Source

Introduction: Dr. Vieira holds four degrees from Harvard: A.B. (Harvard College), A.M. and Ph.D. (Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences), and J.D. (Harvard Law School). For over
thirty-six years he has been a practicing attorney, specializing in
cases that raise issues of constitutional law. He has presented
numerous cases of import before the Supreme Court and written numerous
monographs and articles in scholarly journals. His latest scholarly
works are Pieces of Eight: The Monetary Powers and Disabilities of the
United States Constitution (2d rev. ed. 2002), a comprehensive study of
American monetary law and history viewed from a constitutional
perspective, and How to Dethrone the Imperial Judiciary (2004), a study
of the problems of irresponsible "judicial supremacy", and how to deal
with them. With well known libertarian trader Victor Sperandeo, he is
also the co-author (under a nom de plume) of the political novel
CRA$HMAKER: A Federal Affaire (2000), a not-so-fictional story of an
engineered "crash" of the Federal Reserve System, and the political
revolution it causes. He is now working on an extensive project
concerned with the constitutional "Militia of the Several States" and
"the right of the people to keep and bear Arms."

Daily Bell: Thanks for sitting down with us. Let's get right to it. In your view, what are the most critical domestic problems facing America?

Edwin Vieira Jr.: Two stand out. The foremost problem-because it is the source of, or contributes significantly to, almost every economic difficulty now plaguing this country-is the
inherent and ineradicable instability of the present monetary and
banking systems centered around the Federal Reserve System.

The second problem derives from the first. It is the ever-accelerating development of a first-class para-militarized police-state apparatus centered around the United States Department of
Homeland Security, with its tentacles reaching down into every police
force throughout the States and localities. Fundamentally, this
apparatus is not, and never was, designed to deal with international
"terrorism". If that were its goal, its first task would be absolutely
to secure the southern border of the United States, which it has never
seriously attempted to do. Rather, it is being set up to deal with what
the political-cum-financial Establishment anticipates (and I believe
rightly so) will be massive social and political unrest bordering on
chaos throughout America when the monetary and banking systems finally
implode in the not-so-distant future-surely in hyperinflation, and
probably in hyperinflation coupled with a gut-wrenching depression.

Of these two problems, the second is actually the more dangerous. For if (on whatever pretext) this police-state apparatus does succeed in clamping down on America, the likelihood of effecting basic reforms
in money, banking, or anything else favorable to the American people
will be reduced to something approaching nil, absent a veritable
political uprising in this country.

Daily Bell: How can these two problems be solved?

Edwin Vieira Jr.: The problem of money and banking breaks down into two interrelated parts: one economic, the other political.
Economically, the problem lies in the commonly accepted fallacy that debt-whether the private debt of banks or the public debt of governmental treasuries-can
function as sound currency over the long term. "Money" is supposed to
be the most liquid of all assets-which is why the best moneys have
always proven to be the precious metals, silver and gold. "Debt",
conversely, is not an asset at all, but is someone's liability, the
value of which is contingent upon the debtor's ability and willingness
to pay, and often the creditor's ability to force the debtor to pay.
The attempt to put into practice the self-contradictory notion that a
liability payable in money can be an asset that functions as money-and
that the ultimate debtor or surety in this scheme can be a governmental
treasury, which usually cannot be compelled to pay in any event-has
been tried again and again, in country after country, and failed again
and again. For Heaven's sake, it was tried in this country with the
Federal Reserve Act of 1913, and only about twenty years later utterly
failed with the banking collapse of 1932, Franklin Roosevelt's seizure
of the American people's gold, and the ensuing Great Depression that
lasted throughout the 1930s! Right now, we are witnessing what will
soon prove to be a more catastrophic failure of that same false idea
embodied in that same pernicious institution. Apparently, as the old
saw has it, "No one ever learns anything from history except that no
one ever learns anything from history." Obviously, massive efforts in
public education will be necessary to overcome this deplorable level of
ignorance.

In our particular case, the problem also appears in a political form, actually dating from well before 1913: namely, the coupling of bank and state, whereby the government empowers private
special-interests groups by statute to "manage" the monetary and
banking systems-primarily for the economic benefit of those groups, but
as well to the political advantage of the public officials,
politicians, and political parties that support the system and receive
support from it. The Federal Reserve System is such a coupling: the
hermaphroditic creature of private enterprise and statute, at once both
quasi-private and quasi-public in source, form, and functions.

Daily Bell: We call it mercantilism.

Edwin Vieira Jr.: Strictly speaking, it is a classic example of a corporative-state arrangement in the particular field of banking, exactly parallel to what Benito Mussolini set up
throughout the economy of Fascist Italy, and to what Franklin Roosevelt
established for all other American industries in the National
Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 (until the Supreme Court declared that
act unconstitutional in 1935).

The reason for this unholy alliance between bank and state lies in the operation of "debt as currency": namely, that using "debt as currency"-and particularly "debt as currency" that can be paid through
the emission of new "debt as currency"-allows for the essentially
unlimited redistribution of real wealth from society to the issuers of
the currency and their immediate clients.

When the redistribution favors bankers and their clients among private businessmen, it is called "forced savings"-the average America being compelled by the system to lose real wealth so that the bankers
and businessmen can employ that wealth in their own speculative
ventures. When the redistribution favors bankers and their clients
among public officials, it is called "hidden taxation"-the average
America being compelled by the system to lose real wealth so that
public officials can buy more votes with more governmental spending
(with the bankers taking a cut of the proceeds). In both cases, by the
system's very design, the financial and political classes always
benefit, the masses are always looted.

The truly vicious nature of this scheme, though, is now appearing in all its ugly nakedness in the multi-trillion-dollar bailouts that the financial Establishment is extorting, and will continue to extort,
ultimately from the taxpayers and the victims of inflation, on the
threat that, without such payoffs, the entire economy will melt down
into irremediable chaos.

So, here we see the ultimate practical truth of the matter: Private financial special-interest groups buy politicians; in public office these politicians empower the special-interest groups by statute to
manipulate the monetary and banking systems; to the extent that these
manipulations succeed, the profits are largely privatized; and to the
extent that the manipulations fail, the losses are almost entirely
socialized. In either case, the general public is held hostage to the
racket, and foots the gargantuan bill for its operation. And the guilty
parties escape scot free to steal again, and again, and again.

Daily Bell: So what is to be done?

Edwin Vieira Jr.: In principle, this problem can be solved, if America enforces her Constitution. In practice, implementing such a solution will take no little time and effort, though, because:
(i) the Federal Reserve System cannot simply be "abolished" at one fell
swoop without generating massive dislocations throughout the markets;
and (ii) the necessary reforms cannot arise out of the snake pit of
Congress in the foreseeable future. Instead, Americans need to create
an alternative constitutional and sound currency-actually consisting
of, not simply "backed by", silver and gold-to compete with Federal
Reserve Notes in the marketplace.

This step must be taken at the State level, for several reasons. First, it cannot be done through Congress, because Congress is thoroughly in the vampiric embrace of the financial Establishment.
Second, the States enjoy the legal authority to adopt an alternative
currency-indeed, as the Constitution declares, "No State shall . . .
make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts".
Third, the States' exercise of their legal authority to adopt an
alternative currency is constitutionally immune from interference by
Congress, as even the Supreme Court has held on more than one occasion.
Fourth, the States have a political and legal responsibility to their
own citizens to protect the public health, safety, and welfare-which
necessitates adopting a sound currency to replace the collapsing
Federal Reserve Note before it is too late. And fifth, among the fifty
States there must be at least a few in which the political and economic
climate is such that State legislators can be convinced to take
appropriate action.

Once the experiment has been tried and proven workable in one State, it will quickly spread to others, because no alternative exists, other than supine and stupid acquiescence in the collapse of the Federal
Reserve System, with all the dire consequences that will entail.

Daily Bell: We at the Daily Bell are of a free-banking caste, and we often have discussions with what we call Brownians - those who, like Ellen Brown herself, believe that money is the province of the state and that gold and silver are merely commodities
until the state stamps them with its authorized mark. We disagree. What
do you say?

Edwin Vieira Jr.: The people who believe in "the state theory of money" need to study what the Austrian School of Economics teaches about money, and in particular "the regression
theorem" that explains the origin of money. Gold and silver did not
become money because some "state" first authorized them as such.
Various states throughout history adopted gold and silver as money
because markets (particularly in interregional or international trade)
were using the precious metals for that purpose. Indeed, that is the
explanation for the adoption of the "dollar" (actually, the silver
Spanish milled dollar) as the unit of American currency, both under the
Articles of Confederation and then explicitly in the Constitution.

More recently, of course, various states, including rogue public officials in the United States, have tried to "demonetize" and then demonize gold and silver in vain attempts to compel free markets to
comply with officialdom's generally uneconomic and often blatantly
tyrannical political policies. Roosevelt's gold seizure of the 1930s is
the pre-eminent example in recent American history.

If gold and silver could function as money only because some state authorized such use, though, there would be no need for states to expend such efforts to "demonetize" the precious metals. Simply
withdrawing a state's formal authorization would suffice. So, the
veritable war that many states have felt it necessary to wage against
specie money, and particularly gold, during most of the Twentieth
Century renders rather implausible "the state theory of money".

Daily Bell: Do you believe the current push to audit the Fed will result in success? What would be the result of such an audit in your opinion?

Edwin Vieira Jr.: The Establishment doubtlessly will put up tremendous resistance to a comprehensive audit of the Federal Reserve System, if that audit includes a thoroughgoing
investigation and public exposition of the ulterior motives for and
untoward consequences of the System's twists and turns in "monetary
policy" over the years. I wonder, however, what such an audit would
accomplish, and whether it is really necessary. If ten economists
examined the System's decisions, they would probably give a dozen
different opinions as to what motivated those decisions, and whether
the results were good, bad, or indifferent. So the upshot of an audit
could be nothing more than confusion twice confounded.

For all the journalistic shortcomings of its aggressively "liberal" perspective, the old expose by William Greider, The Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country (1987), tells us
enough about the motivations and performance of the banking cartel,
even without a formal audit, to justify the conclusion that it must be
disestablished post haste. Actually, anyone who studies the Federal
Reserve Act of 1913-particularly in the context of earlier banking and
monetary legislation-should conclude that it always was and remains
unworkable and doomed to failure, besides being utterly
unconstitutional. So an audit is superfluous. On the other hand, if the
results of, or the even demands for, an audit would galvanize public
opinion into doing something positive in the area of monetary
reform-such as supporting adoption of an alternative currency in the
States-it probably would be worth the effort. But that is a very large
"if".

Daily Bell: Ugh, that was a terrible book. He catalogues what's wrong for hundreds of pages and then decides having the Fed around is better than the alternative. We think it's central
banking in large part that has given the elite the funds to take
America down the wrong path, and that the velocity is accelerating -
given the creation of Homeland Security, etc.

Edwin Vieira Jr.: In my estimation, dealing with the domestic-police-state-in-the-making is an even more critical concern than dealing with the problems engendered by the Federal
Reserve System. This, because the present monetary and banking regime,
being nothing more than a confidence game, could implode at any moment,
and certainly could collapse before an alternative currency were in
operation, thereby plunging the country into the sort of economic,
political, and social chaos which would serve as the pretext for the
imposition of all-round police-state repression. Therefore, if
Americans do not have a plan in place, and very soon, for preventing
that repression, everything could be lost.

That is not all. Even the Establishment could be hoist with its own petard. The police state now being elaborated from Washington, D.C., does not consist solely of civilian law-enforcement agencies. Rather,
the deep thinkers in the "homeland-security" business are working
feverishly to insinuate the Armed Forces into their schemes for
nationwide domestic oppression. As a practical matter, this is probably
necessary (from their point of view), inasmuch as a general economic,
political, and social breakdown would set off eruptions of violent
unrest beyond the capabilities of most if not all State and local
police departments to put down.

Daily Bell: So you believe that the Establishment realizes how large a divide is growing between "average Joes" and America's elitists?

Edwin Vieira Jr.: Of course. Anyone even randomly surfing the Internet will stumble upon massive evidence of the irreconcilable antagonism and rancor rising at a fever pitch among
common Americans against the economic and political "leaders" who have
sold them and their country down the river. (Which is one of the main
reasons the Establishment is desperate to come up with some
rationalization and means to censor the Internet.) The Establishment
knows that it stands on shaky ground-and that if it can no longer
depend on the good will of the people, it must hope to be able to
suppress collective manifestations of their ill will. This will require
vast numbers of "boots on the ground". Thus, the ever-mounting emphasis
by officials in "homeland-security" agencies on involvement of the
Armed Forces in domestic "peacekeeping".

As Richard Weaver observed, though, "ideas have consequences"-and, one might add, particularly stupid ideas very often have extremely bad, albeit unintended consequences. The lesson that history teaches, but
that the big brains in Washington apparently have not absorbed, is that
once politicians (in any country) have turned to the Armed Forces to
control domestic dissent arising out of failed economic and social
policies, the Armed Forces quickly conclude that they are able and even
entitled to become political powers in their own right. After all, why
should the Armed Forces not exercise control over the policies and
other decisions civilian officials make concerning the deployment of
the Armed Forces, particularly when those officials' incompetence or
corruption has brought about the domestic disturbances the Armed Forces
are expected to risk their lives to quell? And then why should the
Armed Forces themselves not promulgate, or at least oversee, policies
on all economic and social matters in the first place? Could they fail
any more miserably than have the civilian officials?

Furthermore, here in America, if the Armed Forces are deployed to suppress widespread civil unrest emanating from a major breakdown of the economy that threatens the continued viability of the
military-industrial complex, the Brass Hats will have a particularly
compelling institutional incentive to maintain themselves in positions
of political leadership: namely, securing their reason for being and
the source of their importance, power, and benefits. In addition,
thoroughly politicized Armed Forces will likely feel the need to
justify the expensive existence of the military-industrial complex by
inserting themselves into, if not instigating outright, ever-expanding
overseas military adventures. Thus, "the war on terror"-in addition to
whatever other forms of aggressive imperialism can be fomented,
ostensibly to "defend our freedoms" in a "homeland" no longer free-will
drag on forever, at untold costs in lives and treasure.

Of course, as has proven true everywhere else, politicized Armed Forces in this country will be unable to solve the underlying economic and social problems that rationalized their politicization in the first
place. So America will be wracked with chronic political chaos: token
civilian regimes staffed with incompetent puppets and "yes men",
followed by new bouts of military string-pulling or outright
intervention aimed at cleaning up the last crisis, and so on, along the
sorry lines South American republics such as Argentina have followed
for generations.

For that reason, people worried simply about the likelihood of hyperinflation, depression, or hyperinflation coupled with depression-and about how they might be able to protect their incomes
and accumulated wealth under such circumstances-are viewing their world
through rather ill-fitting rose-colored glasses. When hyperinflation or
other economic calamities strike, and the Armed Forces are politicized
as instruments of domestic repression, merely maintaining his income
and securing his accumulated wealth will become matters of very low
priority for anyone with high economic, social, or political visibility
who has or might run afoul of the regime. So those myopic people who
are trying to figure out how they can personally profit from the coming
collapse of America's economy had better start thinking instead of how
they can contribute to the effort to prevent that collapse, to fend off
a police state that collapse will engender, and to return this country
to the rule of constitutional law-right now, before time runs out.

Daily Bell: How can a police state be fended off?

Edwin Vieira Jr.: Actually, the constitutional solution for dealing with the emerging police state is even simpler than the solution for dealing with the collapsing Federal Reserve
System. Now, I do not believe that, at the present time, the upper
echelons of the Officer Corps in America's Armed Forces contain
significant numbers of potential Bonapartists. The patriotic sense of
"duty, hono
r, country" doubtlessly still prevails. But this circumstance could
change. It has changed in other countries. As the Second Amendment to
the Constitution declares, "[a] well regulated Militia" is "necessary
to the security of a free State". Not the regular Armed Forces, but
"[a] well regulated Militia".

"A well regulated Militia" is the only thing the Constitution identifies as "necessary" for any purpose, and the only thing it identifies as serving the specific purpose of "security". So, if
Americans want a stable and prosperous economy, they want a free
economy (that is, one based on the free market). If Americans want a
free economy, they want "a free State", that being the only kind of
political system that will support and defend the free market. And if
Americans want "a free State", they want "[a] well regulated Militia"
in every State. And what is "[a] well regulated Militia"? As Article 13
of Virginia's Declaration of Rights (1776) so aptly put it, "[a] well
regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms,
is the proper, natural, and safe defence of a free state". That is,
"[a] well regulated Militia" consists of We the People ourselves-in the
final analysis, the only possible guarantors of freedom in a
self-governing society.

Moreover, for all of these reasons, the members of the Armed Forces-all of whom take an oath to support the Constitution-should want "[a] well regulated Militia" in every State, too. Unfortunately, "[a]
well regulated Militia", fully formed and operated according to proper
constitutional principles, does not exist in even a single State today.
(No, Virginia, the National Guard is not, never was, and cannot be the
Militia.) So a great deal of work remains to be done in this area, as
well.

Daily Bell: If these problems could be solved by application of the Constitution, then why did the Constitution not prevent them from arising in the first place? Has not the Constitution
proven itself ineffective?

Edwin Vieira Jr.: We have had the benefit of the Ten Commandments since the days of Moses; but has their mere existence prevented all, or even most, sinful behavior? No. Whose fault has that
been? God's or the sinners'? And shall we now blame the Ten
Commandments-or worse, jettison them entirely-because some, even many,
individuals continue to murder, to steal, and so on, whether in public
office or private occupation?

The same reasoning applies to the Constitution. The Constitution is a set of instructions for running a complex political machine. This machine has as workmanlike a design as political science has ever
recorded throughout the ages; and the instructions for its operation
are concise and clear. So if, from time to time, the operators of the
machine, through incompetence or malevolence, fail or refuse to follow
those instructions, with deleterious results, does the fault lie with
the instructions or the operators? Now, at one level, the operators of
the constitutional machine are public officials. But they are subject
to control by a higher level of operators: We the People, the selfsame
We the People who (as its Preamble attests) "ordained and established
th[e] Constitution" in the first place. So, if compliance with the
Constitution's instructions has not been had, then ultimately We the
People, not the Constitution, are to blame. Which is very fortunate,
because We the People are in an unique position to do something about
this situation.

We the People are the voters who select legislative, executive, and some judicial officers for government at
every level of the federal system. We the People are in actual physical
possession of most of the valuable property in this country. We the
People constitute the Militia, which imposes upon us the direct
responsibility to maintain "the security of a free State". And, with a
little organization pursuant to statutes enacted in the States, We the
People can effectively enforce Nancy Reagan's dictum: to "just say NO!"
to further economic and political incompetence, corruption, and
downright oppression in this country, emanating from Washington, D.C.,
New York City, or anywhere else
.

Daily Bell: But is not the Supreme Court the final legal authority on what the Constitution means, and therefore legally superior to the people?

Edwin Vieira Jr.: Balderdash. A judicial opinion about the Constitution is precisely that, and no more: just an opinion of some fallible human beings who happened to occupy the Bench at that
time. It may be correct-or it may be incorrect. The Supreme Court does
not determine what the Constitution means; rather, the Constitution
determines whether a decision of the Supreme Court is right or wrong.
Even the Supreme Court has recognized that "[t]he power to enact
carries with it final authority to declare the meaning of the
legislation". Propper v. Clark, 337 U.S. 472, 484 (1949). And We the
People-not "we the judges"-enacted the Constitution. It is our supreme
law, not theirs.

We are the principals, they merely our agents. So we are the ultimate interpreters of the Constitution, and the ultimate judges of whether public officials are complying with it. As Sir William
Blackstone, the Founding Fathers' primary legal mentor, observed:
"whenever a question arises between the society at large and any
magistrate vested with powers originally delegated by that society, it
must be decided by the voice of the society itself: there is not upon
earth any other tribunal to resort to". Commentaries on the Laws of
England (1771-1773), Volume 1, at 212. Any self-governing people should
know as much without being reminded. One can only hope that the present
economic crisis will focus people's minds on this basic truth to a
degree sufficient to make a difference.