Monthly Archives: June 2017

THE EVOLUTION OF DEBT SLAVERY IN MODERN TIMES  – Part 2 Part 1 briefly explained the origins of modern day debt slavery in the United States. Middle class wealth was a phenomena of Twentieth Century America. It resulted from those  people who performed labor and services being paid a fair split of the profits generated by a manufacturing and services economy. At some point the wealthy elites (including those which financed governments) focused on the American middle class as a source of revenue and a means by which to gain more power. Indeed, the wealthy elites and those who represented them in government devised a plan to rob America’s middle class of its wealth in exchange for loans which would be necessary to maintain that class’ lifestyle until its demise was certain to occur. Government reduced the value of the labor performed by the middle class by exporting jobs overseas to impoverished peoples, who would accept much less than the trade unions had negotiated as being necessary for workers to live fairly in their local communities. At the same time, the elite’s money lenders ameliorated the effect of the loss of worker’s wealth by making cheap loans available to them for a couple of decades. This was a small price to pay for these hard money lenders conversion of America’s manufacturing and servicing economy into a debt based economy, that ultimately benefited from the destruction of the independence of America’s middle class by foreclosing on their assets. Recently, as I noted in Part … Continue Reading

I remember seeing my great uncle Edward C. Stafne for the last time at a party given by my cousin Anne Louise Hawkes in Redmond, Washington. I was in my late twenties. Uncle Edward was in his seventies. I had seen Uncle Ed on and off growing up when Mom, Dad, my brother Todd, and I would take road trips from Bettendorf, Iowa to visit my parents’ parents (Todd and my grandparents) in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Uncle Ed and his wife, and their son Eric Stafne lived in Rochester, Minnesota which was on the way to Minneapolis. Edward Stafne worked at the Mayo Clinic as an oral surgeon. Family lore and a newspaper article I once read stated that Uncle Ed gave a memorial address for each of the Mayo brothers at their funerals. Ed was the oral surgeon who in 1942 discovered a mandibular defect (indentation in the jaw) which now bears our family name, i.e. “the Stafne Defect.” (Click the translate key if your don’t know French or just google “Stafne Defect”.) Like most twenty-somethings I did not know my great uncle Ed very well when we talked at Anne’s party in the late seventies. But I did know who he was, because pretty much everyone knew who he was because he had lived a very distinguished life. That day I asked my uncle how he was doing. I remember him telling me that his memory was failing him and that this was very distressing because throughout his life … Continue Reading

Our constitution envisioned that fights between our branches of government would promote the liberty of the people as well as good government. This is why it is too some extent surprising the Democrats are treating the legitimate issues the executive branch has raised about the Ninth Circuit exceeding its powers as a basis for a dump on Trump (whose specific policies I nether support or oppose for the purpose of this article.) The deeper issue is whether we should put out faith in the judicial branch, especially the Ninth Circuit, to achieve the correct result in this case given that court’s clear break form those norms imposed by the Constitution on the exercise of judicial power. The question to me is whether as a country to continue to give the judicial department an upper hand is making these decisions when recent history poses the issue of whether they have subverted the nature of judicial power into a corrupt oligarchy. So who do I support in 2017: The Executive Branch or the Judicial Branch??? without doubt the Executive Branch because at this point I believe we have less to fear from Trump than from an entrenched judicial system composed of judicial fiefdoms overseen by judges who too often appear to assume they have God-like powers.  Now I know some view the cat-fight between President Trump and the Ninth Circuit regarding the validity of his executive orders as a chance to “dump on Trump”. But the important constitutional issues involved in this legal battle … Continue Reading

Federal courts should do some soul searching. Some seem to think the purpose of government is to regulate our families, take our property, and make elites richer by giving them our money… They are wrong. Our founders asked “what is the purpose of government?” James Madison, a delegate to the Constitutional Convention and future president answered in Federalist Paper No. 51: Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit. It is important to understand that achieving justice is the objective of both the federal and state governments in the compound republic of the United States. We too often presume dispensing justice is the job of only federal and and states judicial departments, rather than our government as a whole. This is a big mistake. It is the legislature which has the primary governmental role in promoting justice because it is responsible for enacting laws and overseeing the other two branches of government to achieve the end of justice for all. Indeed, the legislature is the only branch of government which is directly responsible to the people. The President is elected by the electoral college. And judges are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate (which originally was not elected by the people.) The history of the Civil War and ensuing amendments to the Constitution thereafter confirm the judicial branch never has had much interest in … Continue Reading