The Gold Standard: Protector of Individual Liberty and Economic Prosperity
A Piece of Paper Alone Cannot Secure Liberty
The idea of a constitution and/or written legislation to secure individual rights so beloved by conservatives and among many libertarians has proven to be a myth. The US Constitution and all those that have been written and ratified in its wake throughout the world have done little to protect individual liberties or keep a check on State largesse.
Sound money vs. a piece of paper – which is the better guarantor of liberty? [PT]
Instead, in the American case, the Constitution created a powerful central government which eliminated much of the sovereignty and independence that the individual states possessed under the Articles of Confederation.
While the US Constitution contains a “Bill of Rights,” the interpreter of those rights and the protections thereof is the very entity which has enumerated them. It is only natural that decisions on whether, or if such rights have been violated will be in favor of the State.
Moreover, nearly every amendment which has come in the wake of the Bill of Rights, has augmented federal power at the expense of the individual states and that of property owners.
History has shown the steady erosion of individual rights and the creation of “new rights” and entitlements (education, health care, employment, etc.) which have occurred under constitutional rule. Instead of being a limitation on government power, constitutions have given cover for a vast expansion of taxation, regulation, debt, and money creation.
As Murray Rothbard notes in Anatomy of the State: “All Americans are familiar with the process by which the construction of limits in the Constitution has been inexorably broadened over the last century.
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