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Thread: Major flaw in US constitution

  1. #1

    Major flaw in US constitution

    If you follow Austrian economics you will know that congress never should have been given the power to coin money to begin with, not only that, but it should not have given this power to the states either. This power should and always should remain in the hands of the people directly via the free market, money should be completely untouched by any form of government. Not only would this have prevented congress from ever delegating this power to the Federal Reserve, the natural currencies that would have emerged in a free market would have been far superior even to the so called "gold standard" that was used before 1913.

    I think most of the founders would agree with this in principle, especially Thomas Jefferson, but as great as their wisdom was they did not have access to the great work of Mises and others to learn from which we are now privy to - and they were not omnipotent. This is just one example of how we need to look forward rather than backwards, it doesn't make any sense to go back to the same exact document got us where we are today.

    If you want to learn more about natural money, here is a good article from mises.org:

    http://mises.org/story/3340

    There is also a great lecture by Lew Rockwell that covers this called The Gold Dollar:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ll4HS1QW9M



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  3. #2
    "The Constitution would be a major improvement over what we have today. But we need to realize that the Constitution itself represented a major increase in government power over the Articles of Confederation, which would have served us quite well had it not been overthrown. I'm not impressed by the bunch that foisted the Constitution on us. They were really up to no good. We've all but forgotten that most everyone opposed it at the time. It only squeaked through once the Bill of Rights was tacked on. The Bill of Rights isn't perfect, but it at least had the advantage of spelling out what the government could not do. In a rather ingenious twist, even that has been perverted: it is now seen as a mandate for the federal government to tell lower orders of government what they cannot do, meaning that it ends up being a force for centralization. This is such a tragedy. If Patrick Henry could see what became of it, I'm sure he never would have tolerated it. The same might be true of Hamilton, for that matter. So long as we are talking about founding documents, the one that really deserves more attention is the Declaration of Independence. Now here is an inspiring document that shows us where we should go in the future!" -- Lew Rockwell

  4. #3
    You know, your statement got me thinking about counterfeit coins, which were probably the reason standard designs of gold and silver were devised and made nationwide. And that got me thinking about the old American saying, "Don't take any wooden nickles."

    What is the Fed but a source of 'wooden nickles'? Maybe we should use that.

    And TW, if the A of C had been working all that well, they would have left well enough alone. Though we might have been better off if the A of C had simply been allowed to collect tariffs and otherwise left it alone...
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    We believe our lying eyes...

  5. #4
    Good point OP.


    Another major flaw was the title they gave to the "bill of rights."

    Also, some of the wording should have been made more clear (Such as general welfare clause)

  6. #5
    Well I am really wondering what some of our constitutionalist friends here would think of natural money vs. the constitution.

  7. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by acptulsa View Post
    And TW, if the A of C had been working all that well, they would have left well enough alone. Though we might have been better off if the A of C had simply been allowed to collect tariffs and otherwise left it alone...
    The legally AUTHORIZED mission was to recommend "fixes" to the A o C and report findings back, NOT to overthrow it with a Federalist's cabal coup document OBVIOUSLY written in haste.
    Last edited by Truth Warrior; 03-24-2009 at 01:08 PM.

  8. #7
    I'm really curious as to what Theocrat thinks about this one!

  9. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Kraig View Post
    I'm really curious as to what Theocrat thinks about this one!
    I'll bet you can predict it.



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  11. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Truth Warrior View Post
    I'll bet you can predict it.
    I'm hoping not though.

  12. #10
    I think excluding the words: "and general Welfare" from the Constitution would pretty much clean things up quite nicely.

    Of course, it has been taken beyond its original intent and used as an excuse for everything that any politician might think somehow is going toward the "general Welfare", even if it means studying cow farts for our "general Welfare".

    Though it's interesting that cow farts are covered under "general Welfare" and yet the Constitution had to explicitely specify the creation of the Post Office as a legal power of Congress.
    Definition of political insanity: Voting for the same people expecting different results.

  13. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Elwar View Post
    I think excluding the words: "and general Welfare" from the Constitution would pretty much clean things up quite nicely.

    Of course, it has been taken beyond its original intent and used as an excuse for everything that any politician might think somehow is going toward the "general Welfare", even if it means studying cow farts for our "general Welfare".

    Though it's interesting that cow farts are covered under "general Welfare" and yet the Constitution had to explicitely specify the creation of the Post Office as a legal power of Congress.
    I believe the SCOTUS has ruled previously that the Preamble has NO effect in "law" ( so called ). When it starts out with a flat out LIE, you can be pretty confident that you're in deep doo doo.
    Last edited by Truth Warrior; 03-24-2009 at 02:25 PM.

  14. #12
    Agree with OP and TW's quote wholeheartedly.

    If only Thomas Jefferson had single-handidly written our Constitution!

  15. #13
    So if we were going to amend the constitution to include this how would it be worded? We couldn't simply leave out the coinage lingo because that would just let the states take over.

  16. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Xenophage View Post
    Agree with OP and TW's quote wholeheartedly.

    If only Thomas Jefferson had single-handidly written our Constitution!
    The Federalists sneaked it around while TJ was in Paris. Hamilton's major involvement should be a dead giveaway of "shenanigans".<IMHO>

  17. #15
    An additional amendment:

    The rights of the people to define, coin and manage money shall not be infringed.

  18. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Truth Warrior View Post
    The Federalists sneaked it around while TJ was in Paris. Hamilton's major involvement should be a dead giveaway of "shenanigans".<IMHO>
    Yep. Jefferson wrote angrily about it and in his letters urged for a Bill of Rights.



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  20. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by Kraig View Post
    So if we were going to amend the constitution to include this how would it be worded? We couldn't simply leave out the coinage lingo because that would just let the states take over.
    And the killer problem with that would be?

  21. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Truth Warrior View Post
    And the killer problem with that would be?
    Just bear with me this is going somewhere!

  22. #19
    competing private currencies ftw

  23. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by Xenophage View Post
    competing private currencies ftw
    Then banking would actually be a legitimate business rather than the protected child of the government.

  24. #21
    One doesn't need to look any further than the very first sentence of the Constitution to find a $#@!up.

  25. #22
    Quote Originally Posted by Xenophage View Post
    Yep. Jefferson wrote angrily about it and in his letters urged for a Bill of Rights.
    Thomas Jefferson described the Tenth Amendment as “the foundation of the Constitution” and added, “to take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn … is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition.”
    http://www.answers.com/topic/amendment-x-to-the-u-s-constitution

    Today Voilà!

  26. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by MrRichardson View Post
    One doesn't need to look any further than the very first sentence of the Constitution to find a $#@!up.
    If the people of the time wanted the Constitution to be a compact among states, then why did they begin the document with the phrase "We the people"?

    There are so many holes in the constitution, but it just doesn't matter anymore. The constitution has been read away in courts for so long that it might as well not exist anymore.
    "Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it." - Henry David Thoreau

  27. #24



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  29. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by Mesogen View Post
    If the people of the time wanted the Constitution to be a compact among states, then why did they begin the document with the phrase "We the people"?
    I was referring more along the lines to the fact that the preamble begins with the words "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union" That's a grammatical $#@!up, because something can't be more perfect. It's either perfect or it's not.

  30. #26
    Quote Originally Posted by MrRichardson View Post
    One doesn't need to look any further than the very first sentence of the Constitution to find a $#@!up.
    "We the People" is a LIE. They did no such thing.

  31. #27
    The reason for the Constitution's mandate for Congress to coin money and regulate the value there of is because of what happened before hand. The Articles allowed states to make paper money as well as coin their own coins used for the each state. The competing currencies and daily exchange rates for goods crippled the fledgling economy between the new states within the union.

    The lack of gold and silver in the economy since the days before the revolution created a problem with the newly independent nations... there really was not enough to go around. In fact, this lack of gold and silver was one of the major catalysts for the revolution. The forced taxes upon the colonies by the King's men could only be paid in gold and silver. Since the colonies weren't rolling in it like their Spanish counterparts there was nothing they could do to pay the said taxes.

    This is why the printing of continentals and other forms of currency was being circulated since the colonial days. Ben Franklin's wooden nickles was just one of many of the solutions. However, none of these contained any real wealth and was the major cause of the economic downturn in the new states and the reason we failed to pay back our loans to France for their assistance during the revolution. We had no wealth.

    This is how the first new world currency, the Spanish dollar, became in high demand in the colonies and continued as legal tender in the U.S as far up as the 1850's (if I remember correctly) and was the model for the U.S. coin via Coinage act of 1792.

    While the barter system thrived in the new states, the competing currencies and the lack of a standard crippled the early republic's economic growth against foreign nations. This is why the standard of weights and measures was delegated to Congress, which in turn determined how much silver made up a dollar matching an already in demand Spanish Dollar.
    Last edited by demolama; 03-24-2009 at 09:14 PM.

  32. #28
    Quote Originally Posted by demolama View Post
    The reason for the Constitution's mandate for Congress to coin money and regulate the value there of is because of what happened before hand. The Articles allowed states to make paper money as well as coin their own coins used for the each state. The competing currencies and daily exchange rates for goods crippled the fledgling economy between the new states within the union.

    The lack of gold and silver in the economy since the days before the revolution created a problem with the newly independent nations... there really was not enough to go around. In fact, this lack of gold and silver was one of the major catalysts for the revolution. The forced taxes upon the colonies by the King's men could only be paid in gold and silver. Since the colonies weren't rolling in it like their Spanish counterparts there was nothing they could do to pay the said taxes.

    This is why the printing of continentals and other forms of currency was being circulated since the colonial days. Ben Franklin's wooden nickles was just one of many of the solutions. However, none of these contained any real wealth and was the major cause of the economic downturn in the new states and the reason we failed to pay back our loans to France for their assistance during the revolution. We had no wealth.

    This is how the first new world currency, the Spanish dollar, became in high demand in the colonies and continued as legal tender in the U.S as far up as the 1850's (if I remember correctly) and was the model for the U.S. coin via Coinage act of 1792.

    While the barter system thrived in the new states, the competing currencies and the lack of a standard crippled the early republic's economic growth against foreign nations. This is why the standard of weights and measures was delegated to Congress, which in turn determined how much silver made up a dollar matching an already in demand Spanish Dollar.
    Europe managed somehow to economically function for CENTURIES without a single centralized "unified" monetary issuing AUTHORITY. The US was just 13 small states at the time of the US CONstitution, and HAD managed to function somehow.

    Communist Manifesto, Plank # 5.

    Centralisation of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
    Last edited by Truth Warrior; 03-25-2009 at 09:03 AM.

  33. #29
    Quote Originally Posted by demolama View Post
    The reason for the Constitution's mandate for Congress to coin money and regulate the value there of is because of what happened before hand. The Articles allowed states to make paper money as well as coin their own coins used for the each state. The competing currencies and daily exchange rates for goods crippled the fledgling economy between the new states within the union.

    The lack of gold and silver in the economy since the days before the revolution created a problem with the newly independent nations... there really was not enough to go around. In fact, this lack of gold and silver was one of the major catalysts for the revolution. The forced taxes upon the colonies by the King's men could only be paid in gold and silver. Since the colonies weren't rolling in it like their Spanish counterparts there was nothing they could do to pay the said taxes.

    This is why the printing of continentals and other forms of currency was being circulated since the colonial days. Ben Franklin's wooden nickles was just one of many of the solutions. However, none of these contained any real wealth and was the major cause of the economic downturn in the new states and the reason we failed to pay back our loans to France for their assistance during the revolution. We had no wealth.

    This is how the first new world currency, the Spanish dollar, became in high demand in the colonies and continued as legal tender in the U.S as far up as the 1850's (if I remember correctly) and was the model for the U.S. coin via Coinage act of 1792.

    While the barter system thrived in the new states, the competing currencies and the lack of a standard crippled the early republic's economic growth against foreign nations. This is why the standard of weights and measures was delegated to Congress, which in turn determined how much silver made up a dollar matching an already in demand Spanish Dollar.
    I have not looked at that situation specifically but do you have any information to point me towards that would elaborate on that? What you are saying seems to completely go against the Austrian theory and competing currencies. I'm wondering if those in power then just used this as an excuse to get control over coining money, after all how many times have we seen our government say they are doing something for our good when we know it isn't?

    Does your place on the totem pole compared to other countries matter if you are living free in peace and prosperity?

  34. #30
    Quote Originally Posted by Kraig View Post
    I have not looked at that situation specifically but do you have any information to point me towards that would elaborate on that? What you are saying seems to completely go against the Austrian theory and competing currencies. I'm wondering if those in power then just used this as an excuse to get control over coining money, after all how many times have we seen our government say they are doing something for our good when we know it isn't?

    Does your place on the totem pole compared to other countries matter if you are living free in peace and prosperity?
    Hamilton married into the Rothschild ( Bank of England ) family.

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