coin, it’s a coin. (Of course, they claim to be Republicans, a group which has become expert in serving us bologna and calling it steak.)

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

(snip)

To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures . . . .

I used to have a co-worker who believed those websites that claimed you could legally avoid paying your income taxes. I kept hoping he wouldn’t try it. What with all the metal detectors around today, it would have been difficult to slip him a cake with a file baked in it.

Cake

At first glance, this seems to be another one of those outfits for people who want the benefits of living in the modern world, but don’t want to pay for them, kind of like the average over-compensated CEO, though the SPLC thinks this group has more sinister aims.

All seriousness aside, people who promulgate and who believe this kind of fanciful propaganda undermine the social contract. If they refuse to pay their share, let them not drive on the roads, not use the hospitals, not send their children or grandchildren to public schools, not use the post office, and, most of all, not accept protection from the police, the military, and the FBI.

But, of course, they don’t want to put their money where their mouth is. They want to benefit from our tax money, while running their mouths and undermining the polity.

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3 comments

  1. Opie

    October 10, 2006 at 11:00 pm

    This is an obscure but fascinating area. A few thoughts:

    1. I think a person could fairly infer, from the wording you quote, that the Constitution permits the Congress to coin money but does not confine that right to Congress. Now if it said “Only the Congress…”, that would be different.

    2. Let’s say I am selling odds and ends at a flea market, and one of these NORFED types offers me a “specie” for a used blow dryer. I look at it and say, “Cool! It’s a deal!” Do you think that either my action or his deserves to be called a crime?

    3. Merchants who actually allow themselves to be cajoled into accepting this currency unwilllingly were already headed for Darwinian fates anyway.

    4. Back in the early 90’s, I used to lose debate after debate to this guy who always wanted to delineate societal duties for me I wanted no part of. He’d tell me it was “part of the social contract,” and that was always his checkmate move. I’d protest that I didn’t remember signing any contract, and he never would show me a copy. You’re the first person to actually show some documentation. I’ll read the link, although I can’t tonight.

    5. “Not Always Mayberry” was just the best title I could think of at the moment I started my current website. If I’d heard the phrase “Undermining the Polity” first, things might have been very different.

     
  2. Frank

    October 13, 2006 at 8:20 pm

    1. Under the tenth amendment,

    The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

    so you may have an arguable point. I suspect that history and usage since the 1850’s would sustain a ruling that only the Feds can print and coin money, but I’m not a lawyer.

    2. No. It’s barter of a collectible item.

    3. (Grin)

    4. Locke’s theory of the social contract was the underlying theory of the Founders’ approach to government. Some of the Founders were also influenced by Hobbes.

    (Remember, my degree is in history with concentration in the Early Federal Period and Old South–this is an area where I can actually pretend convincingly to know something. Plus my ancestors fought in the war.)

    5. You are hardly subversive (grin, duck, and run). And, frankly, I suspect that neither you nor I am interested in undermining the polity, but, rather, in preserving it.

     
  3. Opie

    October 13, 2006 at 11:04 pm

    Like a Chicago cop at the ’68 convention, I am not here to create disorder, just to preserve it.