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April 14, 2003

Rebels vs. The Tory Establishment
by Nelson Hultberg

America is earth's Eldorado. She came to be such because of ambitious men and women of drive and ability that knew no such word as fail, visionaries who were willing to gamble precious years of their lives today on a dream for tomorrow.

Throughout my life, I have encountered many of these men and women in America. They are always salient standouts from the bland establishment crowd, whether their field of endeavor is academics, business, the arts, law, or science. They think for themselves. They make truth their authority, while others make authority their truth. In their eyes, life is not meant for comfort and security. It is a crucible. It is meant for the pursuit of something noble, something enduring. Truth and its exposition are the goals that transcend all else. At the risk of simplification, this is what drives all change and progress throughout history -- this drive for the truth. It moves the entrepreneurs, the rebels, the contrarians of humankind.

Several nights ago, I encountered one of these contrarians. I had dinner with Bill Murphy, the chairman of the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA). This, as everyone in the hard money community knows, is the organization that challenged the Big Government-Big Banking combine that has been manipulating the price of gold for this past decade and destroying its free-market. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court before being denied because GATA was not technically an injured party. Consequently it is now being resubmitted by Blanchard & Co., who was an injured party. None of this, of course, has dampened GATA's cause in the least, and certainly not the fervency of its general, Bill Murphy. Since the truth is still being suppressed, this dogged contrarian cannot rest.

We met at a small Italian bistro called Adelmos along with another heavyweight gold bug, Ethan Stroud, who is a high profile lawyer in Dallas. It was indeed a contrarian gathering. You would be hard pressed to find three more anti-establishment personalities than the three of us. The bulk of my adult life has been caught up in fighting the concept of statism that is so insidiously consuming the greatness of America. Murphy is a legendary David against Goliath in his own time. And Stroud is an imposing maverick lawyer that exudes a passionate distrust of anything connected to Washington. Needless to say, the conversation that took place was not prosaic. It was radical and profound -- the kind that one finds in movies like Conspiracy Theory and Enemy of the State.

I have what is called an intense personality. All my life, people have told me, "For pete's sake Hultberg, will you relax? Calm down a bit; you're going to die way too young." In fact, I have never met anyone who gets more intense about the great issues of life than myself -- that is until the other night at Adelmos. Bill Murphy trumps me in intensity. And that I was sure I would never see in this world.

Listen to what J. Douglas Bowey, who is a Private Merchant Banker in Beverly Hills, CA, has to say about this David who is taking on Goliath: "I have known and been good friends with Bill Murphy for a very long time. Murphy is my hero. He is simultaneously intelligent, educated, and smart; street smart. A rare and valuable combination. He is also veracious and passionate. He believes in old-fashioned American ideals: 'telling it like it is.' Additionally, he easily qualifies as the most persistent and determined human being on planet earth. Qualities to be admired, qualities no longer admired in today's culture; qualities that have been to his detriment. Murphy is an anachronism. He is Don Quixote/John Wayne. He is what the world used to think of as Americans." [Email to me, April 11, 2003]

This was the man I encountered at Adelmos. Bill Murphy embodies the contrarian spirit that built our country, the spirit that is willing to tackle the Gargantua of government when it is running roughshod over our rights.

Immediately we came to a meeting of the minds, for we saw the world through the same eyes. I mentioned that what we were going through today was the same thing as what the American colonists went through in 1776. It was the Rebels against the Tories all over again. We were up against one more of history's authoritarian establishments that rise to power by squashing our freedom in pursuit of CONTROL over our lives. Murphy readily agreed, and an unspoken pact was cerebrally signed between us at that moment.

The Tacit Conspiracy
Douglas Bowey, however, was not writing a simple puff piece to me about Bill Murphy. He was using the contrarian spirit of Murphy to show what was happening to our society, what we were losing, and why we were losing it. He continued in his email with a quote from Machiavelli: "There is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than the creation of a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old system and merely lukewarm defenders in those who would gain by the new one."

What Machiavelli was saying was that a tendency to conspiracy permeates human nature. As Bowey puts it, "Machiavelli clearly explained status quo or social/cultural inertia; and, why it was so difficult to implement change even in a "free society."

He then quotes the contemporary political scientist, J.R. Nyquist: "Politicians (businessmen, Wall Street financiers, economists, etc.) are the creatures of culture....In terms of psychological effects, a culture can be a prison with bars. Escaping from this prison is impossible for those who wish to retain power. To break with the received wisdom of the day is to enter a wilderness. And in this wilderness there is very little money and no power."

"My point in quoting Machiavelli and Nyquist," Bowey says, "is to demonstrate what I have observed in my business: TACIT CONSPIRACY. I further believe that the evolution of tacit conspiracy has been vastly accelerated recently throughout the entire American culture, especially in business and politics, to our great detriment. This escalation accelerated when America became a consumer society.

"Bill Murphy's GATA and its inability to get press is a perfect example of what 'free' America has become. Ask Murphy what happened to Frank A.J. Veneroso's business after he produced his gold supply/demand analysis? Or, what happened to Catherine Austin Fitts' business after she 'saved' HUD billions?"

Bowie then asks a blockbuster of a question that rocked me: "Can a peace time illegal conspiracy, the PPT, ever become a war time strategy in the name of National Security? If the answer is yes, might this be a way for the Fed to make public and legitimize their actions?"

With Gargantua's henchmen now preparing us for a war on terrorism that they say will stretch decades into the future, we have what Orwell talked about -- perpetual war for perpetual peace -- the authoritarian mentality's dream. With perpetual war, the government can justify the most rigid of controls over a free society. And the sheep among the populace will obediently condone it. Yes, indeed, the PPT could easily be legitimized in our lives publicly. The Fed could readily find, in a wartime setting, the justification for such an organization and its manipulation of the markets. "It's necessary for the national security," they will assert. "Amen," the sheep will reply. "Bravo," the moguls of Wall Street will exclaim. Such is the craven path upon which a great nation slips into slavery.

Our establishment media today is unified in their insistence that the Emperor is wearing reputable clothes, i.e., that there is no such thing as a PPT. They are uniformly credulous in regards to whatever the Washington-Wall Street line happens to be. As a result, they will surely continue to play the lackey's role to Big Brother. When the time comes to legitimize the PPT, they will fall all over themselves proclaiming what a "progressive" policy the Emperor is initiating. Of course, the stock market needs federal support! We can't have all this messy free-enterprise! Of course Washington needs more CONTROL! Our country and our economy will still be free; it will just be a new kind of freedom -- "government dictated freedom."

The fundamental issue involved here is how those in positions of power in society use a larger "tacit conspiracy" to suppress the truth about corporate statism's smaller illicit conspiracies such as the PPT. No one has to meet behind closed doors to plan this tacit conspiracy. No one has to talk about it. It's just part of the establishment mentality's makeup. The establishment mind automatically gravitates toward defense of the status-quo, defense of the way things have always been done in Wall Street and Washington. Contrarians like Bill Murphy must be kept contained. They must be relegated to the fringe of society, for they threaten to expose the nakedness of the Emperor.

GATA has dramatically exposed the corruption behind the establishment's acceptance of government manipulation of gold prices. And for this, it has been cordoned off from society by a tacit wall of silence among the media and the power elites that rule New York and Washington.

GATA understands full well the role of money in a free society and how our Federal Reserve has destroyed the legitimacy of money today, which makes Bill Murphy a pariah in powerful political circles. GATA knows that money cannot be paper if we hope to preserve freedom. It must be gold. And in order to accomplish this in today's inflation-mad consumer society, there must take place a profound revolution. Radical monetary reform must become the rallying cry for all honorable Americans. This is the idealistic cause that drives Bill Murphy and all the supporters of GATA. We must break the gold cartel, and we must restore gold as the money of this nation. If our lifetimes are consumed in this cause, then so be it.

The Two Pillars for an American Renaissance
For much of the past decade, I have fought to get rid of income taxation in America. I have written a book on the subject, Why We Must Abolish The Income Tax And The IRS. I worked for three years with Citizens for an Alternative Tax System out of Washington D.C. I have marched off in the spirit of our Founding Fathers to take on Gargantua himself, so I understand full well what Bill Murphy has gone through and is still going through.

From a lifetime of study and fighting against Gargantua, I have concluded there are two great issues that confront America today: the need for radical MONETARY REFORM, and the need for radical TAX REFORM. It all goes back to that fateful year of 1913, when the Federal Reserve and the progressive income tax were enacted into law. The Republic of America died during that year. Everything that we had stood for over 125 resplendent years was wiped out with these two socialist institutions. The death of America didn't come immediately, of course. But our demise as a free nation was set in motion. It is happening all around us right now. And the source of our problems lies in that fateful year.

What kind of money and what kind of tax system a country embraces determines whether that country remains free or succumbs to government regimentation, whether it produces economic abundance or stagnation, and whether its people remain self-reliant or become subservient. All productive citizens of this land must come to realize that if America is to be saved, we as a people must challenge not just the mega-state in Washington that is corrupting our society, but the life blood that feeds this mega-state -- fiat currency and the progressive income tax. These are the tools of government aggrandizement. Without paper money and the progressive income tax, tryanny cannot grow.

Here lie the two pillars of an American renaissance -- radical MONETARY REFORM and radical TAX REFORM. One of my fondest hopes is that some day there will come into being a viable third political party based upon these two pillars, a party that will challenge the monopoly of the Democrats and Republicans and bring us a legitimate alternative to the humbuggery of Demopublicanism. To help speed the arrival of that day, our job lies in doing everything in our power to educate our fellow citizens as to the truths of sound money and fair taxation.

The Choice Before Us
In 1773, a small band of intrepid patriots, called the Sons of Liberty and organized by Samuel Adams and John Hancock, rowed out into the Boston harbor where they boarded a group of British merchant ships and proceeded to throw overboard thousands of pounds of East India tea in protest to the egregious taxes being levied on them by a far away, tyrannical government.

The Sons of Liberty were supported throughout the colonies by eager sympathizers, yet these bold men and their followers comprised but a small minority of those who inhabited America at the time. Most Americans of the day preferred not to protest British arrogance. They stayed behind closed doors in response to the looming revolution, replying that "it was one's duty to pay his taxes," that "making a fuss over such matters would never get anyone anywhere," that Americans "could learn to adjust to such levies." Rather than join with the rebels, they stayed behind where it was safe and popular, lending their support to the royalist establishment of their day -- the Tories.

This tendency to avoid confrontation has always been the nature of humans throughout history. Whenever tyranny descends upon men's lives, there are those who invariably find excuses to justify its "necessity" and even profit from it, while the intrepid automatically stand against such tyranny, expressing their outrage openly and adamantly.

It takes indelible spirit to challenge an overbearing government that is usurping men's rights. Most men prefer compromise and the warm comfort of social approval, and thus willingly accept the erosion of their freedom while conjuring sophistic arguments to justify their default.

Contemporary America is now confronted with a choice, identical to that of those who stood with the rebels of Boston in 1773 and those who gave their support to the royalist establishment. Americans will have to choose with which side they wish to stand in today's confrontation.

The term "confrontation" here does not mean fighting in the armed or physical sense, but rather in an ideological manner. As long as one's government maintains the democratic process, then armed confrontation can be no sane man's option. We still have the power in this country to galvanize the minds of our fellow Americans -- to rise up and reform our government through peaceful, educational and democratic means. We are still free to speak, to write and to vote.

We need to remember Thomas Paine's dramatic words: "An army of principles will penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot. It will march on the horizon of the world, and it will conquer."

The battle lines are now drawn between today's Sons of Liberty and the royalist establishment of Washington. There is no middle ground to seek out, no safe haven of neutrality. The new Sons of Liberty stand for radical MONETARY REFORM and radical TAX REFORM. The Big Government royalists stand for the tools of tyranny -- paper money, a progressive income tax, and centralized state control over the economy.

One of these two visions with its accompanying ideology will prevail, and with its prevalence will lie the future of freedom for America. History will judge each of us by which side we choose. The very essence and meaning of our lives are tied up in our choice.

For all men and women who believe in the concepts of limited government and personal independence, the choice is clear: We must destroy the gold cartel, we must restore gold to our monetary system, and we must abolish the progressive income tax in favor of a flat income or consumpton tax. Until these three reforms are achieved, there can be no hope to genuinely bring the federal leviathan under control and restore to the American people their lost rights.

Each and every American who loves his country and the free life for which she was formed, must stand and be counted. Our goal is to regain that free life, and we cannot rest until it is attained.

As one of the great economists of the 20th century, Ludwig von Mises, so forcefully reminded us many decades ago: "Everyone carries a part of society on his shoulders; no one is relieved of his share of responsibility by others. And no one can find a safe way out for himself if society is sweeping toward destruction. Therefore, everyone, in his own interests, must thrust himself vigorously into the intellectual battle. None can stand aside with unconcern; the interest of everyone hangs on the result. Whether he chooses or not, every man is drawn into the great historical struggle, the decisive battle into which our epoch has plunged us."

Whether you, the reader, choose to be or not, you are a part of this battle. Even if you choose not to get involved, that in itself is a choice, and it will reinforce the cause of government aggrandizement. Like the royalist defenders in the 1770's who lent their support to King George, by your silence and default you will be giving aid to today's royalist elites in Washington who control the political levers of our society through manipulation and deceit -- a control in direct contradiction to the constitutional design of the Founders.

"All that is necessary for the forces of evil to win the world is for enough good men to do nothing," declared Edmund Burke during a time of equal crisis in the 18th century. We are no different today. If the good men of America choose to do nothing in face of the Federal Government's wholesale corruption of our money and its usurpation of our basic rights via confiscatory taxation, then evil will indeed win.

The measure of our strength and our humanity can be gauged by the stands we take during our brief tenure on this earth. There are few issues for which we as Americans will be called upon to fight that will match these two in importance. Historical crises are rarely defined so saliently and decisively around two clear cut issues. But that is the power of MONEY and TAXATION in men's lives. That is the power of this watershed era of American history of which we are a part. We have the opportunity to spectacularly reform our nation. We dare not "stand aside with unconcern." Everyone of us must get involved -- for our country, for our children, for truth, for freedom.

Nelson Hultberg
Americans for a Free Republic

Nelson Hultberg is a freelance writer in Dallas, Texas and the Executive Director of Americans for a Free Republic www .afr.org. His articles have appeared in such publications as The Dallas Morning News, Insight, The Freeman, Liberty, and The Social Critic, as well as numerous Internet sites. He is the author of Why We Must Abolish The Income Tax And The IRS (1997) and Breaking the Demopublican Monopoly(2004). He is presently finishing a book on political-economic philosophy entitled The Golden Mean: The Case for Libertarian Politics and Conservative Values.