Showing posts with label Article One of the United States Constitution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Article One of the United States Constitution. Show all posts

Thursday, March 26, 2015

Gold Prices Moving Up

Gold Key, weighing one kilogram is used to acc...
Gold Key, weighing one kilogram is used to access a ten digit account number which is known only to the bearer of the Gold Key. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)


Gold Price History - Karatbars from Chuck Thompson

Gold prices are trending upward ever so slowly but yet in a steady pace.  Above is the most recent ask and buy back prices per gram for each of its one gram gold cards from Karatbars.  Karatbars is a German company looking to make their gold cards a form of legal tender throughout the world.  Many networks are already in place for accepting exchanges on these gold cards and anyone with a brick and mortar store front can accept them now in any country that wants to.  One just needs to setup a free account and fill in all the questions online for approval.

  What is interesting to note is that gold has not changed its value throughout history.  Its money that has devalued creating the illusion of gold increasing in value against dollars and other currencies and forms of exchange.  What truly makes gold an exchange of value?  Nothing beyond the fact that it does not break down like other metals.  Steel will corrode.  Iron corrodes.  Copper will eventually disintegrate.  Brass eventually disintegrates.  Silver, gold and platinum do not disintegrate.  This is why they were picked for mediums of exchange.

  Initially gold was used more as ornamentation and decorative purposes and had no other value beyond that.  Technically speaking lead is worth more per ounce than gold depending on what it is used for.  Lead being more readily available than gold, it makes for creating great bullets to form a defense.  Who is going to use gold bullets for defense?  Who in their right mind will throw gold at a thief as a form of defense?  The thief will want to know how much more gold you have.  Send one lead bullet his way and see how long he will stay around to see how much more lead you have.

  If the world goes to hell tomorrow I want lead bullets not gold.  Who has a gold bomb?  Again, gold's only value is in its ability to not corrode or disintegrate into nothing.  There is where the only true value of gold exists.  Why people want to own gold and silver.  They are well proven mediums of exchange because the monetary value does not disintegrate into dust over time.  If you are interested in more information on gold ownership you can go to our righthand sidebar and click the link for Karatbars.  You can sign up for a free account through our link and also sign up to accept karatbars in your business if you so wish.  You can own the actual cards and keep them with you or you can maintain free storage in their place of origin in Germany if you want.   Paper money continues to devalue while gold maintains its value.  You decide what makes more sense.  

Thursday, July 24, 2014

Anti Federalist Papers No. 46 – "WHERE THEN IS THE RESTRAINT?"

Let us look to the first article of the proposed new constitution, which treats of the legislative powers of Congress; and to the eighth section, which pretends to define those powers. We find here that the Congress in its legislative capacity, shall have the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, and excises; to borrow money; to regulate commerce; to fix the rule for naturalization and the laws of bankruptcy; to coin money; to punish counterfeiters; to establish post offices and post roads; to secure copy rights to authors; to constitute tribunals; to define and punish piracies; to declare war; to raise and support armies; to provide and support a navy; to call forth the militia; to organize, arm and discipline the militia; to exercise absolute power over a district ten miles square, independent of all the State legislatures, and to be alike absolute over all forts, magazines, arsenals, dock-yards, and other needful buildings thereunto belonging.

 This is a short abstract of the powers given to Congress. These powers are very extensive, but I shall not stay at present to inquire whether these express powers were necessary to be given to Congress? Whether they are too great or too small?
My object is to consider that undefined, unbounded and immense power which is comprised in the following clause - "And to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this constitution in the government of the United States; or in any department or offices thereof. " Under such a clause as this, can anything be said to be reserved and kept back from Congress? Can it be said that the Congress have no power but what is expressed? "To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper" - or, in other words, to make all such laws which the Congress shall think necessary and proper - for who shalt judge for the legislature what is necessary and proper? Who shall set themselves above the sovereign? What inferior legislature shall set itself above the supreme legislature?

 To me it appears that no other power on earth can dictate to them, or control them, unless by force; and force, either internal or external, is one of those calamities which every good man would wish his country at all times to be delivered from. This generation in America have seen enough of war, and its usual concomitants, to prevent all of us from wishing to see any more of it - all except those who make a trade of war. But to the question - without force what can restrain the Congress from making such laws as they please? What limits are there to their authority? I fear none at all. For surely it cannot be justly said that they have no power but what is expressly given to them, when by the very terms of their creation they are vested with the powers of making laws in all cases - necessary and proper; when from the nature of their power, they must necessarily be the judges what laws are necessary and proper.

The British act of Parliament, declaring the power of Parliament to make laws to bind America in all cases whatsoever, was not more extensive. For it is as true as a maxim, that even the British Parliament neither could nor would pass any law in any case in which they did not either deem it necessary and proper to make such a law, or pretend to deem it so. And in such cases it is not of a farthing consequence whether they really are of opinion that the law is necessary and proper, or only pretend to think so, for who can overrule their pretensions? No one; unless we had a Bill of Rights, to which we might appeal and under which we might contend against any assumption of undue power, and appeal to the judicial branch of the government to protect us by their judgments. This reasoning, I fear, is but too just. And yet, if any man should doubt the truth of it, let me ask him one other question: What is the meaning of the latter part of the clause which vests the Congress with the authority of making all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution all other powers (besides the foregoing powers vested, etc. , etc. )? Was it thought that the foregoing powers might perhaps admit of some restraint, in their construction as to what was necessary and proper to carry them into execution? Or was it deemed right to add still further that they should not be restrained to the powers already named? Besides the powers already mentioned, other powers may be assumed hereafter as contained by implication in this constitution. The Congress shall judge of what is necessary and proper in all these cases, and in all other cases - in short, in all cases whatsoever.

Where then is the restraint? How are Congress bound down to the powers expressly given? What is reserved, or can be reserved? Yet even this is not all. As if it were determined that no doubt should remain, by the sixth article of the Constitution it is declared that "this Constitution and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shalt be the supreme law of the land, and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, any thing in the Constitutions or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding. " The Congress are therefore vested with the supreme legislative power, without control. In giving such immense, such unlimited powers, was there no necessity of a Bill of Rights, to secure to the people their liberties?

Is it not evident that we are left wholly dependent on the wisdom and virtue of the men who shall from time to time be the members of Congress? And who shall be able to say seven years hence, the members of Congress will be wise and good men, or of the contrary character?

AN OLD WHIG

Learn More About American History:  Visit Jamestown, Yorktown and Colonial Williamsburg Living Museums in Virginia.

Friday, July 18, 2014

The Constitution and Our Military, By Sue M Long

By Sue M Long

Our US Constitution defines what the federal government is authorized to do.

For a United States military, the Constitution states in Article 1, Section 8 (the article generally known as the “enumerated powers”) that the federal government is to maintain a navy. A US navy was needed to protect those states which were not easily able to maintain a state navy because they were landlocked.

A federal standing army was not to be established. Why? Because each state had its own militia.

What was meant by the word militia in those days? Remember the Second Amendment? “A well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

“Free state” refers to the freedom and sovereignty of individual states within the Union. Not only was the citizen militia to protect the individual states against a foreign power, but against any federal forces as well.

Citizens were not only allowed to have arms; they were expected to be armed. And armed they were. They performed scheduled military exercises to keep ready on a moment’s notice.

With the states well prepared to defend themselves, federal government had no need to maintain a continuous standing army. State militias were a deterrent to a federal military power usurping the power of the states. Temporary armies, allowed by the enumerated powers, operated under a two-year time limit—a deterrent to lengthy foreign wars. Why the time limit? That is the time before an election in the House of Representatives.

Our U.S. Constitution states clearly that only Congress is authorized to declare war. This was to prevent the president from unilaterally sending troops into battle. The Framers emphatically and unanimously insisted that the United States could only legally enter a war after a declaration was made by Congress. President George Washington said: “The Constitution vests the power of declaring war with Congress; therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken… until after [Congress] shall have deliberated upon the subject, and authorized such a measure.”

But the last time our country’s Congress actually declared war was for World War ll. And how often since then have we followed the rules regarding war? Korea? Vietnam? Kosovo? Desert Storm? The Middle East?

The unconstitutional War Powers Act (WPA) Congress passed in 1973 gave the government wiggle room to go to war without a formal declaration. Even so, the WPA placed a 60-day time limit on military actions by the U.S. President when Congress has not declared war. WPA allows the president to launch an attack without Congress’ approval, but only in self-defense. The purpose of that legislation was to allow the president to act only if we were attacked and in an emergency situation.

WPA states that the president’s power to command troops in combat without congressional authorization is strictly limited to repelling sudden attacks on our country, and ends with the ability of Congress to deliberate on the deployment. WPA requires that “the President shall terminate any use of United States Armed Forces”within 60 days even after an attack unless Congress authorizes ongoing war. This mandate is there to put Congress in the driver’s seat on any war situation.

What do you think? Are our legislators and President honoring the oath of office they took to abide by the Constitution of the United States?


The Committee for Constitutional Government
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