Up next in 10
What can be nullified? 2010/08/23
593 views
Jun 5, 2025
Jon Roland lecture on which usurpations are susceptible to nullification and which are not. Austin Constitution meetup, Aug. 23, 2010.
View Video Transcript
0:05
you're really this is the August 23rd 2010 Meetup of
0:12
the Austin Constitution Meetup Group I'm John Roland
0:17
the topic this evening is what can be nullified
0:23
if you've been with us for some of our previous meetups
0:28
you know that we've discussed The Proposal
0:33
for setting up super grand juries
0:39
but are sometimes colloquially called The Nullification commissions
0:45
and the official title I propose is a federal action review Commission
0:51
but whatever we call them they are essentially a
0:57
body 23 persons who hears complaints from citizens
1:06
about Federal violations of the Constitution
1:12
and if it finds that the Constitution has been violated
1:19
it can issue a finding to that effect and the effect of that finding
1:26
is to require All State agencies of contractors to refuse to cooperate
1:34
with the federal government on that area of user patient
1:42
and it also encourages citizens of the state to also refuse to cooperate with it
1:51
in any way that may arise in the course of their daily lives
1:57
in fact it puts the entire state and its people
2:02
into a civil disobedience group
2:09
instead of individuals refusing to cooperate individually across the small
2:16
groups and being picked off by a much larger federal government
2:21
it puts the entire state into a concerted effort
2:27
and the thought is that if enough states can do that they can effectively bring the user
2:35
patients to a hall so we're going to be doing this evening
2:40
is examining what user patients are particularly susceptible to state-led
2:47
nullification not all of them are so we need to pick our battles carefully
2:55
to figure out which user patients can be addressed
3:00
effectively in this way and which ones may require other approaches
3:10
we're going to be following brought generally a certain analytic outline in this discussion
3:17
first of all we're going to identify the use of patient itself we're not going to spend a lot of time
3:23
explaining why it's a usurpation if you've been to constitution.org or
3:30
I've viewed my previous videos you should ask an idea of why these things
3:37
are unauthorized or unconstitutional
3:42
then in general we'll cite the alleged
3:47
Authority for the user evasion what do feds claim is their Authority for doing
3:54
that we're not accepting their that claim but
3:59
we are examining it because it may provide a clue to what we need to do about it
4:05
then we're going to be looking at the impact of this user patient on people
4:11
how it affects their lives and uh
4:16
find that next we're going to look at what kind of cooperation is required at
4:23
the state level by state government by state businesses and by state
4:31
citizens next we're going to try to look at the
4:37
intervention points available with and without the proposed nullification
4:42
Commission now there have been a number of proposals for the state legislature to
4:49
Simply adopt legislation directly to try to block Federal user patients
4:56
but for a variety of reasons that will usually not work
5:01
once in a while it might but by and large
5:08
is not an approach that's feasible for most of these violations
5:16
think of then we're going to be looking at likely scenarios how
5:22
these efforts might play out on the ground from day to day from week
5:29
to week month to month year to year looking at the ways in which they
5:35
interact with each other the various political forces involved
5:40
what we can expect to build and that we have support and what kind of opposition
5:45
we may expect
5:51
so let's look first at some historical examples of
5:57
abuses which were faced with
6:04
some kind of state level opposition the first was in 18 1798 the Alien and
6:13
Sedition Acts these were acts that admitted
6:19
empower the president to deport ERS
6:24
arbitrarily without due process and the Sedition Acts made it a crime to
6:31
criticize government officials and was used against several of the
6:36
leading newspapers at the time especially one
6:42
or which the publisher was a guy named beige who was the grandson of Benjamin
6:48
Franklin and that newspaper criticized the president then President John Adams
6:56
so uh the result was a firestorm of opposition led by Thomas Jefferson and James
7:03
Madison they left with a Kentucky and Virginia resolutions of 1798
7:10
the Kentucky Resolutions of 1799 and the Virginia report of 1800.
7:18
now in the Kentucky Resolutions
7:24
nullification although not by name was proposed
7:29
uh it was it was mentioned in 1799
7:34
but uh most only the states of Kentucky and
7:42
Virginia were really on board for that still they didn't have an influence
7:48
and uh it was arguably enough that the attempt
7:54
to balance and God's Jefferson elected president in 1800
8:00
and caused the his supporters to be swept into Congress
8:06
that most of the comments thrown out and uh he proceeded to undo the damage of the
8:15
alienist Edition Acts pardoning those who had been convicted and so forth
8:21
the uh but the plan was set down to plan
8:27
the idea of state-led civil disobedience which has come to be called
8:32
nullification the next major timing came up
8:38
and this is there were other times in between but one of them is often discussed was when South Carolina
8:46
passed a law uh blocking enforcement of the Tariff
8:56
for the time which put a severe tax on
9:01
imported goods needed by the south in order to favor more expensive
9:09
manufacturers in the northern states this affected the ability of the
9:16
Southern platters to make a living to make a profit
9:22
and it was clearly designed to favor one section of the country over another
9:30
contrary to the Constitutional provision that requires that all legislation and
9:40
in particular taxing taxing legislation shall be uh
9:48
passed and applied only in a way that provides for the general welfare and
9:55
does not Advantage one section or state over another so they can South Carolina considered
10:03
that tariff to be unconstitutional of those grounds now the way that was resolved is that
10:10
the the South Carolina resistance was considered important
10:16
enough because it was threatened because other states threatened to adopt similar measures
10:21
that Congress backed down and greatly reduced the Tariff down to a fairly low
10:28
level and uh so South Carolina didn't have to follow through on its threat
10:37
but the reason why South Carolina's action could be
10:42
effective in that In 1832 but because in those days the federal
10:48
government depended for the most part on the cooperation of State officials
10:56
to enforce Federal Acts and if a state if and its officials
11:03
resolutely refuse to cooperate they can pretty well end any of the efforts of
11:10
the federal government to enforce its laws uh that was later to change as we as we
11:18
will see in later the Fugitive Slave Acts
11:25
between about 1850 and 1861 uh were
11:32
acts which provided for returning fugitive slaves to their owners
11:40
by the states insisted on holding jury trials to determine whether the slaves
11:46
were in fact slaves the legislaves they said well we have free blacks we
11:53
can't just have somebody coming into our state claiming their slave and you know
11:59
yanking you know and kidnapping them and taking them back to the summer the slavery is on Southern State we have to
12:07
hold a hearing with a jury to decide you know what's going on
12:12
and the problem with that then is that the southern for you fine is that some
12:18
Northern juries refused to find in favor of the slave owners
12:24
so they engaged in nullification of the Fugitive Slave Acts
12:30
and this week was a major source of irritation that led to secession of the
12:36
Civil War together during the prohibition era of 1919 to
12:44
1933 there was also a growing problem
12:49
that uh juries began increasingly to refuse to
12:56
convict people for violations of
13:01
alcohol prohibition and without the ability to convict anyone of
13:10
prohibition violations it became extremely difficult to effectively
13:16
enforce prohibition and finally uh
13:23
the peoples realized their mistake and repeal the amendment
13:31
now we currently have two areas of contention that are particularly
13:38
instructive the first is the real ID Act the second is medical marijuana
13:46
we'll be looking to those in a little bit more detail
13:53
the real ID act requires states to issue driver's licenses and state ID that can
14:00
form the federal requirements for centralized identification but with our funding to the states to
14:07
pay for it the Congress figured well the state's have to issue
14:13
driver licenses or state ID anyway so let's just impose a requirement on the
14:21
way they do it to require that they include things like Social Security numbers and
14:29
generally are tied in to a central federal data database
14:37
that identifies everyone and of course as anyone who may have
14:44
seen the movie uh Sarah starring Sandra Bullock
14:51
uh in which her identity was stolen and given to someone else because of the
14:57
ability of some someone in a position to control identities
15:03
can realize the idea of having identity under the control of a single Central
15:09
Authority is extremely dangerous to Liberty
15:15
the alleged Authority for the real IV Act is to withhold entry
15:21
into Federal facilities and on a commercial aircraft to those not having the ID
15:29
it was thought that by withholding those privileges
15:37
the people would demand that their states implement the real ID Act
15:44
but that hasn't happened in fact the people told a lot a lot of
15:50
told their states do not cooperate we do not want you to issue uh
15:58
ID that complies with a real idea Act and a lot of States including Texas
16:04
started resisting most of them using the excuse that they
16:12
can't afford it that's too expensive that with our funding we're just not
16:17
going to do it so uh and there's even a Supreme Court case
16:23
that uh sides with state and local officials who refuse to
16:31
administer Federal statutes without being paid for it
16:39
now that alleged authority to control aircraft
16:45
was based upon two clauses the Commerce Clause and the necessary
16:52
and proper clause and by one Court president
16:57
primarily one wickard B filter which we'll just refer to here as wicker
17:04
Roscoe filiburn was a farmer who uh was prosecuted criminally for
17:11
eating his own corn unless he grew in excess of the uh price
17:19
and production controls I imposed on his farm he argued that since it was not uh
17:29
did not enter Commerce that it was not properly subject to
17:35
regulation by the federal government it was produced in his State consumed in
17:41
his State he wasn't sold to anybody if it hadn't been produced he wouldn't have sold it uh
17:48
and if he hadn't he eaten his own party he wouldn't have bought it from somebody somebody else
17:54
well the Supreme Court in 1942 did not support
18:00
filbert and it established the president on
18:06
which almost all Federal
18:11
criminal legislation has since been based if you hear about the over criminalization or the Federal
18:18
criminalization of everything
18:23
that's mainly based upon that one Court decision wicker
18:29
which most constitutional Scholars that I respect consider to have been wrongly
18:35
decided
18:41
so the situation we had with real ID now is that many states are refusing to
18:48
funding compliance but some are complied so we have a mixed situation
18:55
if just one state refused it could probably be isolated
19:00
and uh Forest into submission
19:05
but it's enough States so it indicates that any system of state-led
19:15
uh non-compliance civil disobedience
19:20
needs to involve more than one state if it's to be effective
19:25
one is not enough for all 50 is probably Out Of Reach
19:31
but it may be feasible with 10 15 states
19:37
doesn't have to be a majority especially if they're the larger States
19:43
now the feds are ending it withholding funds to States for other purposes unless they
19:51
comply taking advantage of the economic distress
19:57
a lot of the states are knocking on the doors of Congress looking for bailouts
20:02
and Congress is liable to say well if you want money from us we want you to go
20:08
along with real ID so of course Texas is not in that
20:15
decision and several other states are not but it does indicate that the a
20:28
use of extortion in that way is clearly unconstitutional
20:35
and needs to be resisted on the other hand if you were to try to
20:42
the state or for that matter our private citizen
20:47
were to try to sue and some of them have
20:53
to block real ID that generally get knocked out for lack of standing
21:01
back in 1923 the courts adopted the doctrine that if you haven't been personally
21:07
injured we don't want to hear from you we don't want to hear we don't want to
21:13
issue advisory opinions on what statutes are and are not constitutional
21:20
uh we don't want you running to the courts every time you lose in Congress we want
21:27
you to fight your battles with Congress and get and settle them there and only
21:34
come to us when uh you know you have a personal injury
21:41
well that's not the standard the doctrine that was
21:46
intended by the founders they clearly intended that any citizen
21:52
should have the top right to go to court and get at least a declaratory judgment
21:58
perhaps injunctively if he anticipated
22:03
unconstitutional and legislation but since the decision in question
22:10
uh probably had me melon in 1923 the Supreme Court and federal courts
22:17
have been refusing to hear cases of that kind
22:22
and a companion case melon Lee uh
22:27
you know for Massachusetts to be valid held by the state may not represent one
22:35
of his citizens and the rights of those citizens it used to be that the state could do
22:42
that if you go to court in what's called a uh
22:48
in parents patriotic in other words they could stand for the
22:53
citizen and defend his rights in federal court and in Massachusetts V melon the Supreme
23:01
Court said no citizens have to come and uh
23:06
conduct their own losses you can't do it for them now I didn't say that a state couldn't
23:13
pay for the citizens lawyers it just cannot actually provide speak
23:20
for them in the name of the state
23:25
now where do we stand at this point well we have an ass still on the books but
23:30
too many states blocking compliance so it's a legal legal limbo
23:36
and what we can expect in a situation like that is for the feds to try to
23:42
ratchet compliance to pick away at the resistance picking it off is state by
23:49
state until they get it's down to uh
23:55
to a few states to be able to sustain it and then Force the rest into compliance
24:01
so this situation is still unsatisfactory
24:09
now now where I would realize these Dan if we have a nullification Commission
24:19
well first of all the citizen could have complained to the Nullification commission before the real
24:26
IDU pact was passed there's nothing about a grand jury
24:33
which is essentially what it is that says that it won't hear complaints
24:39
about things that haven't happened yet uh grand juries are very well suited to
24:48
they can investigate anything they want to including things that may be far in
24:54
the future and they don't have to limit themselves to cases in which somebody's actually
25:02
been injured now it would not be appropriate for it
25:08
to find the ACT null if it hadn't been passed yet but it could conduct hearings and call
25:13
witnesses now those Witnesses could include both
25:19
proponents and opponents of the ACT now of course the proponents might
25:26
refuse to testify most of them are out of state
25:31
and Texas is not going to be able to go out to Washington DC and drag them back to
25:38
testify but it can take note of the fact
25:44
that they refuse to testify and decide the point the argument without them
25:50
so they were probably con being confronted with uh
25:56
the possibility that the state could declare it unconstitutional uh they
26:03
might want to show up and try to argue for why it is constitutional
26:09
now you notice that there's a you're beginning to notice or should that there's an important difference
26:16
between the kind of nullification commission we're proposing and that of a
26:21
Committee hearing in Congress having helped
26:27
run committee hearings in Congress myself I know how stacked they are
26:35
the Congress is not really in general interested in getting information
26:41
by having Witnesses testified before it that's mostly a facade
26:48
uh the real information on which it makes decisions it gets through other
26:55
channels now that's just a way by which it can line up people and supporters of the
27:03
position and maybe if you had in opposition to it who are carefully selected to uh produce a overall effect
27:13
that the powers that be in Congress wanted to so it is not a an objective impartial
27:20
process and the idea of the Nullification commission is to provide an impartial
27:28
Forum in which the merits of the initial can be debated
27:35
now what would have happened to the real ID Act well if a state nullification commission
27:44
and especially several of them had decided to hold hearings on it
27:51
faced with likely nullification the ACT would probably have been withdrawn
27:59
it just you know Congress does not like to pass things that are going to generate a
28:08
lot of opposition it could take a certain amount of heat but if it's cut but it's usually
28:15
counting on uh private groups to be the source of opposition
28:22
and if it's facing an entire state or several States
28:27
that changes the balance considerably and makes it a much more likely that
28:35
they would cave in now let's get let's look at medical
28:41
marijuana it's illegal under Federal Acts
28:49
based upon the Commerce necessary and proper Clauses and wicker to be filbert
28:57
however some states legalized medical marijuana
29:02
under their own laws now
29:08
we have a conflict developing some guys think they're authorized or even
29:13
licensed by state law while the feds are trying to prosecute them
29:20
from the feds prosecuted for what the state authorized we began to see juries refusing to
29:26
convict by having the stage
29:33
legalize medical marijuana it informed the public of the issue
29:40
to a sufficient degree that when they began to be pulled for jury duty uh it
29:47
would became hard to get a jury panel that would convict
29:53
so this decided reads it fairly recently
29:58
to stop Prosecuting in those States but they still can
30:06
the Nullification commission would have gotten I've gotten that result faster and it would have gotten it for all
30:14
states not just for a few States eventually
30:19
particularly if the example of a few States using a
30:25
nullification commission caused the idea to spread until most if not all states
30:30
insisted on having their own or their citizens insisted on that they
30:37
have one now let's look at the health care act
30:43
which it has a longer name but we'll just abbreviate it here for this
30:49
discussion this is the one that has led to a lot of
30:54
Demands for nullification unfortunately it's the one thing
31:01
that does not lend itself to nullification
31:06
as well as some of the other to use their patients do
31:12
you understand why we need to examine the act itself
31:18
but the ACT does that so many people have said there are many things that have people
31:23
have said about it but the one in particular is it imaginates people to
31:29
get health insurance or pay AFI
31:34
uh now some have proposed state legislation to
31:42
block collection of the fines even making in a criminal offense for a
31:48
federal agent to try to collect them the problem is that those proposals are
31:57
designed for a different act than Congress actually passed
32:04
in the act as specifically says that the IRS which is charged with collecting the
32:11
fines may not file liens or take collected actions for the fines
32:20
so we have a fundamental problem if the IRS is not going to be able to
32:28
file liens or take collection actions uh
32:35
how is it going to collect them and what could the state do to block that
32:44
effort well unfortunately the IRS has other ways of
32:50
collecting money from people it doesn't have to live with you on bank accounts
32:56
or file liens on real estate or anything like that
33:02
it can just have employers deduct
33:07
withholding from people's wages and then charge
33:15
the money first collected for the fines leaving them a balanced owing
33:24
so what is the state going to do about that is it going to Block income tax collection because now the feds will say
33:30
no no we're not trying to collect on a health insurance fine
33:37
we're collecting regular income tax is the state really going to try to
33:44
prevent that if it is then it cleanses
33:50
it's it's up against the entire federal income tax system
33:56
so let's look at the income tax and the fed and the Nullification division
34:06
now it's a concern would be possible and in fact it would likely happen let a state citizen would complain
34:13
that the federal income tax on labor is unconstitutional
34:19
now you notice that I restricted someone here I'm not examining in taxes on
34:25
corporations or inheritances or on a lot of other things we're just focusing on
34:32
one thing uh income tax and labor in particular in wages because the feds
34:40
have a withholding system they employ impose on employers which can enable
34:46
them to get the money first and so that you're put into the position of having
34:51
to argue with them to get it back
34:57
um the Nullification Commission could hear issues in the ways of
35:03
Congress and of course refused to and find it unconstitutional right now Congress is not going to find
35:10
the income tax unconstitutional and these are the federal courts
35:15
it's not going to happen uh
35:23
but what in what ways does the IRS depend on
35:28
cooperation by the states well if files liens with State Court
35:33
clers which the Nullification commission could block
35:40
however that would not prevent federal agents
35:45
from collecting anyway without the leads
35:51
uh State agencies and contractors withhold taxes and the Nullification commission could
35:58
tell them don't collect withholding taxes
36:04
which would put them in direct conflict with the federal government
36:10
uh and the question then occurs if the
36:16
state refuses to conduct withhold taxes
36:21
then I guess the feds could withhold money that they pay the states which they're not supposed to send them
36:28
anyway but you can see that this would be heading toward a kind of a severe
36:34
confrontation now
36:40
the IRS attaches money from bank accounts but the Nullification commission could have stayed State Bank
36:47
Charter suspended in other words you can tell Banks do not
36:53
uh give the money to the feds to the IRS
36:58
protect your customers and don't go along with what the IRS asked you to do
37:06
again direct confrontation
37:11
and of course if banks have other Alternatives they could recharger with the federal government
37:16
then you'd have a problem of the state having to take the position that a bank
37:22
can't do business in its state without being chartered by the state and they're just ignoring the
37:29
federal Charter so you know we're talking about some serious confrontation here
37:36
uh the Nullification commission could encourage juries not to convict
37:43
but the IRS still has civil actions
37:48
the IRS answer money that makes you sue them to get it back
37:54
and it's such a civil case a jury is possible but it is for all purposes all
38:00
practical purposes blood it's very hard to win a case like that
38:06
because they again the federal judges will not let you argue most of the
38:13
issues the legal and constitutional issues due to the jury
38:18
so without the Nullification Commission most people cannot afford the cost of a
38:26
suit like that it could cost them a million dollars they might have to take it all the way
38:31
to the Supreme Court and that would only be worthwhile if the
38:38
amount of taxes that issue was less than a million well that might be okay for a few really
38:46
big you know really wealthy litigants
38:53
but for most people they just couldn't afford to do that however the Nullification commission
38:59
could authorize paying attorneys to defend the citizen
39:05
even a little one and confront the IRS and the federal
39:11
government with having to defend hundreds or thousands of losses
39:19
for that would cost them a lot more money than they're collecting
39:24
so they would be faced with going in the hole on litigation
39:30
uh this is a an example of a of the
39:35
realization that a lot of people come to or they examine how the justice system
39:40
works that more often than not the outcome is determined not by the legal or
39:47
evidentiary merits but by on who runs out of money first
39:53
and the the government by making it
39:59
necessary for people to spend more money than the amount of money at issue is is
40:05
worth can effectively avoid a lot of litigation that would otherwise
40:12
drain their resources by reversing
40:18
the cost Factor by and of course the states would have
40:24
to put out a lot of money to make this work but if they're willing to do that
40:30
then they could put the federal government in a position where it would cost it more money than it would get
40:37
through trying to collect taxes in this way
40:48
so at this point I think we're beginning to see that
40:54
if the federal income tax on labor is to ever be tackled by The Nullification
41:02
commission is probably not one of the first user basins in nullification
41:08
commission should tackle it could hold hearings
41:13
but defer the finding putting pressure on Congress to replace the federal
41:19
income tax on labor in other words a grand jury does not
41:26
necessarily have to uh produce a finding
41:32
what's called a presenter he can hold hearings I can hold here lots of hearings
41:39
month after month year after year through successive grand juries
41:45
successive nullification commissions building up a long record of testimony
41:53
uh which is gradually leads up to the
41:58
risk that eventually it's going to decide to issue a finding and then uh
42:07
let us say the matter would become very interesting
42:13
hearings would provoke public discussion and very likely lead juries to refuse to
42:20
convict even without the finding I would anticipate that a nullification
42:27
commission is going to be newsworthy they might only be they might meet as
42:34
often as once a week but what they produced at a given week would lie very
42:39
likely be something the newspapers would want to cover it would be the topic of
42:45
discussions and discussion forums everywhere people on the street to talk
42:50
about it or people would rally it you know in front of capital staffs on the
42:56
subjects it would lead a general
43:02
buildup of public pressure that you just can't get with private groups alone trying to
43:09
sponsor such efforts and of course without criminal convictions collections would fade
43:18
so you have a problem that if you remove an important tool for enforcement
43:25
you lose the ability to
43:31
use the other tools that they might have
43:42
now let's look at federal education funds
43:49
there are mandates involved in
43:55
education funds received by the federal government by the Department of
44:00
Education but they all depend on the states accepting those funds
44:07
for some not locality directly uh if the states and localities did not
44:14
accept the money they wouldn't be subject to the mandates uh we can argue about the
44:21
constitutionality of using federal funds in this way but
44:27
we can understand that if this does not lend itself to
44:35
litigation our legislation in the usual way
44:42
uh all you can litigate you can elect them could legislative non-acceptance of
44:49
federal money but you can't really challenge the mandates if you do accept the money
44:57
now in the case of Texas the state standards are higher than the federal standards in some areas like civics
45:05
which is one of the reasons why Governor Perry refused the federal money recently uh
45:15
and the states and the federal standards that would go with it
45:20
the Nullification commission could find Federal funding only valid for Melissa
45:28
that would be the most correct uh finding it to make on the subject
45:36
and of course one could certainly find that almost all public education was
45:42
militia training however if public education is militia training
45:49
then it has to be have a focus on training students to be Warriors and
45:56
enforcers of the Constitution uh they can't just be consumers
46:03
mainly going along with what the politicians
46:08
want them to do and believe
46:18
the next issue that's often brought up in this connection is Environmental Protection
46:26
the states and the on the state of the feds differ on the standards
46:32
and I want to argue about what the standards should be but
46:38
the federal APA is based once again on
46:43
the Commerce necessary necessary and proper Clauses and on wickered beef over
46:50
in other words it is based upon Clauses in the Constitution which do not
46:57
authorize then most of what the Environmental Protection Agency does
47:03
one can certainly argue that there should be an Environmental Protection Agency
47:09
uh and a lot of us would entertain amendments of the Constitution giving it
47:16
that Authority the simple fact is that the environment is not Commerce
47:24
and even if it has some effect on Commerce that effect is not sufficient
47:31
to provide Authority for the regulations
47:36
that intrude into all of our lives in the way that those do
47:45
a nullification commission would make businesses have to choose between the
47:51
state standards and the Federal Environmental Protection Agency
47:58
and right now a lot of them support the Federal Environmental Protection
48:05
Agency because the environmental regulations are actually designed with their support
48:13
to suppress their small competitors for the same reason that
48:20
businesses ever since 1886 have supported all kinds of federal
48:26
regulations of quote Commerce unquote uh
48:32
it is easier for large organizations to meet those requirements than for small
48:37
or newer organizations so the Practical effect of it and the
48:43
mean and for their few people I think the main purpose of it is to
48:49
put their small competitors out of business and enable them to
48:54
achieve a monopoly or at least oligopoly over the market
49:02
and one of the major driving courses for corporations to become larger and larger
49:08
and less and less accountable is the effect of regulations suppressing small
49:15
competition uh most federal enforcement however is
49:21
Administrative so jurors do not get to decide except for criminal cases
49:30
and uh that leaves the problem that if a state
49:35
refuses to cooperate with administrative actions
49:42
what can it actually do so that their armies of Administrators many of most
49:49
many if not most of them are not even in the state doing their thing and largely Out Of
49:55
Reach of the state even if it could figure out who who they are
50:01
so uh most of that does not lend itself well to this approach
50:09
now let's look at a favorite which is instructive because it points
50:15
the way to a lot of other Federal user patients gun control
50:24
we've had two major rounds of gun control is federal gun control
50:30
legislation the first was the National Firearms Act
50:35
of 1934. that was based on the tax clause
50:41
basically what they did is imposed attacks
50:46
two hundred dollars was the amount as it turns out on various kinds of firearms
50:52
that Congress wanted to discourage The Possession and use of
50:59
well want to say by today's standard 200 doesn't seem like very much money but it
51:06
was more than the cost of a gun in those days but even so a lot of people might have
51:12
been willing to pay the 200. but Congress did something else indirectly which was sort of clever
51:20
they made it first of all it made it a crime to possess a firearm in which
51:26
attacks have not been paid and then if katria to have the agency
51:32
the Bureau of alcohol and tobacco and firearms refused to collect the tax
51:40
so even if you are willing to pay the 200 tax they wouldn't take your money
51:46
but because now you've disclosed that you have a firearm they'll arrest you and prosecute you and throw you in
51:52
prison for having the firearm and it's not a defense that you offered
51:58
to pay the tax now
52:04
the next major round was a gun control Act of 1968.
52:10
now again this act was not based upon the taxing Clause it was based upon the
52:16
Commerce and necessary and proper Clauses and I'd like her to be filled her and remember wickard was decided in 1942
52:25
which was before 1968 but after 1934
52:31
so the defense had a new tool with wicker and its subsequent Acts that it
52:37
could use to pass all kinds of gun control legislation to make it illegal
52:43
to have all kinds of guns
52:49
now in response to this some states have advanced legislation to exclude
52:56
Interstate firearms from Federal Regulation claiming that if a firearm is
53:04
manufactured within the state sold within the state
53:09
you who use within the state never leaves a state but is not subject to
53:15
Federal Regulation and they intend to sue the feds if they try to impose
53:22
regulations on those firearms the problem is that you run up against a
53:28
problem that we encounter with medical marijuana the feds can just ignore that and prosecute it in their courts
53:38
uh now so the states and so
53:45
the main if we can look to the medical where marijuana
53:51
case of the one the only way that the state could then
53:56
influence the feds would be to influence their people not to convict if they were
54:03
called for jury service um whether
54:09
they could get the uh this to happen
54:16
with the state merely passing legislation however is doubtful
54:22
whereas on the other hand a notification Commission by bringing these things to the
54:29
attention of the public on a weekly basis would have a much better chance of
54:36
mobilizing the citizenry to refuse to convict
54:41
now what else could the states do well the states could refuse to disable the
54:48
right to keep and bear arm for convicts or at least after they served their sentences
54:54
but a lot of people think because of some of
55:00
the language in the act that that that's what the feds are doing is enforcing a
55:07
state disablement of the right to keep in their arms but that that's not what
55:13
they're doing the federal act in 18 USA
55:21
922 essentially takes a position that it doesn't care if a state restores the
55:30
rights to keep and bear arm for convicts that if anyone was convicted of an
55:36
offense for which they could serve a year or more
55:41
regardless of whether it's called a felony or misdemeanor that the federal statute kicks in and
55:50
it's a federal felony to possess it so what they're trying to do is to
55:56
Simply use that they're not using State due process
56:02
as a basis for classifying someone as a criminal
56:07
they are using it as evidence for their own disablement
56:12
but without any kind of due process
56:20
now what else do the states do well the states could license Interstate firearms
56:27
dealers who are not required to be Federal dealers and set up a conflict like that
56:34
for medical marijuana now a lot of us of course States now in
56:39
general do not license firearms dealers a few cases they do
56:45
and a lot of dealers would resist this even claiming it's unconstitutional and
56:51
it is but the the employee here would be to use the state license to set up a
56:59
conflict with the federal government by having conflicting licenses
57:06
uh it likely wouldn't work if it ever came to court but uh he could mobilize public
57:15
opinion and achieve a win in the court of public opinion
57:23
now if a nullification commission could find a lack of a militia
57:28
unconstitutional and in effect declare that all
57:35
non-criminal citizens are law enforcement agents which will make them
57:40
all his officers and in federal statutes there are
57:45
exceptions for peace officers
57:50
the feds generally consider only a few officials to be peace officers but
57:58
there's nothing to prevent a state from declaring everyone a peace officer and
58:03
pretty well shooting down those Federal statutes of course the defense when I turn around
58:09
and amend the statutes but right now that might be a little hard to do in the present political climate
58:16
and of course the Nullification commission could encourage juries not to convey
58:23
so this this area is a little bit messy
58:28
next we turn to money that's one of the key areas that has led
58:34
to a lot of controversy some have proposed nullification of the
58:39
Federal Reserve System but that's a little bit more difficult because strictly speaking the Federal
58:46
Reserve System does not work quite the way especially the state level
58:52
that would lend itself to nullification at the state level
58:59
a citizen complained to the Nullification Commission could bring the finding that only gold
59:04
and silver or legal tender within the state the state would then have to tax and
59:10
span only in gold and silver not in Federal Reserve notes
59:17
civilians would then start demanding debts be paid in gold and silver
59:22
just like the state does and the FEDS would become isolated into
59:30
a Federal Reserve Note Zone they might issue them they might accept them in payment but
59:38
they would have a problem getting the states to go along with anybody
59:45
accepting Federal Reserve notes as payments for federal debts the federal
59:51
government might find itself unable to do business of the state without paying
59:57
the indolence or silver so uh and of course you can see if enough
1:00:04
states did this that the Federal Reserve Note would disappear as currency
1:00:11
currency is after all what people will accept and if people stop accepting Federal
1:00:16
Reserve notes it started demanding gold and silver and if the states back them
1:00:22
up they can make it make it happen
1:00:28
however taking on the entire monetary system at once would backfire
1:00:34
again as I've cautioned throughout a nullification commission has to pay kids
1:00:41
battles carefully it's better to take up a complaint from
1:00:46
one citizen that our Federal Reserve Bank won't redeem a one dollar bill for silver
1:00:52
and threaten the co-op withhold cooperation on something else until the
1:00:58
federal lands and gives them one dollar's worth of silver
1:01:04
now whether the Federal Reserve Bank would do that uh it's hard to say but if I'm a reserve
1:01:10
banks interestingly enough are private organizations they would very likely yield and give
1:01:19
them the guys some a piece of silver it's just not worth it tell them to
1:01:25
fight it then you do it for a ten dollar bill than the 20 then a 50 then 100.
1:01:32
you you would do a lot of have a lot of fanfare when you do that and to graduate
1:01:39
your politicians are good we'll begin to see where all this is going
1:01:46
so this concludes the part of it that I've
1:01:53
done so far as a PowerPoint and we can get involved in the
1:01:58
discussion further of where all this leads us
1:02:04
what kinds of issues what kinds of use or patients does state-led not nullification lead
1:02:11
itself to we pick up a lot number of big broad subjects
1:02:18
but what will work best will the particular smaller issues
1:02:26
a particular use for patients that affect individuals or single businesses or single agencies
1:02:36
particular Court decisions things in particular where
1:02:42
the some cooperation at the state level is required
1:02:48
now if the Nullification commission could do no more than rally the public to refuse
1:02:56
to convict if they're asked to serve on a jury that would be important and might
1:03:03
very well be sufficient in many cases it might not be necessary to get the
1:03:09
entire state government and all the state contractors on board at the same
1:03:15
time but uh what we'll be trying to do over
1:03:21
the next days and weeks and months will be to identify
1:03:27
specifically how a nullification commission might address
1:03:34
various complaints that people could bring to it
1:03:39
how it could best approach them and do so in a way that did not cause it to be
1:03:46
shot down now on another note has been proposed by
1:03:53
some that the Nullification commission should take complaints from citizens
1:03:58
above state level violations of the state level state
1:04:04
constitution I can certainly sympathize with that
1:04:10
envision however would need to realize that existing
1:04:17
grand juries can all already do that they are kept from doing that by DA's
1:04:24
who have tried to bring them under their control and by judges who are usually
1:04:30
cronies of the DA's but in principle if grand juries were
1:04:39
opened up to Citizen complaints
1:04:44
then uh citizens could bring them complaints
1:04:50
about state level constitutional violations has occurred not too long ago here in
1:04:58
Austin and it had the result of the desired result
1:05:03
but we don't need to invent a new institution to deal with that we need to
1:05:09
make an old existing institution work and that's what
1:05:17
we need to focus on at the pristine level violations
1:05:26
yes John when you were discussing the real ID Act I saw I think on one of your
1:05:32
slides that the feds might refuse access to their facilities unless you had a
1:05:40
real ID right and one one thing that that brought to mind is uh let's say
1:05:47
you're a citizen and you want to pay money that you owe the federal government
1:05:54
um currently is it is it
1:06:01
can you go to a federal facility and pay off your debt with cash
1:06:06
well they discourage it but yeah but that of course raises all kinds of questions because the is the feds as
1:06:14
much as anyone else who needs people to be able to get into their facilities
1:06:20
what happens if for example if somebody is subpoenaed to appear as a witness in
1:06:25
a federal case he shows up at the courthouse door and says I'm reporting to us to to the court
1:06:35
the peer as a witness and uh but I don't have any ID as well you can't come into the
1:06:41
courthouse as well uh are you telling me that uh not they're gonna the the Marshall is
1:06:48
come looking for me because I didn't show up to testify but even though I'm here I am well ready and willing to
1:06:55
testify and the guard would probably say well I better go talk to my supervisor
1:07:03
and at that point that's exactly that's exactly the kind of conundrum that I was
1:07:08
thinking about at that point the U.S attorney would probably come downstairs and say we need this guy to testify
1:07:18
you know I I know what he I know he is I'll just
1:07:23
let him in on my say so the garden the guard would say but sir
1:07:30
we're not supposed to let anybody in who doesn't have a real ID well the guy has
1:07:36
maybe a Texas driver's license yeah but not a real life but not a reality yeah
1:07:42
yeah so uh they're in a they're in a bind there in
1:07:48
effect it becomes unworkable for several levels well a lot of people when they heard
1:07:55
that gee we won't be allowed in the federal facility gee I don't want to go in a better
1:08:00
facility anyway that doesn't hurt me one bit
1:08:07
so the the Congress is in a the usual position of
1:08:15
having us being able to say be careful what you ask for
1:08:20
This Record case sounds like it was pretty bad wickard versus filburn
1:08:26
and I'm surprised that the Supreme Court has not overturned it since then
1:08:31
well far from overturning it they have build upon it and build upon it and build upon it until now there's a huge
1:08:40
flood of cases of Precedence built upon it which you could not really overturn
1:08:47
without an amendment at this point we're going to have to
1:08:52
manage the Supreme Court could overturn in principle it could but it won't
1:08:58
their conservatives institution and from their Viewpoint if they overturn wickard
1:09:05
or a case built on record they would be faced with having to overturn all of this other these other
1:09:12
cases yeah it would me and literally thousands of cases
1:09:19
and they can only handle about 80 or 90 a year so they wouldn't be able to get anything
1:09:25
else done well they have they they choose their cases so they can choose what whatever
1:09:31
they want to get done yes and I it would be lovely to see them in
1:09:36
that position but I I know the the Supreme Court well enough
1:09:42
to know that they're they're just not going to do that we'd have to completely replace them
1:09:47
with a whole new set of people and they're the number the likelihood of
1:09:53
appointing Libertarians of the U.S Supreme Court is not very great
1:09:59
since I haven't been present for your previous discussions of nullification commissions I'm not
1:10:07
familiar with your proposals for how they should be
1:10:12
chosen or elected okay um
1:10:19
in my proposal I proposed that it'd be a panel of 23
1:10:27
which is a standard size for a grand jury that they be chosen from a pool of at
1:10:34
least 230. larger if possible of people who have are knowledgeable in
1:10:41
the law but are not lawyers
1:10:46
uh that could be paralegals it could be uh well it could be judges but judges don't
1:10:52
have to be lawyers in principal but uh
1:10:58
well now I'm trying to think of it I excluded judges too all right um
1:11:04
or it could be legal historians and of course my favorites are legal
1:11:10
historians because I think that as a academic
1:11:15
uh field there are more legal historians are more
1:11:20
faithful to the Constitution than than most lawyers are
1:11:26
if you were to pick people from professors from law schools and
1:11:31
professors of History who specialize in legal history at random you would get
1:11:38
more Fidelity to the Constitution than the legal historians
1:11:43
in particular you would have a you would be more likely to get people with the ability to analyze the
1:11:52
legal issues the way I think they need to be if you're trying to understand what the original understanding as opposed to
1:11:58
just the last president so uh
1:12:05
from that point of view I would say it would be a challenge to come up with 230
1:12:11
qualified people in the whole entire state of Texas but of course hopefully the uh
1:12:19
the feel would be expanded if there was felt that there was a an interest in it
1:12:27
of course it could include law students which would they would make a pretty
1:12:33
pretty good candidate pool they're not lawyers yet so they're they're still young and fresh and I'm
1:12:40
perhaps unimpressed by all the indoctrination that they're about to get so then you have this pool of
1:12:48
230 how would the members of the grand of the commission be chosen from that
1:12:55
pool at random
1:13:01
and how would the pool be chosen okay well there's several possibilities one
1:13:06
would be to have a few State officials appoint them is drawing from as many as they could
1:13:11
find throwing them all into one big pool another way would just be to pick them
1:13:17
at random from the from from the voters now
1:13:23
the first such selection randomly from the voters wouldn't get you people are
1:13:28
knowledgeable about them in the law but what you can do is pick a large
1:13:34
panel whose job it is is then to pick
1:13:40
the ones who are more knowledgeable in the law than they are and this could go to several rounds
1:13:48
so you could have one panel picking a second panel picking a third panel until
1:13:53
you finally get down to a pool from which you pick the final final
1:14:01
uh so basically all their their whole job would it be to figure out who is most
1:14:07
knowledgeable about of the law and the Constitution
1:14:14
so this this kind of multi-level sortation uh process is one that has actually been
1:14:22
used historically he was used by the city and the State of
1:14:27
Venice for 760 years although the method evolved someone during the whole of that
1:14:34
period to select their chief executive the Doge
1:14:39
and a lot of people think that those was a kind of elected King but he wasn't
1:14:45
he was an executive official more like a prime minister
1:14:51
and the design objective for a selection process was to avoid undue influence by
1:14:58
any of the large powerful families there was about a dozen powerful
1:15:03
families who were as liable enough to go to war with one another or certainly to assassinate with one another if they
1:15:10
didn't get their way so the dose was intended to be a neutral figure not under the control of any of them
1:15:19
and of course they looked at election they looked at appointment who's going
1:15:25
to appoint a guy an election isn't going to work because the big families would just pay off
1:15:30
people to vote for their guy so they adopted a system which had
1:15:36
actually first been used in ancient Greece of random selection or sortation
1:15:43
and they had a multi-level process they started out with a large pool with
1:15:49
selected a large smaller pool randomly selected the next level those who
1:15:55
filtered out some then they did another random selection so they altered altered
1:16:01
a filtering process and a random selection process until what they wound up with was one
1:16:08
guy who was not did not owe his job to any powerful interest
1:16:16
there's enough Randomness in the process but also enough filtering for uh
1:16:23
skills that they wound up generally with pretty good candidates
1:16:29
in fact that's interesting I've never heard of that process yes described on our website you go to constitution.org
1:16:37
and click on selection and removal and then scroll down to the sortation
1:16:45
option and you'll click on you'll see a list of
1:16:51
articles on sortation and the very first article is an article about how Venice did it for 760 years
1:17:01
and if you read about the history of Venice through that period
1:17:07
they were remarkably well governed they almost never chose a bad a bad
1:17:14
Village he was almost always what from our
1:17:20
Viewpoint for with the advantage of hindsight would have been probably pretty much the best selection they
1:17:26
could have made objectively so they live in relative peace and
1:17:34
prosperity for a very long period of time they were finally conquered from outside but they didn't fall from within
1:17:43
it wasn't a case of internal corruption and Decay that did it for them
1:17:50
what do you think about repealing the amendment
1:17:55
that calls for popular election of senators
1:18:02
I think it's a bad idea I understand the motive for it but in
1:18:07
relation to trying to preserve a little bit more states rights
1:18:14
yeah the problem is it never worked that way by the time it was adopted
1:18:21
it was possible for according to one report I read a big interest like the railroads or oil
1:18:29
or Steel to buy a U.S senator for as little as two thousand dollars
1:18:36
spreading bribes to as many as as few as four or fives Keys state legislators
1:18:44
see the state legislatures of the time mostly didn't care what Congress did
1:18:50
that was before Congress was sending large amounts of money to the states
1:18:57
and they were not in general passing very many laws that the state's objected
1:19:02
to because they just weren't passing that many laws
1:19:07
uh so the states did not feel particularly
1:19:13
threatened except on a few issues
1:19:19
but that could mostly be achieved without it it didn't matter whether the
1:19:25
senator was elected by the legislature or popularly
1:19:31
but there was a problem of corruption the tendency for the state legislature
1:19:38
was to get rid of their least popular members by making them U.S senators
1:19:46
if you had a guy who just wouldn't go along with the other corrupt state senate state legislators
1:19:52
say oh I don't know what to do with him he's he's too too goody for us this makes him a U.S senator or maybe he was
1:19:59
just the most corrupt member ah that guy is
1:20:04
uh he's playing with a women he's gambling he's he's taking bribes he's
1:20:10
you know sooner or later he's going to make us look bad I know what we do making a U.S senator
1:20:18
by the time that the 17 so-called 17th Amendment because they may not have been the 17th
1:20:25
was adopted Most states were already yielding to popular pressure to elect
1:20:31
their Senators through popular elections and the state legislature just rubber
1:20:37
stamped the result of the popular referendum so by the time the amendment was adopted
1:20:45
there were almost enough states were already doing that that to pass the amendment
1:20:53
so it wasn't the result of corruption it was a result of an anti-corruption
1:20:58
effort it was a reform movement it was a very popular thing to do away
1:21:05
with the corruption that had developed now I want to argue for
1:21:11
various ways of the states could control the U.S
1:21:17
Congress but that's not one that worked
1:21:22
and of course one that might have had a little bit of effect would be if they had a recall power
1:21:28
but they didn't have a recall power they only had a power to elect
1:21:34
the number six months six years they were stuck with a guy
1:21:40
um so the the idea is a good one except
1:21:46
that it didn't work and if we're going to adopt reforms we need to adopt ones
1:21:51
that will actually work with practice in your view is our current Federal
1:21:58
Reserve System that began with the Federal Reserve Act of 1913.
1:22:05
unconstitutional yes but not in the way that a lot of
1:22:10
people think
1:22:17
the problem is not so much the Federal Reserve as legal tender
1:22:25
the Federal Reserve is the problem that it is because we have made
1:22:31
paper money legal tender if gold and silver were legal tender
1:22:38
then it wouldn't matter if there was a federal reserve because of course the credit also
1:22:44
couldn't be fractional Reserve banking which is also facilitated and
1:22:49
facilitates paper money uh we just have got to get away from
1:22:57
making debt as instruments money are you referring specifically to debt
1:23:05
instruments on which the federal government is paying interest or more General debt into Data
1:23:13
instruments including debt instruments on which the federal government is not paying interest
1:23:19
all that instruments if used as money
1:23:24
do you consider a a U.S treasury note
1:23:30
of an old an old uh certificate uh silver certificate you consider that
1:23:38
a dead instrument on which the U.S the the federal government was paying
1:23:44
interest or a dead instrument on which the federal government was not paying interest it was not paying interest
1:23:51
because it was backed by silver see if in that case all it is it's just
1:23:58
a it's like a warehouse research received could the federal could the U.S
1:24:05
treasury could Congress enact a bill that would
1:24:10
Direct the U.S treasury to issue money or
1:24:16
dead instruments on which the federal government does not pay interest paper
1:24:21
money in order to pay for all goods and
1:24:27
services acquired by the federal government no why not well first of all the federal government
1:24:34
does not have authority to make anything legal tender on state territory
1:24:40
it could do it on exclusively Federal territory like the District of Columbia or some of
1:24:46
the our Islands there was a time when for example it
1:24:51
Congress made Indian Wampum money in some of the western territories
1:25:00
you can make anything money legal tender where it has authority to do it but it
1:25:05
does not have authority to do it on state territory when State territory only the states have authority to do
1:25:12
that and they have only authority to do it for gold and silver coin I agree with that
1:25:23
so the problem is that when a certificate is no longer backed by
1:25:28
Gilbert and silver then it's backed by what well the court on his face it says by the full faith
1:25:35
and credit of the United States what does that mean well what it means
1:25:41
translated is the power to withdraw through taxes enough money from circular
1:25:48
currency from circulation to offset the amount that the
1:25:53
government prints or generates was mostly it's not really
1:25:59
printing money it's making entries in a computer um
1:26:05
so for our creditors the people who loan the government money
1:26:13
to feel confident that the money won't lose its value
1:26:18
in effect if government is having to tell them look we will
1:26:24
for every dollar that we issue that we create will withdraw one from
1:26:31
circulation so that the total money supply will increase slowly but only at the rate of
1:26:38
the economy grows so the money supply and the the total of
1:26:44
goods and services will about would more or less keep track will be in in parallel with each other
1:26:53
uh the problem of course is that this is breaking down it is broken down now for
1:27:00
many countries and it's breaking down for this one we are now generating more money than we
1:27:07
can withdraw from circulation
1:27:16
I mean if we drew all money from circulation it still wouldn't be enough
1:27:21
because it would it would have to start getting into the money that it just generated
1:27:33
I view the accumulation of interest on the federal debt as one of the key
1:27:40
problems and it seems to me that that
1:27:45
can easily be that that federal debt on which interest
1:27:51
accumulates can easily be avoided yeah well of course now we see that
1:27:57
the Federal Reserve is not the only source of lending we're having to go out to other countries
1:28:03
so to China and do various so-called Sovereign wealth funds as they're called
1:28:10
these are all debtors of the United States creditors creditors of the United States
1:28:15
and they have or they represent the same problem um
1:28:21
there are two ways basically to withdraw money from circulation to either tax it
1:28:29
or or loan it uh you know
1:28:36
borrowing as the the Practical effect of creating money without
1:28:42
having the tax to get it uh but that can't go on forever sooner or
1:28:50
later you either run out of creditors or you run out of taxpayers yeah with the accumulation of Interest
1:28:57
uh in the end that means that the federal
1:29:02
government will have to issue even more money yeah to pay off to pay it off yeah
1:29:07
that's one of the reasons I think that interest needs to be it needs to be
1:29:13
avoided well interest can only work in the long run if the economy grows at
1:29:19
about the interest rate because the interest essentially represents a fraction of the growth in
1:29:27
the economy Pursuit but that it presumes that the economy will always grow
1:29:33
if it ever fallsers and the whole system of Interest collapses
1:29:40
let's say that the economy grows at a constant rate of three percent per year
1:29:47
I still argue that it is easy and
1:29:54
good to avoid federal debt on which interest
1:30:00
accumulates and it's good for a number of reasons
1:30:06
again let's say for example there were no government this is these was only private players interacting with
1:30:13
themselves okay let's say you have people with money loaning money to those who don't
1:30:20
have money to invest in the growth of the economy in production of goods and
1:30:25
services um if you were there if they were paid back
1:30:30
the same amount of amount they loaned they wouldn't have an incentive to loan they want a rate of return on their the
1:30:40
capital that they've loaned well and that's fine as long as the people
1:30:46
they loan it to can in turn make money on the the capital that they've borrowed
1:30:53
money to to use so they need to get a share and the
1:31:00
lender needs to get a share but they can only get a share in the long run if the economy grows the goods
1:31:07
and services expand to cover them both
1:31:13
and if it doesn't cover them both then either the Creditor is going to
1:31:19
wind up controlling the business he invested in and squeezing out the the guy who
1:31:26
borrowed the money so even now it becomes just a a poor downtrodden peon
1:31:33
or the guy who loaned the money is going to be wiped out
1:31:38
are certainly reduced at wealth until where he may be only become a downtrodden Beyond
1:31:46
sooner or later there has to be a collapse somebody fails
1:31:51
in that uh so you have to figure in the failure rates of the businesses and of the
1:31:58
creditors to us to account for the difference
1:32:04
and in a market in which you have a lot of individuals
1:32:10
smaller small businesses all competing and of course some of them
1:32:15
saving some investings and uh using capital for production
1:32:24
the control of wealth gradually will shift
1:32:31
back hopefully back and forth so that you don't have one player
1:32:37
becoming the owner of everything
1:32:43
um if that happens and sooner or later he is if we're even if nothing else happens
1:32:49
to him is going to collapse and you wind up with the entire economy
1:32:55
going down the tubes everybody coming poor having to start all over again and begin to be able build up again until
1:33:02
you know fewer and fewer people control more and more wealth and we then we go into another collapse
1:33:10
the other thing so you can have people saving
1:33:16
among themselves small players and uh
1:33:22
or you can have savings done by large players
1:33:29
what you have with something like a Federal Reserve System is the government and the Federal
1:33:36
Reserve taking the place of ordinary citizens ordinary economic actors
1:33:42
as the principal savers in effect they're doing the saving that
1:33:48
we should be doing for us except they're also gaining control of
1:33:55
the economy in the process and making most of the economic decisions instead of us controlling the economy by
1:34:03
deciding where to invest our money or what do what to make
1:34:08
or what services to provide they're putting themselves in a position where they can say okay you will buy
1:34:17
this you will invest in that you will produce this you will provide these
1:34:22
services in fact they're gaining control over us
1:34:28
and if they really knew what they were doing to say well maybe that would be okay
1:34:34
but they can't know what they really know what they're doing be on a certain point just because somebody is a better
1:34:42
manager than another and if this business makes more money that doesn't mean he knows how to run
1:34:48
the whole economy you may know better than his competitors
1:34:54
how to run that business but if he gets too big the whole system becomes jeopardized why
1:35:03
does Congress issue death or incurred debt on which interest
1:35:11
accumulates when it when it can
1:35:17
issue money on which interest does not accumulate
1:35:22
well of course the answer to that is for several things first of all the creditors have a lot of political clout
1:35:31
they are able to write the rules they get the guys elected you know
1:35:37
um but there's another side to it which is that the Gap is cloud through a
1:35:42
series of depressions and Wars When government could not
1:35:48
pay its bills without turning to them for their support what do these
1:35:55
creditors have they have control over wealth which the
1:36:01
government needed at critical times in its history in order to fight its Wars and avoid
1:36:09
overthrow during depressions
1:36:15
I mean there it's not an accident that when we fought World War II we did it on
1:36:21
borrowed money but we had to borrow it from somebody
1:36:26
it wasn't it didn't just all come from savings bonds although some of it did
1:36:32
and they had to go out through the entire world and borrowed money from all kinds of people
1:36:40
and all kinds of you know governments and Wealthy individuals and whatever
1:36:46
and those creditors wanted to be able to manage this whole
1:36:53
thing they want to deal directly with the government they want to be able to deal with them indirectly through banking institutions
1:37:01
which of course they can own and control so uh yeah that the wealth was there it just
1:37:09
was only available to the government if it was willing to make a deal
1:37:18
so that's why the seven guys met at Jekyll Island where I have been by the way same rooms
1:37:26
that they used um to design the Federal Reserve System
1:37:33
to avoid some of the problems of the first and second National Banks
1:37:39
that were brought into being and then destroyed
1:37:45
um they try to be into subtle and indirect about it instead of having a single
1:37:51
Central Bank that said well let's just have 12 Regional Banks which are really
1:37:58
cartels of member banks and we'll all we'll have is a
1:38:05
appointed board which will kind of generally supervise them and regulate their interest rates
1:38:14
but technically there's technically there's all their it's a private organization
1:38:21
so if the federal government were to refuse to issue
1:38:30
um to incur debt on which interest accumulated but the question is how would it acquire
1:38:39
goods and services and is there something wrong in principle
1:38:45
with the federal government issuing money on which interest does not accumulate in
1:38:50
order to risk in order to acquire the goods and services that the federal government
1:38:56
acquires no but if then it has to be backed by something why people won't take it otherwise will
1:39:04
not take U.S treasury money that is labeled legal tender they
1:39:11
won't take it unless it's backed by something
1:39:16
why why not it's backed by it it's a it would be the currency
1:39:22
well it might be it would be the clarity exchange might be declared to be the currency but the if the people are not
1:39:30
assured that the the government is not going to print scats scads and scads of it
1:39:39
they're not going to take it in exchange for goods and services so Federal Reserve notes are not backed by anything
1:39:46
well they're not except they're they're backed by the Federal Reserve System
1:39:52
which is charging interest on it it only works because there's a cabal of
1:39:59
Bankers behind it all who are willing to keep it going in order to collect that
1:40:06
interest it seems to me that U.S treasury
1:40:12
paper money on which interests does not accumulate would be stronger
1:40:20
than Federal Reserve notes you might think so plus because
1:40:30
Federal Reserve notes on which the U.S government is paying interest
1:40:36
is it being interested um
1:40:43
well when the US government pays interest
1:40:50
it seems that that that in the end the US government would have
1:40:55
to issue even more money to retire the debt that's right and and
1:41:02
so when the U.S government takes out death
1:41:07
that is inherently that that leads to devaluing of
1:41:15
money that the US government would issue compared to if the U.S government had
1:41:21
issued money on which no interest is the US government doesn't need to pay
1:41:27
interest right unless of course the uh
1:41:33
large money interests are able to withdraw that and into their own control
1:41:41
by in the by having it be interest on what they learn
1:41:49
in other words the the whole system is set up to be a substitute for backing by
1:41:55
a gold and silver or some other such tangible item of value now if I'm if I'm somebody
1:42:02
who makes pencils or makes desks or uh is a building contractor that the
1:42:10
federal government wants to contact with to build a building why wouldn't I take paper money issued
1:42:17
by the U.S treasurer well because what can you exchange it for
1:42:23
I can exchange it for uh bread that the baker makes well only the bread the
1:42:29
baker's willing to accept it that's right that's right so the whole thing depends upon
1:42:34
a consensus of people to accept United currency and and people would generally
1:42:43
um be willing to accept as payment U.S treasury paper money that says that
1:42:51
on it that it is legal tender yeah they might for a while but what happens when
1:42:58
they have gotten a hundred dollars worth of stunts currency they call it dollars
1:43:03
let's say and uh they go out to pay their own bills and
1:43:10
the next guy says well yeah I'll accept them but I just won't give you as much
1:43:15
as you used to get for the hundred dollars
1:43:20
now they're getting less and less for the same amount of money as
1:43:27
time proceeds and eventually they're beginning to see a pattern there you know that if this
1:43:34
trend continues uh this money isn't going to be worth anything so I need to get rid of it now well I need to convert
1:43:41
it into goods and services before it becomes worthless I I think the I think that compared to Federal Reserve notes
1:43:47
the opposite is true
1:43:53
I mean I think that the notes issued by the U.S treasury would be stronger
1:43:59
than Federal Reserve notes what else that we give you to get out of
1:44:05
here so
#Constitutional Law & Civil Rights
#Government
#Public Policy