Let's End the Money Racket (Interlude)
Facing the Serpent
Last time we focused on two of the three important monetary dilemmas with which our nation was confronted at the time of our nation’s founding. Today I would like to pause in an effort to retain your continued attention. A solution is at hand, but in order for you to embrace it, you must be confident that it will work, and that no matter how distant or impossible it might appear it is well within our reach.
Unlike our politicians of today, who are often well-intended, but more reactive than reflective, and therefore easily manipulated by those who are better informed, on the one hand, and guided by long-term goals that we can only surmise, on the other hand, our politicians of yesteryear were, generally speaking, far more knowledgeable about the past and thus much better able to see into the future. In contrast, the current present is moving so fast that a large number of us have completely abandoned the past and surrendered the fate of our nation and the world as a whole to those whom we presume to be better informed and better able to plan our future for us. This abandonment is exacerbated by those who actively seek to make the past appear to be so repulsive that even our inclination to examine where we have been in order to understand better where we should and should not go in the future is diminished. Further, we, Americans, are especially vulnerable to this misguided trend for we have a marked reputation for being a pragmatic nation of relentless innovation and creativity.
Now, I get it. Few people want to talk about money unless it means strategizing about how to obtain more of it. This is because most of us are in debt, and many of us are living on the edge of bankruptcy. Only a fool would be very interested in the history of anything when the future is so dire and the present is a relentless series of crises amplified by the sounds of emergency vehicles whose loud, piercing sirens penetrate the din of every major city across America from a quarter mile away in either direction. What is more, when money becomes the relentless bugaboo that it has become for so many, even thinking about it becomes an unpleasant experience.
Truly, I am sympathetic with the many who are plagued with this dilemma and might too soon lose interest. And this, with November 5th rapidly approaching, it is not, as if even the most long-term oriented and caring among us were not already preoccupied.
In a recent interview between Jordan Peterson and Richard Dawkins, Jordan marveled at the parallel between Christ’s crucifixion and the bronze serpent created by Moses when the Israelis of ancient scripture were besieged by poisonous snakes. Richard Dawkins, on the other hand, found very little of value in either story, because he, like me, tends not to look to the Bible for worldly guidance in order to obtain entry into an imagined netherworld. Setting Dawkins’s and my reluctance aside may I bother you for a moment with Jordan’s observation.
In the Old Testament God’s command was that Moses forge a bronze serpent, post it on a cross, and have all his people regard it. Jordan interpreted the relevant biblical passage as God’s desire to have the people face their fears so that they might better learn to deal with them in the future. Another interpretation might be that God wanted Moses and his people never to forget what caused the snakes to appear, and that Moses and his people not repeat the same error again — and this, as a condition for God’s removing the threat of the snakes. Indeed, once the snakes disappeared, the bronze serpent would remain as a constant reminder.
8 And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.
9 And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.
Bible. Circa 6th century B.C. Numbers 21:4-9, King James Version
Note: The book of Numbers is the 4th book of the Pentateuch — the first five books of the Old Testament.
With the above in mind, had you asked me, when I first began my investigation into the history of real money at the height of the CoVID lock-down in the State of Washington, whether I would ever recite a passage from the Christian Bible, I would have answered, “unlikely”.
Today, the division between those who believe in the Bible and those who do not is so large that I am willing to do whatever it takes to obtain consensus among those who comprise the metaphysical divide. America is at great risk, if we cannot unite on something so profound as our nation’s founding.
Alas, no one can dispute that America was largely founded on the Christian faith and still be taken seriously. Accordingly, those of us who view God as the likely creation of humankind rather than the result of God’s creation, should not reject any and all interest in the Bible or the Christian faith. In like manner, the Christians among us must understand that a belief in their God, or any God for that matter, is not a prerequisite for the American philosophy of governance to continue long into the future. One can easily believe that the rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness are sacred to our founding and a pre-requisite for being American. Indeed, one does not have to believe in God to have a firm belief in something. It is enough for all of us to assert and stand-by from generation to generation that the above three natural rights are fundamental to being American, and that if you do not accept this assertion, then you had better find another part of the world to find refuge.
My acceptance of the mathematical axiom that 2 + 2 = 4 is unwavering. Be damned to whoever would contend the contrary, but for an exercise in intellectual masturbation! And, mind you I do not contend masturbation intellectual or otherwise.
Unless both sides can agree on these very simple truths I do not see how America can withstand the current onslaught from the globalists in our midst who would replace the notion of
“That to secure these rights,
Governments are instituted among Men,
deriving their just powers
from the consent of the governed; ….”
Thomas Jefferson, et.al. 1776. Declaration of Independence. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
with a top-down one world government run by a highly educated “scientific” priesthood in the service of a global state that views humanity as a system whose individual elements (We, the People of the United States of America) can be better managed by AI in the name of “humanity” than by US, the American people.
Culture is fundamentally different from biology. The currency of culture is the symbol — not genes. And, how these symbols are defined and organized in the mind of each member of a society, is what makes each culture different from every other. The belief that all members of society are considered of value, that each has the right to his own life, his own liberty, and his own pursuit of happiness free of government interference, and that the purpose of government is to insure that these rights are protected for each and every individual no matter his social station, are fundamental to what it means to be American.
It is not enough to be born in the United States of America to be American; it is not even enough to carry an American passport! It is not the American state that defines what it means to be American. It is We, the People!
In 1972 or thereabouts I was invited by my countrymen to love America, or to leave it. I could not love it so I had enough common sense to leave it. The 27 years that I spent abroad gave me an opportunity to ponder what I had left, and I have since returned — not to complain, but to encourage my fellow Americans to look the serpent in its face!
In liberty,
Roddy A. Stegemann, First Hill, Seattle 98104
Author of Mount Cambitas - The Story of Real Money and “A Call for the Restoration of Monetary Order”.