News from the secessionist front

Well, here is the gerbil in the wheel, spitting out another post about secession-is-just-around-the-corner. (Whether or not it is "worthless," I shall leave to your judgment). In this post are two states that may be in contention for "most likely to secede first." One state has the strongest movement, the other may be the most prepared.

Texas Nationalists launch billboard campaign

The Texas Nationalist Movement has purchased billboard space along heavily-traveled I-10 to proclaim that yes, Texas can secede. Through the campaign, the movement hopes to attract new visitors to its website and raise donations, as well as consciousness.

"We hope our billboards will get the message across to our fellow Texans: we don't have to take it. There IS another option," said movement president Daniel Miller.

North Dakota bank positions state for independence

Recently, I reminded readers how the Bank of North Dakota has positioned its state to issue an alternative currency as the dollar spins into hyperinflation. Russell Longcore at DumpDC explains in an article widely reproduced in the secessionist blogosphere how that fact actually makes that state of 700,000 one of the most prepared to assume independence. One reason is that the existence of a state bank makes it relatively immune to retaliation from the Federal Reserve:

If Washington balks at state secessions, their first retaliation will be to cut off the flow of cash to the Federal Reserve System member banks in that naughty state. In the event of secession, all the North Dakota State Bank would have to do is (a) establish its money, which is the underlying precious metals or underlying minerals to provide value to their money…then (b) issue their new state currency. 

Other seceding states will lose precious months setting up a state banking system before they can issue their own currencies.  Mr. Longcore explains why the idea of secession isn't as crazy as it may sound:

Many other states are giving serious consideration to the State Bank concept in an effort to wrest control away from an insane Federal Reserve System and an equally crazy Washington. We here at DumpDC encourage the states to cease all this anguish and simply secede. In one magnificent act, all your problems with Washington vanish. Don’t be misled by what I am saying. No one knows how Washingon will react to an Ordinance of Secession. But taking a page from the history books from 1989 shows me that after an economic meltdown, Washington will likely be just as powerless to prevent secession as the Kremlin was to prevent the breakup of the former Soviet Union.

It's time for Ohio to set up a state bank and prepare to institute a silver-based state currency. The days of the strong dollar are numbered -- we just don't know the last two digits.

Ohio needs a State Bank

I have written before about the Bank of North Dakota, and how that bank has protected the state from the wild gyrations of the U.S. economy in recent years. Here, from DumpDC, is a clearly written article about the advantages and pitfalls of running a state bank, and provides a good argument why Ohio and other states should consider one. For one thing, maintaining an alternative currency may well be impossible without one.

Watch the jobs vanish

Check out this map from americanobserver.net. Watch Ohio go from multicolor to almost solid black (over 10% unemployment) in just 3 years.

Notice which areas still have the least unemployment -- North Dakota (in my opinion, because of its state bank) and the D.C. area.

When the D.C. area turns black, the rest of us will start showing brighter colors.

Virtual buckeye to Rebellion.

California spinoff

Leave it to California to take a fresh approach to an old idea. Instead of speaking of secession, with all those bad vibes from the War of 1861, some Californians are now talking of spinoff. Not surprisingly, it is not the Tea Parties that are getting Californians to think this way, but their pocketbooks. From FutureofCapitalism.com:

[T]he big news in California is less the Senate race than the quietly brewing talk of secession -- or, as the Silicon Valley types much prefer to call it, a spinoff.

Not only are California's high income citizens being milked by progressive taxation to support the rest of America, but coal-rich states like West Virginia and Ohio* are hampering the state from pushing a low-carbon (wind, solar) economy, and nativists outside of California are preventing the state from running a pro-immigrant, pro-growth policy on green cards. Not to mention that California is under-represented in the Senate, with just two senators for all those Californians -- the same number as states with much smaller populations. Or so the argument goes, so far as I could follow the description of it from the California bureau. First it was Vermont, now California. Not to mention Rick Perry's victory this week in the Texas gubernatorial primary after warning that Texas may get so fed up that it wants to secede. The California bureau [of FutureofCapitalism.com] recommends reading Harvard economics professor Alberto Alesina on The Size of Nations.

Secession has a bad name for us in the North because of the Civil War and the horrors of slavery, but the American Revolution was a secession from Great Britain, after all. "Spinoff" avoids all the Civil War connotations. As Thomas Friedman paraphrased one Silicon Valley chief executive as putting it, the Obama Team is "very good at listening to Silicon Valley," but "not so good at responding."

And then, there's this: As with every other state (except North Dakota), the Feds are bankrupting the state governments. Californians are hurting that way more than most. A corporate "spinoff" might be just what the doctor ordered. (And just think, we'd be rid of Nancy Pelosi!)

* I know what they're saying; but for the benefit of non-Ohio readers, I would point out that the Buckeye State is building windmill farms and actively pursuing alternative sources of energy, as well.

The road to freedom passes through the state capitols

... not the one in Washington. Russell Longcore, at dumpDC.com explains very clearly why in a December 2009 article he aptly entitles "Cowardice in State Governments." I am reproducing the entire article, because of its central importance to the liberty movement in Ohio and other states. (Emphasis added)

The United States was organized with a Federal structure. Under that structure the national government was supposed to have two overriding dicta: to safeguard the States from foreign invasion and domestic violence, and provide a Republican form of government to the States. (Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution)

It should have been pretty easy to protect the States. A wide ocean on the east and west, and peaceable borders on the north and south do the government’s job for them without spending a penny. So, they should have been focusing all their attention on providing the states with a Republican form of government. Instead, what we have now is a fascist police state.

I don’t think that qualifies as a Republic.

A republic is a representative democracy, as opposed to a direct democracy. The key word is “representative.” The states were supposed to be the pre-eminent players. In the beginning, the Senate chose who would be President of the USA, and the Senators were there in Washington to represent the interests of their states.

Over the past 200 years, Washington has turned the government we were promised into the government we were trying to prevent. Could any absolute monarchy or dictatorship be any worse than what we have now? King George didn’t lay on a combined tax burden nearing 50% and trillions in debt.

The states of the Union have become little more than big counties, subservient geographic entities owned by Washington. For reasons too numerous to list here, the states allowed Washington to usurp nearly all of their power. The fecklessness of every state’s political leaders mocks this nation’s Federal system, and has destroyed the most important checks and balances against Federal tyranny.

Make no mistake. No one truly expects the Federal Government to check and balance itself…where would be its motivation to do that? No, the final arbiters were supposed to be the states.

The states had many arrows in their quivers to control the Federal Government. One of the most effective should have been nullification. Simply put, if Washington enacts laws that the states interpret as unlawful, the states could ignore the new laws like they never happened. Modern states are unwilling and afraid to use nullification against Washington.

Another strong arrow used to be withholding funds from Washington. But with the enactment of the income tax, that arrow was broken, and Washington takes the tax money directly from the people.

I say all of that about the states of the United States in general, but specifically as it relates to monetary policy in America. The US states have allowed…even empowered…Washington to destroy the monetary system of the USA through the Federal Reserve and fractional reserve banking.

The Federal Reserve, a consortium of PRIVATE banks, prints counterfeit currency for the Federal Government. Fractional reserve banking laws allow all the rest of the other banks to counterfeit by creating credit (money) out of thin air.

State political leaders are so clueless and visionless that they have laid down and allowed Washington to endanger the very economic security of each American state through the institutional counterfeiting of the Federal Reserve and all other American banks.

These are some of the reasons that I am not encouraged and excited to know that 39 states have passed some type of 10th Amendment resolution* thereby taking a position that they might just do something in the future, by God. The steely resolve is inspiring, isn’t it?

But where is the state legislature and Governor that will notify Washington that there is a new “nullification sheriff” in town? When will some state begin nullifying the laws coming out of Washington, and refusing to allow them to be obeyed in that state? When will a state refuse to enforce Federal legislation? When will a state slap the cuffs on a Federal law enforcement officer who is trying to enforce Federal law in a state that has nullified Federal law?

Where is that state that will be true to its origins, and allow nothing but gold and silver coin (specie) as tender in payment of debts (Article I, Section 10)?

As a beginning step, how about if a state stops tax withholding and makes the payment of state income and property taxes mandatory in gold or silver coin or electronic gold? That would begin inculcating the citizens in a small way to once again consider gold and silver coin as money. I realize this idea doesn’t work in Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming, since none of them have a state income tax. But it would work for their property
taxes, and both will work everywhere else in America.

Any state could facilitate the exchange of Federal Reserve Notes for specie by making such transactions exempt from sales tax. The exchange of FRN currency for specie, which are both legal money, are in essence a “currency exchange,” no difference substantively from changing dollars to Euros, Yen or Pesos.

One of the reasons that a gold/silver monetary standard would work so well for Texas is its petroleum exports. A New Texas with a gold standard would demand gold or silver specie as the only settlement of petro and natural gas transactions from any other country.

But you see, taking a position like that would directly challenge the power of Washington and the Federal Reserve. The paper money they issue says “this note is legal tender for all debts, public and private.” If a state refused to accept Federal Reserve Notes for payment of state income or property taxes, they might have a fight on their hands.

A principled stand like this over money might also help repudiate the scurrilous IRS case of Robert Kahre in Nevada. Mr. Kahre is now beginning a Federal prison term for paying his employees’ wages by using legal tender gold coins. Kahre was acquitted on all 161 counts of tax law violations back in 2007.

But the IRS tried him again (double jeopardy, anyone?) and a jury convicted him in 2009. Keep in mind that gold and silver coins are legal tender in the United States, just like Federal Reserve notes. But no one embarrasses the IRS, and Kahre has now paid the price. His life as a free man is over.State political leaders have no stomach and no backbone for a fight with Washington. Those American citizens in favor of state secession might look to these issues as a barometer of how their state political leaders would react to a political or economic meltdown. If a state won’t protect itself now, why should anyone believe that it will take principled stands later?

There is craven cowardice in the halls of state government in every state in the United States of America. Legislators and state executives go along to get along. Many look at state office as a springboard to Federal office. Few serve their constituents…most serve Washington, the Federal Reserve and banking interests.

“So that’s how liberty dies…to thunderous applause.” Princess Padme, watching the Senate in Revenge of the Sith

Copyright © 2009, Russell D. Longcore. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.

* This statement is incorrect. 39 states have introduced state sovereignty resolutions, but only eight have enacted them.

State Sovereignty Resolution Update - 3/25

For personal and work-related reasons, I have fallen behind again in reporting the progress of State sovereignty resolutions, so here's the latest:

Alaska HJR27 passed the Senate Apr. 9 by a vote of 19-0. It is awaiting Gov. Sarah Palin's signature, which I imagine won't pose much of a problem...

In Arkansas, HR1011 was reconsidered in committee Apr. 2, only to be defeated in the House the next day by a vote of 34-54.

According to the John Birch Society's Tenth Amendment Movement, Indiana's House resolution HCR50 died in committee Apr. 9, but according to several sources, their Senate resolution SR42 passed Apr. 19 by a vote of 44-3 with 3 abstentions.

After passing their famous nullification act (HB0246) against Federal control of locally-manufactured weapons, the Montana House got cold feet on the regular State sovereignty resolution HR3 and defeated it Apr. 15 in a tie vote 50-50.

The North Dakota Senate passed SR68 Apr. 20. It was returned to the House with an amendment somewhat weakening the language by removing references to the Federal government as being the agent of the States.

Fiscal responsibility in one easy lesson

North Dakota has it down. It is one of only four States not in serious financial trouble -- in fact, it has a $1.2 billion surplus. What's the secret? North Dakota has a State-owned bank outside the Federal Reserve! (The Bank of North Dakota was founded in 1919. The Fed tried to shut it down, but lost the court case). The bank lends money to other banks to help strengthen the local economy. Here's an article from The Liberty Voice explaining how it works.

All economics is local. Prosperity comes from the circulation of money within a community.