The Naked Socialist

by Paul B Skousen

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  296 Sam Adams, 1768 letter to Massachusetts’s agent in London.

  297 John Locke, Second Treatise of Civil Government, Chapter 5, section 30.

  298 John Locke, ibid., Chapter 11, section 138.

  299 John Adams, Works, 6:8-9, emphasis added..

  Chapter 43: Abolishing Pillar #4, “All Things Regulated”

  The attempt to regulate the market to achieve prosperity has proved a consistent failure. Regulating freedoms simply doesn’t work, and each attempt to do so always backfires. The Founders clearly understood that when they gathered in 1787 to talk about how to balance power and freedom.

  To abolish the abuse of regulatory powers, the Founders gave the new American government a very simple chore: protect the freedom to fail.

  Allowing for equal failure meant certain rules of fairness had to be enforced—no monopolies, no fraud, no collusion, no restrictions of trade or access, no artificial limits or subsidies, no violation of free trade and competition, no violation of personal rights.

  If the government ever found itself getting in the way of any enterprise falling flat on its face, that was proof positive the government had overstepped its bounds.

  George Washington Said: “Let vigorous measures be adopted; not to limit the prices of articles, for this I believe is inconsistent with the very nature of things, and impracticable in itself, but to punish speculators, forestallers, and extortioners, and above all to sink the money by heavy taxes. To promote public and private economy; encourage manufacturers, etc.”300

  To chain down the government from encroaching on regulating commercial activities, the Founders wrote this into the Constitution:

  Foreign Commerce: “The Congress shall have Power ... To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations...” (Article 1.8.2). This gave the Congress the right to represent the American people in regulating commerce with other nations.

  Interstate Commerce: “...and [to regulate commerce] among the several States...” (Article 1.8.2). This gave Congress the right to create a common market of free trade between all the states and regulate interstate commerce of all kinds. When these responsibilities were drafted, the emphasis was on the commerce—to prevent the states from trying to gain advantages over each other by interfering in the fair exchange of goods across state lines.

  The government is further restricted from regulating the private lives of Americans with:

  The Bill of Rights (Amendments 1-10): These ten amendments spell out several aspects of personal and commercial life that may not be interfered with or regulated by the government.

  The Enumerated Powers (Article 1.8): The laundry list of activities for which Congress may tax the people and otherwise regulate their lives is limited to just those things enumerated and no others.

  Additional Chains: Article I, Sections 9 and 10, put additional restrictions on the government’s proclivity to regulate. Freedom from excessive government regulatory control was made a matter of constitutional mandate. There were put in place strong separations between federal responsibilities and State powers. So long as the American people could keep their national government chained down, there would be no fear of the government agency heads regulating aspects of American lives for which they had no constitutional power. Legislation was Congress’s job, not a czar’s.

  Lastly: If there was ever any doubt about the powers of regulation, the Founders included the tenth Amendment to the Constitution:

  “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” (Amendment 10)

  It was made very clear: Unless the federal government was granted specific powers of regulation, those powers remained with the states, for example, capital punishment, gay marriage, trade unions, guns, abortion, health care, immigration reform, speed limits, etc.

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  300 Letter from George Washington to James Warren, in Massachusetts, March 31, 1779.

  Chapter 44: Abolishing Pillar #5, “Force”

  The weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation taught the Founders an important lesson about political power: authority without sufficient power of force is no authority at all.

  For the Founders, the critical question of the day was, how much force should be granted so the ruling power doesn’t grow into another ruling monarchy?

  The Key Was “We the People”

  Putting reins on the power, having it emanate from the people themselves, was how the Founders intended to keep control of “force.” This wholly unique invention was designed to tolerate only definite and limited powers. As James Madison wrote301:

  “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.”

  It was a common-sense choice. Generally speaking, Madison said the federal government was responsible for the whole and the outside, and the States were responsible for the individual issues on the inside.

  “The former,” Madison continued, “will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce ... The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.”

  A Nation of Laws, Not Men

  It wasn’t enough to declare restraints and responsibilities. The Founders wanted a written law controlled by the people, under which all government power was required to perform and otherwise required to be restrained, according to the Constitution.

  Doubts Remained

  Even after their very best efforts to forge all the necessary chains around the government were finally talked out and described as cleanly as the Founders thought possible, there remained doubts about unseen loopholes.

  As a double-safety net, they added these interesting and well-crafted words: “The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” (Amendment 9)

  This passage expresses a distrust of government, and admits that a government’s very nature is to corrupt, usurp, and creep into realms where it doesn’t belong. Therefore, the Founders also added:

  “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” (Amendment 10)

  If ever there was conflict over power and rights, the Founders wanted the default resolution to point away from the centers of power and into the control of the individuals. Their systems of checks and balances were meant to encourage the flow of force to the lowest logical level. They wanted power diluted into the hands of many.

  “This balance between the national and state governments,” Alexander Hamilton wrote, “ought to be dwelt on with peculiar attention, as it is of the utmost importance. It forms a double security to the people. If one encroaches on their rights, they will find a powerful protection in the other. Indeed, they will both be prevented from over-passing their constitutional limits, by certain rivalship which will ever subsist between them.”302

  James Madison laid his axe at the root of the problem and foreshadowed America’s greatest threat: “I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations.... This danger ought to be wisely guarded against.”303

  As shall be seen a little later, the “gradual and silent encroachments of those in power” is precisely what happened. Today, that crafty invasion and violation of personal rights is burying Americans in a pit of destroyed culture, lost freedoms, and a mountain of obligations approaching
$120 trillion.

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  301 All Madison quotes on these two pages are from The Federalist Papers, #45.

  302 Alexander Hamilton, speech at the New York Ratifying Convention, June 17, 1788.

  303 James Madison, speech at the Virginia Ratifying Convention,, June 6, 1788.

  Chapter 45: Abolishing Pillar #6, “Information Control”

  Among the seven pillars of socialism, controlling information is the next most powerful tool after raw force. Information control is necessary to keep a dictator in power. Even if conditions are bad, the illusion of stability will keep the people under control because a natural human trait is to put up with bad things so long as hope and change are on the horizon.

  Jefferson made that very point in the Declaration of Independence: “... all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed.”

  He continued, saying that when the abuses become intolerable, “it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

  Throwing off the old tyranny and installing new guards with the Constitution included unhampered information flow.

  Abolishing Information Control

  America’s founding documents include several statements enforcing freedom of information and government transparency.

  Freedom to Believe As You Wish: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; ...” (Amendment 1)

  Freedom to Express Opinions: “...or abridging the freedom of speech, ...” (Amendment I)

  Freedom to Print What You Want: “... or of the press, ...” (Amendment I)

  Freedom to Associate: “... or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, ...” (Amendment I)

  Freedom to Complain: “...and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” (Amendment I)The Founders also insisted the activities of the nation be scrutinized. Among their requirements for transparency and openness are:

  Responsibility to Report: “Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings, and from time to time publish the same...” (Article 1.5.3)

  State of the Union: The President “shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union ...” (Article 2.3.1)Trending Toward Ignorance

  Cultivating a culture of ignorance helps the grip of socialism tighten. As long as the people don’t know what’s going on around them, so long as they are fed and housed and entertained, those in charge feel more free to do as they please. Preventing parents from teaching their children, abolishing Bible study, regulating what can be spoken and taught, controlling the media’s bias to one side or the other, these and all other inhibitors of the free flow of information keep people ignorant.

  Top Secret Code Word

  There are some exceptions to the free flow of information, such as the duties necessary for national security. Elected representatives have oversight responsibility on intelligence committees to keep an eye on U.S. government activities. Unfortunately, moles, spies and reckless comments by self-enamored politicians have compromised intelligence advantages that have cost this nation untold billions of dollars and thousands of lives.

  Manipulating Money

  Another tool of information control comes from changing a nation’s medium of currency from actual gold and silver to paper notes that cannot be cashed in for gold or silver. Once a baseless paper is admitted into circulation, it may be inflated and traded without the natural controls of the marketplace, and without the knowledge of the people—it is an insidious and powerful form of information control.

  George Washington advised, “We should avoid ... the depreciation of our currency; but I conceive this end would be answered, as far as might be necessary, by stipulating that all money payments should be made in gold and silver, being the common medium of commerce among nations.”304

  Thomas Jefferson saw oppressive power in the control of money that was not based on gold. The following quote is attributed to Jefferson, but some believe it is a combination of his statements. Either way, it is prophetic: “If the American people ever allow the banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers occupied. The issuing power of money should be taken from the banks and restored to Congress and the people to whom it belongs.”305

  Restoration of control that Jefferson promoted meant keeping money tied to gold and silver reserves on hand.

  “We are overdone with banking institutions,” Jefferson wrote toward the end of his life, “which have banished the precious metals, and substituted a more fluctuating and unsafe medium... These have withdrawn capital from useful improvements and employments to nourish idleness... [These] are evils more easily to be deplored than remedied.” (The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 12, p. 379.)

  A free market is best at conveying accurate economic information. Each dollar spent is a vote for products it is used to purchase. Such exchanges convey volumes of information about the worth of products: Is supply meeting demand? Are there more opportunities for profit-making investments? Unfortunately, once the government intervenes and removes the precious metal backing from the dollar, the people have nothing but faith in which to assume their dollar’s true value. All that glitters is not gold—sometimes that glitter is nothing more than the government’s deceptive smile.

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  304 The Writings of George Washington, Volume 6, page 461, G.P. Putnam’ Sons, 1890.

  305 For a discussion on the origins of the quote, see www.wikiquote.org, “Talk: Thomas Jefferson.”

  Chapter 46: Abolishing Pillar #7, “No Natural Rights”

  At the very heart of tyranny is the demand that only the ruler can declare rights and permissions. In the real world, nothing could be further from the truth.

  By the time the Founding Fathers completed the Constitution and its Bill of Rights, they had sufficiently defined natural rights so they could be protected within the strong fortress of the Constitution. That sifting process was difficult. One of the teachers who guided them along the way was a man named Cicero.

  Cicero (106-43 B.C.) was a Roman statesman, lawyer and constitutionalist. His excellent understanding of natural law laid the foundation for protecting natural rights, a breakthrough to which Thomas Jefferson was particular attracted.

  Cicero lived in pagan Rome. It was unusual in that society to find a man speaking of a one true God, but so declared Cicero. He made his reliance upon and advocacy of God the center of his political philosophy. He taught:

  God Exists: God is the Creator, and man shares with him the divine gift of reason.

  Reason: Not just any reason will do, but right reason. Right reason is law, therefore man must have law in common with God.

  Law: True law is right reason in agreement with nature.

  Justice: Those who share reason and law must also share justice.

  Eternal: It is a sin to alter natural law or repeal any part of it—in fact, “it is impossible to abolish it entirely,” Cicero said.

  Self-Evident: Natural law is instinctive: “We need not look outside ourselves for an expounder or interpreter of it,” Cicero said.

  Natural Law is Consistent: “There will not be different laws at Rome and Athens, or different laws now and in the future,” Cicero said. “But one eternal and unchangeable law that will be valid for all nations and all times, and there will be one master and ruler, that is God....”How did the Founders protect natural law from abuses and usurpation? Here is a sampling:

  Declaration of Independence

&n
bsp; Equality: All people are born with “the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them...”

  Created Equal: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

  Government Didn’t Invent Rights: “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

  Natural Right to be Free: “...it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish [destructive governments], and to institute new Government...”

  Natural Right to Form Governments: “...it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

  Natural Right to Control Destiny: “...and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.” Constitution of the United States of America

  The Constitution is a very thorough declaration of natural rights from its opening preamble to its conclusion. At least 286 rights are specified.306

  The people feared, however, that since England’s King George was so lax in his interpretation of natural rights, they should make a specific list of natural rights so there would be no question.

  The Problem of Listed Rights

  Alexander Hamilton didn’t like a list of specific ideas. In Federalist Papers No. 84, he pointed out that the federal government had only 20 specific enumerated powers—nothing more. “I go further and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers which are not granted; and, on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why, for instance, should it be said that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions be imposed?”307