So, let's see where we are.

[avevale_intelligencer]

Congressman Dennis Kucinich (Democrat from Ohio) has been talking on OpEdNews here about Obama's actions with regard to Libya being unconstitutional and about how he really should be impeached. Only he isn't going to do it himself because he doesn't want to get his hands destabilise the political process.

This chap has been in Congress since 1997. He's presumably been awake for at least some of that time. And this is the president he wants to see impeached? Who's maybe looking at having another crack at the top spot next year? (That last may be a boneheadedly stupid supposition on my part, since I'm weak on the timings of American candidacies, but I haven't heard about any nominations yet, and it's getting closish and this looks like taking up a position.)

But here's our chance. (Well. Yours.) This fellow is a Democrat, probably, and keen on the letter of the Constitution. Any Ohio folks willing to write to him and ask him what he thinks about entities other than the Government creating money--whether he thinks it only applies to silver dollars, or maybe was intended to encompass any other form that money might take in the future, whether paper, plastic or computer-number?

I'd certainly be interested in his answer.

Also, if Obama gets impeached for taking America into war, this universe is FIRED. I can tolerate a lot of things, but excessive silliness is not one of them, and my patience is already worn so thin you can see through it.

Further random thought; if you're going to have true separation of powers, nobody involved with the legislative branch should be eligible to be nominated for the executive.

Further further random thought; the cat has just knocked my keyboard on the floor. This is why I wanted that other keyboard stand back. I remember now.

Comments

[interactiveleaf.livejournal.com]

Any Ohio folks willing to write to him and ask him what he thinks about entities other than the Government creating money--whether he thinks it only applies to silver dollars, or maybe was intended to encompass any other form that money might take in the future, whether paper, plastic or computer-number?

Based on what I've read that you've written, I think you have a misconception about what the Constitution says about money. It doesn't say that the no entity but the federal government can coin money. It says that the Federal Government can coin money, and it gives the FG the power to punish counterfeiters of that money, and it specifically says that the several States cannot issue coin, but there is no prohibition against a bank or small community issuing their own money.

In fact several small communities create their own alternate currencies (the list on Wiki is not exhaustive) perfectly legally.

What the banks are doing is not counterfeiting. It's not issuing alternative currencies. They are not, in any legal sense, issuing more US$. I'm pretty sure such things have been challenged and knocked down in the courts here many, many times.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

It's true that article 1 section 8 does not seem to include the word "only," so fair point there. Rowbotham has misquoted. It seems, though, that Jefferson did say, in a letter to the then Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin:

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a moneyed aristocracy that has set the Government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs,"

and presumably he knew whereof he spoke.

If your banks operate on fractional reserve banking, then they are, in a very legal sense, issuing more US$, it's as simple as that. They are lending out money that did not exist before, which then becomes "real" and enters the money supply. It may well have been challenged and knocked down in the courts many times; banks can afford really good lawyers. Their greatest defence, though, like the Christian Devil, is the fact that so few people recognise that they're doing it.

[interactiveleaf.livejournal.com]

Just so you know, i'm not an originalist (one of the folks who believes that the "Founding Father's" original intent ought to trump all else.) I'm reasonably certain that Jefferson et al were right about many things and wrong about many others, and that it's pretty much irrelevant what they would have thought of what we're doing today.

I'm not sure what you mean by "in a legal sense". The people who write the laws believe that this practice is legal. The people who interpret the laws believe that this practice is legal. The people who enforce the laws believe that this practice is legal. How on earth are you coming to the conclusion that what they are doing is illegal? (I'm not arguing about whether or not it's right or just.)

[melodyclark.livejournal.com]

I am an originalist when it comes to a liberal interpretation of their perspectives (and liberal is what they were). Beyond better ideas from superior contradictory information (which they all recognized as something that would occur), I don't know what better measure we might have for the foundation of our laws. Thankfully, we inherited the country from rational, non-religious, and visionary people.

[interactiveleaf.livejournal.com]

It's not that I disagree with many of their perspectives. I just think that any of their convictions that they didn't write into law are irrelevant, because they're, well, not law.

And a thought: Were the original intents still all being honored, I wouldn't be able to vote.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

And again, good point. Progress can be made. I'd like there to be some progress made on this issue as well, preferably while I'm alive to see it. Tom J would say it's two hundred and nine years overdue at least.

[melodyclark.livejournal.com]

Intention and precedent have always been observed in Constitutional law. They've actually quoted Adams and Jefferson's later-in-life correspondence to prove case points.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

I meant the same by the phrase as you did. Whether the practice is legal or not in America I don't know; I suspect the question has been left indeterminate, much as it is here. I had hoped that the Constitution had made a definite pronouncement, but it seems not. Oh well.

But in a concrete sense, in the sense that money exists after the act which (a) did not exist before, (b) was not created by the government, and (c) exists in the form of a debt to the bank which must be repaid even though it cost them nothing to create it, yes, the banks create money. If I were to hack into my bank account and create a million pounds, there would be certain objections raised, but a junior bank clerk can do it, and there is no difference under the law between us. Why should an act be legal for one ordinary citizen and not legal for another?

I think it's clear that Jefferson was talking about what was going on at the time. He wasn't right about everything, no, but I think what he said made sense at the time and still makes sense now, and if that sense escapes the people who write the laws, the people who interpret the laws, the people who enforce the laws, or everyone else on the planet, that doesn't make it make any less sense to me.