The annual rally outside the Federal Reserve in Washington DC is next Friday, April 15, 2011. Don't worry too much about it being "Tax Day" — because it's not. The District of Columbia is celebrating "Emancipation Day," which usually falls on April 16. Thanks to government manipulation of the calendar, the time, the money supply, and your granny's recipe for apple pie, however, Emancipation Day is being celebrated on Friday the 15th instead of Saturday the 16th. As long as it gets celebrated ...
Of more concern is the potential shut down of the government. Right now we're waiting to hear what "the lawyers" say about whether the First Amendment shuts down when the government does. We have permits, but the National Park Service has declared that all permits will be canceled if the government shuts down.
This is an interesting point of constitutional law. If the government shuts down, do we lose our rights guaranteed by the Constitution? That seems to imply that those rights come from the State, and that, without the State, it is impossible to exercise them. What about from 5 pm to 9 am on weekdays, and the whole weekend? The government isn't open, so are our rights suspended until normal business hours on Monday? What about holidays?
What about the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution itself? These antedate the federal government and authorize its formation. If they cease to function because the government shuts down, then how can the government reconstitute itself, not having any authority except that which comes from the Constitution . . . which would have ceased to function, thereby making the federal government unconstitutional? It's questions like this that give most Supreme Court Justices fits.
Thorny issues, indeed. Of course, "the lawyers" might say that it's all right to go ahead, as long as the assembly is peaceful. Aside from such issues, however, we have managed to make some other headway this week:
• We already noted the annual "Fed Rally." Consider this a reminder to attend if you can.
• As of this morning, we haven't received word about Russell William's guest this week on The Challenge, but tune in anyway for a great show. Here is the station's press release so that you have the information handy: "Tune in every Saturday morning at 9 AM Eastern on WKND 1480 AM Windsor-Hartford, CT and online at www.goisradio.com/wknd. Call in and let your voice be heard at 860-218-2173 or 860-218-2174."
• CESJ's Core Group met with the president of a national bar association (not the ABA) and discussed Supporting Life, Capital Homesteading as an economic agenda for the Pro-Life movement, and possible grounds for future collaboration between our two organizations. The president asked for a short piece on the need for a Pro-Life economic agenda that could appeal to both sides of the issue, to be put up on their website.
• CESJ's annual celebration is next week, the Saturday immediately following the annual Rally at the Fed. The two events are not run by the same organization, but many of the same people are involved in both. For that reason there is usually a recap of the previous day's events at the celebration.
• The first draft of a major article on money, credit, banking, and finance within the binary economics paradigm is nearly complete. The article focuses on the unique contributions to the basic theory made by William Crosskey, Harold Moulton, Rev. William Ferree, Louis Kelso, and Mortimer Adler. As Newton said of himself (quoting other people), however, these thinkers were able to see so far because they stood on the shoulders of giants.
• With the completion of the article (above), we hope very soon to begin the revision of Capital Homesteading for Every Citizen. In particular, much of the monetary and banking theory, while taking up very little space in the text of Capital Homesteading, had to be clarified, especially in light of the increasing confusion over money and credit prevalent in our society.
• Sales of In Defense of Human Dignity are picking up after a brief downturn during the first quarter of the year.
• As of this morning, we have had visitors from 45 different countries and 44 states and provinces in the United States and Canada to this blog over the past two months. Most visitors are from the United States, Canada, the UK, Poland, and Maylasia. People in Venezuela, Ireland, Saudi Arabia, Poland, and Guatemala spent the most average time on the blog. The most popular posting this past week was once again "Thomas Hobbes on Private Property," followed by "Aristotle on Private Property," "The New Manifest Destiny," "The Wrath of Keynes, or, The Fall of the House of Hayek," and "De Tocqueville on Wage Slavery in America."
Those are the happenings for this week, at least that we know about. If you have an accomplishment that you think should be listed, send us a note about it at mgreaney [at] cesj [dot] org, and we'll see that it gets into the next "issue." If you have a short (250-400 word) comment on a specific posting, please enter your comments in the blog — do not send them to us to post for you. All comments are moderated anyway, so we'll see it before it goes up.
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THE Global Justice Movement Website
This is the "Global Justice Movement" (dot org) we refer to in the title of this blog.
