Uncommon Sense: A Manifesto

I. A Brief History of the Problem

"He who tampers with the currency robs labor of its bread." –Daniel Webster

In the late 1700’s, British colonists in North America rebelled against the rule of King George III of the United Kingdom on the basis of taxation without representation, or so our elementary school educators ignorantly taught. In truth, the taxes imposed upon North American colonists by way of Parliament’s Sugar Act, Stamp Act, Townshend Act, Tea Act, and Intolerable Acts created an effective tax rate of approximately 2% of income per capita. The tyrannical taxation on American colonists does not compare to the effective tax burden experienced by American citizens today, which is approximately 30% of income per capita as of 2006. The riddle created by the juxtaposition of these statistics nearly presents itself: what prompted the colonists to rebel if not taxation?
The true root of the American Revolution was the Currency Act of 1764, which prohibited American colonies from issuing paper currency. Consequently, British coined gold, silver, and copper became the only acceptable currency for trade for the colonies, internally and externally. However, British specie was scarce. Great Britain borrowed gold and silver from private banks at interest to create currency, or legal tender; additionally, Britain coined no new copper or silver between 1760 and 1816. In order to balance trade deficits experienced after the introduction of the Currency Act, American colonies shipped gold and silver straight to Britain. British banks eagerly sold credit at interest to American colonies, which required fast cash to keep the North American economy afloat. In essence, the British Parliament enslaved the American colonies to private bankers by transferring control of the production of money from the colonies to the banks. Benjamin Franklin may have said “The colonies would gladly have borne the little tax on tea and other matters had it not been that England took away from the colonies their money, which created unemployment and dissatisfaction. The inability of colonists to get the power to issue their own money permanently out of the hands of George the III and the international bankers was the prime reason for the revolution.” Accuracy of the quotation aside, the principle remains. The American Revolution arose from the desire of the colonists to escape debt unfairly owed to the private bankers responsible for the production of British currency. Emancipation from economic slavery is the foundation of our nation, yet today we find ourselves once again enslaved to the same bankers by the same debt.


II. The Problem You Never Knew You Had

"God gave me my money. I believe the power to make money is a gift from God . . . to be developed and used to the best of my ability for the good of mankind. Having been endowed with the gift I possess, I believe it is my duty to make money and still more money and to use the money I make for the good of my fellow man according to the dictates of my conscience." -John D. Rockefeller, private banker

My fellow citizens, to understand the problem that silently plagues us, you must understand two basic truths. First, money is power. Money is merely an economic representation of the leverage required to accomplish a goal within the global system, whether that goal is personal happiness through the purchase of a new Cadillac Escalade or international influence through financing a revolution in a failed state. Money is an imaginary placeholder for real power. Second, your government is rapidly stripping you of your Constitutional freedoms under the guise of security. Following an unprecedented homeland attack, a series of massive natural disasters, and the imminent collapse of the western financial system, your government capitalizes on the public’s shock and fear in order to enact legislation that violates your rights as a citizen. For instance, the Patriot Act permits that you, an American citizen, can be removed from your home, detained without charges, and interrogated on the mere suspicion that you are a “terrorist.” The ambiguity of the term “terrorist” aside, the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution reads, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” Although the aforementioned comparison is extremely simple, the Constitutional infringement is clear. In short, the gross complacency of the American public allows this government to melt your freedoms away. In fear, we sit back hoping that the creature comforts we are so accustomed to will not disappear. Our focus is on gas prices, mortgages, the stock market, and groceries, which is exactly where the government wants our eyes. By clever sleight of hand, your money, your Constitutional power, and your rights as a citizen vanish as we are further subjugated to economic slavery. So where is the link between the power of money and the loss of our rights?
We as a nation are enslaved to the will of international bankers because of the Federal Reserve System. The Federal Reserve, or Fed, is a network of 12 regional private banks that have Congressional authority to create legal tender, or currency, at will. The Federal Reserve then gives newly printed currency to the government at interest in exchange for treasury bonds. What this means is that every dollar in circulation today carries an inherent debt attached to it. If all of the U.S. dollars in circulation today were returned to the Fed, this money would only cover the principal owed. Essentially, there is not enough money in the American economy to repay the Fed both principal and interest. As you can see, the only way to pay interest to the Fed is with more new money printed by the Fed. Consequently, we as a people are locked in an endless cycle of debt to a private bank with virtually no public oversight. Just look at the headlines. Recently the Federal Reserve Bank of New York agreed to borrow investment grade fixed income securities from American International Group, Inc. in exchange for $37.8 billion in cash. This comes on top of a record week of borrowing from the Fed by U.S. banks. In the week ending on 9 October 2008, U.S. banks borrowed a record $420.2 billion per day. Frankly, the New York Fed does not have the assets to back these lending practices. Then where does this seemingly endless flow of money come from? The Federal Reserve holds the exclusive authority to print money at will. Legally, newly printed money will not become legal tender until it is exchanged for government bonds, but once again those in power are manipulating the shock of the American people to bypass legality. In short, the Fed is magically printing money and loaning it to whomever they see fit, which decreases the value of any dollar you hold. The only way our currency holds value is by comparing a dollar to how many other dollars are in circulation. By decreasing the value of your money, you are further enslaved to the endless debt cycle created by our currency, and your real power in the economic system is greatly diminished. Couple your weakened economic leverage with the stripping of your Constitutional rights, and suddenly your life is merely another cog in the machine designed to pay an endless debt to international bankers who profit from your complacency and willingness to perform as a good little drone.
Your government further compounds this problem by illegally taxing the money you manage to hold by way of the federal income tax. The income tax is illegal because not enough states ratified the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution. In addition, no law exists in the United States Code that requires a citizen to file a federal tax return. Preliminary research with the IRS yielded a slew of non-answers. Instead of addressing the legality of the income tax, the IRS issued several warnings about contesting federal taxes on the basis of the legality of the Sixteenth Amendment. These warnings, or threats, are available publicly. Ultimately, the federal government is pocketing our hard earned money in order to moderate the economic leverage of the middle class while concurrently attempting to cover their infinite debt to the Federal Reserve. And you, my fellow citizens, are expected to silently comply with the aforementioned process. You are expected to go to work from nine to five, return to your modest middle class home, watch the endless amount of mindless, distracting “entertainment” on your high definition televisions or on the internet, and believe every headline the corporate media feeds you as the truth. All the world is a stage, and you are the willing audience. You grow lazy and fat and you hole yourself in your home just to enjoy your creature comforts away from the outside world. You close your mind to change and you grow too afraid to challenge the system in fear that you will lose the relatively easy, mindless, comfortable life you have built for yourself. As evil as our government has grown, as enslaved as you are to the will of international bankers, it is our fault. We have allowed this to happen. We have become fearful, timid, and weak. We have become an embarrassment to our forefathers. But all is not lost. Not yet.

III. We the People…

“The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people; it is an ainstrument for the people to restrain the government - lest it come to dominate our lives and interests." -Patrick Henry

You are capable of governing yourself. We are capable of governing ourselves. Do not be deceived by the slick words of politicians who will attempt to convince you that their experience makes them more suited to govern you. If anything, their experience means they owe a lifetime of favors to benefactors, donors, and lobbyists that wish to further profit from your complacency. This country’s first senators, representatives, and presidents were farmers, merchants, tradesmen, aristocrats, and smugglers. Given the position of our country in the world to this point, they obviously started us off on the right foot. You too are capable of that leadership. You too can govern with your best interests at heart, not the interests of the infinitely wealthy, international bankers, or massive corporate entities. We must make our voices heard. The mogul-controlled media is not the venue to establish your voice. The last bastion of free speech in this country is the internet, but this may not last either. In order to be heard, we must stand as many. We must seek each other out and establish networks in every major urban and rural center of this country. As our forefathers established committees of correspondence to spread the spirit of the Revolution throughout the thirteen colonies, we, the New Children of Liberty, must establish communication networks through print and online. Banding together is only the first step. We must also protect ourselves politically, physically and economically.
In order to protect ourselves politically, we must demand term limits for all politicians. This will not solve anything, but it will make the price of buying off and corrupting our current politicians exponentially more expensive, which buys us time. We must also vote against every tax increase or bond request on every level of government in order to leverage our political and economic power. Our tax dollars should no longer support Wall Street bailouts, socialized medicine, arenas for sports millionaires, education for the unwilling, and healthcare for everyone except the middle class. We must fight against public education. Public education is statistically making American children less competitive globally. The education system is being manipulated by federal programs such as No Child Left Behind in order to make our children dumber, ignorant, and generally more complacent to the slavery they are born into. Politically we must advocate for the abolition of the illegal federal income tax in exchange for a national sales tax, which increases transparency on the government’s tax revenue and spending procedures. Without such transparency, the government continues irresponsible spending practices. Without transparency, the government continues to play a numbers game that is a convoluted mess, designed in such a way that you never know where your tax dollars truly go. If we knew where the money went, we can more easily advocate for the elimination of worthless federal programs that are not enumerated in the Constitution. In order to protect ourselves from programs not enumerated in the Constitution, we must advocate for a 25 year expiration date on all laws. This must be a new amendment to our Constitution, designed to keep good programs afloat and poorly conceived operations from achieving immortality, like Medicare and Social Security. Understand me clearly, fellow citizens: even the oppressed are reluctant to change. We must overcome the inertia of the complacent citizens in our country in order to change the course of this ill-fated ship we call the United States. But doing so will attract the attention of those in power, which requires us to protect ourselves physically as well.
To catch wild, free pigs, a butcher first places food for them in an open field, their natural, comfortable habitat. Once the pigs become complacent and dependent upon the free food, the butcher builds a single wall through their living space. The pigs will think nothing of it, as long as they are fat and happy. After some time, the butcher builds a second wall, creating an “L” in the pigs’ domain. Yet again, the pigs stay in their comfortable home with their easy-to-obtain diet. After some time, the butcher builds a third wall, creating a “U” around the compliant pigs. And finally, the butcher builds the final wall, enclosing the pigs. At this point, the pig populous is trapped, and is at the complete will of the butcher. They eat, sleep, move, and die according to his will. My fellow citizens, the government is building the fourth wall right now, and if we do not resist, we will be completely trapped in our own society. To protect ourselves from the will of the butcher, we must become a formidable opponent. We must be pigs with teeth, and our teeth will be the right to bear arms, as granted to us in the Constitution. Every American man and woman of age should legally purchase a firearm and know how to use it. We must never give up our guns or ammunition. From what threat would we need guns, citizens? A recently ignored article published in the Army Times reported that an entire brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division, a combat unit hardened on the streets of Iraq, will be removed from the current deployment schedule for the purposes of a year-long homeland security detail. A brigade of our own military will stand ready to deploy on the streets of the United States, with lethal weapons, non-lethal weapons, Humvees, and tanks. For what purpose? Not only is such use of military force illegal according to the Posse Comitatus Act, but active duty American soldiers have not deployed on our own soil since the westward expansion. I support our soldiers and their missions with every ounce of citizenry in my body, but we must be ready for the illegal use of those soldiers against us. We cannot be pigs, perfectly willing to be closed in and manipulated for the will of a captor. We must stand ready to defend our freedoms, regardless of the situation. It is better to be physically armed and not need our weapons, then to need our weapons and not be prepared.
At this juncture in our short history, the American system has sold this country to an early grave for a healthy profit. Recently, a classified memo circulated the upper echelons of the executive branch and Congress, entitled “C&R.” C stands for Conflict and R stands for revolution. Essentially, the memo outlines our bleak economic future. If the American economy continues its rapid collapse and the government defaults on the trillions of dollars of loans held by China, Russia, and Japan, these states will want to break our knees, much like a bookie that won’t get paid. These are the possible conflicts of the C&R memo. If the government chooses to pay off its debt as opposed to default, taxes will be so high that a popular Revolution will arise amongst the American population. This is the Revolution. At this point, the government of the United States no longer exists to serve the American people, but instead it fights for its own survival. It fights for that survival at the expense of your wealth, freedom, and future. It will sacrifice anything to prevent a popular uprising demanding the reinstatement of the Constitution. In light of this information, the recent application of a brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division for homeland security makes perfect sense. This government will use its military might to force its will upon you, if necessary. It will not die willingly or easily. And behind this puppet show of power stands the international bankers who profit from the collapse, who walk away from a burning Rome with fattened bank accounts and infinite economic leverage. At any moment, these men, in control of the major banks and the opaque Federal Reserve System, can make your paper currency valueless. Without economic leverage, you are left to the will of those with physical power. You can counter this by arming yourself now, but you can also hold some of your economic leverage by stockpiling gold and silver. In the absence of paper currency, metal specie retains its value. Begin converting no less than 20% of your assets into hard gold, silver, and platinum. This is a preparatory move to protect you in the event of a total economic collapse, a devastating war, or the revolution. Our future looks bleak indeed, fellow citizens, and we must band together because the government and the financial system no longer exist to serve you but to continue your economic enslavement to a failed state.

IV. Independence Forever

“No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffused and Virtue is preserved. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauched in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders.” –Samuel Adams, 1775

We, fellow citizens, must welcome the Revolution. Our government is too sick and corrupt to survive. We must allow it to falter, defend ourselves, and upon its ashes rebuild America in the image of the Constitution. This process will not be easy. We will lose, temporarily, the comforts we have come to expect for survival, but do not require. We will be uncomfortable. We will be afraid. We will be persecuted. But if even a vocal minority preaches the principles of the Constitution, we can fight for our survival and replenish the tree of liberty. As our forefathers utilized committees of correspondence, we too must spread the message of this manifesto, or at least the ideas you find valuable, by way of our means of communication. The night is always darkest before the dawn, but the virtues of liberty, unalienable rights, and government for and by the people will guide us towards the light of a new day. Courage is not letting anyone else know that you’re scared to death, and my friends, we must have courage in these uncertain times of drastic change. You may ask, who is this Sam Adams to tell me what to expect or how to react? My fellow citizens, know that I have sworn an oath to defend the Constitution from all threats foreign and domestic. I, like many others, stand ready to defend you. I will continue to live this oath regardless of the American political or economic situation of the United States, but by the nature of this oath I am unable to do anything other than spread the message of liberty. You, my fellow citizens, must assume the torch of freedom and lead yourselves and others towards a reinvention of this country. Remember, that in the American Revolution a vocal minority stepped up to lead the bulk of the population that was too afraid to embrace independence, but secretly desired the opportunities it offered. We must be that new vocal minority, awaking others from their complacent ignorance. It is not enough to merely repeat these words. We must embrace the ideals of liberty as our forefathers did, and live them in the face of any and all adversity. Be strong, fellow citizens. Be persistent. Be, know, and live true patriotism. The beast before us will tremble at our feet only if we stand ready. Stand ready, friends. We will show the beast the whites of our eyes and our clenched fists, gripping the Constitution and holding it high above the oncoming flames. Together, freedom will prevail.

“God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty… What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.” –Thomas Jefferson, 1787

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Independence Forever,

Sam Adams