Topher Morrison
cross-posted at
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This Saturday at a stump speech in Rochester, Minnesota
Ron Paul may have outdone even himself. Famous for advocating the repeal
of many laws, the elimination of numerous agencies and substantially reducing
the size and scope of the federal government Ron Paul recently told the Wall Street Journal “I’d really like to
repeal
1913.” Why a whole year? Three reasons:
·
On February 3,
1913 the 16th Amendment to the United States Constitution was
ratified. The amendment allows Congress to levy an income tax without
apportioning it among the states per the Constitution Article I, Sections 2,8,
and 9.
·
On May 31st,
1913 the 17th Amendment was declared part of the Constitution by
Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan. It established the direct
election of U.S. Senators by popular vote stripping the right away from the
state legislators.
·
On December
23, 1913 the Federal Reserve Act was passed. This act grants a consortium
of private banks legal authority to issue Federal Reserve Notes.
These three events are barely discussed in today’s retail
politics, but they are at the genesis of nearly every controversy the country
suffers from today. After 1913, the United States, once a grand
laboratory of democratic experiments became irrevocably chained to the
one-size-fits-all decisions of experts and special interests in Washington D.C.
The 16th Amendment or the federal income tax
created the IRS as we know it today and allows the federal government to pool
national wealth and keep it without returning it to the states. This
allows Washington to create massive entitlement programs, go to war, prop up
foreign governments, fund extensive bureaucracies and bribe state governments
with their own money to accept federal regulation.
The 17th Amendment, while affirming the
redemptive qualities of popular sovereignty by instituting direct elections of
U.S. Senators, removed the state governments from the federal process. The
bicameral legislature was originally set up to represent both the people (House
of Representatives) and the states (Senate) as an indispensible component of
federalism and an essential check on government overreach.
Prior to 1913 Senators gave the 10th Amendment
teeth by acting as jealous guardians of individual state rights. Held to
account by local legislatures U.S. Senators were charged with preventing
unlawful federal encroachment upon those rights. Any legislation that
would emphasize the federal government over of the state governments or their
citizens would be voted down.
The Federal Reserve Act also known as the Aldrich Plan
effectively privatized what was otherwise a public utility, the nations money
supply. Handing monetary policy over to a fundamental conflict of
interest is all that is important here. The Constitution as originally
conceived charged Congress with the public regulation of monetary policy, not
private banks. The Federal Reserve inherently desires our government to
spend more and thereby borrow more at interest, whether it be for peace or war.
Few Americans appreciate the fact that while the last
century is known as the “American Century” we began it already on top.
By 1906 the United States was the dominant economy in the world, enjoying the
highest living standards and literally recreating the world in our image.
It stands to reason therefore that it is what we did (or better yet, did not
do) as a country in the 19th century, which led to our prominence in
the 20th.
With this in mind it strikes me as odd when someone
praises what we “accomplished” during the last century when it in fact these
accomplishments testify to where we are now – divided, decadent, laden with
debt and in decline. Nonetheless it has become a buzzword for some
to claim the Tea Party movement, conservative leaders and libertarians want to “repeal
the 20th century” evidenced here,
here,
here and in this video:
This byword hides the fact that nearly all of the 20th century’s legislative accomplishments and wars are predicated on the fundamental changes that literally ripped the heart and soul out of the Constitution. Its a matter of perspective, does one measure accomplishments on what we are able to do through government namely by winning wars or passing laws? Or does one measure accomplishments on our aggregate ability to progress and add value to each others lives, something government can never do?
These three pieces of legislation over the last 105 years
acting in concert have effectively ended
capitalism and replaced it with corporatism. The year of 1913 was
crucial in reducing a vibrant republic to one glacial organism monolithic in
its agenda, pallid in its imagination, unresponsive to the needs of its people
and growing in capacity to harm not only Americans, but others as well.
We must now ask ourselves: shall we like so many other nations succumb and be
pulled back into the fog of history or are we to reclaim our culture of freedom
and emphasis on the individual and resist the fate of so many nations?
