That’s when the first overt attempt at establishing the framework of a One World Government will occur.

The U.N. Climate Change Conference is currently drafting a treaty that, if signed by President Barack Obama and ratified by the U.S. senate, would place the U.S. under an unelected, undemocratic world body that could impose taxes and place limits on industry, transportation, mining and energy production in order to limit carbon emissions.

Global warming zealots from around the world are scheduled to gather in Copenhagen, Denmark to try and suck billions of dollars from the U.S. economy and the economies of other industrialized nations and spread that money around to developing countries, all in the name of saving the planet.

As The Washington Times editorialized on Oct. 27:

“The treaty’s text is not yet finalized but its principles are aimed at regulating all economic activity in the name of climate security, with a side effect that billions of dollars would be transferred from productive countries to the unproductive.
“The control lever is the regulation of carbon emissions, which some purport are causing global warming. The treaty would establish a carbon market Regulatory Agency and “global carbon budget for each country.
“In effect, this would allow the treaty’s governing bodies to limit manufacturing, transportation, travel, agriculture, mining, energy production and anything else that emits carbon—like breathing.”

One of the few people sounding the alarm on this sinister conference is climate expert and foe of global warming alarmist Al Gore, Lord Christopher Monckton, former science advisor to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

“I read that treaty,” Monckton told the Minnesota Free Market Institute as posted on wattsupwiththat.com, “And what it says is this, that a world government is going to be created. The word ‘government’ actually appears as the first of three purposes of the new entity. The second purpose is the transfer of wealth from the other countries of the West to third world countries, in satisfaction of what is called, coyly, ‘climate debt,’ because we’ve been burning CO2 and they haven’t. We’ve been screwing up the climate and they haven’t. And the third purpose of this new entity, this government, is enforcement.”

The most recently-released copy of the treaty can be found here. Section 38 mentions government and outlines how it will be framed and financed.

The treaty is still a work in progress even though the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change had planned to have it finalized before the opening of the conference.

Obama first said he wouldn’t attend the conference unless the treaty is finalized. But he began backtracking on that statement last week, saying if his presence could push the deal through he would attend.

Hoping to spur a deal, California Senator Barbara Boxer in early November decided to pass a climate change bill out of committee without Republican support.

Without a clear indication from legislation of how much the U.S. is willing to contribute, the treaty probably won’t be finalized in time. Some other industrialized nations are also balking at the cost and regulations in the treaty, prompting U.N. climate Chief Yvo de Boer to say he didn’t think a legally binding agreement could be passed during the upcoming conference, but he thought one could be reached within a year.

Notice his use of the term, “legally binding.” That’s what they’re after, because once the treaty is signed by the president and ratified by the senate, any hope of America extricating itself from the agreement is gone.

“You can’t resign from the treaty unless you get agreement from all the other state parties,” Monckton said. “And because you’ll be the biggest paying country, they’re not going to let you out of it.”

And don’t think Obama won’t sign an agreement if it can be finalized. He’s signified he’s all in on the global warming boondoggle. And the Democrats only need to persuade six Republicans to join them to ratify the treaty.

Arizona Senator John McCain, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham (who began working Nov. 5 to help draft compromise Cap and Trade legislation) and Maine Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins are likely defectors.

Signing such a treaty and ratifying it into law would be an unconstitutional ceding of U.S. sovereignty to another entity. But what’s one more unconstitutional act in Washington?

While high profile issues like passage of a healthcare reform bill and cap and trade energy tax are getting front page headlines and top billing by television talking heads, be very wary of stealth legislation slowly working its way through Congress to restrict gun ownership.

Passage of either of two bills, HR 45 (also known as Blair-Holt Firearm Licensing and Record Sale Act of 2009) and S 1317, would be a devastating blow to Second Amendment rights.

HR 45, introduced by Rep. Bobby Rush, would make it illegal to own a gun unless you are fingerprinted and can provide a driver’s license and Social Security number.

Additionally under HR 45, a person buying a gun would have to undergo both a physical and mental evaluation before making a firearm purchase. It also would require guns be secured from access by children under age 18, and would empower law enforcement officers to come into your home to check compliance.

S 1317, introduced by Sen. Frank Lautenburg, would give the attorney general the right to block gun sales to people on terror watch lists. A third bill, HR 2647, contains a companion clause to S 1317 that gives the attorney general the authority to determine who belongs on terrorist watch lists.

And who are the terrorists? In Obamaworld it’s not the Islamo-fascists flying airliners into buildings, planting improvised explosive devices (IEDs) or strapping bombs to their waists and setting them off in crowded areas.

No, because in Obamaworld, the word terrorism no longer applies to those who were once called terrorists. And those who used to be considered terrorists no longer commit acts of terrorism. No they commit man-caused disasters. The word terrorist, at least in its past usage, has been dropped from the lexicon.

Today’s terrorists, according to those now in power in the United States, are people in flyover country who believe the Constitution is sacrosanct, and that the Second Amendment actually means that people are free to own guns without restriction.

Our own country’s Department of Homeland Security issued an assessment earlier this year warning law enforcement of a possible rise in home-grown terrorism from “right wing extremists.” And who are those rightwing extremists? The assessment tell us: “Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.”

As we’ve reported before in related stories here and here the current administration is no friend to gun owners.

And what does Eric Holder—attorney general for the United States and the person who would under S 1317 be granted the authority to determine who belongs on terrorist watch groups—think about guns?

Following are few of his quotes that have appeared in various newspapers over the last few years:

• “As President Obama indicated during the campaign, there are just a few gun-related changes that we would like to make, and among them would be to reinstitute the ban on the sale of assault weapons.”

• “The second amendment does not protect firearms possession or use that is unrelated to participation in a well-regulated militia.”

• “To further strengthen the ability of law enforcement officials to track those suspected of terrorism or other criminal acts in this country, Congress should also pass legislation that would give the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms a record of every firearm sale.”

Holder’s boss, the president, is equally unfriendly to gun owners. Writing for Gun Digest last October, gun lobbyist Richard A. Pearson called Obama an enemy of the law abiding firearm owner. You can read his article here.

Some of Obama’s own quotes, as they have appeared in various publications, will back this up:

• “I am consistently on record and will continue to be on record as opposing concealed carry.”

• “I am not in favor of concealed weapons. I think that creates a potential atmosphere where more innocent people could (get shot during) altercations.”

• “The package (legislation passed in the Illinois Senate) closes the Firearm Owners Identification (FOID) card loopholes which resulted in the shooting out in Melrose Park. We’re eliminating 17 specific assault weapons. There is no reason why anybody should need an assault weapon to protect themselves or their family. We’re limiting handgun sales to one a month. We’re calling for handgun registration. It’s very hard right now to track whether or not a felon has turned in his weapons or if he has a FOID card because we don’t know how many weapons he has purchased.”

Without a doubt, the current administration is the most anti-gun administration in our nation’s history. Don’t let the hullabaloo over healthcare and cap and trade cause you to let your guard down.

And be sure you cling to your guns and religion. They may soon be all you have.

Do you remember when you learned airliners had been used as weapons of mass destruction against America?

Sure you do. That memory is etched into your brain as permanently as if it had been carved into granite, just like other history-changing events: the assassination of JFK, the first moon landing, the Challenger explosion, the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan. It’s tattooed there, with permanent ink.

And so is the feeling you had in the pit of your stomach. Anguish over thousands of lost souls—fellow Americans, mostly, but it didn’t matter where they were from. You knew they were gone… you didn’t know how many but you knew it must be thousands… and you were frightened because you didn’t know if more attacks were coming or when or where they would be.

There was anger, too. Anger that enough evil existed in the world to do such a thing. More anger that some were applauding it, as spontaneous celebrations broke out throughout the Middle East.

There was a resolve that began to form as well. A resolve to do whatever you could to help those affected. It took many forms, like donating blood or sending money to support rescue organizations like the American Red Cross.

There was also the beginning of a resolve to make sure those responsible were punished. That resolve was strengthened by the words of President George W. Bush when he stood in the rubble with his arm around a firefighter and spoke into that megaphone, “I can hear you, the rest of the world hears you. And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.”

And they did. Less than a month later, on Oct. 7, bombs began falling on Afghanistan.

A lot has transpired since then, not all of it good.

There’s the American Patriot Act, passed hurriedly under the guise of helping to find terrorists but now being used more and more on Americans. There’s the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a branch of the Treasury Department, it is the government’s enormous financial data collection arm. It pulls in personal and information from the IRS, FBI, DEA and Secret Service, as well as customs and the postal inspection agency.

According to some experts, FinCEN taps into the National Security Council and the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research. FinCEN even gets information from the likes of your friendly banker.

There are Suspicious Activity Reports (SAR) on anyone who engages in any “suspicious transaction relevant to a possible violation of law or regulation.” This includes such things as large money transfers or other activity deemed suspicious by a banker. The information is sent to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), among other places.

There has been the suspension of Habeas Corpus for American citizens. Remember Jose Padilla? He’s the accused “dirty bomb” suspect arrested as he stepped off an airliner at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago in May 2002. He then spent three and half years in a military brig in South Carolina, plus two more in a federal prison before his trial in January 2008.

During his military confinement he was subjected to prolonged isolation and intensive interrogations in conditions a judge called harsh. Still, no evidence of a dirty bomb plot was ever uncovered and Padilla’s conviction was for conspiring to help Islamic jihadist fighters abroad.

There are more onerous regulations on travel and invasive searches of airline passengers. Metal detectors now must be passed through to get into government buildings.

Eight years later our troops are still in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban. Osama bin Laden has not been found—I think he’s been dead a long time—and al Qaeda are hiding in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan. The war there is getting deadlier for U.S. troops by the day.

Pakistan, which signed on as an ally, has seen its government change hands and Islamo-fascist terrorists are fighting a war there in an effort to get there hands on the country’s nuclear weapons.

American troops remain in Iraq as well, where we fight a proxy war with Iran.

But we’re no longer fighting a war on terror. It’s an overseas contingency operation, and what used to be called terrorist attacks are now man-caused disasters.

No, the terrorists are now those who oppose government overreach. As reported on The Heritage Foundation website, Obama’s campaign organization, Organizing for America, sent out notice to its grassroots supporters to use today, Sept. 11, to wage a phone campaign calling U.S. Senators to pass healthcare reform. The Obama website—since scrubbed—said, “All 50 states are coordinating this—as we fight back against our own Right-Wing Domestic Terrorists who are subverting the American Democratic Process…” A screenshot of the page and The Heritage Foundation’s story can be viewed here.

Meanwhile, terrorists captured on the battlefield where they were shooting at American and coalition soldiers and setting improvised explosive devices (IED) are going to be removed from the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and brought to the U.S., if the president and attorney general have their way.

They’re not going to be brought to the states just to stand trial. They’re going to be incarcerated here as well.

Not to worry, says Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, the worst of them will not be released on American soil. No, they’ll remain in prison where they can proselytize the American prison population and create real domestic terrorists.

As Americans awoke on that fateful morning eight years ago and began going about the business of their ordinary, workaday lives we were all blissfully ignorant of the catastrophe about to be hoisted upon America.

There were still big arguments over the Supreme Court ruling nine months earlier that cleared the way for a Bush presidency, and those on the left were concerned about the direction country would go politically. They were calling him fascist and Nazi.

Now it’s eight years later. A new president is being called Nazi, socialist and Marxist. And those on the right are worried about the direction the country is going politically.

It’s been eight years. The country is as divided now as it was at 8:45 a.m. that fateful day and the only thing that has progressed is the march against American privacy and freedom.

More than 35 states have passed or are considering state sovereignty amendments, according to the Tenth Amendment Center. Just before leaving office, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin signed a bill declaring that state’s sovereignty, joining Tennessee Gov. Phil Bresdesen in that regard.

States are finally becoming fed up with the increasingly dangerous non-Constitutional overreach of the Federal Government, and State Legislatures are working to stop it.

Unfortunately, many of today’s voting-age Americans have never even read the U.S. Constitution. Apparently, most civics classes in public schools today dwell on other things. So far too many people have no clue how far their government has overreached and taken away their liberty.

But here’s the truth: the Constitution gives the three branches of government certain enumerated powers. Those not enumerated are reserved to the states, and to the people.

The 10th Amendment describes it: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, or prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Yet despite that, since the Southern states were prohibited from removing themselves from an alliance that no longer worked in their favor—an alliance they entered into voluntarily—the U.S. government has grown increasingly more powerful. It could do so because the last remaining restraints on its power—the option that states had to leave the union—had been eliminated.

Here’s what has transpired since: During reconstruction the Republican Party centralized government, subsidized railroads, raised taxes on Southern property and businesses—then confiscated the property when taxes couldn’t be paid—and established an education system that taught a revisionist history of the run-up to and causes of the war (and the government-run education system continues this today). Congress also continued the first income tax—an unconstitutional act—that had been implemented by Pres. Abraham Lincoln.

In 1917 Congress established the Federal Reserve, a non-Constitutional entity with the power to control the U.S. money supply. In the 1930s, in response to The Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt pushed through New Deal provisions that further empowered the Federal Government while enriching certain constituencies. And now, in response to the global financial crisis, first President George W. Bush then President Barack Obama pushed through extra-constitutional spending bills. Obama then compounded the problems by nationalizing the financial and automobile markets; an action, again, that benefitted certain constituencies.

And now the Federal Government is proposing an even further overreach by attempting to enact legislation to cap carbon dioxide emissions and tax energy companies that exceed arbitrarily set limits of the element, and to restrict your access to adequate healthcare.

It seems from the mood of many in our country we may have reached a tipping point as a result of these latest actions. Radio talk shows are alive with voices proposing—demanding even—that America return to the Constitutional roots. Protests denouncing the growing government are increasing in frequency and support.

Unfortunately, many in America still don’t understand what all the hubbub is about. So, to help them understand, here are 10 talking points from the Tenth Amendment Center:

1. The People created the federal government to be their agent for certain enumerated purposes only. The Constitutional ratifying structure was created so it would be clear that it was the People, and not the States, that were doing the ratifying.
2. The Tenth Amendment defines the total scope of federal power as being that which has been delegated by the people to the Federal Government, and also that which is absolutely necessary to advancing those powers specifically enumerated in the Constitution of the United States. The rest is to be handled by the State Governments, or locally, by the people themselves.
3. The Constitution does not include a congressional power to override state laws. It does not give the judicial branch unlimited jurisdiction over all matters. It does not provide Congress with the power to legislate over everything. This is verified by the simple fact that attempts to make these principles part of the Constitution were soundly rejected by its signers.
4. If the Congress had been intended to carry out anything they claim would promote the “general welfare,” what would be the point of listing its specific powers in Article I, Section 8, since these would’ve already been covered?
5. James Madison, during the Constitutional ratification process, drafted the “Virginia Plan” to give Congress general legislative authority and to empower the national judiciary to hear any case that might cause friction among the states, to give the congress a veto over state laws, to empower the national government to use the military against the states, and to eliminate the states’ accustomed role in selecting members of Congress. Each one of these proposals was soundly defeated. In fact, Madison made many more attempts to authorize a national veto over state laws, and these were repeatedly defeated as well.
6. The Tenth Amendment was adopted after the Constitutional ratification process to emphasize the fact that the states remained individual and unique sovereignties; that they were empowered in areas that the Constitution did not delegate to the Federal Government. With this in mind, any Federal attempt to legislate beyond the Constitutional limits of Congress’ authority is a(n) usurpation of state sovereignty—and unconstitutional.
7. Tragically, the Tenth Amendment has become almost a nullity at this point in our history, but there are a great many reasons to bring it to the forefront. Most importantly, though, we must keep in mind that the Founders envisioned a loose confederation of states—not a one-size-fits-all solution for everything that could arise. Why? The simple answer lies in the fact that they had just escaped the tyranny of a king who thought he knew best how to govern everything—including local colonies from across an ocean.
8. Governments and political leaders are best held accountable to the will of the people when government is local. Second, the people of a state know what is best for them; they do not need bureaucrats, potentially thousands of miles away, governing their lives. Think about it. If Hitler had ruled just Berlin and Stalin had ruled just Moscow, the whole world might be a different place today.
9. A constitution which does not provide strict limits is just the thing any government would be thrilled to have, for, as Lord Acton once said, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
10. We agree with historian Kevin Gutzman, who has said that those who would give us a “living” Constitution are actually giving us a dead one, since such a thing is completely unable to protect us against the encroachments of government power.

If you want to first halt then reverse the tide of government overreach, pass these points around to your friends and send them to your state and U.S. representatives.

But Kahre isn’t just facing the IRS. His antagonists include the Federal Reserve and U.S. Justice Department. All three entities have ever-full money sacks, giving Kahre long odds of success indeed.

We mentioned Kahre July 7 in an article about the Justice Department’s attempts to gather information on people posting comments on the Las Vegas Review-Journal website about the case. So this case is about both freedom of speech in the U.S. as well as monetary policy. But since we dealt with the freedom of speech issue last time, we’ll deal with the monetary policy now.

Kahre, a contractor, is one of four people charged in a 57-count indictment of fraud and conspiracy. What he did was expose the Fed for the fraud it is. So now he’s fighting the three behemoths, the IRS, the Fed and U.S. Justice Department.

According to the government’s case, Kahre and others concocted a fraudulent cash payroll “scheme” and then peddled it to other Las Vegan contractors. What was Kahre’s “scheme?”

He paid his subcontractors in gold and silver coins. Then, using the face value stamped on the coins, determined their payments didn’t pass the threshold for reporting to the IRS.

Appearing on a screen in the courtroom during the government’s opening trial arguments were the words, “This is a case about money, greed and fraud.” Truer words couldn’t have been spoken, and the fact that a government lawyer was uttering them is truly ironic.

For the money, greed and fraud angle falls on the heads of the three dragons. The money Kahre used to pay his subcontractors is stamped by the money creators as legal tender, with dollar denominations stating their value. The fact that their face value represents amounts far less than their actual value is evidence of the fraud the government has perpetuated on its people.

Just as junk silver coins printed prior to 1965 are worth more for their metal content than their printed face values, the gold and silver in U.S. Mint legal tender coins are too. And the reason this has occurred lies with the non-constitutional entity called the Fed, which prints fiat money backed by nothing. This has devalued our nation’s currency.

In Kahre’s defense, lawyers argue that the workers agreed to be independent contractors so he did not have to withhold taxes for them. His six businesses are in the trades of painting, drywall, tiling, plumbing, heating, cooling and electrical work. It is not at all unusual to pay this type of employee as a subcontractor without withholding taxes and sending the IRS and subcontractor IRS Form 1099 at tax time if the payment threshold is met.

By claiming the payments on the face value of the coins, that threshold was never met. So the IRS got irritated because no taxes were owed.

In essence, Kahre manipulated the government’s own laws to his and his contractors’ advantage and the big government boys and girls at Justice and IRS, and the thugs at the Fed didn’t appreciate Kahre’s imagination.

So they came down on him and his friends hard. And to put another kicker on it, it’s Kahre’s second trial on essentially the same charges. The first, last fall, ended without a conviction, so Justice lawyers dropped a few defendants, added one, and reworked their charges. Not a true case of double jeopardy, as he wasn’t acquitted the first time. But the big government boys and girls are so unhappy with him they’re taking a second shot.

When hyperinflation hits, the economy collapses and gold and silver coins are used for payments and trade, how will we be taxed? The face value of the coin? The coin’s value in dollars? Will there even be a government left to tax us? These are questions we’ll be dealing with in a few years.

And one other thing: a curious aspect of this trial is the lack of interest shown it by the media. Nothing reported in the mainstream media, and not much even from local media—just the original story and another that ran July 5 without actually covering details of the trial.

Perhaps the media is afraid big government boys and girls will target them once they’re finished feeding on the little mouse appetizer.

I’ve been thinking about what Rousseau said because I have passed an anniversary of sorts. Thirty-years ago this past spring I was trying desperately to keep my grades up as a junior at the University of Calgary.

One afternoon the sun was beating into our classroom. It was a petroleum-economics class taught by a Frenchman, Dr. Mitra. But that day was unusual because the professor was agitated. This was most strange. The only agitation I had ever seen in that class came from the students who regularly received Cs and Ds from the white smocked, pipe carrying Dr. Mitra.

As the bell rang, Mitra exclaimed: “This thing in Iran… this Khomeini; it changes everything!”

I don’t remember what I thought of this. I was young and selfish, so I probably wondered if it would affect the final I was already cramming for. It turned out that Dr. Mitra was talking about a lot more than a final exam for one of his classes.

It was the late 1970s, the stock market was in crisis, there was a young inexperienced Democrat sitting in the Oval Office and, oh yes, a pop star that some called “The King”, had died prematurely—of a drug overdose in his home, they said.

Sound familiar?

Back to the Future
Years later I think Dr. Mitra was saying the revolution in Iran would permanently change the markets. That nothing in international oil would be as it was before; that the removal of the Shah and a new clerical regime with its Supreme Leader would transform the Middle East.

He was right.

In 1979 the Iranian Revolution sent oil prices soaring. The country’s oil production plummeted drastically to 2.5 million barrels a day. The 1980 Iraqi invasion worsened the situation. In fact, combined production of both countries fell to just 1 million barrels per day compared to 6.5 million barrels in 1978! This lowered the global production by 10 percent, and oil prices rocketed to $36 per barrel.

Today Iran is on the brink of another revolt. America is getting ready to pull out of Iraq, a move that could throw that country into chaos. With violence escalating in both nations—countries that produce 12 million barrels of oil per day, an amount almost equal to what America imports—the ordinances are set for another price explosion.

In fact, there is a growing potential for a new terror to boil-over in the Middle East… a nuclear kind of terror.

Just how close Iran is to having operational nuclear weapons is unclear. But one thing is certain; Israel is taking the threat seriously. Last month former Israeli defence minister Shaul Mofaz told Israeli radio that Iran is a ballistic power close to becoming a nuclear power.

“Iran has undoubtedly passed beyond the point of no return, moving closer to the ultimate nuclear capacity everyday," said Mofaz.

We are talking nuclear missiles in a region that holds two-thirds of the world’s conventional petroleum reserves. It’s enough to give American strategic planners nightmares. It also sets up the biggest potential for oil and gas profits ever. A scenario that I believe will push crude oil past $150 per barrel and natural gas above $8 per 1,000 cubic feet.

Then, on July 10th, Israel issued a direct warning to Iran. It spelled out the catastrophic consequences if it attacks the Jewish state with weapons of mass destruction.

In an interview published last Friday in the Hebrew daily Ha’aretz, Israel’s national security advisor Uzi Arad said Israel must have "tremendously powerful" weapons to deter or retaliate for a nuclear strike.

In other words, touch us and we will wipe you off the map.

To read more of Israel’s sword-first diplomacy, go to: http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-07-10-voa10.cfm.

In 2009 Iran’s Crisis is an Even Bigger Threat

My office sits 20 minutes from Calgary’s core and I try to get downtown as often as I can. Last week I was at the Canadian Unconventional Oil Forum held at one of the city’s fancier hotels. It’s not so much what you hear from the speakers as what you hear at the bar—coffee, juice or otherwise.

I ran into an old university buddy during a break. He heads up a mid-sized oil and gas company that has more than 100 million barrels of proven reserves.

“If there’s trouble with Iran, it’s going to be a real mess,” he said. “Look at Bush and that Iraqi thing. That was about oil. And if this thing in Iran gets out of hand, the U.S. will be in there too. They’ve got no choice.”

I asked him if I could quote him.

“Sure,” he said as he walked back towards the lecture theatre, “just don’t use my name.”

The fact is America’s fortunes are tied to Iran and the Middle East. Consider this:

• The United States accounts for less than 4 percent of the world’s oil production but consumes more than 30 percent of world oil supplies.
• The average oil well in the continental United States pumps less than 300 barrels per day. The average well in Iran produces 10,000 barrels per day.
• The last elephant oil field (more than a billion barrels) discovered in the United States was in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska in 1968.

In fact, 2009 marks a milestone for the United States. For the first time since World War II, we pumped less than 5 million barrels of oil per day. We pumped almost twice as much oil 30 years ago during the first Iranian crisis.

As Thomas Wolfe said, we can’t go home again

Meanwhile, Iran remains an oil kingpin. It is the de facto leader of OPEC, has the second largest conventional oil reserves in the world and is the world’s fourth largest producer of crude.

Yet in the end maybe Rousseau was wrong, at least in this instance. Things haven’t so much stayed the same, they have gotten worse. And that is bad news for America which lately has only shown talent for one thing—pumping money.

It is however good news for petroleum investors. The first Iranian revolution doubled the price of crude oil. Today, with America so much more dependent on the Middle East and with the stakes so high, the upcoming price spike could be huge, perhaps putting oil above $150 per barrel. Any way you look at it, that’s an A+ for energy investors.

Yours for real wealth,

—John Myers

As any student of history could have predicted, this trend toward a more socialistic system of government is having a number of unintended consequences. The most immediate of these, of course, has been the growing disdain for the U.S. dollar (and a corresponding growth in affection for gold) among the world’s investors and savers.

But more repercussions are now becoming evident. The recent selloff in U.S. Treasuries sent rates spiking higher and pushed the yield curve to its steepest slope in history.

The problem is that traders have had to sell Treasuries to hedge against rising rates in mortgages. But now that selling in Treasuries is rippling into the mortgage market. That is sending rates higher and endangering the fragile healing process in the nation’s housing market.

The Fed simply cannot allow this to happen. But again, there’s a problem: The Fed has been buying mortgages and Treasuries through their quantitative easing program to keep rates low. Now, they’re going to have to ramp up that program, to a very large degree, to keep rates at levels conducive to an economic recovery.

“You can’t have a spike in interest rates in the long end without it impacting the economy,” warned Brian Edmonds, head of interest rate trading at Cantor Fitzgerald. “That’s why the Fed has been a supporter of the quantitative easing. They have a choice. They could walk away from it or they could increase it to the point where it’s meaningful. The $300 billion is not effective….You’ve got to start to talk trillions.”

The end result, of course, will be double-digit inflation rates, a collapse in the dollar, and a correspondingly large increase in the value of gold. There will be other unintended consequences of this new, more socialistic America. The most frightening of these will be the significant erosion of our individual rights. We need to prepare for these events, not only as investors, but as American citizens.

 The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is fighting a Nevada U.S. Attorney who is seeking the names and personal information of anonymous posters responding to a Las Vegas Review-Journal newspaper story.

The story about a federal case against Nevada businessman Robert Kahre, drew some caustic—some have said possibly threatening—comments about U.S. Assistant District Attorney J. Gregory Damm and the jury hearing the case.

Kahre, a construction company executive, was charged with income tax evasion, fraud and criminal conspiracy for paying contractors with gold and silver U.S. coins based on their precious metal value but using the much lower face values on the coins for tax purposes.

Ironically, those coins are considered legal tender by the big government boys and girls, but they don’t like the coins being used that way. But that’s an article for another day.

The story ran May 26, 2009, and within days had more than 200 comments posted on the story. By June 2 the paper had the subpoena in hand requesting the information, according to press reports.

The U.S. Attorney initially sought the names of all who posted remarks about the article. But the paper resisted and the government backed down and singled out two it didn’t like. The newspaper was willing to relent on those two, but the ACLU filed court documents to stop it.

In the comments, one of the posters called the jury members “dummies” and said they should be “hung” if they convicted Kayre. The other wanted to bet the U.S. Attorney wouldn’t celebrate his next birthday.

There were others, too. In them Damm was called a fascist and other names. In response, Damm did what any self-respecting fascist would. He sought to intimidate, if not arrest, those who so labeled him.

Freedom of speech in America is supposed to mean people are free to express themselves regardless of who gets their feelings hurt. But of late the government boys and girls don’t seem to like that idea. Hence we get terms like hate speech and terrorism and threats lumped into one big category that makes one person’s speech unacceptable—meaning no longer free.

I wonder what the British government thought about Thomas Paine? Probably thought his Common Sense was hate speech. He wrote it anonymously and it helped to foment the ideas that led to a revolution. That should be a particularly poignant thought coming off the 233rd birthday of our Republic.

And I’m sure that if someone wanted to be offended some of the comments posted on Personal Liberty Digest could be considered offensive, what with names like right wing nut job and commie pinko—and some worse—being slung around willy-nilly.

But America is not Iran. Americans can still—today at least—lean on the First Amendment when they want to express themselves.

They can even hold Tea Party protests—although Tea Parties upset liberals and government boys and girls who like to use free speech to call the Tea Party participants ugly names and then turn around and claim hate speech when the names are turned back on them.

In San Diego, county officials have reneged on their demand that a preacher and his wife discontinue weekly Bible studies in their home until they obtain a Major Use Permit, a process that costs tens of thousands of dollars.

According to news reports out of San Diego, Pastor David Jones and his wife Mary were interrogated by a county official and then threatened with increasing fines if they continued holding their Tuesday night Bible studies. The studies regularly drew about 15 people.

Attorney Dean Broyles of The Western Center for Law and Policy told 10 News television the county official asked:

• Do you have a regular meeting in your home?
• Do you say amen?
• Do you pray?
• Do you say “Praise the Lord?”

They answered in the affirmative on all four questions. The official then told the couple they were in violation of county regulations. A few days later they received a written warning that listed “unlawful use of land” and told them to “stop religious assembly or apply for a major use permit,” according to Broyles.

Reports of the county’s actions drew howls of protest from liberty-minded groups and received a lot of attention in the blogosphere, as well they should. As a group, government bureaucrats lack any kind of common sense. That one would attempt to shut down a home Bible study demonstrates a lack of understanding or lack of education about our country’s founding and what led to the establishment of our nation’s Bill of Rights.

The hue and cry from freedom-loving Americans obviously worked. On May 29, County Chief Administrative Officer Walt Ekard issued a statement saying the Bible study could continue.

“I have received dozens of emails and calls from people concerned about reports that the county is attempting to muzzle religious expression by shutting down a neighborhood Bible study. As chief administrative officer for San Diego County, I want to say in the most direct terms: the county has never tried to stifle religious expression and never will,” Ekard said.

“More importantly, let me be clear: religious intolerance in any form is not, and never will be, allowed under any circumstance in San Diego County government,” he said.

As encouraging as it is that the county reversed itself, nothing in Ekard’s statement addresses the questions asked by a county official about what the Joneses were doing in their home.

It’s none of the county’s business what the Joneses were doing in their home, and the questions about whether they were saying amen, praying and praising the Lord should have been answered with a slammed door.

So, religious freedom in America has withstood, for now at least, another attack. But stay vigilant. The agents of tyranny are persistent.

On July 4, 1776, after months of heated debate, representatives of the Continental Congress voted unanimously that, “These United Colonies are and of right ought to be Free and Independent States.”

Thirteen colonies voted to become something new in history—the United States of America. Now, all they had to do was to win their independence from a government that would consider them traitors.

Fifty-six men bravely affixed their signatures to the Declaration of Independence. What sort of men were they? And what became of them?

Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists, 11 were merchants, nine were farmers or plantation owners. They were well-educated men of means. All of them had a great deal to lose when they voted to defy what was then the most powerful nation on earth. Yet they willingly risked everything when they pledged to each other “our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”

As I said, all of us can explain why we celebrate Independence Day on July 4th. But how many of us can name even a handful of the signers of the Declaration of Independence? What do we know, really, about the men who risked their lives, and everything they owned, in the cause of freedom?

Because the story of the signers is so inspiring, we’ve arranged a special treat for you today—a free copy of a wonderful little book called They Signed For Us.

Half a century ago two patriotic ladies in the Midwest wanted to help others learn more about the remarkable men who signed the Declaration. Merle Sinclair and Annabel Douglas McArthur wrote a delightful book about the events of that time, including a history of each of the signers. They called it, They Signed For Us.

At the end of today’s column you’ll find a link that will take you to a copy of the book. You may read it online or download it and print your own copy. The file also includes a list of all of the signers and the states they represented, plus the complete text of the Declaration of Independence.

To whet your appetite a bit, here’s an excerpt from They Signed For Us.

“SUDDENLY THE BIG BELL in the State House steeple pealed joyously. The appointed signal! Cheers rose from the waiting crowds.

“‘Proclaim liberty throughout the land….’

“Cannon boomed, drums rolled. Church bells rang, sounding the death knell of British domination!

“News of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence spread like wildfire. Ready messengers leaped into their saddles to ride and spread the word. The Declaration had been ordered printed on a single large sheet, ‘45.5 x 37.5 cm.,’ or approximately eighteen by fifteen inches. These broadsides were distributed with all possible speed, to be read in the provincial assemblies, pulpits, market places, and army camps.”

The story continues:

“On July 8, the Liberty Bell summoned citizens of Philadelphia to the State House yard for a public reading of the document. Colonel John Nixon mounted a high platform and spoke the noble lines in a strong, clear voice. The crowd, now hushed, listened intently throughout.

“‘…for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.’

It was almost a month later that the Declaration was engrossed on parchment and ready for signing by the delegates to the Continental Congress. Members gathered on August 2 for the ceremony.

The only person who had signed the Declaration on July 4 was John Hancock, a delegate from Boston who had been elected president of the Continental Congress. He wrote his signature in large, bold letters and as he did, in a reference to the near-sightedness of the British king, he declared, “There! John Bull can read my name without spectacles and may now double his reward of £500 for my head. That is my defiance.”

As the delegates gathered around a desk to sign the Declaration, William Emery, one of the representatives from Rhode Island, moved as close as he could. “I was determined to see how they all looked as they signed what might be their death warrants,” he later wrote. “I placed myself beside the secretary, Charles Thomson, and eyed each closely as he affixed his name to the document. Undaunted resolution was displayed on every countenance.”

Contrasting with Hancock’s confident signature was the shaky scratch of Stephen Hopkins from Rhode Island. Hopkins was the second-oldest signer and suffered from palsy. As he handed the quill to the next person, he valiantly proclaimed, “My hand trembles, but my heart does not!”

As one or two delegates hung back, seemingly reluctant to add their signatures to such a momentous declaration, John Hancock encouraged them. “We must be unanimous,” he said. “There must be no pulling different ways. We must all hang together.”

Legend has it that Benjamin Franklin replied, “Yes, we must all hang together. Or most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”

Happily, none of the signers was hanged by the British. But all of them were considered traitors to the Crown. And many of them suffered terribly for the cause they so ardently supported.

When New Jersey signer Richard Stockton returned to his home after signing the Declaration, he learned that British troops were coming to arrest him. He fled to a neighbor’s house with his wife and children. But a Loyalist, as supporters of the British cause were called, betrayed the family’s hiding place. Here is how Merle Sinclair and Annabel Douglas McArthur describe what happened to him:

“The judge was dragged from bed and beaten, then thrown into prison. This distinguished jurist, who had worn the handsome robes of a colonial court, now shivered in a common jail, abused and all but starved.

“A shocked Congress arranged for his parole. Invalided by the harsh treatment he had received, he returned to [his home at] Morven to find his furniture and clothing burned, his fine horses stolen, and his library—one of the finest private collections in the country—completely destroyed. The hiding place of exquisite family silver, hastily buried, had been betrayed by a servant.

“The Stockton’s were so destitute that they had to accept charity. For the judge’s fortune was gone, too. He had pledged it and his life to his country. He lost both. He did not live to see the Revolution won.”

John Morton, a delegate from Pennsylvania, was the first of the signers to die. His last words for his family, before his death in April 1777 (just eight months after he signed the Declaration), were, “…tell them that they will live to see the hour when they shall acknowledge it to have been the most glorious service I ever rendered to my country.”

The following month, Button Gwinnett, the commander in chief of Georgia’s militia, was badly wounded in a duel with a political opponent. He died a few days later—the second signer to die.

But by and large, the signers of the Declaration of Independence were a hardy bunch. Three of them lived until their 90s—a remarkable accomplishment in a time when most men did not see their 50th birthday.

Only two of the signers were bachelors. Sixteen of them married twice. Records indicate that at least two, and perhaps as many as six, were childless. But the other 50 signers were a prolific lot, having a total of 325 children between them! William Ellerey of Rhode Island had 17 children; Roger Sherman of Connecticut had 15.

Fifty years after the united colonies declared their independence from Britain, plans were made for jubilant celebrations on July 4, 1826. Only three of the original signers were still alive—Charles Carroll, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams. Here is how Sinclair and McArthur describe what occurred that day:

“In a dramatic climax that even their agile minds would not have contemplated, these two principals in the struggle for Independence left the nation awestricken and touched, by dying hours apart on the Fourth of July. Jefferson died at one o’clock in the afternoon, Adams toward evening.”

Ten days earlier, Jefferson had written the mayor of Washington, expressing his regret that ill health prevented him from coming to the nation’s new Capitol to join the festivities.

“I should, indeed, with peculiar delight, have met… with the small band, the remnant of that host of worthies, who joined with us on that day, in the bold and doubtful election we were to make for our country, between the submission or the sword.”

And he concluded by writing, “Let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollection of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.”

As part of that “undiminished devotion,” we are delighted to provide you with a copy of They Signed For Us. Please click here for it.

And please share this copy of Straight Talk with others you know, so they may enjoy it as well. Just forward this column with a short note, urging them to read about the incredibly brave patriots who won our freedom for us when They Signed For Us.

Until next time, keep some powder dry.

Chip Wood