Speech at Nov. 22nd, 2009 "End The FED" Rally (See it at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M19FcE1Ayyc)
The Federal Reserve System
©2009 by Jeff Daiell
If you agree with me that we should End The FED, this speech is not for you.
If you support the FED because you are an executive, or director, or major shareholder in one of the uber-banks or mega-corporations the FED was created to favor, this speech is not for you.
This speech is, rather, for those who sincerely believe the FED is good for the American people.
To those who favor a level economic playing field, let me point out that the FED was designed to tilt that field to benefit Big Business and Big Banking. If you want economic fair play, End The FED.
Are you a union activist, as my father was for many years? Remember that the huge corporations the FED was established to favor tend to rely on machines, not Humans. That drives unemployment up, thus pushing wages down. If you champion the cause of Labor, End The FED.
Do you worry about the environment? It was corporate giants like Exxon, villain of the Exxon Valdez debacle, the central bank was designed to assist. One way to defend America's ecology is to End The FED.
Are you a peace advocate? Remember that a central bank facilitates the financing of military adventurism, that such institutions are a key component in the military-industrial complex. To put a halt to imperialism, End The FED.
Is the future of The 1st Amendment your concern? Remember that some have talked of the Federal Government providing financing for major newspapers, and that such involvements are nowadays often channeled through this banking juggernaut. How much independence would newspapers have, if their financial survival depended on Washington? To keep The 1st Amendment meaningful, End The FED.
Do you work for State or local government? This agency's existence violates The 10th Amendment. To strike a blow for your independence from Washington's ever-expanding dictates, End The FED.
Are you a small-business owner? You can help eliminate the overpowering advantage the Halliburtons and Blackwaters of America have over you, if you End The FED.
Even if you favor an active Federal Government, do you wish it were more efficient? One way to cut the budget without taking any funding at all away from social programs would be to have Uncle Sam print his own currency, rather than buying Federal Reserve Notes. Advocates of fiscal prudence should demand that Congress End The FED.
Have you tired of the influence the corporate giants have over Congress? That influence comes from their size, and their size was one of the goals behind creation of this central bank. To have a Congress that worries more about John Q. Public than about J. P. Morgan, End The FED.
Are you a consumer advocate? Rolling back the favoritism that helped make Big Business so big would mean greater competition for customers, and that would send prices down while forcing quality higher. To make Main Street more competitive with Wall Street, End The FED.
Does political corruption bother you? The central bank is so powerful, how much would a mega-corporation be willing to pay to convince a president to appoint to the System's Board their choice for the position? If you seek to remove a potential cause of misconduct, End The FED.
The fact is: whether you consider yourself a Liberal, a Conservative, a Libertarian, or a Constitutionalist, you should join the effort to eliminate this engine of inflation, this facilitator of imperialism, this agent of Big Business and the uber-banks, this enemy of small business, labor, taxpayers, and consumers. When it comes to the Federal Reserve System, our motto must be: Don't just audit, end it.
December 5th, 2009
©2009 by Jeff Daiell
Doesn't it feel good to be a Texan?
I want to thank you all for being here, especially because I know that for many people, the very idea of supporting someone other than a Democrat or a Republican is difficult, and perhaps even traumatic. I recognize, also, that supporting a campaign facing the long odds I face may be just as daunting.
I believe I can make a case for doing so, for volunteering to work in my campaign and becoming one of our financial partners.
Jeff addressing the audience at the December 5th Reception for the campaign
As you have heard, libertarians are neither liberals nor conservatives. It's been said that if you weren't a liberal at 16, you didn't have a heart, and if you weren't a conservative by 25, you didn't have a head. The nice thing about being a libertarian, or about supporting a libertarian candidate, is that it allows you to use both your heart and your head. It allows you to do what's best for you and your family, while also improving the standard of living, and the quality of life, for all Texans.
There are many ways in which that would be the case, but let me cover just a few tonight. Time won't let me go into great detail, so please leave your contact information with a member of my campaign staff if you would like more comprehensive information.
The most obvious example of how supporting my Libertarian campaign would be what is right both for you and for your fellow Texans is greater public safety. I favor focusing our law-enforcement resources exclusively against crimes of violence, theft, and fraud, rather than on lifestyle crimes. Too often those who hurt others go free because our prisons are overflowing with those who have violated the Rights of no one. I reject both the conservative belief that Government should dictate our personal choices and the liberal belief that those who commit burglary or assault should be coddled.
A second area in which supporting my campaign would be using both your heart and your head is education. As Jim Barlow, former business writer for The Houston Chronicle, points out, the public schools do a very poor job for the children of less-affluent Texans. My campaign has put forth the Texas Affordable School Choice plan, which provides a practical way for lower- and middle-income Texans to move their children to non-governmental schools, without increasing the tax burden on others.
Speaking of taxes, they're a third reason to support my campaign. Lots of candidates talk about reducing the tax burden, but most give no details. But the way to provide tax relief is already on the books, and has been for many years. We just need a governor, and State legislators, who will first improve it and then use it.
That vehicle is the Texas Sunset Act. This law provides that State agencies must come before the Legislature every twelve years, at which time the Legislature can eliminate the agency, modify it, or leave it as is.
I favor reducing the period from 12 years to six. I also want our State legislators to be more aggressive in shrinking, or even eliminating, agencies which have outlived their usefulness, or which serve only to benefit special interests at the expense of the rest of us.
Besides reducing the cost of State government, this approach would end many of the regulations which hamstring our economy, reduce competition, and stifle job-creation. As competition for customers grows, prices will fall. As competition for labor increases, wages will rise.
The large gap between those at the top of the economic ladder and those at the bottom is not the result of a free market, but of the favoritism shown by Government at all levels toward the biggest players in each field, who, of course, are also the biggest contributors to the campaigns of most politicians. I call this “Political Darwinism”, and ending it would be using both our hearts and our heads.
Perhaps the area in which we most need to satisfy both our hearts and our heads is immigration. We cannot afford, economically, to continue the drain on the taxpayers required to provide public-sector social services to everyone who crosses one of our borders, and yet we cannot afford, spiritually, to repudiate our heritage as an immigrant society proud of being the ultimate melting pot.
And while Sections 8 and 9 of Article I of the U. S. Constitution make immigration and naturalization Federal matters, there are steps that Texas can and must take to make sure that our approach on this issue is both humane and sensible.
One is to make sure that, as I called for earlier, our law-enforcement resources are focused strictly on crimes of violence, theft, and fraud. This will allow us to deal with those who come to Texas and prey on those already here.
A second is to begin the transfer of social services from the governmental sector to the voluntary sector. This will reduce the burden on the taxpayer. For those in other countries who might be tempted to come here to exploit those services, such a step would reduce that incentive.
The third step is, as noted previously, to eliminate the barriers Government places to economic expansion. As more jobs are created, as more opportunities to start new businesses open, those who come here for honest work will find themselves much more welcome.
There are many more areas in which Texas needs an approach which leaves behind the failed knee-jerkings of both Left and Right, and the campaign will address them in the weeks and months ahead.
What some of you may be thinking now is, “Jeff, speaking of using both my heart and my head: my heart is with you, but my head says the odds against you are as big as Texas herself.”
Let me point out first that, every four years, polls show that many Texans are dissatisfied with the choices the two tax-subsidized parties put forth for Governor. That's understandable; as with Christmas dinner, the choice there is usually between a big ham and a complete turkey. Unfortunately, the news media do a very poor job informing them of all the choices they will have on Election Day, so they believe they can express that discontent only by staying home. If they know they will have another choice at the polls, which can happen if this campaign draws enough help from folks such as yourself, many of them will pick that choice; we saw that just three years ago.
Let me also point out that a candidacy such as mine can have a positive impact on the direction Texas takes even if the campaign falls short of victory.
My 1990 showing prompted the winner of that race to reverse her position on some issues, in an attempt to win back the 129 thousand voters who had cast their ballots for me. As a result of Bill Grisham's showing in the Comptroller's race that year, the man elected to that office came up with literally dozens of ways in which the State budget could be cut, after months of politicians of both Beltway parties saying no more reductions were possible. So supporting this candidacy would be using your head as well as your heart.
I said at the beginning of my speech that it feels good to be a Texan. My promise to you is this: if you use both your hearts and your heads and join this effort, being a Texan will feel even better.
Waco, Texas Chapter of the
National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws.
February 13th, 2010.
© 2010 by Jeff Daiell. All rights reserved.
Good morning.
I'm here today to call for a good, old-fashioned, Texas law-and-order crackdown.
Our public officials have been too lax in ensuring that those who commit murder, those who rape, who rob, who burgle, are arrested and punished. Too many of our law-enforcement resources are squandered on those who hurt no one, whose only “crime” is to fill their cigarettes with green leaves instead of the legal brown ones.
If I become your Governor, and if enough Libertarians are elected to the Texas Legislature, that will change.
And change it must.
In 2008, the last year for which data are complete, there were 1,373 murders in Texas, but only 895 murder arrests.
76,487 aggravated assaults took place; only 24,022 arrests for that crime – fewer than one third the number of offenses – were recorded.
Arrests for motor vehicle theft totaled less than one twelfth the number of such crimes reported.
Meanwhile, that year saw 70,578 arrests in Texas for possession of marijuana. Not sale, not cultivation – possession.
It's time to quit being soft on crime.
If elected, I will ask the Legislature to repeal the laws against the possession and use of marijuana. In obedience to my oath of office, I will also establish a policy of non-cooperation with the Federal War on Drugs, which violates the 9th and 10th Amendments.
Even if I am not elected, if enough reform advocates support me with their time, their labor, their money, and their votes, it will make clear to those taking office next January that the time has come to value public safety over prohibition, to be more concerned with homicide than with hemp, to focus more on car theft than on cannabis.
I have sometimes been told that I should give longer speeches, to take advantage of opportunities to speak at length, since candidates rarely have such luxury. But I see no need to belabor the point: a freer Texas is a safer Texas, and I hope you will support my work for a freer Texas.
Thank you.
Libertarian Party Gubernatorial Debate
February 16th, 2010
Southern Methodist University
© 2010 Jeff Daiell. All Rights Reserved.
There will be three parties represented on the November 2010 Texas ballot, but only two paths will be represented.
One path leads toward a bigger, more powerful, more intrusive State Government, a State Government which will acquiesce in further expansion of the Federal Government and of local governments.
The other path leads toward a State Government that is smaller and less invasive of the lives and Rights of its citizens while resisting the growth of the Federal Government and requiring that local governments be more respectful of Human Rights.
It is true that this is the case every two years. But the massive increase in Washington's control over the American economy, combined with the Federal Government's continued willingness to ignore civil liberties and due process, make it more imperative than ever that every Texan possible be convinced to support taking that second path.
We must persuade our fellow Texans to vote for decentralization, not just from the Federal level to the State level, but also from the State level to our counties and cities, and from there to the private sector. Texas sovereignty must be respected, and Texas must respect the sovereignty of her individual citizens. The 10th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution, and Article I, Section 1 of the Texas Constitution, our Texas Bill of Rights and Declaration of Sovereignty, have to be more than mere words on paper. They must become an integral and intrinsic part of our politics, words that we live by as well as recite.
We need to convince Texans to to put some real teeth into the Texas Sunset Act, requiring agencies to be reviewed every six years instead of every twelve, eliminate agencies which abridge, rather than protect, the free market and civil liberties, and to reduce the scope of those the Legislature will not fully “Sunset”.
We need to convince Texans to move away from the near-monopoly enjoyed by the government education bureaucracy, to provide tax relief for individuals who either send their children to non-governmental schools or contribute to the education of the children of others.
We must convince Texans to support refocusing law enforcement strictly against crimes of violence, theft, and fraud, which will reduce the corruption that comes with Prohibition-style statutes and also allow our law enforcement resources to concentrate more on protecting our citizens.
We must win votes for an immigration policy that protects the Texas taxpayer while respecting the American Dream of allowing individuals to seek a better life through honest work.
I believe that my record shows that I am the candidate who can earn the most votes from the citizens of Texas for these goals and the philosophy of Liberty. That record includes not only my results in previous elections, but this year's campaign as well. I hope this evening to convince you of that, as well.
If I do convince you, and the delegates to the Libertarian State Convention, I will remember, every day between now and November 2nd, Robert Frost's words: “I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep”, because I want Texans to be able to sleep comfortable in the knowledge that their Rights will be respected and that they will wake up each morning to a day better than the one before. Thank you.
Question 1 – Education:
What is the proper role of state government in the education of our youth?
The proper role of State Government is three-fold: to protect our children, and our educators, from Federal interference; to move as rapidly as possible away from State control over education; and to facilitate the move away from local government education bureaucracies to a completely non-governmental educational system, the separation of School and State.
Regarding the first role, Texas needs a governor who will refuse Federal funding – because those monies mean Federal control – and who will work to roll back the Federal role in education, a role not permitted under the 10th Amendment.
Regarding the second and third, I have proposed the Texas Affordable School Choice plan, which will provide a path toward those goals, a path which the voters of Texas can support. It allows tax relief not only for parents who send their own children to non-governmental schools, but also for those who contribute to the education of the children of other parents in such schools. When this proposal has been presented to audiences, school choice has received a high degree of approval.
Taking the politics out of education by taking education out of politics may not be accomplished in a single legislative session, or even in a single gubernatorial term. But we have to make the effort, and I am pledged to do so.
Question 2 – Transportation:
If you are elected, you will be working with an entrenched political class in Austin. What can you realistically do to move away from bloated “public works” transportation projects, and so-called “privatizing” that is really just outsourcing to cronies, and towards true free market transportation solutions?
First, I would refuse Federal monies for transportation projects, and seek legislation to curtail the acceptance of such funds by local governments.
Second, I would veto any new State transportation projects, and any State funding for transportation projects undertaken by local governments.
Third, I would work to “Sunset” the State transportation bureaucracy. The Legislature might not be willing to end it entirely, but reducing it should be feasible, given the precarious condition of the economy.
Fourth, I would work for a ban on eminent domain. Politicians and bureaucrats have no more Right to take private property against the will of its owners than a private citizen would have.
Fifth, I would work to reduce and hopefully eliminate the barriers toward free market approaches to transportation, at all levels of government.
Over the last four decades, there has been an increasing concern for the environment. All too often, that concern has led to calls for an increased role in our lives for Government.
But Big Government is not healthy for the environment and other living things. Massive highway boondoggles, besides being a a huge transfer of wealth from the average citizen to the petroleum and construction industries, also make difficult the development and implementation of more environmentally-friendly private approaches to the free movement of both goods and people. I intend to end those boondoggles.
Question 3 – Texas Sovereignty:
The 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Last year the Texas Legislature passed a resolution (HCR 50) affirming Texas’ sovereignty under the 10th amendment, and demanding that the federal government “cease and desist, effective immediately, mandates that are beyond the scope of these constitutionally delegated powers”. As Governor, what specific area/program/department will you fight the hardest to keep the Congress out of, and how will you respond if Congress effectively says: “Yeah? Or what?”
Let there be no mistake: decisions that the next Governor makes, and steps that the next Governor takes, regarding this issue will have profound consequences. Those decisions and those steps must be weighed very carefully beforehand. To think otherwise is naïve, and to claim otherwise is disengenuous and irresponsible.
That said, when as a young adult I became a Texan, my first loyalty became loyalty to Texas. Our Constitution clearly states: “the perpetuity of the Union depend[s] upon the preservation of the right of local self-government”. Without respect for State sovereignty, the Union as envisioned by the Founders would no longer exist.
As Governor, I would first work with our delegation in Washington to require respect for the 10th Amendment.
I would work with the Texas Attorney-General to challenge in court Federal abridgements of the 10th Amendment.
I would reject Federal funding for the State, and work to end acceptance of Federal funding by local government.
I would withhold the cooperation of the State Government with Federal statutes, regulations, and acts which infringe on Texas sovereignty.
I would work with the Texas Attorney-General, and the Legislature, as well as Governors in our sister States, to present a united front should it become necessary to assert nullification and interposition.
There has been talk recently of secession, and such is our Right, both in natural law and under the 10th Amendment.
But, again, any such steps will have profound consequences, and we owe it to ourselves and our children to recognize that. This is not the time, and this is not the subject, for demagoguery and pomposity.
The best plan is to ensure that Texas sovereignty is respected, by first convincing the people of Texas to demand that it be respected, and then ensuring that Washington respects it. If that fails, then the people of Texas, not just her elected officials, must decide our next course of action.
What Texans decide this November will determine the course of our State for years to come, perhaps permanently. It is not mere rhetoric to say that this election could determine how free Texans as individuals, and Texas as a State, will be in the future.
And what Libertarians decide in June will have a large impact on what the voters decide in November.
We Libertarians are lucky. We have no contenders for our gubernatorial nomination in whom we could not take pride, none in whom the voters of Texas could not with confidence entrust their political future.
We have the luxury of deciding which candidate for the nomination would best be able to convince the greatest number of our fellow citizens of the moral and practical superiority of Liberty over government dictate, that to vote Libertarian is to follow both one's heart and one's head, because voting Libertarian means doing what is best not only for yourself and your family, but also for all Texans.
As I said earlier, I believe my record demonstrates that I would be that candidate.
Many years ago, I ran for Houston City Council. Before my campaign was over, the mayoral candidate of the Socialist Workers Party had publicly advocated de-regulation of Houston's taxicab market, an issue I had introduced. As Bob Smither, the Honorary Chair of my campaign, has stated, I campaign, and I campaign effectively.
But experience in a local election is not enough, especially because city elections in Texas are non-partisan. A candidate for Governor must know how to run an active, effective Statewide campaign, one that is conducted on a partisan basis, because both the voters and the news media approach the candidates in partisan elections differently than they do candidates in city elections.
I am proud of my record in that regard. In 1990, I set the record for both most votes and highest percentage by a Libertarian nominee for Texas governor. That was a year in which the race between the two Beltway-party candidates was considered too close to call, and in which they were, rightly or wrongly, considered to be far apart ideologically – both conditions under which Libertarian candidates often find their support dwindling when voters actually cast their ballots. My support didn't evaporate; it made an impact that commentators were still recalling years later.
I ask your support in making an even more profound impact this year. I believe I am the candidate best able to make an impact that will not only have pundits remarking on it, but which will help ensure that Texans live in a free society.
If I receive your support, I pledge to you my every effort on behalf of Liberty. Or, to borrow a phrase I freely admit still fills me with awe, I pledge my life, my fortune, and my sacred honor. Thank you.