Patient Readers, yesterday you got a taste of one "investment advisor's" newsletter -- Stansberry & Associates. Turns out Porter Stansberry was sued by the S.E.C. and convicted of fraud.
Today, we look line-by-line at one of his website's "Master" contributors -- Richard J. Maybury,
whose credentials as an historian include teaching economics in a high school, and military service
[airlifts in Vietnam, and "covert intelligence" in Central & South America].
See what is wrought -- this time, with Bitesfromedwin's editorial injections. And weep for that part of our private sector who gives credence to "Master Series" experts like Richard J. Maybury:
Jefferson's Principles
By Richard Maybury
After socialism swept the world in the early 20th century, [Gee, that's news to prominent anti-socialists like Churchill, DeGaulle, Herbert Hoover, Emperor Hirohito!] the original American philosophy was removed [note the passive-voiced verb "was removed" -- so we don't know who did the removing, but it must have been an evil power junkie!] from the typical school. [What school did HE teach at? Because "the original American philosophy" certainly did not get removed at any schools that WE know of!] What they did with it, I don't know. Maybe it's locked in a safe in the principal's office. [Humor.]
But I can tell you that when I was a public school teacher, no teacher I met knew anything about it. All they'd been taught about the 1776 revolution was the Marxist interpretation. They'd point to the "promote the general welfare" clause in the Constitution's preamble and say the founders were prototype New Deal democrats building a welfare state. [Where did you do your teaching, Mr. Maybury? And, would you mind capitalizing the word
"Democrats" when you refer to a specific party? The words "democrats" & "republicans" & "socialists" refer to general forms/philosophies of government, whereas "Democrats" & "Republicans" & "Socialists" refer to 3 specific political parties. This is the well-known convention, among professional social scientists.]
In his first inaugural address, Thomas Jefferson listed 16 "essential principles of our government." If, like me, you were raised in government-controlled schools and colleges ["government-controlled schools & colleges"?!? Maybe you mean, local or state governments -- NOT the nefarious socialist federal government] , I'll bet you never heard anything about them.
Two of them were "peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none," and "economy in the public expense."
[These 2 of the 16, along with the other 14, make sense for a small pre-industrial agrarian republic prior to Jefferson's death in 1826. And these 16 were not unique to Jefferson, during that early-American era].
The latter gets my vote as the most thoroughly violated principle in all of world history. [YES! This you've got right. But even a broken clock is right 2 times a day.]
Jefferson said of the 16 principles, "The wisdom of our sages and blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment. They should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps [OF COURSE! Not unique to Jefferson or USA; these are universal national articles of faith.] and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety."
Isolationism?
The founders were not isolationists, they were anti-interventionists. Jefferson's "honest friendship with all" and "entangling alliances with none" was an echo of George Washington's "great rule of conduct in regard to foreign nations." This rule was "in extending our commercial relations" and "to have as little political connection [Again, of course! We were a weak little country then, clinging to the Atlantic Coast, wanting to avoid political dominance by the established European political powers of that era!] as possible."
The founders wanted private individuals and organizations [Think about it, Mr. Maybury: OF COURSE there was less chance of national peril if we pursued international commerce through private individuals & organizations -- NOT on a governmental level amidst big, well-established European powers of 1776-1826!] to go abroad and conduct friendly relations, but no political connections. Politics was seen as poison.
The American Retracement
In the beginning, Americans did an imperfect but tolerable job of adhering to Jefferson's 16 principles, but then began to stray far afield. By the end of the 19th century, the federal government was solidly on the road to empire… [Actually, Mr. Maybury, did you forget the Civil War & Reconstruction? THIS was when the federal government repudiated so much of the "States-Rights" tradition which had just helped cause such a deadly rebellion; and, it was the so-called "Reconstruction Amendments" -- 13th, 14th, 15th ("No state
shall . . . ") -- which really asserted national power over what proved to be deadly states-rights resistance to national power. And, Abraham Lincoln was the wicked "power junkie" presiding over national laws authorizing a transcontinental railroad and a fledgling national banking system with a national currency! DAMN, Thank The Lord that someone assassinated the evil "power junkie" Abraham Lincoln!] And by the mid-20th century, it was the most powerful regime in human history, with the most extensive domain. It was a power junkie's Holy Grail. [Nothing morphed Jefferson's pre-1826 agrarian republic more than the forces of commerce, industrialization, urbanization -- which only nomadic hunters & gatherers have resisted over time. Would Maybury have preferred that the Iroquois, or the Kalahari San, dominate the USA's 19th Century?]
Along with this domain came the privilege of issuing a fiat dollar [otherwise known as "Legal Tender" -- i.e., any government's guarantee that a currency is "payable for all debts, public & private"! ALL GOVERNMENTS since the Medieval Era have helped those engaged in commerce by establishing some kind of Legal Tender!] that is the primary currency for world trade and savings. The dollar enables the Fed to manipulate the whole world economy as if the lives and fortunes of all people are the private property of the U.S. government.
It isn't just foreigners who are opening their eyes to this scam. Americans are, too. For the first time in my life [Were you born yesterday? Politicians & the press have been talking "Constitution, Constitution, Constitution" forever -- and not just academics or lawyers!], the Constitution and Jefferson's principles [Wait: Earlier, you complained that nobody ever heard of Jefferson's 16 principles; now, they are "common topics of conversation"?] are becoming common topics of conversation. The Tea Party [polls show that the overwhelming majority of Tea Party folks mix up "the Constitution" of 1787 with "the Declaration of Independence" of 1776 -- which diminishes the "3.7 million hits" which you find encouraging!] is only the most visible example.
Googling "U.S. Constitution," I got 3.7 million hits [out of 300 million Americans? not to mention, how many hits were from outside the USA? and how do 3.7 million compare with hits on, say, "Beyonce"?] . I never thought I'd live long enough to see this. I was born into a world in which the Constitution was practically a dead letter, unknown to anyone but academics and lawyers. We have begun to retrace our steps and regain the road to liberty. But I emphasize, "begun." What I call the American Retracement will take many years, and it will be a tough slog.
The good news...
… or part of it, is that we aren't lost and we don't need to reinvent the wheel. Unlike other nations, America isn't just a place, it's a set of ideas. [ALL nations claim they are exceptional, and "set of ideas" is actually THE textbook (see R.R. Palmer's History of the Modern World) DEFINITION of "nationalism."] These were articulated by unusually wise sages such as Jefferson who were inventing the country. We know where we are and where we've been, because we have hundreds of documents [Here -- for the 2nd time in these 22 paragraphs -- you are CORRECT; but, for a long time, political scientists have noted that "a written constitution" was one of the founders' great political inventions] of the founders' thinking; these constitute a road map.
In my opinion, the single most important belief all the founders shared was this: political power corrupts the morals and the judgment.
[Well, Duh! This insight was hardly original to the founders. Consider Machiavelli in 1517, and our own Pilgrims & Puritans of the 1620's-1630, and Thomas Hobbes in 1651.]
[Here, for the 3rd time, you are absolutely right] Writing about political power in 1787, Jefferson said to Continental Congressman Edward Carrington, "If once [the people] become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves."
The founders' most important work was in devising mechanisms to limit this power and make government service a maddening experience for power junkies. Their crucial invention was the Constitution. [4th time: this is correct; but your concept here has been around the History and Political Science professions for a long, long time] Was it flawless? Certainly not. But it worked better than anything else I've seen. It gave rise [actually, the epic rise of the USA owes far less to its Constitution than to the natural gift of a continent immensely rich in natural resources, with room for the greatest immigrant folk movement in world history. Ironically, the forces of commercialization, industrialization, and urbanization that Jefferson feared & loathed were what "gave rise" to "the most advanced civiliation in history."] to the most advanced civilization in history, until the Great Depression and World War II. That 15-year period of error and alarm was used by power junkies [So, FDR should have turned to private charities, individuals, and states, to save the 1/3 of our Depression nation who were "ill-clothed, ill-fed, ill-housed"? and FDR should have relied on 18th-century privateers & letters of marque to win World War II? MR. MAYBURY, THIS IS PREPOSTEROUS!] to twist the Constitution into their most useful tool for accumulating and using power. The so-called libertarian Amendments, the 9th and 10th, were essentially erased. [As noted above, this happened a lot earlier, during the 1861-1865 Civil War, and the 1865-1877 Reconstruction!
And, by the way, the 10th's Amendment's precious States-Rights not only got hijacked by the Confederacy to break up the founders' More Perfect Union of 1787, but also wound up being the Achilles Heel of the Confederate States of America itself! As the saying goes, "The Confederacy was born of States-Rights, and died of States-Rights."]
The way to untwist the document is to study the speeches and writings of the people who wrote it to learn their true intent. They were not infallible gods, but their thinking was far deeper [It HAD to be; circumstances demanded it!] than that of any of today's political hacks. [A common refrain of Nostalgics for the "good old days."] A single James Madison is worth a thousand Bushes and Obamas. [Maybury cleverly avoids the charge of right-wing extremism here, by including "Bush" with that Muslim socialist "Obama"]
The coming trials and tribulations
So there you have it. In the late 1800s, America took the Roman road instead of the road to liberty [Maybury should consult Paul Kennedy's well-known study of decades ago, The Rise & Fall of the Great Powers -- not to mention the classic examples of political overgrowth, like Hellenic Athens to Hellinistic empire, and Roman repubic to empire. Yes, the USA did turn away from continental republic to global empire, but the huge national debate about it happened contemporaneously -- in the 1890's, when the USA acquired Caribbean & Pacific places like Panama & Puerto Rico & Hawaii & Samoa & the Philippines. But during that 1890's debate, imperialists argued that the alternative to "growth" was to live like nomadic pre-industrial indigenous Native-Americans. Maybury's nostalgia points toward the latter alternative!] and now I think the evidence shows that what I call the American Retracement has arrived. The federal government's empire is crumbling, and American civilization will revive.
But, if I am right about all this, the transition will take years, and it will be hard. I will do my best to help get you through the trials and tribulations as comfortably and profitably [HERE, AT LAST, IS RICHARD J. MAYBURY'S TRUE QUEST!] as possible.
As Thomas Paine wrote in 1776, "These are the times that try men's souls." [Frankly, Maybury's use of this overused quotation by Thomas Paine is another signal -- like Maybury's earlier malapropism "New Deal democrat" -- that the man is an amateur, i.e. "hack," passing as an academic expert.] We will eventually regain the road that leads to peace, liberty, and safety, but not easily. The more people who are familiar with the principles of the American founders, the faster and easier the job will be.
If you think I may be right about the fall of the empire [It doesn't take a rocket scientist to sense American decline -- but NOT because we failed to follow Jefferson's 16 Principles, conceived for an 18th-century agrarian, pre-industrial republic!] and the American Retracement, I hope you will help spread the word.
Regards,
Richard Maybury [and his devoted critic, History Boy EQ]
