BUSTING THE TWO PARTY SYSTEM - first in the series "Re-Engagement"

Fellow Citizens,
This will be the first of a series of articles I am going to write concerning the re-engagement and education of our citizens of our political process. I am going to tackle the subject of party politics today. I must confess my views on this subject are cynical, skeptical, distrustful and disillusioned. I believe that above all this is job one to stop the unravelling of our republic, so I begin here.

We have become a nation of disengaged, apathetic, spoiled, uninformed and irresponsible citizens. I profess to you now folks that if the United States were a nightclub, this would be last call. If we don't become cognizant of our current situation, I think we may well let our republic slip. That would waste every drop of blood our forefathers spilled, every line of ink on our Declaration of Independance and Constitution and tear this beatiful dream from the grasp of our posterity. This is indeed how gravitous this situation is.

One vehicle for our disengagement and apathy is our current party political system. Laziness dictates this. Generally speaking, we have lost the capability of independent thought. Our stances on anything, parrot a paticular ideology, usually an absolute ididotic one, because we have no idea what the idea is we are parroting. What we do know is, that someone popular, whether it be a politician, friend or commercial said it. That is good enough for us and thus, we rubber stamp it. We aren't going to break a sweat to research a topic or candidate, even though with today's technology, it's a breeze and at our fingertips. One political commercial that makes us laugh or cry or angry and we're on board. Rhetoric rules and propaganda prolifica denominates.


Those too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber. ~Plato


An election is coming. Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere
interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry.

~George Eliot, Felix Holt


Truth is not determined by majority vote.

~Doug Gwyn


Thus by aligning themselves with a these mantras or people, or dare I say any established political party these days, they thereby allow themselves to disengage brain (were it engaged initially) and let these candidates/parties/peer groups etc. think for them These said entities are ready and willing to do it of course.This is a manifestation of the deep affliction our republic suffers at the hand of these dogmatic morons and purveyors of entropy. Engagement of the citizenry, return of independent thought and the war against apathy, are uphill battles we, as ones who want drastic change must face.

Every two years the American politics industry fills the airwaves with the most virulent, currilous, wall-to-wall character assassination of nearly every political practitioner in the country - and then declares itself puzzled that America has lost trust in its politicians.

~Charles Krauthammer


The problem with political jokes is they get elected.

~Henry Cate, VII



The Democrats seem to be basically nicer people, but they have demonstrated time and again that they have the management skills of celery. They're the kind of people who'd stop to help change a flat, but would somehow manage to set your car on fire. I would be reluctant to entrust them with a Cuisinart, let alone the economy. The Republicans, on the other hand, would know how to fix your tire, but they wouldn't bother to stop because they'd want to be on time for Ugly Pants Night at the country club.

~Dave Barry

I propose we stat by busting party politics. If we know someone who is a staunch party supporter, ask them why. They will probably say "because the Republicans/Democrats are idiots (but you choose the pejorative)". This begs another question. So you are telling me essentially you are against the Democrats/Republicans, not for your party? By this we can use rhetoric for our country and not against it. Rhetorical questions though will probably upset these folks pretty quick due to the fact they won't be able to answer many of them. But friends, educate gently and with understanding and kindness, thereby setting a good example to emulate. One which I guarantee will be contrary to the nearly intolerable dogma of either party these days. Granted there are more than two parties, but for sake of brevity and clarity, let's concentrate on those two.



All of us who are concerned for peace and triumph of reason and justice must be keenly aware how small an influence reason and honest good will exert upon events in the political field.

~Albert Einstein


Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule - and both commonly succeed, and are right.

~H.L. Mencken

Take our politicians: they're a bunch of yo-yos. The presidency is now a cross between a popularity contest and a high school debate, with an encyclopedia of cliches the first prize.

~Saul Bellow

Another way we can begin to bust party politics will be to end straight ticket voting if it is allowed in your state. I have never liked that pernicious idea. This moronic concept takes laziness and disengagement to a new level. We need to share ideas concerning ending this. Perhaps a group and in grassroots local movements. Also, following this premise I believe that no candidate should have a party by their names on the ballot. Let's work on this friends.

Our cause is noble, and it is difficult for me at least to keep a civil tongue in my head. We must stop the divisivenes and come together as Americans to stop the decimation of of our republic. By a gentle and kind approach, caring for our fellow Americans and our republic in the process, we will win.

Gene

Democracy or Republic

Democracy or Republic


I find myself answering this question more and more these days. Hopefully this will suffice and I can now copy and paste a link and more thoroughly and accurately answer this very important question.

The United States is, indeed, a republic, not a democracy. Accurately defined, a democracy is a form of government in which the people decide policy matters directly--through town hall meetings or by voting on ballot initiatives and referendums. A republic, on the other hand, is a system in which the people choose representatives who, in turn, make policy decisions on their behalf. The Framers of the Constitution were altogether fearful of pure democracy. Everything they read and studied taught them that pure democracies "have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths".

By popular usage, however, the word "democracy" come to mean a form of government in which the government derives its power from the people and is accountable to them for the use of that power. In this sense the United States might accurately be called a democracy. However, there are examples of "pure democracy" at work in the United States today that would probably trouble the Framers of the Constitution if they were still alive to see them. Many states allow for policy questions to be decided directly by the people by voting on ballot initiatives or referendums. (Initiatives originate with, or are initiated by, the people while referendums originate with, or are referred to the people by, a state's legislative body.) That the Constitution does not provide for national ballot initiatives or referendums is indicative of the Framers' opposition to such mechanisms. They were not confident that the people had the time, wisdom or level-headedness to make complex decisions, such as those that are often presented on ballots on election day.

Writing of the merits of a republican or representative form of government, James Madison observed that one of the most important differences between a democracy and a republic is "the delegation of the government [in a republic] to a small number of citizens elected by the rest." The primary effect of such a scheme, Madison continued,was to:


". . . refine and enlarge the public views by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations. Under such a regulation it may well happen that the public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be more consonant to the public good than if pronounced by the people themselves, convened for the same purpose."


Later, Madison elaborated on the importance of "refining and enlarging the public views" through a scheme of representation:


"There are particular moments in public affairs when the people, stimulated by some irregular passion, or some illicit advantage, or misled by the artful misrepresentations of interested men, may call for measures which they themselves will afterwards be most ready to lament and condemn. In these critical moments, how salutary will be the interference of some temperate and respectable body of citizens, in order to check the misguided career and to suspend the blow meditated by the people against themselves, until reason, justice and truth can regain their authority over the public mind."

In the strictest sense of the word, the system of government established by the Constitution was never intended to be a "democracy." This is evident not only in the wording of the Pledge of Allegiance but in the Constitution itself which declares that "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government" (Article IV, Section 4). Moreover, the scheme of representation and the various mechanisms for selecting Representatives established by the Constitution were clearly intended to produce a republic, not a democracy.

To the extent that the United States of America has moved away from its republican roots and become more "democratic," it has strayed from the intentions of the Constitution's authors. Whether or not the trend toward more direct democracy would be smiled upon by the Framers depends on the answer to another question. Are the American people today sufficiently better informed and otherwise equipped to be wise and prudent democratic citizens than were American citizens in the late 1700s? By all accounts, the answer to this second question is an emphatic "no."

Abuses and Usurpations From The Declaration of Independence, How Many Apply Today?

13 Currently Applicable Abuses and Usurpations

On this, the day prior to our Independence Day, I read from the Declaration of Independence to see if any of the 27 grievances our forefathers mentioned in this document might apply today. Although one could construe some of the others as partially applicable, dependening on the perception of the reader, I believe 13 to be either directly, or at the very least perceptively, pertinent and timely. I have listed these here. In this context we can here replace "He" with "They". Let us also remind ourselves, we the people are not blameless in the current situation. By our disengagement, apathy, cowardice and laziness we have harmed our republic. Now it is time to come to attention and become engaged, concerned, brave and tireless in our work at preservation of our republic. This we owe to our forefathers and to our posterity.

"-- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain --
that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that
government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from
the earth."~Abraham Lincoln

— That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new
Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers
in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and
Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established
should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all
experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are
sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are
accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably
the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is
their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new
Guards for their future security. —

1. He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

2. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amountand payment of their salaries.

3.He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harassour people and eat out their substance.

4.He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of ourlegislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

5.He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution,and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

6.For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

7.For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they shouldcommit on the Inhabitants of these States:

8.For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

9.For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

10.For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

11.For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

12.For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentallythe Forms of our Governments:

13.For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

OUR FOREFATHERS

July 4, 1776 – Fifty Six Patriots - signed a document that would change not only the course of their lives but many future generations. These men knew that what they were doing would be considered treason, and if the act of Independence failed that history would remember them as traitors. Fortunately, they possessed the courage, vision and resolve it took to put their names, and their and their families lives on the line. Literally and metaphorically.

We must now "highly resolve" that these courageous acts not go unappreciated, or their value discounted. And that this nation "that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

THE DOCUMENT FROM WHICH IT ALL BEGAN

The Declaration of
Independence

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. That to securethese
rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving
their justpowers from the consent of the governed, That
whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of
these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or

to abolish it, and to institute new Government,

laying its foundation on such principles and organizing

its powers in such form, as to them shall seem.most likely to

effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will
dictate that Governmentslong established should not be changed for light
and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn
that mankind are more disposed to suer, while evils are
suerable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms
to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of
abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same
Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it
is their right, it is their duty, to throw osuch Government,
and to provide newGuards for their future security.

Bill of Rights

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging
the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the
people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the
government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II
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.

Amendment III
No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house,
without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in
a manner to be prescribed by law.

Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses,
papers, and eects, against unreasonable searches and
seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue,
but upon probable cause, supported by oath or armation,
and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the
persons or things to be seized.

Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise
infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a
grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval
forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of
war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the
same oense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor
shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness
against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property,
without due process of law; nor shall private property be
taken for public use, without just compensation.

Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right
to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state
and district wherein the crime shall have been committed,
which district shall have been previously ascertained by law,
and to be informed of the nature and cause of the
accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him;
to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his
favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

Amendment VII
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall
exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be
preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise
reexamined in any court of the United States, than
according to the rules of the common law.

Amendment VIII
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive nes
imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inicted.

Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall
not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by thepeople.

Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the
Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved
to the states respectively, or to the people.

Attitude

Change and Courage

The difference between cowardice and courage is how one reacts to change. Within that reaction - lives the mettle of men. The quality of that mettle rests upon one's answer to the quesion, - from whom do I seek approval? Within that decision - is one's morality. Within that morality is the rock of courage.
When we face difficult change or challenge with our morality firmly in place, our actions will be without fear knowing we can look in the mirror and be accountable to ourselves and God. Only then can we stop being the skulker, fearful of change and challenge. Thereby freeing ourselves from the chains of cowardly indecision, complacency and disappointment, and stride the world as a hero for our Lord. Not just expecting, but embracing change and challenge and turning them to our benefit as His soldier and a champion for change, challenge and ourselves.
Within those principles - lives the adventure of life, and we become an instrument for change, not a victim of it.
~Capt. Gene D. Tomlinson

Paul Writes America

I would like to share with you an imaginary letter from the pen of the Apostle Paul I put together several years ago. It is what I imagine the Apostle Paul might have said were he writing a letter to American Christians in 2005 A.D. And here is the letter as I envision what he might have said……. Gene

I, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to you who are in America, Grace be unto you, and peace from God our Father, through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

For many years I have longed to be able to come to see you. I have heard so much of you and of what you are doing. I have heard of the fascinating and astounding advances that you have made in the scientific realm. I have heard of your dashing subways and flashing airplanes. Through your scientific genius you have been able to dwarf distance and place time in chains. You have been able to carve highways through the stratosphere. So in your world you have made it possible to eat breakfast in New York City and dinner in Paris, France. I have also heard of your skyscraping buildings with their prodigious towers steeping heavenward. I have heard of your great medical advances, which have resulted in the curing of many dread plagues and diseases, and thereby prolonged your lives and made for greater security and physical well-being. All of that is marvelous. You can do so many things in your day that I could not do in the Greco-Roman world of my day. In your age you can travel distances in one day that took me three months to travel. That is wonderful. You have made tremendous strides in the area of scientific and technological development.

But America, as I look at you from afar, I wonder whether your moral and spiritual progress has been commensurate with your scientific progress. It seems to me that your moral progress lags behind your scientific progress. Your poet Thoreau used to talk about "improved means to an unimproved end." How often this is true. You have allowed the material means by which you live to outdistance the spiritual ends for which you live. You have allowed your mentality to outrun your morality. You have allowed your civilization to outdistance your culture. Through your scientific genius you have made of the world a neighborhood, but through your moral and spiritual genius you have failed to make of it a brotherhood. So America, I would urge you to keep your moral advances abreast with your scientific advances.

I am impelled to write you concerning the responsibilities laid upon you to live as Christians in the midst of an unChristian world. That is what I had to do. That is what every Christian has to do. But I understand that there are many Christians in America who give their ultimate allegiance to man-made systems and customs. They are afraid to be different. Their great concern is to be accepted socially. They live by some such principle as this: "everybody is doing it, so it must be alright." For so many of you Morality is merely group consensus. In your modern sociological lingo, the mores are accepted as the right ways. You have unconsciously come to believe that right is discovered by taking a sort of Gallup poll of the majority opinion. How many are giving their ultimate allegiance to this way.

But American Christians, I must say to you as I said to the Roman Christians years ago, "Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." Or, as I said to the Phillipian Christians, "Ye are a colony of heaven." This means that although you live in the colony of time, your ultimate allegiance is to the empire of eternity. You have a dual citizenry. You live both in time and eternity; both in heaven and earth. Therefore, your ultimate allegiance is not to the government, not to the state, not to nation, not to any man-made institution. The Christian owes his ultimate allegiance to God, and if any earthly institution conflicts with God's will it is your Christian duty to take a stand against it. You must never allow the transitory evanescent demands of man-made institutions to take precedence over the eternal demands of the Almighty God.

I understand that you have an economic system in America known as Capitalism. Through this economic system you have been able to do wonders. You have become the richest nation in the world, and you have built up the greatest system of production that history has ever known. All of this is marvelous. But Americans, there is the danger that you will misuse your Capitalism. I still contend that money can be the root of all evil. It can cause one to live a life of gross materialism. I am afraid that many among you are more concerned about making a living than making a life. You are prone to judge the success of your profession by the index of your salary and the size of the wheel base on your automobile, rather than the quality of your service to God.

The misuse of Capitalism can also lead to tragic exploitation. This has so often happened in your nation. They tell me that one tenth of one percent of the population controls more than forty percent of the wealth. You have allowed government programs and handouts take the place of Christian benevolence. It is easy to point a finger at your government and say that it was them who took the responsibility away from the church, but this happened because there were glaring needs which you as Christians left untended. That lack of love of your fellow man allowed secular humanist to make a strong argument.  If you are to be a truly Christian nation you must solve this problem. You cannot solve the problem by turning to communism, for communism is based on an ethical relativism and a metaphysical materialism that no Christian can accept. You can use your powerful economic resources to wipe poverty from the face of the earth. God never intended for one group of people to live in superfluous inordinate wealth, while others live in abject deadening poverty. God intends for all of his children to have the basic necessities of life, and he has left in this universe "enough and to spare" for that purpose.

I would that I could be with you in person, so that I could say to you face to face what I am forced to say to you in writing. Oh, how I long to share your fellowship.
Let me rush on to say something about the church. Americans, I must remind you, as I have said to so many others, that the church is the Body of Christ. So when the church is true to its nature it knows neither division nor disunity. But I am disturbed about what you are doing to the Body of Christ. They tell me that in America you have within Protestantism more than three hundred denominations. The tragedy is not so much that you have such a multiplicity of denominations, but that many of them are warring against each other with a claim to absolute truth. This narrow sectarianism is destroying the unity of the Body of Christ. You must come to see that God is neither a Baptist nor a Methodist; He is neither a Presbyterian nor a Episcopalian. God is bigger than all of our denominations. If you are to be true witnesses for Christ, you must come to see that America. We are one body and are to work in unison. Oh if you were to just spend as many ecclesial calories loving and dispensing God's grace as you did getting it "right"...

But I must not stop with a criticism of Protestantism. I am disturbed about Roman Catholicism. This church stands before the world with its pomp and power, insisting that it possesses the only truth. It incorporates a level of hubris that becomes a dangerous spiritual arrogance. It stands with its noble Pope who somehow rises to the miraculous heights of infallibility when he speaks ex cathedra. But I am disturbed about a person or an institution that claims infallibility in this world. I am disturbed about any church that refuses to cooperate with other churches under the pretense that it is the only true church. I must emphasize the fact that God is not a Roman Catholic, and that the boundless sweep of his revelation cannot be limited to the Vatican. Roman Catholicism must do a great deal to mend its ways.

A great man was in your country just 50 or so years ago. His name was Martin Luther King Jr. He said that “In the end, we will not remember the words of our enemies, rather the silence of our friends.” You must rise up and speak out America if you are to survive as a moral nation. With this attitude you migh be considered a dangerous radical. Sometimes it might mean going to jail. If such is the case you must honorably grace the jail with your presence. It might even mean physical death. But if physical death is the price that some must pay to free your nations’s children from a permanent life of psychological death, then nothing could be more Christian. Don't worry about persecution America; you are going to have that if you stand up for a great principle. I can say this with some authority, because my life was a continual round of persecutions. After my conversion I was rejected by the disciples at Jerusalem. Later I was tried for heresy at Jerusalem. I was jailed at Philippi, beaten at Thessalonica, mobbed at Ephesus, and depressed at Athens. And yet I am still going. I came away from each of these experiences more persuaded than ever before that "neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come . . . shall separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." I still believe that standing up for the truth of God is the greatest thing in the world. This is the end of life. The end of life is not to be happy. The end of life is not to achieve pleasure and avoid pain. The end of life is to do the will of God, come what may.

I must bring my writing to a close now. Timothy is waiting to deliver this letter, and I must take leave for another church. But just before leaving, I must say to you, as I said to the church at Corinth, that I still believe that love is the most durable power in the world. Over the centuries men have sought to discover the highest good. This has been the chief quest of ethical philosophy. This was one of the big questions of Greek philosophy. The Epicurean and the Stoics sought to answer it; Plato and Aristotle sought to answer it. What is the summon bonum of life? I think I have an answer America. I think I have discovered the highest good. It is love. This principle stands at the center of the cosmos. As John says, "God is love." He who loves is a participant in the being of God. He who hates does not know God.
So American Christians, you may master the intricacies of the English language. You may possess all of the eloquence of articulate speech. But even if you "speak with the tongues of man and angels, and have not love, you are become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal."

In Him, Paul

With Love to all who’s eyes this might meet. Capt. Gene D. Tomlinson

Federal Reserve Notes vs. Toilet Paper

The abjectly fictional nature of modern paper currency and fractional-reserve banking encourages the question: why do fiat FRNs continue to circulate, and banks without any real monetary reserves continue to function? Those who accept the theory that "money" is whatever the government decrees would answer that FRNs (or bank-deposits denominated in FRNs) have value as media of exchange in the marketplace because people must acquire them in order to pay their taxes. The obvious fallacy here, though, is that the government accepts payment of taxes in FRNs precisely because those notes have a finite purchasing-power in the market, and therefore are usable as "money" by the government. It is not the present and future taxability of the notes that gives them their market exchange-value, but their residual market exchange-value that renders them viable as a medium of taxation. One must recall that FRNs were originally redeemable, directly or indirectly, in gold coins, silver coins, or both. For that reason, FRNs had a real exchange-value in the market that reflected their underlying redemption-values in gold or silver, and depended not at all on their use as a medium of taxation but indeed made them valuable for that purpose. When FRNs became wholly irredeemable after 1968/1971, they lost any fixed or predictable market exchange-value in terms of real money, and therefore became of increasingly uncertain value as a medium of taxation, too (at least to the extent they continue to depreciate in market exchange-value, as they have, steadily, since then). A more realistic explanation for the continued circulation of FRNs (or bank-deposits denominated in FRNs) as "money" is that the general public is the victim of a confidence-game, in which the government and the banks have foisted off paper liabilities in the place of real monetary assets in an inverted pyramid of monetary fraud. At the tip of this upside-down pyramid are real "dollars": silver and gold coins that are themselves monetary assets and no one's liabilities, and circulate among those knowledgeable about the differences between real money and paper money. Next in amount in circulation - and at the first level of the institutionalized fraud - are the base-metallic token (or "clad") coins of cupro-nickel alloy. These are monetary assets to the extent of their salvageable metallic content - which is worth about 2% or less of their face values - , but otherwise are liabilities of the government which at one time were redeemable in silver, but are today wholly irredeemable. The next largest fraudulent circulating medium consists of actual FRNs, today "redeemable" only in "clad" coins. Finally, the greatest portion of the so-called "money supply" consists of bank demand-deposits, most of which have been loaned at interest to persons other than the depositors. Revealingly, not only are these purported deposits not actually on deposit in the banks at all, but also the deposits are not even formally "redeemable", because the deposits themselves are not the depositors' "money", but the banks'! The deposits are loans of money the depositors (many of them unknowingly) have made to the banks, and which the banks have then further loaned to third parties. But how many people are aware of this situation? Why do the government and the banks not educate those who are unaware of what is really going on - other than because the government and the banks knowingly profit from public ignorance and therefore intentionally promote it? And how long can such a swindle continue? This question highlights the second of the contemporary political-economic conditions that underlie the problem of collapsing domestic banks: namely, the inability of the banks to continue indefinitely to increase the supply of money within the domestic economy, that is (as the saying goes), to "expand credit" (because the supply of new money derives from the extension of bank-credit to borrowers). The answer to the question "How long can this confidence-game last?" is "Not forever!". If, on the one hand, the banks overly expand credit, hyperinflation occurs (that is, the purchasing-power of the monetary unit falls exponentially). If, on the other hand, the banks overly restrict the expansion of credit in order to avoid hyperinflation, recession and then depression occurs (that is, people borrow less, and then existing borrowers in massive numbers default on loans). The bankers' "trick" (and dilemma) is to continue to expand credit within an expanding, and therefore essentially noninflationary, economy. The insoluble problem inherent in credit-expansion through fractional-reserve banking, however, is that expansion of a fiat money supply inevitably misdirects and wastes real economic resources, resulting in an increasingly nonrational economy - that is an economy that does not expand in real terms. In short, credit-expansion by fractional-reserve banking in the long run guarantees economic collapse, with resultant social chaos and political crisis. CONCLUSIONNo crystal ball is necessary to predict that a turning-point in the history of money and banking in the United States is drawing nigh. The burden of governmental debt - much of it made possible only by central-bank "monetization" - has approached levels unsustainable in real terms even with drastically increased confiscation of Americans' earnings through explicit taxation. But Americans seem reluctant to accept more taxation to fund the never-ending follies of a spendthrift welfare state. Thus, repudiation of the debt (in whole or in part) through extreme depreciation of FRNs and bank-deposits denominated therein appears likely, if not certain. For this looming debacle, Americans can thank the FRS, the "experts" who administered it since 1913, the politicians who wed it as a "cover" to finance their own careers, the bankers who profited from their monopoly over the emission of "legal-tender" paper currency, and the "intellectuals" in academia, the press, and the media who (quite unlike their counterparts in the last century) remained strangely silent on the issue of money and banking. That is, Americans can properly thank these people if Americans become aware of what the FRS is, what it does, and why it is responsible for having undermined to the point of collapse the nation's once proudly prosperous economy and staunchly republican political process. Hopefully that day of a new national awareness will soon be at hand.