Election Judges! Election Courts!

Judging Elections

Elections are, in essence, a judicial process where common citizens acting as voters, judge the fitness of candidates and elected officers to serve them. They need the power to:

1. Scrutinize candidates, officers and their promises
2. Determine Fitness for Office
3. Hold officials accountable for performance.
4. Enforce transparency

Elections are where voters judge who is fit to lead them.

These are judicial functions, but also personnel decisions. Election courts don't decide whether or not a person is guilty of crimes, but whether they are fit for the office the people are electing him or her to.

Best Practices for Elections

Because elections are a judicial process they should be run with best practices that embody the best and most appropriate judicial principles.

Election Courts

The role of the election court is to ensure that the hiring authority, we the people, oversee the appointing of officers, Governors, Presidents, legislators. The people deserve to know what they are getting into.

Election courts have two missions;

Vetting, Shepherding elections and scrutinizing candidates

Scrutinizing Elected Officials at end of Term

Election Stakeholders

There are five sets of Stakeholders in an election.

1. Voters are first.
2. Parties, Factions, Movements and Activists.
3. The Candidates, their factions and associations.
4. Reporters and Investigators.
5. Election Officials

All these stakeholders need to be represented in the process, which is why elections need to be run as if a court.

A judicial process requires judicial structures

The required scrutiny, vetting and accountability, requires the election be run as a court would be run. A proper election court must involve all the stakeholders who have an interest in the outcome of that election. It is up to the hiring authority, thru elections to judge candidates and officers on their qualifications and accomplishment. To do that requires that the court include representation of the candidates, their factions and parties, and that they are able to argue their case. The Beauty of using election courts is that the judge and juries involved can verify and validate the claims made by the candidates and their factions.

Election Judging Requires they behave like judges

We we need better election judging because currently "election judge" is often a misnomer. They need to behave like judges. That happens when they are prohibited from holding other office for the term of their office and beyond at least one term. It also happens when the local factions and candidates have a right to representation in the processes and events of the election. Representation of candidates in the court should be mandatory. The representatives should have a say in selecting the review panels that question candidates. The judge function should be limited and subject to agreement from stakeholders except on matters of law. Election Judges, through the the processes of the election court and the actual election, should have the power to enforce that these functions are done according to law but not to dictate outcomes or excert undue influence.

Election judges would have a prescribed, limited role to:

Oversee the scrutiny of candidates and officers.

Shepherd the process and ensure that the election is conducted fairly.

Select investigators and reporters to investigate and report on proceedings.

Select election panels to conduct scrutiny and debate, with input from the interested parties in the election.

Judge according to law and refer legal violations to an ordinary court.

Jury Panels Scrutiny

Every Candidate for a position of Trust, for elective or appointive office, should be vetted through an election court jury panel that includes the voters who stand to elect him or her. During Primaries the panels should be registered party members. During the general election, the pool of all registered voters. The purpose of these panels is to question candidates and investigators so that voters can judge the fitness for office of candidates and elected officers. The ultimate jury is the voters. The jury structures would serve the purposes of groups like the League of Women Voters or similar. They manage and develop information for scrutiny, vetting, debates. The panels would also rule on decisions made by election judges that are disagreed with by principles in the election (Candidates, factions, parties and their representatives).

Investigators and Reporters

The press is named and protected in the USA constitution for a reason. The reason is that elections require that ordinary people, who don't have time to be involved in elections full time, are kept informed. For that reason investigators and reporters need a license to investigate and report on candidates for office, and of elected officials seeking reelection and of the government offices they hold. This is a critical thing and needs to be resourced and funded by the public. The press should have a right to participate in elections in this role. They should be part of the election courts, questioning candidates and presenting information to voters.

Entry Points to Elections

When an election is scheduled, an election judge should stand up an election court for each phase of the election. Candidates should have to sign an agreement that their background be checked and scrutinized. The court can decide how much of the details of that information can be kept confidential, but the public should be informed of any past criminality or relevent scandal through the election jury panel.

Step One: Confidential Scrutiny

As an entry point for running for office each Candidate for office should agree to be investigated and scrutinized then and at the end of their term should they win the election. Candidates for reelection should have the performance of their previous term investigated, scrutinized and reviewed by the "Election Jury" panel under guidance of representation and testimony of investigators. If they want to run for reelection this should be mandatory. If they are stepping down, it should be done anyway.

We have a duty to look into candidate finances, associations, criminal and civil history, just as if they were applying for a clearance for a public trust job. Because they are. They should also agree to end of term scrutiny.

Step Two: Performance Review and report

This professional confidential review, should be done by a panel led by Election judge, with testimony by investigators and local reporters, some brought in by the Election judge, some by the interested Parties, including the candidate.

Those completing a term should have their performance reviewed and that review, with minority opinions represented entered into the public record after review by the panel. They work for "We the People."

Transparent Process

Interested parties and local press should have the right to petition to be part of this panel as witnesses and observers. They should be sworn to confidentiality for the duration of the hearings. Violating that oath should be cause for ejection and bar from further participation for a term. But once the work is done, it should be public record.

Inquisitory Powers

The Panel should have the power to subpoena, compel testimony, look at records, examine and cross examine investigators, witnesses, and claims based on evidence.

All this would be under oath. Perjury would be referred to an ordinary court.

Report Product

The product of this panel would be a report, which would be required to be a factual document allowing minority and majority opinions based on facts alone. The subject would be limited to fitness for office and background.

Disagreements on content would be referred to a jury of ordinary citizens using the voir dire process. Once all the panel, or jury, agree on the factual content of the report, it can be published and used in the election. Parts not agreed on in opinion, if they are factual, go to a minority report.

End of Term Performance Reviews

Election courts would be to use the same process of using experts and investigators for a review panel would look at elected officers at the end of their term, whether they run for reelection or not.

Judicial Powers

Election Courts should have subpoena and investigatory powers, and contempt powers, but no prosecutorial powers. They should have referral powers when a criminal action is discovered. The power to subpoena, take testimony, seek and seize documents and the power to put people under oath and refer them for perjury powers if they commit perjury, should be the limit of their power. In scrutinizing candidates and officers, they should have the power to examine financial, criminal, and background records. The agreement to submit this should be a condition of seeking office.

Election managers should be an executive position supervised by election judges but separate from them.

Judicial Election Judges

Forbidden to run for office for the term of their Judgeship + 1 election.

Oversee elections as judges, but have limited powers.

Must use Election panels to moderate different phases of the election.

Must use processes similar to a trial for the scrutiny power.

Investigatory Vetting Scrutiny process

Elections should employ reporters and investigators and empower them to dig into finances, backgrounds and qualifications in a manner nearly identical with clearance investigations. Indeed clearance investigations should use these courts.

Professional Investigators and Journalists should be empowered to look into all relevant matters of candidates and officers reaching term. Their results should be presented to the court during the preliminary sessions and after validation in open session. When in Open Session, that information must be public as well as accurate. Preliminary results should be verified and validated before being presented in Open Session. And during preliminary Session, and open session, the parties involved should have representation and be able to cross examine witnesses.

When there is a dispute between the parties, election juries should moderate those disputes. Selected on Jury trial principles but allowed to make some decisions on a majority vote. But not allowed to go beyond investigations and fact checking except to make referrals to a criminal court if illegal behavior discovered.

Preliminary Sessions

When the Candidate or officer is to be scrutinized, a panel should be assembled using a voire dire style process, of selecting ordinary citizens for the panel with 1/3 approved by the Candidate, 1/3 by an "Inquisitor" or by opposition candidate representative, whose job is to inquire as to the person under investigation, and 1/3 by the Judge. The panels should also include local press. Investigators gather documents, interview and record results and bring them back to the court. The information then is validated as much as possible and put into a preliminary report.

Preliminary Review

Once the Preliminary Report is assembled the Judge, inquisitor and representative review the preliminary report. Anything challenged gets investigated further. At some point the Judge shall present the Preliminary Review to the Jury. The Jury then shall work with the Judge, journalists, inquisitor and representation to validate the report. The Jury shall ask questions at this stage.

Open Session

The Final Fitness report shall be produced and reviewed in open session. Recording majority and minority views on the subjects reviewed, and the facts of the subject. This then becomes a record to go into election reporting, debates and election process

Election debates

Once the background checks and scrutiny are complete. The panels can then conduct debates to get candidates on the record as to proposed policies, goals, etc... These debates and sessions should also be public. and the reporters should be enabled to report on and summarize the positions.

Free Press

The Press, has a formal role in this process and may be subdivided up into jobs that are more than mere stenographers and archivists, but may involve reporters and investigators who's training overlaps that of police detectives. This process would ensure that the free press can do its actual job.

Rationale

A free press is necessary to the health of our society because it has a role in the recording, vetting and accounting of what the government does. Reducing reporting to a clerical role destroys its power to check officials. In elective courts journalists would be required to do sensitive investigations, not release sensitive information until the proper time.

Elective Bar

Journalists, investigators, jurors, Judges, all officers of the Election court should be sworn in as officers of the court. Their words should be considered under oath and penalty of perjury.

Giving Bribery First Amendment Coverage

It is even worse than we thought

Normalizing and Legalizing Political Corruption

I'm an amateur at law and constitutional scholarship. For most of my life the Supreme Court of the USA, (SCOTUS), was like a rock to me. You could rely on it, mostly, to uphold the spirit as well as the letter of the law and constitution. Those laws have been chipped away, again, over the past 20+ years by a corrupt Supreme Court and now we are seeing the consequences.

We've gotten so used to bribery in all its forms that we've redefined it, parsed it, normalized it and made it legal. The fact is that campaign donations, even when indirectly connected to seeking private, separate advantage, are tied to bribery as envisioned by the Founders.

In the context of what is happening now with Trump's impeachment trial, it is even worse than I thought at the time. The Supreme Court at this point is corrupt, they have legalized undue influence and improper access and as a result most forms of bribery. Now we are seeing the Senate cede power (Power of the Purse, and now impeachment power) to the President that are part of the checks intended on the Presidency. It is no joke that we are really close to becoming a dictatorship.

The corrupt Bush V Gore decision

My faith was shaken in Bush V Gore, when the Supreme Court over-ruled a state constitution on a specious and "one-time" basis, outside its constitutional mandate, to select George W. Bush as President #43. It was a corrupt and badly decided case. First they stayed a recount of votes that would have given the election to Al Gore. Then they used the results of that stoppage to give the election to George W. Bush, with disastrous consequences for the country and Supreme Court. And finally they were overstepping their authority as, elections are in the purview of States according to the constitution. But that decision was just the beginning of a slide.

More:

Bush V Gore

Citizens United legalized Bribery

Citizens United took the cake. The Supreme Court went from Bush V Gore on to make even worse decisions. In Citizens United, they decided that improper access and undue influence were not subject to regulation and were not necessarily corrupting, and went on from their to give money gifts, bribes!!! first amendment protection!

Indirect Bribery and Extortion = Undue Influence and improper Access

Texas, Cowboys and New Orleans Pirates

Pirates and Privateers, Texas and New Orleans

When we think of pirates we picture them with eye patches, bandanas and at sea. We often see them as having no connection to anything in our own times or outside the world's oceans. But there is a direct connection between:

Offshoots of Piracy
Pirates and colonialism, Piracy and Organized Crime, Piracy and the Slave Trade, Piracy and Slavery, Piracy and Modern Navies, Piracy and Lawyers, Courts, Piracy and Corporate Business	And on a more humorous note: Between Piracy and Cowboys

This Post Talks about Pirates and Cowboys

Lawyers and Pirates

Pirates, loot and Lawyers

When we think of pirates we don't usually think of lawyers. We think of hard men with eye patches and peg legs. The basis of all piracy is high seas theft and private warfare. The two have always overlapped. We romanticize piracy because the foundation of many wealthy family fortunes is in piratical behavior. All pirates seek loot, wealth, power, and to fight enemies on the Seas. Privateers confine their piracy to enemies of their country. Pirates don't. But it's not that simple. The legalization of private warfare that enables piracy, makes an incentive to corrupt law, corrupt piratical behavior, and legalized theft.

Privateering Versus Pirates

Introduction – Privateers vs Pirates

When we think of pirates we picture them with eye patches, bandanas or fancy head-dresses, but pirates are anyone who uses property without the permission of its rightful owners. Privateers are pirates who use war and the political system to make their thefts, usurpations and conversions legal. That broader definition has been used since the beginning. Piracy is in the eye of the Beholder.

When we think of pirates we picture them with eye patches, bandanas and at sea. But the word buccaneer comes from people raising cattle and making leather. While a pirate is a thief who sails the seas. Brigand is a pirate but also a generic term for a thief who can be on land. Pirates and thieves are outlaws -- unless they have a permit to steal. Then they are called privateers.

Pirates and privateers have operated in the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, the black sea, the Caspian, the Baltic Sea, the Atlantic, Pacific, every ocean and many lakes around the world.

Pirates and privateers engage in private warfare. The term when that private warfare is conducted on land is "filibustering." A Filibusterer was a soldier in a private army operating on land. Sometimes they were also mercenaries -- who are soldiers who work for a private force. Piracy and privateering have always been a feature of war and conflict. From:

• the Ancient Trojans, who waged piracy in the Mediterranean, to the Greeks, who were rival pirates who destroyed Troy
• From Rome and the Carthagians to the Vandals and other German invaders,
• From the Angles, Saxons and Jutes who plagued both sides of the English Channel til they settled in Britain,
• From the Vikings who waged war with the Christian Kingdoms who had attacked them
• To the Normans who once again sailed the Mediterranean as well as conquering Britain -- as Christians
• And of course the Barbary Pirates, Arabs, Malays, Japanese, Chinese and other coastal people -- all pirates
• And now the Americans.

Pirates in Fiction and Reality

In Pirates of the Caribbean, it looks like the Pirates are fighting the British Navy, but they really were fighting the East India Company, which was a rival pirate gang, but perfectly legal. Ironically, our revolution started as a fight against the East India Company too. The "Tea Parties" were about a Government sanctioned effort to take over and monopolize the tea trade by putting competitors out of business with artificially low prices on British carried tea, and taxes on American Ships. There is some evidence that the first American colonies were founded as pirate refuges.

Piracy and land hunger go together. The Saxons who invaded in Britain were hungry for farms. The Vikings were hungry for land. The settlers of the Americas from Eurasia, were property hungry; land, loot, slaves, wealth, likewise. Privateering is about acquiring property.

No real distinction between pirate and privateer

The distinction between privateers and pirates has always been a parsed legal one. American "filibusters", like the Walkers, Texans, Jacksons, etc.... were considered pirates by the Spanish speaking people they plagued. The privateer may have a legal permit from his own country --> but he is waging war and war is violent and illegal in the fundamental moral sense. from the Point of view of the people we were attacking.

Pirates, profiteers, and the industries who inherit their traditions, may be perfectly legal, but they are amoral to immoral buzzards who violate norms and do things that ought to be illegal

Privateering companies are no better than pirate fleets, except they are somewhat constrained by laws. When they engage in theft, smuggling, private warfare, as part of a war or under some legal permit. So when the Government says that theft is legal, it is privateering. When people don't bother to get "clothed in the law" and engage in naked robbery of some kind, it is piracy. Privateers get to hang pirates.

Modern Pirates

I see Privateering as an ideology. I explained in a post first written in 2014:

An Ideology of Privateering

Thus, modern pirates are people who sell copies of movies or songs without paying royalties to their legal owners. Modern privateers setup abusive contracts to acquire such ownership. Thus modern pirates are usually dressed in fancy Armani or other well tailored suites, carry portfolios and have degrees from classy law schools, and are legally privateers not pirates. The victims, on the other hand, may have actually written the song they are charged with piracy for using. An abusive contract can take ownership of things like authorship, that no person can really sell, since selling the rights to a work doesn't change who wrote it. But modern pirates don't usually have peg legs anymore. It is much safer to bribe a judge or pay a legislator to change the law.

The Pirates and the Privateers of Music

For example in our system if one reproduces music without the permission of the corporate owner, even if you were the author. You are a pirate. The USA constitution gives people rights to inventions and writings for limited times for the purpose of stimulating commerce. Privateers lobbied to expand the time patents and copyrights operate long enough so they become virtual titles of nobility. Intellectual property, if it existed, should be the property of the inventor. Under the power of corrupt lobbying and influence pedaling, intellectual property becomes a rental property of giant conglomerates and wealthy individuals. No longer a connection to invention and no longer a limited right with a limited term. That is who privateering works.

Most of us are used to them the way someone gets used to living in a pig-sty. This post is about some alternatives. But first we have to identify the real pirates.

The biggest pirates have usually dressed better than the drifters and thieves that get labeled as pirates. If they aren't lawyers they can afford them. Worse, they can usually afford (or are) politicians. They can write the law. The term for this was "privateer" in the past. Modern Letter of Marquees come in the form of Corporate Charters or their ability to acquire patents, trade-marks, copyrights, from the creators. Modern pirates hang the hapless as pirates. They are known to sue and take the money of artists who made the mistake of selling their original work to them. That the original work belongs to them by basic right and can't be sold legitimately, doesn't matter to the pirates. They write the laws. They are privateers.

Privateering is the right word because it is when the government grants a right of private government to an individual or hierarchy bound by contract [corporation]. Privateering is based on privatizing basic public function and enables profiteering, private warfare, smuggling, swindle and theft, all perfectly legal because the law has been modified to make it so.

This post is about privateering and the money power. The subject is frequently distorted by cultlike arguments, but the reality is that our system of inequality, of periodic economic failure, is based on grifting and cons that depend on privatized money.

Of course the most lucrative way to loot everyone, is to issue privatized money. Whether it is bit coin or fly by night banks, the goal is the same, to legally counterfeit money! Letting Wall street or private Pirates using banks to coin money as debt is an economy wrecker and that is the subject of this post.

This follows the historical introduction in:

An Ideology of Private Banking

And:

Privateering Smuggling and Piracy

Elements of Privateering

Elements of Privateering

Original Definition:

Legalized theft and warfare against commerce on the high seas.

Modern Definition

Usurpation of Government or public functions for private profit

Privateers engage in the following:

Filibustering/Privatized Warfare/
Private warfare against unorganized places or countries the country the privateer is at war with. Privateers also were frequently mercenaries in service to anyone who would pay them. In modern times they often masque as providing contracts to "train" or "assist" often hostile foreign governments.
Smuggling
Usually private sea captains would do legal trade with whoever they could. But often privateers would engage in illegal smuggling if it made them money. Modern privateers smuggle. For example, arms to South America and Drugs back to the USA.
Slave Trade
Privateers often combined private warfare elements with smuggling by grabbing people for sale like they were any other good for sale. The Navies would even recruit their own sailors by grabbing them from ports and "pressing them" to service. Privateer sailors were often little better than slaves. Privateering always has involved abusing people. Nowadays it is often women and young kids for adoption scams or prostitution.
Piracy
One reason that the saying "Dead men Tell no tales" is that if a privateer took a prize of a ship not at war, if nobody survived to rat them out, and no evidence could be found of a crime, the now pirate could continue to pretend to be a privateer. This led to some confusion among pirate captains. The famous Captain Kidd of the 1700s went to England to argue his case that he had been a legal privateer, not a pirate. He was hung as a pirate. Many pirate/privateers got away with that. A Ship would go "on the hunt" even in peacetime. Most successful pirates avoided the courts.
Private government and colonization.
Private government was always an element in privateering. King James granted them the East India Company charter in 1600. This was the real beginning of the Tory Party and of the movement to modern Privateering. But when Christopher Columbus got his permission to sail west, it was with the aim of establishing private government in the lands he discovered.
Corruption and Bribery
Pirates succeeded because piracy was lucrative. One of the original purposes of Admiralty courts was to adjudicate the sail of "prizes" and shipwrecks. A legal pirate, a privateer, could make himself and the courts, wealthy by selling his prize at auction. Often he would keep a portion of the loot with the prize so that it would look legal. If the prize was not legal he could bribe judges and Port Officials. Bad pirates got hung. Successful ones built Churches or colonies.
Banking and Finance
Privateering and Banking were related. Successful pirates had loot to lend against. So they often founded banks and invested in voyages. Privateering, shipping and smuggling was dangerous and so successful pirates were heavily involved in insuring legal cargos and ships. Insuring and Banking go together as banks don't like to risk their own money and so either use derivative instruments (notes) or create derivative instruments (insurance and exchanges of promises) to spread risk.
Wealth and Pirates
Scratch a wealthy family and you find a pirate or mercenary at the founding; or someone who made money off of pirates, smugglers and mercenaries, as the founder.
Money Laundering and Pirates
Banks and wealthy criminals need to convert traceable loot to "clean" money. This is called money laundering. US banks, financiers and monied people are experts at doing this.
Updated with this link:Article on Money Laundering

Undue influence is Tyranny and Corruption

The Supreme court has gone out of its way to weaken:

• voting rights for immigrants, native americans, former convicts and black people,
• criminal sanctions on bribery
• ...and to grant a nonsensical cover of "free speech" to bribes, extortion & corruption.

But no matter their rulings, the issue with corruption is and remains an ethical issue of:

• Undue Influence
• Improper Access

So why is that the case? When I started this post I hadn't heard yet Justice Kennedy's announcement that he was retiring in favor of a former Law Clerk, Kavanaugh, and through the influence of his son and Donald Trump. I was going to change this post to talk about it in detail. But in the interest of KISS, I'll finish this one first and put the details somewhere else. I'll come back here and put the references in the post later. The scandal of the Kavanaugh appointment happened, illustrates:

• How improper access and undue influence work.
• Why it is often hard to legislate or prevent.
• Why they are improper, corrupt, corrupting and outrageous
• Why those who are corrupt usually deny it.

Keeping officials on the "up and up" requires fairly clear ethics rules, with statement both of principle and particular prohibitions. This is because unless prohibited many of these actions seem perfectly legal to the corrupt. After all, negotiating a retirement is something every business does!

The Palladium of Liberty

The founders put the second amendment into the constitution to protect the right of the country and the communities in our country to defend ourselves from threats, and thus to participate in our own government. Indeed they saw the militia as;

“The Palladium of liberty.” [Armed in America]

They saw that maintaining a well regulated militia required:

“habitual exercise” in military training and “manly discipline”

Which they saw as the:

“bulwark of the nation” [ibid page 102]

Only so long as they are correctly:

“Armed and Disciplined”

John Hamilton, for instance, saw the Militia as the ideal alternative to:

“that potion of idleness and corruptor of morals, a standing army”

Abusive Contracts and Privateering

Incomplete Contracts And Large Scale Swindles

I've been using the theme of piracy and privateering to describe our current economic system This is because at the heart of modern dysfunction is elitism and a "privateering spirit." There are people who actually normalize the swindling but it is a sick ideology whether you call it "neoliberalism", "conservatism" or "libertarianism." At heart these people are pirates. But they are a special kind of pirate. They use privilege to Grift, make themselves oligarchs and legalize theft and contract abuse, privateering.

I started this post back last September but I wanted to examine a bit of history and read the Nobel prize winning research on contract theory, and digest what I was reading.

Republican Money

Who is Sovereign Over our Economy?

We are being told that the government doesn't have enough money for the things people need and that the only sane alternative is austerity for the common folks. Of course the people telling this are granting themselves privileges and additional control over the money supply and economic resources. We are told our taxes are onerous in order to pay for those things. But then their tax cutting proposals involve austerity and hurt 98% of us while enabling them to pocket more money, buy back stock and maybe buy an extra Yacht without paying taxes. They are obviously lying, but even beyond that dishonest hypocrisy. The premise is a lie. Economists have known since Alfred Maynard Keynes, (at least) that austerity hurts the economy and that government spending stimulates it.

A Sovereign Republic

In A Republic, the economy is "our thing" [see: Definitions], Res-Publica. In a Republic, Supreme power is held by the people through their representatives. Therefore because the money power, which in any state belongs to the sovereign therefore theoretically must belong to the people.

Sovereignty

We are supposed to be sovereign over our own currency. Unfortunately, ever since the realization that there is never enough Gold or silver in the world to inflate an economy, countries have relied on borrowing for their money. The result is that few societies are in fact sovereign over their own money supply. In some cases it is because banks control the money supply and not the national treasury. In others it is because external countries do.

There are all sorts of theoretical movements that would change this. But most are confusing because they confuse how things actually are with how they should be. But the first step is to decouple money from privateering. The people of a region need to have some control over their money supply. Balancing Budgets is not responsible behavior, but printing money recklessly isn't either. So what should we do?

Irresponsible Money

A considerable body of theory has developed over time that demonstrates fallacies in how the money supply is created and used. Ignoring any part of that body of experience leads to disaster. Let me summarize some of that body:

• Commodity Money is unstable and leads to treasure accumulation and hoarding. Gresham's law states that "bad money" drives out good money." But it only applies to money as a commodity with some intrinsic value. People seek to save treasure for use in hard times. Money as Treasure tends to wind up in treasure chests and looted and buried by pirates. Gold and Silver Standards fail to stabilize for that reason.
• Money as Private Debt not only is equally unstable but when accompanied with interest it drives wealth into the hands of those who are owed and increases inequality. Private note money started as banknotes backed by gold or silver coin. The bankers would usually print more notes than the Gold or Silver they had in their vaults. The result was periodic "panics" followed by depressions as folks didn't have any money. Debt money results in people owing more than they can pay back. It bankrupts individuals and whole countries. Governments need to be able to count on people being able to pay their taxes. For that reason interest free debt should be part of government funding. Interest bearing notes only make sense for investments that generate revenue directly.
• Printing money without some sort of backing leads to inflation. Horrid examples like the Weimar Republic show what happens when one tries to inflate ones way out of private debt.

The Best Money is Sovereign Money

The conclusion from these observations is that money as notes issued by a treasury for the benefit of the people as a whole, is probably the best money,...

The Economy has to balance

But there are caveats. The government can't just print money in any quantity without consequence. Money has to be backed by economic activity. It is an investment in the economy by the Government. Benjamin Franklin suggested that notes be printed backed by real estate. But he didn't really understand that notes that are used in one place have to have similar value elsewhere.

Money has to be a unit of account backed by the ability to buy things and pay bills and taxes. That means it has to be "legal tender" for all debts public and private, and of a universal and fixed value.

The people have to be sovereign over its value. When money is issued to pay for bridges and roads, to keep farmers farming and merchants selling, it benefits the whole economy. But whenever the Government spends money into existence it is creating privilege, so that privilege has to either be taxed back or it will be leverage into more privilege and power.

Private Debt Money is Disaster Money

Studies show that private debt drives the business cycle more than public debt. Worse, private debt is driven up when money is scarce and wealth is concentrated. When people can no longer borrow, they can no longer buy, invest and they lose wealth they earned previously due to debt. Thus whenever we are using note money we have to use taxation to tax back excess money and reduce hoarding and to reduce the depredations created by inequality. That implies progressive taxation.

When whole nations are treated like scofflaw debtors, that drives austerity. Austerity creates degrading spirals of dysfunction. Nations need to ensure that money, created, goes into actual capital and actual labor. The value of the money in a country reflects the prosperity of that country and all its people. It also drives it.

No Need for fear of Deficits

If a Republic does not control its own money supply, then something is wrong with that Republic. It has become a tyranny run for "private separate advantage." In our current times, there is a degree of tyranny in much of the world, due to this being the case. We are so used to it we take it for granted. Those who have the strongest opinions about this feel jealousy, personalize and miscast the nature of this tyranny. It is not personal, it is a systemic problem. We could eliminate sovereign and individual debt issues worldwide by the simple expedient of allowing a part (or all) of national and state debt, everywhere, to be floated via the money supply rather than converted into bonds. Let the money float the economy, then tax back some of the benefits.

The Money Power should not be delegated

If a republic lacks power over its money supply then it is not fully Sovereign. However, Republics, all through history have not had power over their money supply, either because merchants would only accept gold or silver as payment, or because those who controlled the Gold or Silver had leant them money that was owed and the money they used was little better than IOU notes backed by debt owned by the State's Oligarchs or King. The use of commodity money and debt money is a drag on the world's economy. Debt is useful as an instrument for saving, but the money supply should be as sovereign as the term "all debts private and public" implies. Budgets should balance over the long term - a balance of non-interest bearing notes outstanding that is necessary to drive the economy.

Of course for Money to be fully Republican, the republicans have to be democratic republicans not Plutocratic ones.

Related Posts:

https://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-rights-dirty-little-secret.html

https://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-money-privilege-and-loot.html

https://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2017/07/greshams-law-as-tool-of-regulation.html

https://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2017/04/general-grant-and-mark-twain-greenbacks.html

https://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2015/02/satans-usury-john-turmel-and-some-basic.html

Related:

The Collective in the Federalist Papers

http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-collective-in-federalist-papers.html

Definitions

https://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2012/08/definitions-related-to-democratic.html

http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-collective-in-federalist-papers.html

Von Mises:

http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2013/10/faulty-assumptions-and-verification.html

http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2014/07/an-ideology-of-privateering.html

http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2017/06/pirates-and-privateers-of-americas.html

http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2017/06/franklin-as-modern-money-advocate.html

http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2017/08/pirates-loot-and-east-india-company.html

http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2015/02/two-generations-of-pirates.html

http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2015/07/hamilton-on-money.html

https://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2014/03/corrupt-court-and-undue-influence-and.html

https://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2015/09/whigs-and-tories-guelphs-and.html

https://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2015/03/hamiltons-bank-plan-from-1781.html

Definitions:

https://www.henrygeorgefoundation.org/the-science-of-economics/economic-rent.html

The Money Privilege and loot

There are three kinds of property that determine society's prosperity. These are Land, Capital and labor.

• Land

“The entire material universe exclusive of people and their products.”

• Capital

“Wealth used in the process of production, which includes wealth in the course of exchange.”

• Labor

“All human exertion in the production of wealth and services.”

http://www.henrygeorge.org/def2.htm

These are the kinds of property that produce wealth.

Wealth and Treasure

However, for individuals, especially Westerners, what seems to be important is portable wealth. The more portable the better. The acquisitiveness of western people's is world in-famous. Tales of indigenous people pouring molten gold down the throats of captured conquistadors illustrate how others sometimes reacted to European adventurers seeking gold.

Treasure and Loot

Treasure acquired by theft, usurpation, conversion or warfare is also known as loot. Piracy and warfare, in search of exchange goods, led to colonialization, creation of factories for growing trade goods, and later to factories for automated production. All this was designed to create loot for the pirate captains. The west coined a word for legalized piracy, it was called privateering. It is said that if you scratch the history of almost any family, you find pirates and crooks as the founders. If English speaking people look down on Mafia, it's not because we never had our own. It was known as the English Aristocracy, and later, the brotherhood of the coast. The first Navies for both the Brits and the USA were pirate fleets. Spanish & Portuguese power was driven by privateering. It was called colonialism, but it was really an outgrowth of piracy. The Spanish had no claim to America, they came in to loot it. The Dutch and other European Powers all sailed the world in search of riches. When they engaged in labor or capital expenditure, it was after loot, not the greater good.

Security Versus Loot

People derive their sustenance and prosperity from a combination of ownership/rule and labor. Lincoln noted that capital comes from mixing labor with items taken from nature's bounty. "Labor is prior to Capital." Wealth is produced by such labor. Wealth is fixed to land; houses, buildings, improvements to property in general and put back into producing things. Wealth devoted to production is capital. When people own their own tools and property the result is widely spread modest prosperity. A society with a large middle class is secure and prosperous. There is room for wealthy people in a healthy society.

Wealth versus Greed

Wealth that is portable and exchangeable is known as "treasure". It may be used as capital, exchanged for consumable goods, or used to buy land properties. Henry George conceded that those who create wealth through capital have a right to enjoy the fruits of their labor. He considered the fruits of exertion or capital to be "earned income." Economic rent is unearned income. When people monopolize property and then charge rent to use it, that too is mostly unearned. Wealth acquired by fraud, usurpation or theft is also unearned. Indeed it is unmerited.

Yet vast wealth comes from lending, either directly or through investment. Accounting wealth involves the creation of theoretical instruments that produce fixed amounts of returns, "interest". Sometimes that wealth has nothing to do with reality except as a demand on others. When individuals do it, it's called usury, when States do it, it's called war, embargoes, or invasion. In any case, it's bad news, and has been known as such for centuries:

Aristotle is attributed to explaining it:

“The most hated sort, and with the greatest reason, is usury, which makes a gain out of money itself, and not from the natural object of it. For money was intended to be used in exchange, but not to increase at interest. And this term interest, which means the birth of money from money, is applied to the breeding of money because the offspring resembles the parent. Wherefore of any modes of getting wealth this is the most unnatural.” [Quantum of Power]

Privateering

Pioneers in Economics laid out the benefits of a well governed economic system years ago. But people prefer to fight, play king of the hill, and lord it over others. A well governed system under Democratic, Republican and Commonwealth principles is boring compared to one where people are always fighting. So there are always folks who prefer to be pirates and have it all, manipulate crews to fight for them, then bury the loot because they don't know what to do with it otherwise. Private people acting as government are privateers. Privateers are like the Tongue Eating Louse that eats the tongue of a fish and then takes a bite out of everything the fish tries to eat. Privateers create corporations that tried to rule the world: Rhodes in Rhodesia, the East India Company, J. P. Morgan. They become oligarchs because they are rarely competent to rule a country. They want loot, they don't really want the common-wealth of a country, the common business of a republic or a federation, or the annoyances of democracy.

Now the privateers of the United States are trying to implement oligarchy by dominating the GOP and raising one of their number to the Presidency.

I've got a lot more to say, but that's enough for this post.

http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2014/07/an-ideology-of-privateering.html

http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2017/06/pirates-and-privateers-of-americas.html

http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2017/06/franklin-as-modern-money-advocate.html

http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2017/08/pirates-loot-and-east-india-company.html

http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2015/02/two-generations-of-pirates.html

http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2015/07/hamilton-on-money.html

https://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2014/03/corrupt-court-and-undue-influence-and.html

https://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2015/09/whigs-and-tories-guelphs-and.html

https://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2015/03/hamiltons-bank-plan-from-1781.html

Definitions:

https://www.henrygeorgefoundation.org/the-science-of-economics/economic-rent.html

Still Wrong the Day it was Decided

Updated Commentary on Wrong the Day it was decided

The trouble with divining "original intent" is that it can lead to anachronistic interpretations and faulty reasoning beyond simply anachronism fallacy! The trouble with the terms "cannonical" and "anti-cannonical", is that they try to apply religious terminology to what is essentially a human endeavor. Legal systems are designed to bind society to the wisdom and prescriptions of accepted law. But human interpretation is still necessary and so, just as the Plessy Versus Fergussen or Dredd Scott decision were later overturned; our understanding of law can and must change as society evolves. The constitution is a dead document unless we who live apply its principles as well as its dictates rationally and are able to use legal process to change those that must change. In some cases that might mean the amendment process, in others it is a matter of definition. The author of "Wrong the Day it was Decided" sought in the concept of "Constitutional Historicism" to bring principles of textual analysis to judicial decision making.

The Right of the Individual To Himself

Section One Establising the Rights of Natural persons over Artificial persons

Article 1 Rights of Natural Persons

"The rights and privileges of natural persons under this constitution originate in the right of the individual to himself, therefore these rights are the rights of natural persons." [Source: Henry George in the Condition of Labor]

Article 2 Privileges Derive from the People

"Any privileges of Artificial entities established by the laws of any State, the United States, or any foreign state derive from the people and are subject to regulation by the People, through Federal, State, or local law, as appropriate. These rights are not to be construed as inherent or inalienable but are privileges established to serve the public good."

Article 3. Right to participation

All citizens shall have the right to participate in the political process, to vote in elections in their permanent domicile and to effective representation in Federal, State, and local governing entities.

Article 4 Transparency

All contributions of any person, or artificial entities to the political process must be publicly disclosed. Undisclosed contributions may be construed as bribery or undue influence with or without evidence of quid pro quo.

Article 4 Free Press

A Free Press being necessary to a Free Republic, all meetings and interactions of Government officials, elected or appointed, executive, Judiciary or Legislature; shall be recorded for posterity; and unless a compelling reason exists for the deliberations to be kept secret, shall be witnessed by members of the press and reasonable representation of the general public. Any records marked secret shall only be kept secret for the minimum appropriate time for such secrecy, and only those parts such as necessary to protect actual natural security shall be redacted when released before that time. The press shall be compensated for performing recording, reporting, archiving or witnessing efforts by the hour at the same hourly rate as the House of Representatives is compensated.

Article 5

The President shall be elected by a majority of voters. If no candidate shall achieve 50% + 1 of the popular vote, then there shall be a run off election between the 2 candidates with the highest percentage of the vote.

Article 6

The Post Office shall enable people to cast ballots through the Post Office in all jurisdictions where there is an election and shall accept ballots from 5 days before the election to Midnight of Election Day.

Article 7

No Government, State, Federal or local may infringe on the right of citizens to cast their ballots within their neighborhoods and for each citizen to cast one vote in the elections of their permanent place of residence that have jurisdiction over them. Reasonable identification may be required and the security of ballots shall be protected. But no legitimate voter may be denied a vote due to improper challenges of their identity and no vote may be ignored or thrown out that was cast by a citizen without that citizen being notified and given a chance to make a correction.

Article 7

The People shall have the right to vet all candidates for elective office and to require that they disclose relevant information on their fitness for office under oath. All elective and appointed offices shall be audited at the end of their term of office and the information reviewed by a bipartisan or non partisan panel and put into a report.

Section Two -- Second Bill of Rights

Article 1

All Citizens and legal residents residing in the United States or its territories shall have the right to meaningful work and to be compensated for such work at a reasonable wage.

Article 2

All Citizens and legal residents residing in the United States or its territories shall have the right to adequate shelter and to be secure in their possessions within such shelter from unreasonable search and seizure.

Article 3

All natural persons residing in the United States or its territories shall have the right to adequate medical care

Article 4

All Citizens and legal residents of the United States shall have the right to economic care during sickness, accident, old age, unemployment or infirmity.

The above is suggested language.

Background Notes

"This right of property, originating in the right of the individual to himself, is the only full and complete right of property. It attaches to things produced by labor, but cannot attach to things created by God." [Condition of Labor]

Said Henry George in a letter to Pope Leo XIII in response to Rerum Novarum in 1891. Of all the responses to Rerum Novarum his was the most electric & most enduring. Rerum Novarum was cited by Catholic groups around the world, incited Catholic Social Action but also was part of the creed of Mediterranean fascists in the 19th century. It started as a seemingly radical left doctrine, but because it also protected ownership of land, it became a conservative force for the next century and into the present. Henry argued against being branded a socialist. And the above quote was the basis for that argument

""To attach to things created by God the same right of private ownership that justly attaches to things produced by labor is to impair and deny the true rights of property. For a man who out of the proceeds of his labor is obliged to pay another man for the use of ocean or air or sunshine or soil, all of which are to men involved in the single term land, is in this deprived of his rightful property and thus robbed." [Condition of Labor]

We humans have a basic right to possess land, shelter, work-places, access to markets and transportation:

"While the right of ownership that justly attaches to things produced by labor cannot attach to land, there may attach to land a right of possession." [Condition of Labor]

But that right is not unalloyed, without limits:

“God has not granted the earth to mankind in general in the sense that all without distinction can deal with it as they please,” [Condition of Labor]

And there are logical and rational rules to such limits:

"regulations necessary for its best use may be fixed by human laws. But such regulations must conform to the moral law — must secure to all equal participation in the advantages of God’s general bounty." [Condition of Labor]

If man would apply moral law to the access to, control of and disposition of resources, we'd be in much better shape.

Sources and Further Readings

The Condition of Labor — An Open Letter to Pope Leo XIII by Henry George September, 1891

http://www.wealthandwant.com/HG/the_condition_of_labor.htm

Rerum Novarum Text

http://w2.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_15051891_rerum-novarum.html

https://www.brennancenter.org/issues/new-constitutional-vision

Move to Amend's version of Citizens United Repeal

https://movetoamend.org/press-release/immediate-release-constitutional-amendment-introduced-congress-ensuring-rights-people

The Death of Henry George

https://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-death-of-henry-george.html

Second Bill of Rights

This post is part of a series intended to clarify how to write a second bill of rights and what should be in it in order to implement not only F.D. Roosevelt's vision, but the lessons of subsequent years. Obama proposed a constitutional Amendment to overturn Citizens United, but clearly that alone will only deal with one piece of the problem.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/politico44/2012/08/obama-calls-for-constitutional-amendment-to-overturn-citizens-united-133724

https://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2017/05/establishing-second-bill-of-rights.html

Tories Rodef and Scoundrels

Pursuers and Scoundrels

The term "Tory" comes from a Celtic Root, thru the Irish,

"toraidhe ‘outlaw, highwayman,’ from tóir ‘pursue.’" [Multiple Dictionaries]

Restoring the Utility of a Free Press

The Free Press Under Assault from Incipient Oligarchs

A Free Press has to have these three Attributes:

• Free And Unfettered Access to News Sources and events
• A means to get paid and eat
• A means to reach their audiences

Currently all three of these attributes of a free press are under assault

The Free Press in the United States is under attack from enemies & counterfeiters. These overt enemies want to either take over and control the news for corrupt partisan purposes, or to shut down legitimate news and substitute "entertainment" and propaganda. The usurpers are succeeding principally by buying networks, local TV and Radio and replacing local news staffs with centralized propagandists and central instructions. This is concentrating ownership of news and creating local monopoly and reinforcing local, regional and national oligarchic power. Meanwhile Counterfeit news is propagated by partisans with no means to verify and validate accuracy. This news is often picked up by the Oligarchic news as if it were the real thing.

If this is allowed to continue the Utility of honest and accurate reporting will be replaced with agitation propaganda, advertising & purely partisan information.  This is already happening with Companies like Fox News and Sinclair Broadcasting. And the influence of front office and back office powers over editing and content is felt across the media. Meanwhile many qualified veteran reporters are doing web broadcasts or blogs. That is not a stable or efficient substitute to truly free press.

This is a threat to both the Democratic Party and Democracy. Until it is fixed we have to act as inadequate substitutes for the press ourselves.

Legalizing A Corrupt Election Process

Vote Suppression, hacking, massive official fraud

Increasingly, with the help of databases of personal information and unlimited money for buying politicians, planting fake information and by manipulating pretty much everyone, We have people who think they can buy our elections with impunity and manage our Democracy. This is bigger than mere fraud. This threatens the survival of our republic's Democracy. If the Russians weren't involved it would be harder to get anyone paying attention, but Trump is a walking Confessional.

Trump has to be stopped before he can legalize and institutionalize a corrupt election process, loyalty requirements and his tyrannical policies. This post focuses on his efforts to corrupt the election process.

"Deep State" B.S. And Reality

Conspiracy Mongering "The Deep State"

In reading a book by Mike Lofgren titled "The Deep State," I didn't have high expectations for clear argumentation, despite the blurb claiming that Lofgren was encouraged to write the book by Bill Moyers. Sure enough reading it, it's the same kind of bait the base and blame the usual suspects playing out, except Mike is attacking the establishment! Mike manages to mix into a conspiratorial stew the forces of the media, bureaucracy & government, mixing left and right conspiracy stories to create a completely incoherent narrative.

"Bill Moyers! What were you thinking! I thought you were a progressive?

Anyway, the book became a textbook for both the far left and the far right. It was a text for Jill Stein, Bernie Sanders and the Trump Campaign. Which is why I waded through it in the first place.

This essay is at Bill Moyer's Website:

http://billmoyers.com/2014/02/21/anatomy-of-the-deep-state/

Tories, Neoliberalism, NeoKeynesianism versus Post Keynesianism

We Are Not Neoliberal

Friends of mine constantly accuse various Democrats of being "neoliberal". The term has some definite meaning to it, and so I find their use of it to be sloppy, broad-brushing and usually defamatory. What it isn't is anything to do with the actual Democratic Party and it's ideology. It is a defamation of Democrats to call us "neo-liberal." The term has a real meaning and is used wrongly by those trolling us, who use it. They can call themselves intellectuals, but they are defaming the party and what it stands for when they call us that.

Our Corrupt Supreme Court of the USA (SCOTUS) overturns a bribery conviction

Our incredibly corrupt Supreme Court (SCOTUS) announced they are going to hear the case of the even more corrupt former Governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell, and his appeal of his conviction on bribery. The courts continue to affirm that the private separate advantage (tyranny) of money and power to buy private separate access and undue influence are:

"protected free speech."

Tory (or Privateering) Economics

The Innocent Fraud Dogma of the Phillips Curve Versus Reality

The economics of the Federal Reserve is backwards and has been since it's creation. Probably everyone working there knows this. But they still use the rhetoric of controlling inflation to justify interest rate rises and falls. They think that raising interest rates will prevent bubble economies to this very day. The Wall Street Journal Reports:

"Janet Yellen Expects Interest Rate Increase This Year"

Somehow it is important to her to control the economy by raising the interest rates charged banks. Somehow the whole world thinks that the way to prosperity and economic survival is:

"Fed chief says ‘gradual pace of tightening’ expected to follow first rate hike." [Yellen]

But she repeats the old chestnut anyway. It's now dogma:

"Central to the argument she set out to establish is a belief that slack in the economy has diminished to a point where inflation pressures should start to gradually build in the coming years. Ms. Yellen argued those pressures aren’t asserting themselves yet, because a strong dollar and falling oil and import prices are placing temporary downward pressure on consumer prices. As those headwinds diminish, she predicted, inflation will gradually rise." [Yellen]

But raising interest rates doesn't control inflation. Interest is what drives inflation!