meet the vigilantes
the dollar vigilante blog
Will Obama Confiscate Guns and Gold?
Share this article on:
[Editor’s Note: The following post is by TDV contributor, Wendy McElroy.]
Barack Obama often compares himself to Franklin D. Roosevelt. When he does, gold owners reach for a gun, of which they usually have several. Gold and guns are becoming politically entangled, and a connecting word is often “confiscation.”
The prospect of gun confiscation is fueling discussion of FDR's 1933 nationalization of gold ownership, which resembled Hugo Chavez's nationalization of Venezuelan gold mines in 2011. FDR did so by executive order; Chavez did so by decree. If guns in America are also 'nationalized', then the 1933 gold grab may have insights on how the state could proceed and how American public may react.
IMPLEMENTATION OF THE 1933 GOLD HEIST
Roosevelt was inaugurated as President on March 4th, 1933. He immediately moved to outlaw the private ownership of gold. He proceeded in several steps.
On March 6th, FDR issued Proclamation 2039 that declared a bank holiday in order to halt “heavy and unwarranted withdrawals of gold and currency from our banking institutions for the purpose of hoarding”; that is, to cease redeeming money for gold or releasing client-held gold from its vaults. FDR blamed the “severe drain on the Nation's stocks of gold” on foreign speculation and individual hoarding, which were causing a “national emergency.” The President assumed the power to “investigate, regulate or prohibit” the so-called wrongful use of gold. Americans violating the Proclamation or the regulations produced under its authority would “be fined not more than $10,000” or “imprisoned for not more than ten years, or both.”
On March 9th, the Emergency Banking Act passed Congress without being read because it had not been distributed. The Act affirmed all of FDR's orders since March 4th, and amended the WWI Trading with the Enemy Act to give the President “absolute control over the national finances and foreign exchange” not only in times of war but also in emergencies. It required that “any individual or organization...deliver any gold that they possess or have custody of to the Treasury” in return for other lawful currency. Only Federal Reserve-approved and accountable banks were to remain open; private or independent banks were no longer permitted. In effect, all banks had to meet Fed regulations, including reporting and turning over gold in their vaults upon demand.
On April 5th, FDR signed Executive Order 6102 that prohibited the ownership, called “hoarding,” of “gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates...by individuals, partnerships, associations and corporations.” (There were minor exceptions such as jewelry.) Gold-holders had until the end of April to surrender gold to the Federal Reserve. They were reimbursed in currency worth $20.67, which had been the gold price per troy ounce since the late 1800s.
On January 30th, 1934, the Gold Reserve Act required the Federal Reserve to surrender its gold and gold certificates to the US Treasury. It also arbitrarily changed the price of gold from $20.67 to $35. This caused a 41% devaluation of the dollar. Otherwise stated, the government increased the value of its gold by 69%.
The process: a declaration of absolute Presidential authority; Congressional affirmation; an executive order of implementation; and, an arbitrary devaluation of the dollar to increase government's wealth.
Remember that Obama models himself on FDR [A good reason to get your larger gold holdings out of Dodge and beyond his reach while you can. --Ed.]. Obama actively pursues a path of regulation through executive orders. For example, a January 16th, 2013 Forbes headline reads, “Here Are The 23 Executive Orders On Gun Safety Signed Today By The President.” Obama also favors rule through policies imposed by massive and unaccountable federal agencies of which there are close to 70; their counterparts in FDR's time were called Alphabet Agencies. Congressional approval is rarely required. Executive power has swelled since FDR's days and Congress has been largely reduced to a funding role. As for devaluing the dollar, what else can you call the incessant increase in the currency supply? The increase enriches government because it is first to spend the new dollars before they can devalue through circulation. The main element missing from the FDR procedure is the executive order that provides implementation.
But how will the American people respond?
A PASSIVE PEOPLE NO MORE?
FDR was able to confiscate private gold for a combination of reasons. A major one was the cooperation of banks under the Federal Reserve. But what of the multitudes who directly surrendered their wealth? (In 1933, gold still circulated as currency and private ownership was widespread.)
One reason was fear of punishment. Another was patriotism. The Austrian economist Thomas Woods explained yet another reason. “The paper currency [$20.67] they were receiving in exchange for the gold had always been redeemable in gold in the past.” It was only later that they realized “they weren't getting that gold back, and that the paper dollars they were being given in exchange would be devalued.” In short, they were duped.
Today's gold-holding public is not so naïve or patriotic. Gold is not a circulating currency and those who buy it do so knowing that government is devaluing every dollar through inflation. Moreover, they know history.
Will Obama move to confiscate gold? No one knows. If he does, I expect it will not start as a direct confiscation from individuals. It would probably begin through steps to nationalizing private retirement accounts such as IRAs. This could happen in one of two ways: require accounts to hold some percentage of government security, especially Treasury bonds; or, have a government agency manage the accounts.
On the Austrian economic LewRockwell site (August 21st, 2010), Ron Holland (contributing editor to the Swiss Mountain Vision Newsletter and Swiss Confidential) wrote:
“Just as with the...nationalization of Healthcare, the tremendous amount of funds in private retirement plans and IRA accounts are also being targeted to meet future revenue needs. Bills have just been introduced in both the House and Senate to create the new Auto IRA accounts which will at first be voluntary but later will become mandatory like Social Security and I expect the early 3% employee after tax contribution levels to eventually rise to 10 to 15% of compensation rising even more than Social Security has increased over the years....The Auto IRA is the first step to... replace our private system with a forced, government controlled Social Security type program. In addition they will force much of your retirement funds into buying junk treasury bonds along with the Federal Reserve when the dollar/national debt crisis hits as billions of retirement funds become the buyer of last resort...” (Auto IRA bills remain in both the House and the Senate, a glaring sign that you should get into a self-directed IRA while there's still time.)
The relevance of such “pension reform” to gold is twofold: many retirement funds contain a considerable amount of gold in some form; and, the state control would set a precedent.
Gold confiscation would likely begin with pension accounts because the state mechanisms to do so are already in place. Moreover, as with the gold in FDR-era bank vaults, the location and quantity is known; the organizations holding it would cooperate fully. (Again, more reason to make sure your IRA is self-directed and that you can internationalize the assets therein.)
Direct confiscation from individuals would be more problematic, and not merely because of its comparative anonymity. Direct confiscation returns us to guns. Given the personality of the typical gold bug and the simmering state of society, Obama must know that gun confiscation is a political prerequisite of a direct gold grab. On February 13th, the UK Market Oracle predicted for 2013, “The collection programs for guns will be eclipsed by collection of private pension funds and perhaps gold itself.” Guns and gold are blurring.
Wendy McElroy is a renowned individualist anarchist and individualist feminist. She was a co-founder along with Carl Watner and George H. Smith of The Voluntaryist in 1982, and is the author/editor of twelve books, the latest of which is "The Art of Being Free". Follow her work at http://www.wendymcelroy.com.
.jpg)
Will Obama confiscate gold? Indeed, no one but Obama and his cronies know for sure. But if you pay attention, you can almost hear and see the gears in Obama's head turning as he comes up with a cover story to rationalize confiscating gold like his hero FDR did. As the saying goes, it's written on his executive order-issuing, drone-sending, dictatorial face. His speechwriters are probably already through the first couple of drafts of what Obama will read to the public school-educated American multitudes the majority of whom will greet the gold grab with cheers.
Obama's speech will undoubtedly be full of references to hoarding with lots of buzz words like "profiteering" and "fair share". Gold owners will be cast as greedy, selfish a-holes who are making money hand over fist on the suffering of the masses in the killing grip of inflation. We can guarantee you that the central bank will not once come up as a possible culprit, even as more and more quantitative easing is announced. And it will be harped upon that a lot of those greedy gold-hoarders are mostly those same "soulless" jerks who stocked up on guns after the Sandy Hook massacre!
The grab for gold will no doubt grow out of the grab for guns, and will be based largely on vilification of the group of people who tend to own both: the sort of people who read, who think, who know history and who therefore just don't trust the state, its monopoly on currency or its burning desire to disarm its tax serfs. That also happens to describe just about every last one of you reading this blog.
You can see it coming. So you should get prepared. You should keep some gold on hand and hidden in a very secret part of your basement, not in a bank vault. But in the age of all-seeing drones, even that may not be enough. Your larger gold holdings would do best far, far away from where the US government has any power to probe with its agents or its flying surveillance deathbots. If you'd like to find out more about getting your gold out of Dodge while you still have the chance, just click here.
Regards.
Gary Gibson
Editor, The Dollar Vigilante
P.S. If it won't be safe for your gold, odds are that it won't be pleasant for you either. If you are thinking about getting yourself permanently out of Dodge and off the tax plantation, too, let us help. Click here to see how we can help you internationalize your assets and yourself.
Yoututbe
55
Videos | 2319 Subscribers 
Twitter Feed
Archives
- May 2013 (20)
- April 2013 (30)
- March 2013 (32)
- February 2013 (28)
- January 2013 (30)
- December 2012 (24)
- November 2012 (30)
- October 2012 (31)
- September 2012 (30)
- August 2012 (31)
- July 2012 (36)
- June 2012 (31)
- May 2012 (29)
- April 2012 (22)
- 1 of 3
- ››
latest comments
Comments (19)
As for the "low" price of gold... You have to change you paradigm. Here is a juicy and relevant excerpt, shamelessly stolen from FOFOA (fofoa.blogspot.com):
At the highest level of wealth, I think the giants that understand gold have a lot less than 50% of their wealth in gold at today's price. At a Freegold price it may be closer to 50%, but I doubt they would book their gold at Freegold prices now, or even at the much higher off-market price they paid.
At that level, gold is merely insurance of sorts, even if they understand Freegold, and especially if they understand Freegold. The reason it is transacted at a higher-than-market price is so that the seller of the gold gets the future Freegold windfall now at the time of the sale, and the buyer simply preserves his current purchasing power through the transition. I'm only speaking very roughly, of course, since the higher prices mentioned by Another were not the full revaluation figure, but some number in between. So essentially the "Freegold windfall profit" is being split between the buyer and seller at the highest levels.
If you have, say, $20B that you want to put into gold, you can only do so in paper unallocated through the BBs. When the revaluation happens, as Another said, you will get your $20B in real gold at the new Freegold price. In other words, you buy $20B in unallocated paper gold today and then after Freegold you will have about 11 tonnes of real physical. Alternatively, if you want to take possession of your physical now, or have it allocated now, you are taken into a private room and given a very private education on the realities and constraints of today's gold market.
Here's my guess. Perhaps you are given two choices. $20B in paper gold as above and you suffer the same fate as everyone else in paper gold but you're at least guaranteed that physical at the revaluation price (11t), or you can take 22t now for your $20B. Let's see, that 22t option would be at a present price of $28K per ounce. So you're still likely to double your wealth if you take the latter deal and believe the story. But there's no way you are going to get the 370 tonnes that today's price says you should be able to buy.
But more likely than that is they simply say, look, you can't get more than 5 tonnes if you want physical. If you want paper gold, we'll take your $20B and give you the paper gold credits, but you can't have it allocated because there's simply not enough physical to go around. So let's say this guy gives them his $20B and also gets the 5t allocated. Come Freegold his paper gold will bring him 9.9t plus he'll have his 5t allocated for a total of 14.9 tonnes. See how that outcome is right in between the two choices above? And the best part is that this way they didn't have to explain Freegold to him, they simply had to explain the realities and constraints of today's gold market.
So now let's look at this guy's net worth. Let's say in Freegold his gold is roughly half of his net worth. 14.9 tonnes in Freegold would be about $26B, so let's say this guy is worth around $50B in Freegold. Maybe he's worth $40B today (pre-Freegold) because he's going to make a little bit of a gain (~25% gain overall) through the transition because of his choice to go after some physical gold. Today he only has 5 tonnes in actual physical, but in reality he has the equivalent of 14.9t because he put half of his net worth into a combination of paper and physical gold.
So, at $1,680, 14.9 tonnes is $805M, which represents only 2% of his current net worth. This is what I mean by insurance. The really big money cannot go deep enough into physical to get a windfall anywhere near what we shrimps can. It can only use gold as insurance to preserve what it already has, and with a little foresight, make a relatively modest gain.
Now, if we apply this across the board to those elites with $35T in net worth, 2% in real physical would be $700B or about 13,000 tonnes of physical, which sounds reasonable. But perhaps some of them have much more, like, for example, the Saudis. They could easily have 6,000+ tonnes alone (according to Another's figures), but even that is small potatoes compared to what they could have bought at market prices over the years.
Here is what the USG worried about back in 1973. It's from Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976, V. XXXVI, The Energy Crisis, 1969-1974:
Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, and Kuwait, limited by small populations, inadequate numbers of technically capable people and a dearth of non-oil resources, will not be able to increase spending on imports as fast as oil revenues mount. Nor could their gifts to other Middle Eastern nations even on a generous scale, greatly reduce this surplus of receipts over current expenditures.
Thus the foreign assets of the Middle East countries could amount to between $50–$80 billion by 1980 in constant 1973 dollars. At the upper limit these assets would be equal to about 60% of the world’s gold and foreign exchange reserves in 1972. The trends already in motion, if continued through 1985, would result in the Middle East oil producing states accumulating foreign assets that would be truly astronomical. Their assets would range from a low of $100 billion to as much as $180 billion by 1985, comparable to total gross U.S. foreign assets and to more than double net U.S. foreign assets.
Foreign assets of such enormous magnitude would inevitably be held in relatively liquid forms, such as securities and short-term instruments. The Middle East countries lack the industries and managers to make direct investments abroad on a really massive scale. Moreover, their buying up existing foreign companies would cause strong policy reactions.
In any case the Middle East oil producers would have unprecedented financial power. Discretionary use of such vast assets obviously has enormous potential for disruption of financial markets. Attempts to neutralize these assets through capital controls in producing countries might induce the producers to curtail output.
Footnote:
In an April 17 briefing memorandum, Saunders and Quandt reminded Kissinger of Yamani’s proposal for a special relationship with the United States (see Document 140), the “real purpose” of which was to develop closer strategic ties by binding the United States to Saudi oil, offsetting a short-term U.S. balance-of-payments problem by investing in the United States, and thus guaranteeing that the Saudis would not cut off the flow of oil.
The point here is that they knew, even back in 1973, that the Saudis essentially had gold cornered. The Saudis could, theoretically, have had 60% of the world's gold by the early 80s and probably all of it by the late 80s (and it's a good thing for them that didn't happen). But instead, someone worked out a deal and, by 1999, let's say the Saudis had 6,000 tonnes of physical amounting to maybe 4% or 5% of the world's gold at that time, rather than all of it or even 60% of it.
You see, the Saudi's windfall came in the 1940s when they woke up and found themselves sitting on top of the world's richest resource. Freegold will not be their windfall, they already got that long ago. Freegold will simply preserve it for them long into the future, perhaps even well past the end of fossil fuels. And that's kind of the way it is for any Giant at that level. If you're worth $40B today, you already got your "windfall" and Freegold is simply a way to lock it in and preserve it far into the future, it is not a way to multiply it many times over. The realities and constraints of today's gold market make that impossible.
There's plenty more that wealth at that level can do other than just hoard gold.
The point is that they don't hoard gold for profit. They do it to lock in the profit that they already made above and beyond their ability to spend it in their lifetime. And that's the way the gold market has been managed at this level. Sure, they will get some gain, some profit from the Freegold revaluation, because not everyone at that level is in gold.
So, yes, those higher prices are already here for the super-wealthy Giants, and always have been.
Gold confiscation must happen and here is why. Yes, back then it was confiscated to create a gold hoard. But, today, the gold confiscated will create a really tiny hoard. True.
However. Once the dollar collapses, so will the level of life of every American. Most Americans can not imagine, no matter how hard they try, what it is to not being able to afford a warm clothes, fuel, of food. Whatever they think of it today, is a joke. They attach a label of "necessary" to what is really "desired", and "essential" to what is really "discretionary". All this will go away at once.
In that environment, people with gold will be able to buy not only food and clothes and fuel, but industrial and farm real estate, factories, ships, railroads. The government can not afford for such a show of power of gold, if it has any hopes of ever recreating the system of fiat theft. Therefore, maximum effect will be made to make sure that only very secret posession of gold is remaining. Any gold that could conceivable be traded in the open must be confiscated.
Silver is no different. It does not matter what the current law says about coins or silver or whatever. The new law will declare all that illegal, including, YES, including collectible gold and silver. You are NOT going to be allowed to demonstrate to the people the truth, by instantly becoming rich, just because the silver you held was "legal tender" or "collectible coin". The law is a toy. How much "THE LAW" help you when Obama instituted the illegal healthcare slavery? The same will be with precious metals. The "Supremes" will think long and hard, and in the end, they will lick the hand that feeds them, just as they did this time. They will find an interesting explanation for why it shall be deemed constitutional.
Gold was confiscated in 1933 because government debt was being liquidated for gold. There was no way the government could repay its debts in gold even in 1933, so it decreed that holding gold was a crime.
The $ will only collapse when it loses its bid in gold. This will be signalled by a rapidly rising $ gold price. That is when the government will attempt to confiscate gold.
Mava could be right, but I doubt it.
A 69% devaluation of the dollar DOES increase the gov't coffers of 'dollars':
If I borrow 100 dollar bills from you and a week later I come to give you 100 dollar bills to pay my debt to you and you then tell me that my 100 dollars have a present worth of 69 dollar bills (a 69% devaluation) then I would be in a position of still owing you about 45.78 dollars given the 69% ratio of old value/new value of the 'dollars'.
Gary was correct (though off by a couple of bucks).
This is why one should be wary of 'low' gold prices because if there is a 'turn in your gold for 'dollars' ', then you will be in a position of accepting less dollars for your gold and once the gold/dollar exchange is completed the 'gold will rise again'. And your dollar will be worth even less.
The ETF worry is valid. Personally that is all I have as I invest in an IRA. I will be 59 1/2 in December so in January I plan to turn the IRA in and buy Junk silver. The silver is legal tender and silver was not confiscated in the 30's, so it seems like a good bet.
The fear that the government will regulate pensions and require the purchase of government bonds is the much higher risk than gold confiscation.
<i> This caused a 69% devaluation of the dollar. Otherwise stated, the government increased the value of its gold by 41%.</i>
You have your numbers reversed. A 69% devaluation of something would mean that it's worth less than half of what it was before.
Except for that glitch, excellent column!
I would like to add a few more points to my previous blog.
Gold confiscation will come as a blessing to many ETFs, because they will be taken over without anyone ever realizing that they had no physical gold to start with.
However it will be devastating for those ETFs that actually have gold, because it will be confiscated before the higher prices can be achieved.
In either case, holding an ETF under US juristriction is unlikely to be profitable. As Marc Faber repeatedly says, physical gold in a foreign country is the safest.
The gold miners are critical to future supply and so will also be taken over. I believe that it is no coincidence that all top 10 miners in the world are all trading at multi-year lows. Once again, miners outside US juristriction are safest from confiscation.
Even though I expect the gold price to continue to be manipulated lower, I say "buy now" because the timing is uncertain. Gold from scrap has dried up, the miners are ready for take over, COMEX is in turmoil and the Chinese, Russians and Indians are all fighting over the last ounce. So the timing may be closer than many think.
If history repeats itself, the US Government will confiscate gold, but only after all other avenues have been exhausted. I believe that the banksters (who work for the Federal Government) are currently shorting paper gold on COMEX and are simultaneously buying physical gold from the public. Which in iteslf is a means of confiscation because both the purchases and the trading losses are being paid for with newly printed money at the expense of the public. This process will continue until the selling on COMEX and other markets dries up and the few remaining holders of gold refuse to sell at any price. Then trading will halt and confiscation will occur in the "national interest". This will occur at the "last price", which I suspect will be substantially lower due to a final manipulation by the banksters. After confiscation has run its course, the "offical price" will then be reset at multiples higher, for the eager public to buy back. The correct strategy is therefore to ignore the price, buy anonymously and wait.
Very interesting Anon. You may be on to something.
I don't see how we could have a government recall on gold today like what happened in 1933. Back then gold was readily recognized as money. People didn't think in terms of fiat like they do today. In fact, most people today don't even think of gold as money. It's a commodity; and a risky one no less.
Patriotism is nothing like what it was then. Many saw it as their patriotic duty to turn in their gold. To do less was to lose honor. Of course, there were quite a few smart ones who shipped their gold off to Europe or elsewhere when it happened to.
But people won't line up at banks with gold in hand today like they did back then. They won't even open their doors to hand it over. I think it would have to be something a bit more draconian to accomplish their purposes.
On the other hand, if we have a catastrophic market collapse, resulting in rapid deflation, cash will become king for a time. It's very plausible that gold would drop against the dollar as deflation gains solid footing. If that happened, it might give the FED the means to exchange their empty promises, backed only by green ink, for real money. Actually, that would be quite brilliant, especially since any economist knows that massive inflation ALWAYS follows a deflationary period in a fiat based economy.
All this could play right on the heels of your idea. Interesting... thanks for sharing.
There is a way to know whether the government will confiscate gold. The answer is to be found if I make a small but critical correction to the narrative;
that is, to cease redeeming money for gold
In 1933, nobody was redeeming money for gold. Money is the most precious, why would you redeem money for gold? Surely you Dollar Vigilante people agree that gold is money? That gold is a precious metal?
What was happening in 1933 was that bank credit was being redeemed for gold. Credit which had traded 'money good' - as money - was losing its bid. The government cannot countenance this because the assets of most banks contain government debt. Banks redeeming their credit for gold means government debt is being liquidated for gold.
The 2007-08 fiasco was not quite the same, banks were liquidating their assets for $, the credit of the central bank. The $ gold price fell dramatically. The government has no need to confiscate gold as long as the credit of its bank doesn't lose its bid in gold.
The gold price over the last 18 months suggests that gold confiscation is not at the top of the government agenda. That could change quickly though.
Well... it looks like gold confiscation has been knocked down another notch. I'm not predicting which way the gold price will go from here, but even I'm surprised to see it fall under $1600.
"All have been swallow'd by the dam'd Curren-cy"
"..the Emergency Banking Act passed Congress without being read because it had not been distributed."
Are you serious? Would you sign something specifically because you hadn't had a chance to read it? I mean it is inconceivable, that not knowing what you signing can ever be considered a reason for signing it.
The reason the Act passed was because Congress, not the president wanted to steal the people's gold. In this country, president plays no role (This is a good thing). We can see this by observing Dallas incident. The Congress rules the country.
So, they were the ones wanting to steal (not confiscate) the people's money (gold). Thus they told that monkey in a chair (FDR) how to act. The excuse supposed to be that since the congressmen didn't read the act, therefore they passed it. They knew that the majority of the cattle would understand, since the majority lives their whole live by this principle, i.e. the majority goes to the exam because they didn't prepare for it, and so on.
I think that for us not to call a spade a spade today, by not saying that it obviously was the Congress who desired the most to steal the money, is not only dishonest, but also derogatory to our own thinking facilities.
Exactly same can be done today, precisely because the people didn't become smarter, no just the opposite is true.
Interesting theory, mava. It's plausible, but with how much authority has been consolidated in the POTUS, specifically through fiat decree (cloaked in legality through executive order), I really don't think it's viable.
I would submit that the true string-pullers are the central banksters. The ones to gain the most from this whole mess, solidifying a century ago when Wilson signed over our monetary powers to the FED, were already the most powerful families on the planet; and still are.
Think about it. First, you take over the printing presses. Then you take the gold. Then you devalue the paper currency, all the while moving world currencies to establish their gold reserves through the dollar (by using the dollar as their reserve). Then you detatch the dollar from gold. At first they balked, but then they realized they had been fiscally enslaved to the dollar because of its reserve status.
With all the cards stacked in their favor, they can continue consolidating wealth through a number of means, all at the push of a button on their printer. If you had that button on your printer you'd go to jail. They do it and it's called austerity, bailout, stimulus and any number of "feel good" names to lead the tax slaves along the road to oblivion. And they do this through puppets who serve as not much more than latex gloves to keep their hands clean.
What a country!!
Another Joe,
I like your analogy: "And they do this through puppets who serve as not much more than latex gloves to keep their hands clean."
This is far better than any analogy I ever come up with. The latex gloves.
And, I agree with you that the source of evil of course comes from the central bankers, or rather even more precisely, from the regular bankers, because, remember, that the central banks are only the latex gloves for the regular banks, who don't even look like they are having anything to do with the theft. But, the central banks were created and cartelized by the regular banks in order to create those latex gloves.
However, this is the whole reason we have congressmen, - in order to see that entities like central banks never get their interests served. Central banks and any banks have no duty to the people, as they are businesses. They sell what we buy. Congressmen are not. They do have a duty because the whole reason and the condition on which they have any power whatsoever is that they do the bidding of the people. This is the duty of a congressman.
And what I see in the instance described by Wendy above, is that the congressmen simply decided not to do their duty. In a military, such would be punisheable by a tribunal and a swift end. These thieves, however, didn't even lose their job (the duty pay continued to flow in), much less paid for the dereliction of duty.
It is important to insist on responsibility. Without doing that, we can dream of whatever system, and it will never work. So, my problem is that the congressmen, not FDR, were clearly and obviously the ones in dereliction of duty by their own admittance, and where were the rolling heads?
Anyway, I don't think anyone actually cares for why the system doesn't work. Mute points.
Great analogy, again! I'll use myself, from now on, if you don't mind.
Actually Senators do not have to specifically represent the vote or will of the people. Rather, the people vote or voice their concerns and their Senators make their own decisions. This is how the system was set up. There is no mandate at all that Senators represent the opinions of their constituents. Law reads that the Senators make their own decisions; the system was set up with the idea that Senators were an enligtened bunch and thus would be better decision makers.
Of course, who would agree with this system? But the system, in law, was set up that way. This is what the electoral vote is based upon. Even if a majority of the population in a state voted for a particular candidate, the Senator could cast a vote for a different candidate than the expressed choice of the people; this is a right of your elected 'representatives'.
Article 1, section 8 of the Constitution: "To make all Laws which shall be necessary ad proper for the carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all othe Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United states, or in any Department or Officer thereof."
Will the slaves hold the masters accountable for using them like beasts of burden? Only if they could unite in their effort to shake free of their bonds. But the masters have done their work well. Most slaves still think they're free.
In our case, we're given just light enough shackles that most don't really realize that they're wearing them. And, honestly, it's not that hard to work with them on. But most folks here want more than that.
If you haven't read The Creature From Jekyll Island, I strongly recommend it.
You're an excellent thinker Mava. I always enjoy our discussions, even when we're in disagreement. And, of course, the analogy is just that. I own no copyright on it. :)
Post new comment