Gold and silver are not automatically legal tender.  That is up to each State.  The Constitution just limits the options for possible legal tender to only gold and/or silver:



Obviously maintaining a stable value also requires a few other details, such as choosing a non-self-replicating commodity as medium of exchange.  But the value of Federal Reserve Notes has nothing to do with the commodity value of paper, and was never intended to.  This is a non sequitur.  If a paper dollar had been set at a more realistic (commodity) value, such as 1/5000 of a block of firewood instead of 1/35 of an ounce of gold, its value would have been extremely stable over the last 100 years.  But, again, this was not its purpose.  It is not commodity currency.  So it is irrelevant.


And finally we get to the crux of the matter.  I anticipated that you would disagree with my post because of this.  You have even spelled out the crucial point, without even recognizing it -- namely that the "value" of a medium of exchange only has meaning in relation to something else.  Your example is fine, though I must point out that it failed.  Beyond this failed attempt to maintain the value of the dollar in terms of silver, it should be obvious that it is even more difficult to maintain the "value" of an arbitrary medium of exchange in relation to all commodities simultaneously, though that is what the Federal Reserve is attempting to do, poorly.

But you miss the point that denomination is precisely the flaw of fiat currency.  The inherent value of a 10 dollar bill is no different from that of a 1 dollar bill.  And neither has any relation to the value of an ounce of silver.  The Federal Reserve has no authority to dictate the value of their little scraps of paper to anyone.  They have only diluted the value of their notes by endless printing, destroying our political system with bought-off politicians, and purchase of guns and steel in order to attempt to gain this authority.  Persistent value, though probably impossible in the long run, at the very least requires the rejection of the concept of denomination, instead relying on the inherent value of the commodity itself, without manipulation.

Rights only exist in relation to others.  If you believe that other people don't exist, then it's probably easy to dismiss the concept of rights as well.

Fortunately in that case it's also easy for the rest of us to dismiss you, as a lunatic.

Correct.  The way that stable value is assigned to a commodity, whether gold or silver or anything else, is by keeping it in circulation.  The way to keep a commodity in circulation is by gaining ownership of it and taking reasonable measures to prevent it from being taken out of circulation.  And the method provided by the Constitution to keep a commodity in circulation as a stable measure of value, is by "coining" it.  This is the same method which has been used since Roman times.

Now, to nitpick, the commodity in question doesn't have to be gold or silver.  But, as you point out, only gold or silver can be forced upon the States or anyone else as legal tender.  So there is an obvious advantage to coining gold and silver.

You're right, though, that FDR was a bad example.  He violated the law in dozens of unconstitutional ways.  But that's beside the point, and doesn't change the fact that, according to the US Treasury, they (not you) own and control all coins in circulation and can make rules (even without Congress) preventing you from melting them down, for instance.

FirstAscent, it seems you are arguing against a strawman of some type of physical manifestation of natural rights which for some reason you claim should exist.  If so, besides pointing out how ridiculous this seems, I would say that the recognition of the existence of other humans is probably the closest you will ever get.  This is the physical manifestation, and the environmental stimulus that prompts humans to evolve the concept of natural rights.  It is a force similar in ways to any other, which responds to stimulus in largely predictable ways, and which exists independent of any law or arbitrary moral code.

I would suggest that perhaps Atlas' solipsism bears some relevance to his rejection of the concept of natural rights.

Nonsense.  The second law of thermodynamics is not followed one hundred percent, yet it still exists.  Same goes for Newton's gravity.

Look, crime exists.  That doesn't invalidate all legal theory.

Well the obvious testable prediction is that slavery is not a natural right.  The observable evidence is that slavery did not exist in pre-neolithic, hunter-gatherer societies.  It arose along with the growth of agricultural civilization.  And it has since waned with the end of growth and the decreasing relevance of human labor.

The evidence is right there in front of your face.

Honestly, it kind of sounds like you would argue that gravity didn't exist before Isaac Newton "declared" it.

Is there some other point to this line of reasoning?  For whose benefit does the concept of natural rights need to be "declared"?

Natural rights are derived from egalitarianism and the non-aggression principle, but ultimately all that is required is the latter.

This seems relevant...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMxTFqPET5I

Most societies accepted slavery of those outside of their societies.  Typically this went along with the belief that outsiders were somehow less than human.  Slavery was never generally held as a universal human right.

It's not a competition, Hawker.


Rights are not a "subsection" of laws.  You appear to be thinking of privileges, though these are often incorrectly termed legal "rights" for somewhat obvious reasons.

Natural rights are superior to law, and laws are subject to them.  Your right to life is only contingent upon respecting the rights of others.

And my answer was,


But you seem like kind of an idiot, so I can see how you might have missed that.

This is called selection bias.  You are selectively citing the written legal codes of ancient societies large enough to have developed such a thing, while ignoring the ones that didn't.

Can you think of a reason why societies that tolerated slavery might have been more likely to have developed written legal codes?

No, moral "rights" and legal "rights" are the same thing, since they are not based on reason or objective truth but on the values, or "mores" of a particular culture.  Ethical rights are the same as natural rights, which are independently derived from man's relation to man.

The bible is orthogonal to the concept of objective rights -- just yet another bloated, inconsistent legal code for a long-dead society.  You might as well be quoting Napoleonic code or the code of Hammurabi.

You're right, I should have said "ethically".

Energy economics is a difficult field to wrap your mind around.  Don't assume that ASICs will make the number lower.  A large portion of every dollar spent on mining hardware ultimately ends up being consumed as energy as well.

Every last economically-recoverable bit of fossil energy will be burnt with or without Bitcoin.

Think of the level of waste due to mal-investment, for instance, in maintaining Dollar hegemony or the global derivatives market.  Bitcoin is insignificant in comparison, and always will be.

Great idea.  I'll just get right on boycotting food producers by not eating.  That will show them.

Do you really not see the difference between boycotting digital goods that are infinitely fungible and boycotting the producers of actual goods that are backed by hundreds of millions of dollars in physical infrastructure?  In the middle of an inflationary depression in which commodity prices are soaring and an all-time record 45 million Americans are on food stamps?  I mean, are you one of those people who thinks boycotting gasoline is a good idea as well?

Pork producers don't care whether a few uppity hipsters buy their sausages or not.  They can always sell directly to the welfare state, which will extract payment from you regardless of your consent.

This is called fascism.  Recognize it.  Learn to deal with it on the correct terms.  This guy at least seems to realize what he's up against.

Technically, what changed was that humanity ran out of undeveloped land into which to expand.  Morally Ethically, neither abortion nor slavery have ever been rights.  It's just that rights are violated every day, and the choices we make regarding which violations to suffer and ignore changes over time and place.

It is unfortunate that Stossel repeated this mis-truth that private currencies are illegal.  Though Ron Paul tends to spread this misconception as well, so he is not alone.

This is based upon an incorrect understanding of "powers" granted the Federal government by the Constitution.

In short, a "power" is basically permission to violate rights.  In the case of the power to "coin money", the power conveyed and the right violated are subtle.  It is not, as widely believed, the power to seize private property via monetary monopoly and inflationary confiscation.  That would have been in direct violation of the "just compensation" required by the takings clause in the 5th Amendment, and a general nullification of the basic right to property.

The power to coin money is simply the power to violate the usual presumption that possession equals ownership, in the limited case of "coins" minted by the Federal government.  That means that a coin, once minted by the Federal government, remains the property of the government even when placed in general circulation.  That is the reason you cannot mutilate or destroy them, and they can be seized at will (as was the case with FDR confiscating gold coins).  They are not yours.  

Render unto Caesar...

Furthermore, the Federal government was never specifically granted the power to prohibit "competing" currencies.  The Constitution does not grant a monetary monopoly.  This is what is being claimed as an implied power yet, as we can all see, has terrible implications and is in direct violation of the Constitution and a threat to the fundamental right to private property.  None of the founders would have deliberately intended this interpretation of the Constitution.

In fact, this lie of monetary monopoly was constructed by a few private bankers for their own lucrative gain, in order to outlaw competitors.  These same private interests now control the US money supply through the private Federal Reserve Bank, and via their strategic control over key government officials, in order to maintain their monopoly rents through color of law.

That is not to say, however, that private currencies cannot be (and haven't in the past been) regulated for other reasons, such as to prevent fraud or outright theft.  But that is another matter entirely, and not related to Bitcoin or the legality of private currencies in general.