We must all do what we can: Moments I’ve gotten choked up at the idea of America

We were privileged today to witness an oath ceremony which is taken by residents of the United States who have chosen to become naturalized citizens.  What we thought would be a mildly interesting event, which for those taking the oath serves as the final step towards becoming a full-fledged American citizen, moved us to tears.

The ceremony, far from being a bureaucratic event with little more to offer congratulatory remarks and an official seal affixed to a document, is a veritable celebration of the idea of America.

What is moving about the ceremony, at least for us, is a video segment which shows still shots of immigrants of the past, all of whom have come to America’s shores to escape oppression,  seek opportunity, or both.  It is very powerful.

After the ceremony, they show a brief video address by President Obama, where he welcomes the immigrants to America by inviting them to become part of the great American story which is now their story as well.  He encourages them to do good both in their communities and throughout the world.

The ceremony is a celebration of the American idea, that all men and women are free, and that with this freedom comes the obligation to protect it and to share it with others.  To use it for the betterment of mankind.

It chokes us up to think about it.  We have only been brought to tears at the idea of America three times:  First, in 1992, watching Carl Lewis anchor the 4 x 100 relay in Barcelona, where he covered 100 meters faster than any human being before or since.  Second, while watching the movie Seabiscuit.  And third, today, at the citizenship oath ceremony.

Despite the faults that are inherent in self-government, we will always be inspired by the idea of America and have a profound respect for immigrants, both legal and illegal, for they are the embodiment of this ideal.

In closing, we echo the President’s exhortation, both in the State of the Union and in his video message welcoming new US citizens, that we must all do what is within our power to better the lot of our fellow-man and woman, for to better their lot is to better our own.

To Build up the Land part II – God Made a Farmer

2/5/2013 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…

Today we continue with our exploration of the concept of building up the land.  We are using, as our living example of someone who dedicated their life to building up a harsh land, a Swiss settler of the sandhills of western Nebraska, Old Jules.

Yesterday, before we deviated into our normal rant about the monetary premium being attached to debt instruments being the root cause of widespread resource misallocation and, by extension, what today is called “climate change,” we explored the idea that mankind was created to live in balance with the earth.

He was neither to overly molest it via excessive development nor ignore it via draconian conservation methods.  Rather, he was to build up the earth, and in turn allow himself to be built up by it.

There are preconditions for man to be able to live in balance with the land.  First and foremost, he must live in relative peace.  If one is to invest adequate time in building up the land, he or she cannot spend an inordinate amount of time preoccupied for and tending to their personal safety.  This is why war, far from being an economic boon, is ultimately fatal to man’s efforts to build up the land.

How, then, can peace be encouraged?  By allowing uninhibited trade between communist style communities, such as families or tribes.  As we explored yesterday, the link between free trade and peace is so strong that it can be said that if goods do not cross borders, soldiers will.

It all seems ideal, doesn’t it?  Living in peace, in perfect balance with nature and our fellow man.  It doesn’t sound like much to ask of everyone.  Yet in practice, building up the land is a difficult endeavor.  It is so difficult, that most people, when given the choice between working to build up the land and enjoying the fruits of the land, naturally choose the latter.  The debt based money supply has allowed an unprecedented number of humans to spend more of their time enjoying the fruits than building up the land, and every day that this situation persists brings the actions of mankind further out of balance with the need to “build up the land.”

What type of person chooses to build up the land?  In gentle climates, like the one we currently enjoy in Oregon, where a minimal effort in planting often leads to an above average yield, gentle persons can build up the land.  As the land is strong, the people don’t have to be.

This has been true of the indigenous groups who inhabited the territories and, at the risk of offending our fellow Portlanders, we dare say that it is true of the population today.  If one can stand the rain, life is relatively easy.  A gentle, forgiving land will produce a gentle and forgiving people.

The corollary to this, naturally, is that a hard and unforgiving land will initially yield a hard and unforgiving people.  Or, as Sunday’s Dodge Ram truck Super Bowl spot reminds us, on the eighth day, God made a Farmer:

Again for proof of this, we turn to Mari Sandoz’s account of her father, Old Jules.  Jules Sandoz, our settler of 100 years ago, lived in a harsh land.  He lived peacefully with the indigenous peoples there, who were being forced away by the Federal Army.  He lived less peacefully with the bankers and cattlemen, who attempted to claim the land he was trying to build up by force.

Sandoz give us a glimpse into her rough, determined, and surprisingly refined father:

“Jules Sandoz was not a nice man, but he was smart and tough and talented, and he was a survivor.”

“Old Jules was always ready to serve as a “locator,” to help a new arrival stake out a claim and “find his corners,” locate the precise boundaries of his land.  For this, he charged little or nothing, as he wanted so badly to “build up, build up” the community.”

“His (Old Jules’) house was briefly the local post office, until he feuded with the officials and they took it away.  His place was the unofficial storytelling center of the community.  His skinny daughter, Marie (later Mari {the author}), would hang back in the darkness to stay up and listen to the immigrants and Indians {Indigenous peoples} and, less frequently, the cowboys tell their tales.

Old Jules maintained a well-stocked medical kit and was the unofficial frontier doctor to one and all.  He befriended the local Indians, some of the last Lakotas to live free in lodges, tipis, near his home.  They called him “Straight Eye,” honoring his shooting skill.  He spent w

To Build up the Land – part I

2/4/2013 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…

“Then once more he raised his head, his face alive, his eyes far-focused, burning.  He began to talk slowly, as though his lips were metal, stiffening.  “The whole damn sandhills is deserted.  The cattlemen are broke, the settlers about gone.  I got to start all over-ship in a lot of good farmers in the spring, build up–build–build–”

Old Jules’ dying words from the biography entitled “Old Jules” by Mari Sandoz

Today at The Mint, we continue our journey, and we are glad that you are along with us.  With the inflationary fruits of five, nay, 100 years of loose monetary policy beginning to destroy the very currencies which gave birth to them, the world will all too soon be left to pick up the pieces and boldly move forward when all hope is lost.

When there is no hope, one must fight to become hope.  This is our charge to you, fellow taxpayer.  Fortunately, this is far from the first time that mankind has found itself in this situation.  For inspiration, we look back roughly 100 years to a man who had a vision for a place that was then, as now, a place that is difficult to inhabit, the sandhills region of Northwestern Nebraska.  (The sandhills have appeared in the news as a possible route for the long delayed Keystone pipeline.)

That man is Old Jules.

Old Jules was a Swiss immigrant who settled in the sandhills and, as our title implies, devoted much of his interesting life to “building up the land.”  What does it mean to build up the land?  Your idea of building up the land probably means something quite different than my idea of building up the land, and we would both probably have visions quite different for building up the land than someone living 100 years ago, like Old Jules.

Yet all of our visions have merit, for the idea of building up the land, while it may manifest itself in any number of different ways, implies working with the land to help it produce.

The whole idea of man being able to help the land to increase its production and that production helping mankind, in turn, to increase their own production (or reproduction, to be precise), is a miracle.  For those who inhabit urban settings, it may seem a mystery from a far off place.

Yet it is the command received by Adam and Eve at the dawn of creation.

Man was never meant to sit back and simply eat the fruits passively produced by the land, rather, the creation and mankind were created to have an intercourse, if you will, with the fruit of one producing fruit in the other, and vice versa.  Mankind’s activities were meant to be intimately connected to the land.  Mankind is to build up the land, and, in return, the land will build up mankind.

While the Victorian Yeoman farmer ideal may immediately spring to mind when one thinks of building up the land, it should be clear to any thinking person that the division of labor is a far more productive and resilient system by which to build up the land and to reap the benefits of such building.

Even in the Yeoman model, the division of labor existed.  One fetched wood, another dug and plowed, another prepared food, still another shelter, and another fetched water, and so on.

The division of labor could flourish beyond close knit communal groups, such as families or tribes, only via a system of trade.  The concept of trade, which further enables the division of labor to operate, is important not only for the concept of building up the land, but also for the maintenance of peaceful relations amongst communal groups.

The link between mutual trade and maintaining peace between groups is inseparable.  In the words of Frederic Bastait:

“If goods do not cross borders, soldiers will.”

If all of these things, building up the land, the division of labor, and the necessity of trade, are to operate, the concept of money, or what is better described as the emergence of a good of the highest order which carries a monetary premium, must be tacitly agreed upon by all groups that engage in trade.

Today, circa 2013, there is something desperately wrong with where the monetary premium is placed today:  Central bank credits, or what most of us know as currency, or money.  The problem is that they are debt, and not part