Gee, now Ron Paul's supporters are making counterfeit money with his picture on it.
Federal agents raided the headquarters of a group that produces illegal currency and puts it in circulation, seizing gold, silver and two tons of copper coins featuring Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul.Agents also took records, computers and froze the bank accounts at the "Liberty Dollar" headquarters during the Thursday raid, Bernard von NotHaus, founder of the National Organization for the Repeal of the Federal Reserve Act & Internal Revenue Code, said in a posting on the group's Web site.
The organization, which is critical of the Federal Reserve, has repeatedly clashed with the federal government, which contends that the gold, silver and copper coins it produces are illegal. NORFED claims its Liberty Dollars are inflation free and can restore stability to financial markets by allowing commerce based on a currency that does not fluctuate in value like the U.S. dollar.
Now there are some things that the group says that reasonable people can sympathize with. For example, I think their underlying idea that money ought to be backed by specie rather than simply issued by fiat is an excellent idea, and that deviation from it has caused much of the inflation we have been saddled with since the gold & silver standards were abandoned and US currency was allowed to float in value.
That said, however, the "strict constitutionalists" of NORFED decided to ignore that provision of the Constitution that allows only Congress to authorize the issuance of money.
And while Ron Paul's campaign has disavowed NORFED and its activities, this is just the latest of the strange doings among Paul's supporters. is it any wonder that folks have begun to refer to them as RonPauLunatics?
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Comments on More RonPauLunacy
The Constitution grants the right to coin currency to the Federal government and disallows the States from coining they're own. Nowhere does it address the coining of currency for barter by private individuals, however.
Article 1 Section 8 (Powers of Congress):
To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures
Article 1 Section 10:
No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.
Just because someone mints some coins to be used in voluntary barter transactions doesn't make it a crime. If I decide to trade my television for someone else's DVD player, let's say, how is it different than trading a set of gold, silver, or copper rounds for the same item? At least the coins maintain their value, unlike FRN's.
|| Posted by malazon, November 17, 2007 04:42 AM ||Stamping those coins was done without the consent of the Ron Paul campaign. The campaign disavowed the coinage long before the current events. This was done long before they had any legal or political reason to disavow them.
The coins in question are chunks of metal with a price stamped on the front. They don't claim to be legal tender and are only useful in barter. This restriction to barter is even moreso the case since their actual value has nothing to do with the value stamped on them.
The comment by "malazon" on November 17th 2007 at 4:42 AM points out that there may very well be nothing illegal (and certainly nothing unconstitutional) here in the first place. In that case it's unlikely that the courts will uphold the attempt to prosecute. Should it be upheld by lower courts the chance of successful appeal is high.
It's worth noting that the dictionary definition of counterfeit is as follows. "An imitation intended to be passed off fraudulently or deceptively as genuine; forgery." (Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1), definition 3.) The makers of the liberty dollar were not counterfeiting as they were not making copies of US dollars nor representing their product as being the same.
They were insisting their product was legal for use in trade. Again as pointed out by malazon in the priorly cited post this is not different from insisting that barter is legal.
|| Posted by N. Pannbacker, November 17, 2007 06:58 AM ||Post a comment