The Wisdom of Thomas Jefferson

Paul Rosenberg – I’ve made no secret of my admiration of The Wisdom of Thomas Jefferson, and today I’d like to show you at least part of why. And so I’ll give you a collection of my favorite Jefferson passages. There was considerably more to the man than just his writings, but this will give you enough to appreciate. And please remember that he came up with these thoughts between 200 and 250 years ago.

State a moral case to a ploughman and a professor. The former will decide it as well, and often better than the latter, because he has not been led astray by artificial rules. (Letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787)

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Whose political speeches sound most like Trump?

Ted Malloch – Who is Trump’s Speechwriter?

Donald J Trump“The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed incorporations.”

“Peace is that brief glorious moment in history when everybody stands around reloading.”

“Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes . . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”

“A true patriot will defend his country from its government.” Continue reading

15 Quotes From Founding Fathers About Economics, Capitalism And Banking

#13 “If ever again our nation stumbles upon unfunded paper, it shall surely be like death to our body politic. This country will crash.” ~George Washington

fedResAuditWhy have we turned our backs on the principles that this nation was founded upon?  Many of those that founded this nation bled and died so that we could experience “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”.  And yet we have tossed their ideals aside as if they were so much rubbish.  Our founders had experienced the tyranny of big government (the monarchy) and the tyranny of the big banks and feudal lords, and they wanted something very different for the citizens of the new republic that they were forming.

They wanted a country where private property was respected and hard work was rewarded.  They wanted a country where the individual was empowered, and where everyone could own land and start businesses.  They wanted a country where there were severe restrictions on all large collections of power (government, banks and corporations all included).  They wanted a country where freedom and liberty were maximized and where ordinary people had the power to pursue their dreams and build better lives for their families.  And you know what?  While no system is ever perfect, the experiment that our founders originally set up worked beyond their wildest dreams.  But now we are killing it.  Why in the world would we want to do that?

Most people are under the illusion that the United States has a “capitalist economy” today, but that simply is not accurate.  At best, we have a “mixed economy” that is becoming a little bit more socialist with each passing day.  We pay dozens of different types of taxes each year, and some Americans actually end up giving more of their earnings to the government than they keep themselves.  But that is still not enough, and so our state governments have accumulated astounding amounts of debt, and our federal government has amassed the largest single debt that the world has ever seen.  If future generations of Americans get the chance, they will curse us for the chains of debt that we have placed upon their shoulders. Continue reading

I’m A Fiat Slave, And So Are You

OfTwoMinds  May 21 2014

Fiat money is at base a form of indirect wealth transfer from those forced to hold the money to those issuing the money.

CharlesHughSmithI describe the pernicious servitude created by debt as debt serfdom, as serfdom implies a neofeudal arrangement that requires serfs’ acceptance of this financial yoke of servitude. In other words, debt is freely accepted as the line of least resistance in a system that incentivizes debt and places high barriers to debt-free independence from a Status Quo operated to benefit the owners and issuers of debt, not the debtors.

Correspondent Jeff W. has identified an even more insidious form of monetary servitude that he calls fiat slavery, as the servitude is enforced by fiat (unbacked government-issued) money.

In other words, being forced to use state-issued fiat currency is a form of servitude, as fiat money is at base a form of indirect wealth transfer from those forced to hold the money to those issuing the money.

Beyond this state-enforced wealth transfer from citizens to the state, there is a secondary wealth transfer going on in any fiat-money system: the neofeudal financial nobility who are closest to the money spigot get to buy whatever real-world assets and income streams offer the best return before the money trickles down to the debt-serfs paying interest and taxes.

For example, the financial nobility can borrow billions of dollars at near-zero interest from the Federal Reserve, and use this nearly-free fiat money to buy student loans that pay 7+% annually. They can also snap up houses for cash that the nobility then rents to debt-serfs who have been outbid by those with the extraordinary advantage of unlimited access to the Fed’s nearly-free fiat money.

Here is Jeff’s commentary:


In a world where every country prints fiat money, the entire human race today, except for its money masters, is subjected to fiat slavery.

Almost everyone understands what it means to be a tax slave. It means that people must work several months of the year for the benefit of the taxing authorities. Taxes in the U.S. today are several times higher than they were 100 years ago, and at present-day tax levels, today’s Americans are rightly called tax slaves.

What it means to be a debt slave is also easy to understand. It means that one must spend a large fraction of one’s time to earn money to pay creditors. Millions of Americans today are mired deeply in debt, but today’s America is also a country where if you personally stay out of debt, the government will go into debt for you. Continue reading

Toddlers Know The Truth… Until They’re Talked Out Of It

FreemansPerspective  April 1 2014

ThePlowmanI’m hardly the first person to recognize that basic truths are more easily grasped by the young and the uneducated. For example, here’s a passage from a letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to Peter Carr in 1787:

State a moral case to a plowman and a professor. The former will decide it as well, and often better than the latter, because he has not been led astray by artificial rules.

What we generally call “education” and “socialization” are mostly efforts to separate the young from what they know innately. They doknow things innately and by simple self-reference. Those things should never be pulled away from them. We are to add to them and clarify them, not take them away.

What Toddlers Know

Toddlers may be ignorant of many things, but they understand basic elements of life quite clearly. And we can see that understanding in the three things we hear every toddler say, over and over:

It’s mine.

You said.

It’s not fair.

I doubt there’s a semi-intelligent adult in the English-speaking world who hasn’t heard those words dozens of times. So, let’s look at the understanding they contain:

“It’s mine.”

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