The problem here in the United States is in educating those involved in the “Common Law” Grand Jury movement to understand that the Fifth Amendment, the authority establishing the Grand Jury, does not imply or establish that the Grand Jury established thereunder, is to be a Common Law entity as is characterized by the current Common Law Grand Jury movement, which proclaims it would have authority to totally displace the Legislatures and Civil Court System.
The Seventh Amendment reference to the common law are specifically designated therein to apply to civil suits. There is no mention therein or suggestion that the application of common law mentioned therein was to be applicable to criminal prosecutions. Additionally, the Seventh Amendment does not in any way suggest that the Grand Jury would displace the Civil Courts as the Trier of such issues, as is proclaimed by the advocates of the current Common Law Grand Jury leaders and or spokespersons.
The difficulty here is in the Common Law itself, and what it is that actually constitutes the Common Law. As the Common Law is unwritten, and has always been subject to interpretation and application on a case by case basis, it is impossible to come to a specific determination as to what it is or is not. The purported purpose of the Common Law is to insure that justice is accorded to all concerned in a given instance, with due consideration to previous determinations, but not strictly required to adhere to them, but even this is in dispute.
After the Constitution was written and presented to the Thirteen States, it was agreed to be ratified on the condition that certain protective amendments would be considered and adopted, and made a part of the Constitution.
In order to facilitate this, the Several States independently of each other, created a total of approximately fifty amendments. Due to the difficulty in communication at that time, there were many duplications from the various states, and the fifty proposed were presented to the Framers of the Constitution who condensed the fifty down to ten, with two additional amendments proposed by the Framers, both of which were rejected by the legislatures of the Thirteen States.
In my research I was able to determine that there was only one state that requested an amendment creating a grand jury, and that state did not mention that the grand jury it requested operate under Common Law.
When a society operates totally under common law no statutory laws are permitted. All determinations of wrong doing are determined on a case by case basis by the Common Law Grand Jury, and if the CL Grand Jury determines a wrong has been committed, a petit jury is assembled and a trial held.
The Government of the United States was not created to operate strictly as a Common Law entity or society. This could not be more clear as the original Constitution was explicitly designed to have a Legislative and Judicial Branch.
What is important to understand here, is that the present Grand Jury movement here in the United States, in characterizing itself as being a “Common Law” Grand Jury, with unlimited power to supplant the current civil court system and legislature. If it were to be accepted by the civil judicial system presently in control of our judicial system, the assertions of the Common Law Grand Jury advocates, if implemented, would eradicate and eliminate the current civil justice system and the legislatures. This would totally destroy the Constitution, and would be blatantly unconstitutional.
Now, whether that would be good or bad must be set aside because there is no possibility that the current Civil Court system is going to approve the constituting of a Citizens Grand Jury that is to operate under Common Law as envisioned by the current CLGJ advocates.
There is no Constitutional provision for a Common Law Grand Jury. The Fifth Amendment does not assign the Grand Jury established thereunder authority to invoke an unbridled version of the Common Law in its operation. The civil justice system in the United States was based and developed on the concepts of the Common Law, but with statutorily established clarifications. The purpose of the Common Law petit jury is to oversee the application of these legislative enactments to insure that justice is the prime consideration rather than the enforcement of the letter of the “law”.
In recognition of the foregoing, the Supreme Court has acknowledged and recognized that the Grand Jury created under the Fifth Amendment is autonomous, not under the direct control of the Three Branches of government created under the body of the Constitution, acknowledging that the Grand Jury is a Fourth Branch, for the purpose of overseeing the other three, by the People, but, a fair interpretation of the Constitution as a whole, together with the Fifth Amendment, indicates there was no indication of intention by any of the states, in ratifying the Fifth Amendment, that they intended that the Grand Jury created thereunder would have power to eliminate any of the other branches of the Federal Government created under the Constitution.
The People’s Grand Jury would most definitely have authority to investigate and indict any government official who was acting in a criminal manner, but the People’s Grand Jury would not have authority to eliminate or assume the duties of the Judicial Branch established under the Constitution or to eradicate the Legislature.
The suits at common law mentioned in the Seventh Amendment are civil suits, intended to be tried under courts established under the Judicial Branch, not elsewhere.
The wording of the Seventh Amendment does not suggest or indicate an additional manner of suit is being created, what the wording does establish, and the purpose and the intent of that amendment is to guarantee a trial by jury in civil suits where the value in controversy is in excess of twenty dollars. And it further establishes that if a matter were to be re-examined, the civil court conducting the re-examination must follow the rules of the common law.
There is nothing in the Seventh Amendment that indicates relevance to the Grand Jury established in the Fifth Amendment. The Fifth Amendment is relevant to criminal issues, the Seventh to civil.
That is, if those concerned about how our government has gotten out of control, realistically want the People’s Grand Jury to be re-activated, they would be well advised to drop their assertions of Common Law authority.
We are all concerned about how citizen defendants are being treated in various courts, however the guilt or responsibility is not entirely on the judges or the courts, or even on the legislatures.
Many of you reading this are not going to be happy with my assessment; however, if we are ever to establish Freedom in our country, we must recognize that Freedom was not established here under the Constitution due to several reasons then prevalent.
First, no one then present had ever experienced true Freedom, or if they did, they did not put 2-and-2 together to realize it. What I am in reference to here is the fact that the only people who were actually free back then were the “Pioneers” who moved west in covered wagons. As soon as they had traveled far enough to be outside the reach of the government they had left behind, they were then politically free, but they had no reason to consider that fact as to them it was then irrelevant.
And, on that same note, as soon as there were enough of them in the same outlaying area, they established a local government, with a constable or sheriff, and then moved right along to creating a state government. There was never, to my knowledge, any thought or consideration that they were not at all times under the political jurisdiction of the government they had left behind.
Is there any evidence that the people back then considered themselves to be politically sovereign or outside the authority of any government? I am certainly not suggesting that those people were not politically sovereign, because they certainly were, however I am not aware of any evidence that they realized such to be the case. This could very well be because the governments back then did not purport to have the authority to micro-manage the lives of the people back then as at present.
The point here is, how could a society where there is no formal government, because those present had revolted against and expunged the government they had submitted themselves to for uncountable generations, establish a political government which would recognize Freedom when none of the creating participants had ever knowingly experienced Freedom, and had always expected there would be some manner of political authority over them.
Why else would the “former” commoners feel it was necessary to have formal protection from the government they were themselves creating, by demanding a Bill of Rights be added to the Constitution?
Those persons then present had been indoctrinated for centuries to believe that commoners were not intellectually qualified to participate reasonably in government, and to believe that those of the Aristocrat class were Naturally born with such intellectual qualifications. It is important to understand that this belief was then universally held by both commoners and aristocrats.
When the foregoing is acknowledged can we then be surprised that when the Aristocratic Founding Fathers create THEIR CONstitution, that they were going to write it as best they could, to insure that the intellectually incompetent commoners were not going to be in a position to cause the entire society to fail? So the Founders designed it as a republic, without openly acknowledging that fact anywhere in the Constitution in regard to the Federal Government, but they did so surreptitiously, by creating a ruling class in the Preamble and a subject class is Section Two of Article One.
When one considers the manner of societal organization in England back then, is it not observable that the purpose of the commoner class was to serve the Aristocrat class?
The reason designating oneself as “of the people” is not sufficient as a declaration of a person’s sovereignty is because there are more that one political class that could be included in that undefined term. Generally, the word “people” does not establish a reference to the Sovereign class, it merely refers to humans. Additionally, the vast majority of Americans have relinquished their Naturally imbued political independence, sovereignty, when they presented a birth certificate engraved with a state owned name, to be issued a driver license, whereupon the person unknowingly, as the first order of business of that ceremony, applied for a franchise to use that state owned name as the person’s “true legal name”, and thereby entered himself into a subservient contractual relationship to the state. The fact that this was unintentional does not negate the subservient relationship until and unless the person knowingly rejects it — and stops using that government owned name. I don’t mean the person needs to stop using the same alphabet letters to write his or her name, just stop claiming the name you are using came from a birth certificate! Please understand, you get to decide where your name came from, no one else has standing to do that for you!
There are several factors involved in the creation of a sovereign political society (country). Of utmost importance is the need to establish a military force capable of defending it from outside invaders. This is very expensive and must be paid for. The traditional means by which this has been accomplished has been through various means of taxation. The fact that this has been greatly abused by all levels of our government is just as much the fault of the common people as it is of the bureaucratic politicians.
It seems to be Natural for humans to want to get whatever they can without paying for it or expending any of their own energy. Most people deny this but the proof is in the pudding. Everyone is in agreement that we want lower taxes and less government, meaning lower my taxes and get the government out of my life but do not reduce the freebees I get from government, just reduce the freebees of everyone else.
It seems there is universal agreement that because the Federal Reserve has caused all our monetary problems that it should be eliminated and the paper money replaced with CONstitutional gold or silver. How can it be that all those who are so down on the Fed do not realize that the Fed is totally under the control of CONgress? “Everyone” seems to back Ron Paul’s demand that the Fed be audited. Do none of those backing Ron Paul do any research of their own? For if they did they would discover that the Fed has been audited every year since it has been in existence, with all of its profits credited to the Treasury of the United States.
The problem is not with the Fed nor with CONgress, well, yes the fiscal mess we are in has been caused by CONgress, but CONgress has done no more than would be expected; when you give the keys of your chicken house to the fox, do not be surprised if the fox eats your chickens.
If you really want to place the blame of our financial mess where it belongs, go read the CONstitution, where you will find in Section Eight of Article One, written by the wonderful deified Founding Fathers, authorization for the CONgress of the United States to borrow as much money as it can from where ever it can get it. How best to facilitate that authority than for CONgress to create its own lending source?
Does this not indicate the blame for our financial mess should properly be assigned to the Founding Fathers? Well, many will say (because they can’t stand blaming the Founding Fathers), CONgress should have known better, because what CONgress did was not intended by the Founders. Well, if that was true then how could those Founders, recognized as being among the most intelligent and highly educated men to have ever lived, be so totally stupid as to hang the key to the chicken house right there next to the lock on the chicken house door?
Is it actually possible that it is impossible for humans to learn from the errors of the past? Because that certainly seems to be the case. Everyone who hates the Fed and paper money wants to return to Constitutional gold and silver. They claim that CONgress had no proper authority to give its authority to issue money to the Fed. Which CONgress did not do, because, as I mentioned herein above, CONgress owns the Fed, lock, stock and barrel, and next, there is no Constitutional authority assigned to CONgress to issue money and CONgress has never ever issued any gold or silver money. CONgress has borrowed jillions and jillions of paper dollars, from itself, and spent or given it away all over the planet, but it has never ever issued gold or silver.
The one and only reason why CONgress did not do so was because it was physically impossible because CONgress had no source of such gold or silver, or it would have done so.
All the gold and silver that was created by the Government mints was created from gold and silver ore that was owned by private entities. After the mint purified the metals and made the coins, the coins were returned to the private entities that brought the raw ore to the mint. At no time did the government become the owner of the raw ore or the coins made therefrom. All the gold and silver coins that entered into circulation were spent into circulation by the private owners of those metal coins.
There is no Constitutional provision authorizing CONgress to acquire gold or silver for the purpose of issuing it into circulation, or to accumulate it in a huge pile in Fort Knox or anywhere else.
If you get right down to the bottom line there is nothing more stupid than using gold and silver as money!
Did I loose you there? Do you believe gold and silver is truly the best medium to be used as money?
Think of this: If one man were to spend his summer growing food and laying it up for the winter, for his wife and children; and another man were to spend his summer digging for gold, and accumulated a large quantity, what would his family eat during the winter? And, why would the man with the food want to sell any of his food to the man in exchange for worthless gold? Oh, you don’t agree that gold is worthless? Then why do people spend any time growing food? Why not spend all time digging for gold? After, all, who needs food? Clothing? Or shelter?
Oh, you can buy food with gold?
It is a good idea to understand what humans need and want, food, clothing, shelter, recreation. All of these are made available through the expenditure of human effort, either physical or intellectual. None of these include any manner of money. No one actually wants money, what they actually want is what they can get for their money.
So what is money? Basically, we don’t really need money, because what we actually need or want is not money, it is food, clothing, shelter and recreation. In theory, we could engage in bartering to get what we need or want that we do not provide for ourselves. Trading our excess for the excess of others, trading what we have that they want for what they have that we want. The problem, however, is finding someone that has what we want who wants what we have. Bartering will always work to some limited extent but how do millions of people who live in cities trade what they have for what they need? It is not only impossible, it is ridiculous to even suggest!
There is only one basic purpose of money, and that is to facilitate bartering. Common sense will reason that the purpose of money is to facilitate bartering. That being true, then the most sensible medium to use as money would be the least expensive.
In examining the foregoing, what is it that establishes the expense (or cost) of anything and everything? The expense is the accumulation of the value of the human effort expended. When you purchase a piece of lumber, you do not pay for the wood. Nature provided the wood at no charge. What you pay for is the cutting of the tree, the hauling to the mill, the cutting into lumber, the transport to the retail outlet, and all of the incidental expenses along the way — everyone of which are due to the additional expenditures of human effort.
The point is, the value or cost of the money medium should be kept at the minimum. Gold and silver are certainly NOT on that list! At the top of that list would be paper!
So why has paper not worked well as money? In truth, paper has worked very well. The problems we have are not caused by paper, our problems are caused by dishonest humans!
Once again, is it actually possible that it is impossible for humans to learn from the errors of the past?
Every time gold or silver has been used as money the system has soon been corrupted by humans. Likewise, every time the monetary system of a society has been under the control of one entity it has soon been corrupted. It has made no difference if the medium was paper or metal.
Every time the monetary system has been under the control of the same entity that is in control of the spending of the money, the system bas been corrupted. There is not even one historical exception to this fact.
When are we going to stop being stupid by repeating the errors of the past and design a monetary system that would be as protected from corruption as possible with humans still involved.
It is critically important to understand that the advent of electricity has had a profound effect on what would work best as a money medium, particularly the refrigeration of food, which has resulted in millions and millions of families living in suburbia USA, where it is impossible for them to grow their own food, or homestead the property they live on and in.
And design a system where taxation would be totally eliminated as the means of funding government.
It is important that this new system not be any more disruptive to the existing economy than necessary. That is, everyone in this country is familiar with Federal Reserve Notes (FRNs); everything is already priced out and evaluated in them, including everyone’s pay, food costs, utilities and etc. When the cost of something goes up or down the free market automatically adjusts. If the new system can be implemented with most people not even realizing a change has been implemented, that would be outstanding.
I contend that I have designed such a system.
If we properly evaluate the Federal Reserve to determine its flaws, the reasons for the diminishing value of our money, we will determine there are two basic flaws. The first, and worst, is the Constitutional provision assigning CONgress the power to borrow an unlimited quantity of money from wherever it can create a lender, meaning its own self.
As CONgress already owns the Fed, we simply re-assign the ownership to the People of the United States, NOT CONgress or the Federal Government! We assign oversight of The People’s Central Bank to the Legislatures of the Fifty States. The fact that these Fifty States are Sovereign Countries totally Politically Independent from each other, establishes a Natural jealousy between them that will best insure that they each keep a diligent watch on the others to prevent any corruption, which will be virtually impossible because in addition to prohibiting CONgress from borrowing money, we will likewise prohibit every level of government in all of the states from borrowing money from any source for any reason.
The People’s Central Bank will be allowed to extend loans only to private sector borrowers; mortgages, business loans and credit card loans. All interest collected will be distributed to the treasuries of the four levels of government, cities, counties, states and federal, with no level of government imbued with authority to determine how much money it needs or where such money shall come from. All taxation at every level of government shall be eliminated. That is, there shall be no manner of taxation anywhere in the United States. (Except on all the beer that my wife keeps buying).
The level of interest charged on loans shall be determined primarily by the free market, and approved by the population of the cities and counties, not by any level of government.
The distribution of interest to fund each level of government will be determined, for cities and counties, by the population of those entities. The amount to be accorded to the state government shall be determined by the county governments. The amount to be accorded to the Federal Government shall be determined by the state legislatures.
For those who believe that interest is usury, usury is where the interest collected by the lender is taken out of circulation causing a shrinkage of the circulating money supply, resulting in profit taking foreclosures. Under the Fed system, the only way local banks can take a profit is through foreclosures. Interest does not constitute a profit to lending banks under the Fed because those banks cannot collect more than they lend out. In order for them to take a profit through interest they would have to collect more than they lend out, which is totally impossible when they take the interest collected out of circulation, as is their common practice.
Interest is the reasonable profit on the lending of money. Interest is no more inappropriate than the profit a baker of bread adds to his cost of making the bread. The difference is that the amount of profit on a loan is immediately observable, while the profit on a loaf of bread is not.
Under this system, all interest collected on loans to private sector borrowers will be distributed to the four levels of government and they will spend the interest right back into circulation, thereby eliminating the shrinkage of the circulating supply occurring under the Federal Reserve.
We amend the CONstitution to eliminate this power, and add a clause establishing that the federal Government shall never ever have authority to borrow money from any source for any purpose, no matter the emergency that may be concocted by CONgress or the President.
I am Eric Williams, The Radical In The Twilight Zone
