Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Rick Perry channels Thomas Paine

First, I don't think Rick Perry should have said that printing more money would be treasonous. We need less of that kind of talk. But look at this. Ralph Benko , writing at Forbes, reminds us of Thomas Paine opposition to fiat money. Acccording to Benko, Paine wrote:

“As to the assumed authority of any assembly in making paper money, or paper of any kind, a legal tender, or in other language, a compulsive payment, it is a most presumptuous attempt at arbitrary power. There can be no such power in a republican government: the people have no freedom — and property no security — where this practice can be acted: and the committee who shall bring in a report for this purpose, or the member who moves for it, and he who seconds it merits impeachment, and sooner or later may expect it.” “… and the punishment of a member who should move for such a law ought to be death.”
(emphasis added).

Interesting little factoid.

6 comments:

Dad29 said...

Perry did NOT say that 'it would be treasonous.'

He said that it would be CLOSE to treasonous.

Yes, I get it: Perry's a bit incendiary. Prolly a racist xenophobe homo-hater, too, just like the President's people are saying.

Dad29 said...

And, by the way, he also conditioned it. It would be close to treasonous IF B'ke did a QE3 "for political purposes" before the '12 election.

Rick Esenberg said...

You are right about his comments but wrong about my point. I was just struck by the precedent.

Dad29 said...

Granted. And your point was an interesting factoid, indeed!

On the other hand, Mr. Paine tended to go "all Perry" a lot. He was a bomb-thrower of the first water.

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John McAdams said...

Of course, manipulating the money supply to achieve a particular election result is a major form of misconduct.

Whether it is "close to treasonous" is a semantic quibble.