Jordy Blog

Tea Parties: Protesting Taxes, Bailouts, Big Government (Spending), Debt, and Inflation

I’ll be taking part in my second-ever protest today. My first was a recent “End the Fed” rally at the SLC branch of the Federal Reserve Bank. Today I’m attending a couple of the Utah Tea Parties.

Frankly, I’m outraged by the tax and spend policies that BOTH major parties have been adhering to lately. Actually, most Republicans prefer the “borrow and spend” method, which is even more insidious: passing our debt to future generations and incentivizing inflation as a “cheap” means of paying that debt.

I think Jefferson said it best:

We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debt, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our calling and our creeds… [we will] have no time to think, no means of calling our miss-managers to account but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers… And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for [another ]… till the bulk of society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery… And the fore-horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression.

Although Daniel Webster was more succinct:

The power to tax is the power to destroy.

If you agree with either of those statements, you should join us!

Here’s the most complete set of Utah locations I have found so far:

City: Salt Lake City ~ 1st Event
When: April 15, 12:00 pm – 3:00 pm
Where: Federal Building Plaza, 125 South State Street
Program
Activist and Author Candace Salima
Attorney General Mark Shurtleff
Congressman Jason Chaffetz (3rd District)
Congressman Rob Bishop (1st District)
For more information, contact Adam Gardiner at agardiner14@gmail.com (801-814-8963).

City: Logan
When: April 15, 4:00pm – 6:00 pm
Where: 241 North Main Street (south of Logan Library/City Hall)
For more information, contact Susan Southwick at susanksouthwick@gmail.com.

City: Salt Lake City ~ 2nd Event
When: April 15, 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Where: US Post Office Salt Lake City, 1795 W 2100 S
For more information, contact David at saltlaketeaparty@gmail.com (801-377-8224).

City: Provo
When: April 15, 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Where: Old Utah County Courthouse at the corner of University and Center
For more information, contact David at saltlaketeaparty@gmail.com (801-377-8224).

City: St. George
When: April 15, 5:00pm – 7:00pm
Where: Vernon Worthen Park, 300 S 400 E
For more information, contact Rinda Hunter at rinda.hunter@washco.utah.gov.

City: Vernal
When: April 15, 5:00 pm
Where: 150 East Main Street
For more information, contact Susan Southwick at susanksouthwick@gmail.com.

City: Richfield
When: April 15, 5:30pm – 7:30pm
Where: City Park, near 300 North and Main Street

I hope to see you there!

By the way, I’ll be spending most of my time protesting inflation: the hidden tax.  I’ll do a post illuminating the disasterous effects of inflation later.

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The Current Economic Crisis: A Case Against the Fed

I missed another Liberty Book Club meeting this week, but I have been reading the books. This month’s book was Murray Rothbard’s The Case Against the Fed, which you can buy from Amazon, The Ludwig von Mises Institute, or download for free (MP3s).

Anyone who wants to really understand the underlying causes of our dangerous boom and bust cycles really needs to read the The Case Against the Fed to understand how the Federal Reserve (and other similar central banks) manipulate our money supply. The Case Against the Fed does an excellent job of explaining how fractional reserve banking, “legalized counterfeiting”, and other other inflationary policies really do rob the poor to feed the rich. The book explains how our monetary policy, controlled exclusively by the Federal Reserve with almost no congressional oversight, is a direct cause of economic bubbles and ensuing recessions (or depressions). It even addresses how and why credit crunches occur.

I wish this book weren’t so painfully relevant, but it is. The Federal Reserve’s manipulation of our money supply has been an underlying cause of so much evil in our time –so much so that most of us have never known anything different. It’s like America suffers from battered-wife syndrome, and we’ve lived with it so long that we really don’t know anything else. The problem is hard to identify (our schools teach almost nothing about economics, let alone monetary policy), and possibly harder to admit. It’s like the whole world groans and doesn’t know why.

The current recession was caused by Federal Reserve. Sure, there were lots of other factors, but the Fed was the great enabler of them all. And now they come on their white horses to save us all. How? By consolidating even more wealth into even fewer hands, meanwhile continuing to destroy our currency.

And what do we get out of it? All we get is more debts and more taxes, “known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few…” This whole thing bailout thing is a complete farce.

How much has it cost America to be “rich”? It may well cost us everything.

We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth… Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not…? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth. —Patrick Henry

Please read The Case Against the Fed so you can begin to understand the real truth, and what to do about it. (Yes, the book actually recommends a sane remedy that doesn’t involve guns and pitchforks.) And if you’re interested in joining the Liberty Book Club, contact me and I can put you in touch with the folks that run it.

Also of note, Tomorrow (November 22nd) is End the Fed day. There will be rallies outside 39 Federal Reserve banks around the country, including Salt Lake City. What a great way to raise awareness about a terrible evil! Too long have private bankers manipulated and abused America!