Ideals of Self Government

We are still on the path from Declaration to Constitution to building a Free Nation of free people with equal opprotunity to contribut to the achievement of the ideal Human Community.



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.

If any man is hungry, or homeless, or ill, or ignorant, it is self-evident that he has NO unalienable right to life. Any Society that fails to provide the protection of life for all of its citizens, fails to provide Liberty for the desparate . It allows the Pursuit of Happiness only for a select few and permits wage-slavery to be the fact for the many.

The Declaration of Independency from Despotic Rulers and the War of Revolution to fulfil the promise of that Declaration lead to a Government with a commetment to
" promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posteity"
The Founding Fathers did not incorporate the ideals of the Declaration into the Government our Federal Republic but it did institute a promise to seek a more perfect Union. We have come a ways but we have yet a ways to go. Let us hope we will not be bound to our past. Let us hope to move to a more democratic future with equality.

The Essentials of Survival or Where to Break the Egg.

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All life has a common dependency  on land, air, water.  The use of it is exclusive to no one. There is no birthright to possession with or without the contribution of personal labor. Not even your own labor is exclusively yours if another has the power to compel you to serve him with your labor.

 I am a son of the South and among my ancestors were men who owned slaves and never once questioned their right to compel their slaves to serve them for all of their lives and the lives of their children and their children's children.  Even their Religion and their Government told them that this was their Birthright to possess at will. 

Also among my ancestors were Native Americans who laid claim by birthright to the use of the land of their ancestors. But in the end superior power of the Invaders displaced this Birthright push my ancestor off their land and down the "Trail of Tears"  and now modern day American claim it as their right to possess by virtue of  Labor.  

There is no such right of possession in Nature.  It become possible only if the Community [which has power superior to the individual] grants the privilege of possession in return for a tax that is due to the community to provide for the common use of that community.  How the Common-share is used is determined by who holds the power of Community. It might be Democratic or Oligarch or Dictatorial, but it exist beyond the power of any single individual to resist.  

If the Community decides that a portion of that tax of the Commonshare is to be used for food, shelter, medical-care and skill training for some or all of the Citizen of the Community, the opinion of those who believe it is Philosophically wrong is an opinion of no consequence in the absence of Democratic Response or Armed Rebellion.

 It is not your or my  Philosophical Opinion that determines Absolute Right.  It is the will of those who hold the power to impose their will that determine truth of the moment.  It is only the willingness to evolve values by compromise that offers a pathway to change without violence. I for one embrace the privilege to possess wealth as reward for achievement of competition and for the contribution  to the common good.  I also am of the opinion that a community that guarantees that each and every citizen shall have food, shelter, medical care and education that is not predicated upon the need to satisfy a Bureau for Begging is a stable and productive community. 

 I am fully satisfied that a modern technological Society can easily do both without  a struggle  to satisfy the need to be Absolutely Right  about the proper Moral Behavior. Our present struggle over who will hold power, leads me directly to consideration of the Society of Lilliputians in Gulliver's Travels. What does it really matter which end of the boiled egg you crack before eating. 

 Copyright © William Hodge 2012 

Commonshare is the Heart of Community

                                                           

I believe that the distribution of the essentials of life should not be tested by monetary need. I find the concept of a Bureau for Begging to be humiliating  in an era of abundance. I am a supporter of the concept of Common-share.  Land, air, and water are essential to all life in common and private ownership cannot go uncontested except at the will of the Community at large.  

When the Society grants the privilege of private ownership of any part of the Commons in the attempt to achieve efficient productivity or reward it, the holder of the privilege owes a share back to the Community of the personal gain he makes from holding title. It is this tax that comes from a share of private gain  that belong to the whole Community. It is ethically due in exchange for no one contesting the power of Community to grant the privilege  of private individual use of that which belongs to all.

It is this tax that provides the means for an efficient distribution of basic food, shelter, medical care and skill training, all of which are essential to life. The distribution should be to every citizen without regard to social status or wealth.  Every individual gets it,  be he Prince or pauper.  In an abundant Society that needs only limited 
labor, a persons labor that is not need should have no moral bearing on his right to receive the benefit of the 
common-share.

 Labor that is needed should be rewarded with a greater share of what is being produced.  It could be and would be given to those who make the free choice of  contributing his labor. It could be and would be done in the capitalist free market economic system. 

 The system of distribution could be done through the same Social Security System that is already in place to distribute the money for the life essentials of retires.  Retirement benefits would simply be added to the basic life  benefits when one reaches the age of retirement from one's freely chosen paid for labor contributions to society. That is the best way for all to start at the same line to both compete and cooperate in building our shared Community of Living

.  Copyright © William Hodge 2012 

The Engine that burns water

When I was a boy, I remember being told that someone had invented an engine that would run on water. The story was that the oil companies had bought up the patent and was keeping it a secret so that they could make profit on selling gas.

I knew this was untrue because engines depended on combustion and water is already burned hydrogen + oxygen [H2O]. Then I figured out that the engine burned hydrogen and the product was water. The oil companies did not need to hide the water engine. It was cheaper to make gasoline than hydrogen.

I tell you this story because it is a Bankers tale. They want you to believe that the economic engine will not run without their fuel [money]. They want you to pay them profit for their fuel. Money is not a thing. It is a process. Money is the bringing together of Hydrogen [Labor] and oxygen [raw material] in the engine [economy] and producing a product [good & service]. Money is nothing more than ignition.
Then when the product is made by those who run the productive capacity machine, it then serves as the gatekeeper for the transfer of those Goods & Service. The Consumer of the product uses money to have the ownership of the product transferred to him. That money is then held in a bank account to be used at a later time by the producer of Goods & Service to produce more product.  Money is not a real thing. It is a contractual agreement for the transfer of goods & service over time. The sovereign power of the Government enforces the power of money to create and trade those things we use or own. 


Bankers are just record keepers. They are the score-keepers of the game and have no right to be paid like a player. In a Sovereign Nation with a Sovereign fiat currency, it is the Nation that owns the spark plug. It is the Nation that ignites the economic engine. There is a reason that interest has been viewed as morally wrong. Interest is a way of stealing using the Government gun.

Debt Limits are Illegal

 

Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

SECTION 4.

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.

When the Congress passes spending bills it not only authorizes the spending but the borrowing of money to accomplish the necessary spending if necessary. For the President not to spend the money as Congress has demanded by law is to fail to uphold his oath of office.

If Congress then passes a law limiting spending with a Debt limit, it has passed a law that will not meet the muster of Constitutionality.  If Congress does not raise the limit or pass a new law that removes the original requirement to spend, the President is required by Law to create enough funding to meet the law. The Debt limit becomes null & void.         

Government moves the Economy

There are two kinds of needs. One involves individual consumption and  business productive capacity.  These needs are met out of earnings and borrowing.  They will inevitable create a bubble if they exceed the capacity to repay what is borrowed.

The other kind of need is Community.  That includes infrastructure and general welfare expenditures among others.  If these needs are met by interest bearing debt the result will also be the creation a bubble when the interest on the debt is an excessive component of public spending. 

The difference between Government  and the private component of the economy is the a Sovereign Government with a Sovereign currency has the legal capacity to set the interest it pays on its debt at zero if Congress wishes to do so.  The private sector and non-sovereign States cannot do this.  

The Federal Reserve System has shown this to be true under the Quantitative Easing programs that it has used in this Great Recession.  Similar methods were used during World War II to finance the greatest debt to GDP ratio in the History of the Nation.

This method does not become problematic until there is a shortage of Labor or productive capacity or input material. Government first needs to maintain a safety net floor to prevent extreme poverty and spend on protecting the Nation  It then must build a modern infrastructure and education system limited only by the capacity to provide the labor, production capacity and available raw materials. There is no limit on the interest free money it can create.    

Growing Money for everything

Furnishing food for everyone in the world is already technologically possible.   It would only take a small  % of the available labor to accomplish that. The problem is distribution.  If the goal of the distributors is to maximize profit, then many people will be left by the wayside.  


A great many people don't have  money to buy on the market.  They can't get money by working if there is no work available.  They can't create local growing with their personal labor without the money to sustain their labor to harvest.  So the problem is having money to create local distribution of both food and labor. 


So the solution is two fold.  The first involves growing money.  Every Sovereign Nation has the power to create money, and bypass International Debt. Every Nation has the power to create an effective tax system that will make their money valuable to pay taxes.  A Sovereign Nation can create a low or no-interest loan program with Government grown money to create local production of the essentials of life.


The second step is to use the home grown money to build home grown infrastructure and local distribution systems, not only for food but for clothes and shelter and  teaching basic skills.  


The biggest fault in the modern world is the belief that money only comes from Banks and must cost interest that the poor person cannot pay even if the banker were willing to loan.  The truth is that money is the right of Sovereign nations to create for themselves and distribute that money virtually free of charge into projects that create independence of the people to sustain themselves without being wage-slaves to the Corporate Masters of the World.


Of course none of this is new. It is in fact becoming a world movement of DIY greening of a sustainable world.  It is difficult in many places because the only money resource is charity and that is simply a very limited supply of change.  


The key comes with the understanding that there is always enough money available to the Nation that understand that it is the creator of its own currency.  It does not have to sell out its people to the Money-Changers of the World.  If we learn that money without interest is an act of legal will, we will also learn that it is the hammer that breaks the chain of greed.  There will be enough money to pay for the food.