I’ve been asked what Ron Paul fans mean when they say, “Legalize real money!” To answer this, see for yourself what the constitution says and compare it to current federal law:

Article I, Section 10, Clause 4 of the United States Constitution:
“No State shall … coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts;”

(Note that on every unit of paper money the U.S. government asserts without apology: “This note is legal tender for all debts public and private.”)

Title 18, Part 1, Chapter 25, Section 486 of United States Code:
“Whoever, except as authorized by law, makes or utters or passes, or attempts to utter or pass, any coins of gold or silver or other metal, or alloys of metals, intended for use as current money, whether in the resemblance of coins of the United States or of foreign countries, or of original design, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.”

So there you have it… The Constitution says gold and silver are the only valid forms of legal tender. The Congress now says, use gold or silver as money and go to jail. How could it get any more black-and-white than this?

The founding fathers understood that giving the government power to print money out of thin air was a bad idea. They knew it would lead to incredible inflation at the expense of almost every American, which it has. They knew the government wouldn’t be able to fabricate gold and silver out of thin air, so they made it law that legal tender must be in the form of gold and silver.

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early
Click here if you can’t see the video.

RonPaulBookBomb.com, which announced Dr. Paul’s new book around midnight, The Revolution: A Manifesto.  The stated goal of the website is to make Ron Paul’s book into an instant bestseller, and so far it looks like it’s working.  So far, over 1000 pledges have been collected, which has caused the book to rapidly move from being unranked on Amazon.com to positions #629, #516, #345 and now to #193!

Will the Book Bomb cause Dr. Paul to break into the top 100 or top 10?  Only time will tell, but it depends on how many people pledge and pre-order today.

Who do you think won the GOP debate on MSNBC tonight?  Use your mobile phone to text 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 to 622639

1 Giuliani
2 Huckabee
3 McCain
4 Paul
5 Romney

Background: Source Code, Open Source, and Closed Source
In the world of software development, there are two major schools of thought.  In one, source code, which is basically just a set of instructions for a computer, is developed in private and is generally kept secret.  This is the closed-source model of development that companies like Microsoft use to develop Windows, Office, and dozens of other applications that you may use daily.  In contrast, the source code for open source software is readily available.  Anyone is free to download, examine, or even modify one’s own copy of open source software.  Two examples are the linux-based Ubuntu operating system and OpenOffice.org office suite.

When it comes to operating systems, the choice between open and closed source software is often a matter of security. That is, in the closed-source world, security largely depends on the secrecy of the source code. Since the source code can only be reviewed by a finite number of experts within the firm that created the software, there are inevitably mistakes that slip through the cracks. Mistakes that are found after the software is released can only be fixed by the software vendor, and the whole world has to wait until a fix is available. Having access to source code makes it much, much easier to find mistakes. That’s why closed-source vendors keep it a secret.  So, when source code of closed-source software gets leaked to the public, it’s considered a disaster, especially when most of the world depends on the software in question.

In contrast, source code in the Open Source community is available for the whole world to see. Mistakes that would otherwise go unnoticed are caught early in the development process, and mistakes that are found after the initial release can be quickly fixed by anyone.  That fix (usually in the form of a software “patch”) can then be made available to the rest of the community.  It is not necessary to wait for a fix from the software vendor.

Source Code and Voting Machines
I could drone on about how the closed-source development model is responsible for almost all of the most damaging computer worms, but instead let’s look at how these two development models apply to voting machines.  This is actually very simple.  Every computerized voting machine I have ever seen implemented operates using closed-source software that runs on closed-source operating systems.  As long as that’s the case, worrying about physical security and chain-of-custody is almost pointless.  As soon as someone finds a way to exploit a mistake in the software, he could exploit the mistake to manipulate the voting machine.

Premier Election Solutions (formerly Diebold Election Systems, Inc or DESI) has the lion’s share of the computerized voting machine market. Their source code, which was written using the closed-source development model, has been leaked more than once.  A book could be written about the security flaws in their code, but suffice to say that anyone with access to a voting terminal (read: tech-savvy voters) could completely change the ballot file.

Closed-source software has no place on public voting machines!  The very notion is ridiculous, but it’s a growing trend in the United States.

Hacking Democracy
If you’re still not convinced that America is facing a serious problem, please watch this video in entirety.  The last half hour is the most important part:

I’d like to congratulate Fox News on beating their own record of outrageous censorship, again.  This time, instead of removing a 4th place candidate from straw poll results, they’ve removed a Top 3 candidate from the results of a presidential election!  Take a look:

Here are the uncensored results from the Nevada Republican presidential caucus:

Here are the results that Fox News reported:

Thanks to Stephen Gordon at Third Party Watch.

I love the free market.  First there was Ron Paul Radio, and now someone has created Ron Paul Revolution Radio.  Each has its own set of programming, but the latter really stands out in terms of its professionalism and content.  These guys really deserve a listen.

Broadband Streams:
Most Players Click Here: Listen Now
Real Media Player Click Here: Listen Now
Windows Media Player click here: Listen Now

Dialup Streams:
Most players click here: Listen Now
Real Media Player click here: Listen Now
Windows Media Player click here: Listen Now

I still love Free Talk Live, of course.

I’ve done my best to stay out of this, but I’d like to make a few things clear to others who are new to the libertarian movement:
What you are observing is a war between parties within the libertarian movement that has nothing to do with honest journalism or getting news to the public.  This is all about getting back at various parties because of things that happened decades ago.

The author of the New Republic article that started all of this knew well that Dr. Paul is not a racist, but was seen laughing when someone brought this point up to him around New Years.  Then CATO jumped on the bandwagon, claiming that this is why they hadn’t endorsed Dr. Paul.  Now Reason is pointing fingers at Lew Rockwell without citing any real evidence or even without quoting any reputable people.  These most recent articles, mind you, were released on the day that Lew was scheduled for eye surgery, presumably so he wouldn’t be around to defend himself for the next few days.

This was all done at the expense of the movement that CATO and Reason claim to be promoting.  They’re throwing away our only chance at having a president who truly believes in limited government for the sole purpose of slinging mud at others within the movement.  They had an unprecedented opportunity to further the libertarian cause but chose to cannibalize it instead.  It’s sickening to watch.

And to other young libertarians:
Take note of this ridiculous war and what it’s costing us, as libertarians.  Remember that someday we will be the leaders of this movement and that it will be up to us to ally and accomplish things without letting past disputes get in the way.  Don’t fall into the trap of collective thinking by hating various libertarians because of the organizations they work for or because of who they were taught by.  Analyze each person based on his or her individual views, find common ground, and work to promote freedom.  Let ours be the generation of libertarians, and not of ancient rifts that prevent us from doing something great.

See this post to learn of the anatomy of the Orange Line smear campaign and this post to learn by beltway “libertarians” engage in anti-libertarian activism.

I wasn’t going to post this until the final article was ready, but since the Daily Paul broke it, I feel a bit pressured to at least offer a teaser.

First of all, if you don’t know who Frank Luntz is, watch this video for some critical background information:

Well, to make a long story short, I was invited to one of these focus groups. More on how I managed that will be in the coming article. Because I had heard first-hand accounts of Luntz’s manipulative tactics, I purchased a voice recorder and decided to check it out for myself. For now, suffice to say that there is indeed a tremendous amount of bias involved in both the selection process as well as Frank’s administration of the focus group session itself. In fact, the very person I randomly sat down next to to have dinner with turned out to be incredibly shady. More on details on that will be in the article to come, but for now, see for yourself that this isn’t his first time in one of Frank’s group:

So, after the “focus group” was concluded, a gathering of people who apparently already knew what Luntz was all about met him at the door and started to confront him. I was completely content to stand by and watch the show until I heard Frank claiming that he didn’t try to influence participants. After sitting through three hours of his tricks, I couldn’t help but chime in to clarify what I had just seen. Frank calls the crowd “mean”, but having seen what Frank does for a living, I don’t at all blame them for being displeased with him.

Stay tuned for an article that includes a rundown of Frank’s incredibly biased selection process, my hour-long discussion with the mysterious Chuck, and Frank’s manipulative “focus group” methods.

A few important notes:
- I did not ambush Frank Luntz. Other people did that, and Mike and I walked up and saw it happening. I only opened my mouth when he tried to tell people that he doesn’t misrepresent public opinion.
- These people were supporting various different candidates. This was not a crowd of supporters from any one campaign.
- Mike videotaped and uploaded it to YouTube. However, I never asked for it to be posted on a high profile blog. However, since it was already public, I wanted to explain and figured I might as well use it as a teaser for the article I was already planning to write.