http://campaignforliberty.com

Americans inherit from our ancestors a glorious tradition of freedom and resistance to oppression. Our country has long been admired by the rest of the world for her great example of liberty and prosperity—a light shining in the darkness of tyranny.

But many Americans today are frustrated. The political choices they are offered give them no real choice at all. For all their talk of “change,” neither major political party as presently constituted challenges the status quo in any serious way. Neither treats the Constitution with anything but contempt. Neither offers any kind of change in monetary policy. Neither wants to make the reductions in government that our crushing debt burden demands. Neither talks about bringing American troops home not just from Iraq but from around the world. Our country is going bankrupt, and none of these sensible proposals are even on the table.

This destructive bipartisan consensus has suffocated American political life for many years. Anyone who tries to ask fundamental questions instead of cosmetic ones is ridiculed or ignored.

That is why the Campaign for Liberty was established: to highlight the neglected but common-sense principles we champion and reinsert them into the American political conversation.

The U.S. Constitution is at the heart of what the Campaign for Liberty stands for, since the very least we can demand of our government is fidelity to its own governing document. Claims that our Constitution was meant to be a “living document” that judges may interpret as they please are fraudulent, incompatible with republican government, and without foundation in the constitutional text or the thinking of the Framers. Thomas Jefferson spoke of binding our rulers down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution, and we are proud to follow in his distinguished lineage.

With our Founding Fathers, we also believe in a noninterventionist foreign policy. Inspired by the old Robert Taft wing of the Republican Party, we are convinced that the American people cannot remain free and prosperous with 700 military bases around the world, troops in 130 countries, and a steady diet of war propaganda. Our military overstretch is undermining our national defense and bankrupting our country.

We believe that the free market, reviled by people who do not understand it, is the most just and humane economic system and the greatest engine of prosperity the world has ever known.

We believe with Ludwig von Mises, Henry Hazlitt, and F.A. Hayek that central banking distorts economic decisionmaking and misleads entrepreneurs into making unsound investments. Hayek won the Nobel Prize for showing how central banks’ interference with interest rates sets the stage for economic downturns. And the central bank’s ability to create money out of thin air transfers wealth from the most vulnerable to those with political pull, since it is the latter who receive the new money before the price increases it brings in its wake have yet occurred. For economic and moral reasons, therefore, we join the great twentieth-century economists in opposing the Federal Reserve System, which has reduced the value of the dollar by 95 percent since it began in 1913.

We oppose the dehumanizing assumption that all issues that divide us must be settled at the federal level and forced on every American community, whether by activist judges, a power-hungry executive, or a meddling Congress. We believe in the humane alternative of local self-government, as called for in our Constitution.

We oppose the transfer of American sovereignty to supranational organizations in which the American people possess no elected representatives. Such compromises of our country’s independence run counter to the principles of the American Revolution, which was fought on behalf of self-government and local control. Most of these organizations have a terrible track record even on their own terms: how much poverty have the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund actually alleviated, for example? The peoples of the world can interact with each other just fine in the absence of bureaucratic intermediaries that undermine their sovereignty.

We believe that freedom is an indivisible whole, and that it includes not only economic liberty but civil liberties and privacy rights as well, all of which are historic rights that our civilization has cherished from time immemorial.

Our stances on other issues can be deduced from these general principles.

Our country is ailing. That is the bad news. The good news is that the remedy is so simple and attractive: a return to the principles our Founders taught us. Respect for the Constitution, the rule of law, individual liberty, sound money, and a noninterventionist foreign policy constitute the foundation of the Campaign for Liberty.

Will you join us?

I’m not one for spending much effort attempting to change the system from the top down. It’s mostly a waste of time. The Campaign for Liberty seems to me to be both top down and down up. You need to spend a little effort on those at the top but mostly at the bottom. Coordination and access to information are the most important aspects besides the drive to change things. It appears to me that Paul’s Campaign for Liberty is or will provide that. Even if it’s just to get the updates I recommend joining. The Ron Paul campaign for president helped spark this new movement for peace, prosperity and freedom and I think it’s an opportune time to get on board. The potential is there for real change. Even if only used as an educational tool.

• Handed out about 100 half page fliers with one side information about Rothbard’s The Case Against the Fed and the other Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson. Photos of the book cover, description and links to online versions and audio books. People snatched them up real quick. One woman was a freegan. She told me she doesn’t buy books to save trees, has a computer or at least access to one, no digital audio player, but yet still took everyone’s fliers… including mine.
• Almost every person their was anti-capitalist. Everything I heard told me they were in fact anti-corporatist. As you see in the footage they, like many on the left, incorrectly label what currently exists in the Western world as capitalist.
• I spoke with an employee of Revolution Books who was a Marxist. He believed in the end goal of stateless communism but said a state was needed to get there. Seems a bit contradictory to me. He didn’t like when I asked if he was a statist as he reminded me that communism doesn’t have a state. I tried to explain to him that it was incorrect to call what the USA economy is as capitalist and that if he was non-violent he would find allies in the anarcho-capitalist camp. He wasn’t familiar with Rothbard or ALL which I found unfortunate but he was receptive to learning about them. I’ll be sending him some links.
• I ran into Chris Maloney. He’s written some articles on Mises.org and LewRockwell.com.
• Explained to a young 20 something y/o woman who had shown up to find out more about what was going on. I explained to her how the Federal Reserve works, how it causes the boom bust cycle and what’s generally going on now.
• They had an open mic and I was real close to taking advantage of it and explaining what capitalism really is and some better reasons to oppose the bailout and the Federal Reserve instead of just complaining about which people gets the stolen goods. I decided that was likely a bad idea.
• Someone gave me an article entitled “No to the Bailout of the Capitalist Speculators! Down with the Dictatorship of Finance Capital!” by The Internationalist. Last I check it wasn’t available on their site. It’s interesting because it has some things I wouldn’t have expected to read such as noting that since 1971 the US dollar is no longer backed by gold. They call out the Socialist Equality party for not being hardcore enough effectively and the Green and Working Families as being “capitalist” parties. The article speaks of the Austrian (not the school but the country) economist Joseph Schumpeter. “Free-market ideologues like to quote the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter on the ‘creative destruction‘ unleashed by capitalism on outmoded economic structures. But today, as the wages and living standards of the working people are being steadily eroded, as social programs are drastically slashed, there is nothing creative a bout the destruction unleashed by the wold-be masters of the universe.” The authors really need to recheck what Schumpeter was speaking about, get an understanding as to why the standard of living is being eroded, and acknowledge the fact that what they complain about is in no way, shape or form a free market. Actually… the author and those protesting need to realize that these banks are more regulated than just about any other time period in history and this situation still developed. Regulation is not the answer, removing government control over the money supply is.
• There were lots of Obama buttons around. It was rather entertaining to see hardcore socialist 1 argue with hardcore socialist 2 over how the Democrats and Obama are the enemies of their cause. I, walking around with my Ron Paul, “Taxation is Theft”, “I do not consent to be searched”, etc. pins, found that many people knew of Paul and had generally good things to say in the few words exchanged.
• I was yelled at at one point for moving due to several people with cameras who were filming the back of my bookbag which has a Ron Paul civil flag patch and a “Ron Paul 2008″, Paul and V mask, and 4th Amendment pins. I usually have a gadsden flag like “Don’t tread on me” patch and more pins but I took some off for the Service Nation Summit and have yet to put them back.
• Not directly related but a coworker is leaving my firm Friday and so we went out to lunch. During which I got to pretty much fully explain the full Austrian School of economics’s position on what’s going on. Needless to say several of my coworkers who I don’t typically talk with were fascinated. They didn’t seem to trust a transition to a commodities based system… giving me “what about the guy who chooses the wrong commodity? do you really want people bothered with deciding on a common currency?” type arguments. They also has hangups on acknowledging or accepting the inherent harm central banks cause and underestimated the influence artificially cheap debt has.

Update: CNN’s coverage of the event, some photos

So why did I choose the wrong rally? From LewRockwell.com/blog:

Writes Jim Sheehan: “I just walked by the New York Stock Exchange. Hundreds of demonstrators have gathered to protest the government’s bailout of Wall Street. Several were holding placards that read ‘Stop the bailout! Read The Road to Serfdom by FA Hayek. Read mises.org.’ They were also handing out copies of Ron Paul’s 2002 speech introducing his bill to eliminate subsidies to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Keep up the good work!”

I’m not sure where this was advertised but the NYC Campaign for Liberty Meetup.com event listed the Bowling Green but I didn’t notice anyone familiar when I showed up at 4PM. Oh well. Hopefully some of those who I handed info to will actually read one of the suggested books. If it’s one thing many of those lefties need is an overview of economic theory.

http://www.forbes.com/…

Despite these steps, more is needed. We must now take further decisive action to fundamentally and comprehensively address the root cause of our financial system stresses.

To restore confidence in our markets and our financial institutions so they can fuel continued growth and prosperity, we must address the underlying problem.

OH OH! So the Federal Reserve is going to be dismantled?! Remove regulations which are only show or there to help those at the top already?

And this morning, we’ve taken a number of powerful tactical steps to increase confidence in the system, including the establishment of a temporary guarantee program for the U.S. money market and mutual fund industry.

The federal government must implement a program to remove these illiquid assets that are weighing down our financial institutions and threatening our economy.

First, to provide critical additional funding to our mortgage markets, the GSEs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, will increase their purchases of mortgage-backed securities. These two enterprises must carry out their mission to support the mortgage market.

Second, to increase the availability of capital for new home loans, Treasury will expand the MBS purchase program we announced earlier this month. This will complement the capital provided by the GSEs, it will help facilitate mortgage availability and affordability.

These two steps will provide some initial support to mortgage assets, but they are not enough. Many of the illiquid assets clogging our system today do not meet the regulatory requirements to be eligible for the purchase by the GSEs or by the Treasury program.

I look forward to working with Congress to pass necessary legislation to remove these troubled assets from our financial system. When we get through this difficult period - which we will - our next task must be to improve the financial regulatory structure so that these past excesses do not recur.

This crisis demonstrates in vivid terms that our financial regulatory structure is suboptimal, duplicative and outdated. I have put forward my ideas for a modernized financial oversight structure that matches our modern economy and more closely links the regulatory structure to the reasons why we regulate.

Damn! No.

More artificial risk reduction. This will only continue the distortion price signals and cause more malinvestment. More regulation that will either further enrich Wall Street at the expense of those on Main Street or will stifle their ability to do what they need to do.

Q: Mr. Secretary, what is the alternative here? What is the dire picture you painted for members of Congress last night to try and convince them to support this effort? What is the alternative?

PAULSON: This is what we need to do. Because for some time we’ve been saying that the root cause of the problems in our economy and our financial system is housing, and until we get stability in the housing market we are not going to get stability in our financial markets.

We’ve worked with Congress on a number of the steps, all of which were important, leading up to this. But this is the way we stabilize the system and get at the root cause.

The root cause is central control of the economy. Something every American child is taught is a bad thing. Look at what happened to those evil commies. While the message we received was hyperbolic it’s has some truth. Central control isn’t only inefficient. It’s an inherently flawed system doomed to failure. These neo-Keynesians just won’t give up on their desire to control or antiquated theories. I saw Obama talking about how the fundamental reasons for this crisis include: not spending enough on infrastructure, not spending enough on education, not spending enough on labor (wages), not taxing the rich enough, etc. Just because you spend capital on something does not mean it’s good. It does not mean that’s what should be done. It does not mean you’ll receive a positive capital growth from the deal. The cost of education has doubled in real dollars since the 1970’s with at best a static result. The fundamental problems are the distortions of the pricing signals due to regulation and primarily the Fed’s interest rate and money supply manipulation. If you make debt cheap, or give it away like it is now (interest < price inflation), individuals will fall into the moral hazard trap and over estimate. They will over consume. Over invest. The illusion of wealth furthers the problem.

I wonder what could be the best practical policy to get this information out. I’m not looking to turn everyone into economists… I just want the to recognize something I think everyone does to some degree but stops short of applying it equally across others and the market as a whole. Perhaps just putting Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson [pdf] in public places with Rothbard’s The Case Against the Fed [pdf] sprinkled about would help? I think after the recent happenings people would be happy to read through one of these while waiting for the doctor instead of reading People.

This morning I met a few bloggers though one in particular I’ve had some more extensive discussion with was Julia Rocchi of the Case Foundation. She’s blogging at their site SocialCitizens.org/blog. I’m glad to see some of my criticisms were noted by her on the post “questioning service.”

Voluntarism can be a great thing and the inhabitants of the United States are these most generous people in the world. State involvement taints this. While the service itself is not mandatory (for the moment) the taxes used to fund these state run projects makes all tax payers participants regardless of whether or not they agree with the way it’s being spent. And given the governments track record on thriftiness we may as well hand out cash on the sidewalk. Yes, that same argument may be said about all tax money utilization. I would argue that’s one of the reasons to oppose taxation in general (and that it’s theft). Government incentivized voluntarism, isn’t. Just as welfare is not charity. The government is taking money from one individual in order to pay another to “serve.” True voluntarism is completely from oneself. It is the “altruistic” (non-tangible selfishness) spending of time, money, labor, and skill.

As I’ve mentioned so often before, there is what is seen when the government promotes these projects and that which is not seen. What does not get seen is the potential lost because of government incentivizing individuals away from their free market path. The investments which would have been made with the money which was taxed away. The capital which would have been created due to those investments in the private sectors need to serve the customers. The jobs that were never created, the businesses never started. Many may scoff at these suggestions but that’s why it’s the problem of the seen and not seen.

As government grows, and we all know it does, more and more resources will be taken from the tax payers to be thrown around by politicians at their whim until such time that we have a near complete centralized control of resources. At which point our society will crumble.

Those who advocate more government involvement in anything let alone voluntarism need to take a serious look, both practically and morally, at what they ask for. Does government interference in the market lead to lesser or greater standard of living? Does the threat of violence, which is how government functions, not negate the good they intend to perform with the money and capital obtained?

Society would not accept as a defense from a theft that he was robbing John in order to feed Paul who’s starving. Society should also not accept that defense when the government uses it.

For those interested in this topic I recommend reading:

• The Road to Serfdom by F.A. Hayek
• Healing Our World by Mary J. Ruwart <== this one in particular for liberal leaning individuals.
• The Market for Liberty by Linda and Morris Tannehill
• and other works by those at Mises.org including Murray Rothbard, Ludwig von Mises, John Taylor Gatto, Robert Murphy, Henry Hazlitt, Lew Rockwell, etc.