I came up with this during a discussion at Libertopia this past weekend. — JNS

Creating, expanding, and securing Agorist markets has a fundamental problem built in: how do you promote to a customer base products and services which by their nature require anonymity, stealth, and secrecy, all the while providing the reputations for honest dealing that businesses require to acquire customer accounts?

I think I’ve come up with a robust solution to that problem: divide Agorists into two categories, each at arm’s length from the other.

AU is the chemical symbol for gold, so I played with those letters in Alongside Night to create the concept of Agorist Undergrounds — AU‘s.

I’m going to use those two letters again, but this time with a slash between them, to define a new strategic Agorist vision.

A = Aboveground
U = Underground

Agorism Poster by thorsmitersaw

The “A” Agorists will live openly visible to the current political-economic system, and will be as compliant to laws and regulations as is possible given that many of these laws and regulations are virtually impossible to comply with — they’re too complex, confusing, and burdensome. But the “A” Agorists will protest only by word, not by deed. We will use the remnants of free expression to educate the public on Agorist theory and practice while not practicing it ourselves. We will be known by our real names and reputations and not anonymous. We will be writers, speakers, and entertainers. We will be the visible face of Agorism while being openly clear that looking to us for illegal activities is a dry well.

The “U” Agorists will be building and expanding the underground markets. They will be anonymous, masked, hidden, encrypted, and stealthy. They will not comply with laws and regulations that violate liberty as defined in the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and other documents that have been the foundation for post-Enlightenment individual freedom. The “U” Agorists will practice what the “A” Agorists can only preach.

The “A” Agorists will have no contact with the “U” Agorists so authorities seeking to use the “A”‘s to trace the “U”‘s will find that a dead end.

We will live in different worlds until that day when the “U”‘s are successful enough to open the marketplaces to a visible aboveground free economy.

I am an “A” Agorist.

J. Neil Schulman
October 16, 2012

“I can’t remember ever listening to a presidential debate where I never heard a single cough from the audience.”
–Brad Linaweaver

In the half hour before Wednesday’s presidential debate between President Barack Obama and challenger Governor Mitt Romney, representatives of the Commission on Presidential Debates and moderator Jim Lehrer threatened the University of Denver audience with everything short of waterboarding if they uttered a single squeak during the debates.

Denver Presidential Debate, October 3, 2012

It’s obvious this policy is intended to suppress stocking the audience with partisans for each of the candidates who would turn this into just another campaign rally; but the problem is that this demand for absolute silence would have denatured the best moments of prior debates, particularly the 1980 debate when Ronald Reagan told Jimmy Carter, “Well, there you go again!” and in 1988 when Vice Presidential candidate Lloyd Bentsen told Dan Quayle, “I knew Jack Kennedy and, Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.”

It foils the whole purpose of the debates if the wit of the candidate lays eggs because the audience has been forbidden to laugh.

This process is made worse by audio technology that with highly directional mikes for the candidates and moderator, combined with background noise threshold suppressors, effectively censors audience reaction for the listening TV and radio audiences.

The result as applied to this past Wednesday’s debate — despite the usual tropes from Fox News pundits that the debate format favored President Obama — is that Obama delivered two to three times as many laugh lines as Romney … and it worked to the advantage of Romney that the rules silenced not only the audience but censored one of the two candidates’ superior debate tools.

Author’s Note, April 23, 2012: I have removed the word “gated” from my description of the Twin Lakes community per the following link: “According to Ryan Julison, assistant to Martin family attorney Benjamin Crump, Twin Lakes is actually not entirely gated. There is also no guard at the gate, there are no high fences. The community is just modest condos, Julison says, not protected with the electronic equivalent of a castle moat. So the Gate Access Form provided by The Retreat at Twin Lakes Homeowners Association could be considered somewhat misleading.”
– J. Neil Schulman

On February 26, 2012 George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer in the Sanford, Florida Retreat at Twin Lakes community which had recently suffered a spate of home burglaries, observed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin walking in circles in the rain, and telephoned his local police department to report the activity as suspicious. While on the phone with the police dispatcher Zimmerman reportedly followed Martin, and at some point there was a confrontation between Zimmerman and Martin in which witnesses report Zimmerman down on the ground with Martin on top of him. We know this confrontation ended when Zimmerman, who was licensed to carry a concealed firearm, fatally shot Martin.

Zimmerman is now out on bond, charged by Florida with Second Degree Murder. The state’s affidavit in support of this charge alleges that Zimmerman improperly followed Martin, initiating the confrontation, even though in the bail hearing State Investigator Dale Gilbreath testified that Florida does not know whether Zimmerman continued to follow Martin after the police dispatcher advised him this was not needed, and even though according to Dale Gilbreath’s testimony the State does not know whether Zimmerman or Martin started the fight.

But it’s the Florida prosecution’s contention that Zimmerman can not claim self-defense justifying his use of deadly force since by following Martin he created the circumstances leading to the teenager’s death.

Much of the discussion of this case has referred to Zimmerman’s right to be armed, constitutionally preserved under the Second Amendment. I’ve previously written on these pages that instead of restricting George Zimmerman’s right to keep and bear arms, it should have been expanded to include Trayvon Martin’s right to defend his life.

But what has not been discussed is whether as a Neighborhood Watch volunteer, George Zimmerman was acting properly in following Trayvon Martin.

I think the Third Amendment speaks to that question.

The Third Amendment reads, “No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.”

A narrow reading of this prohibition against “quartering” has failed to find a legal case to apply it to in the 221 years since it was added to the Bill of Rights. But this amendment’s placement between amendments preserving the right to keep and bear arms and restrictions on the powers of the government with respect to the privacy of the people deserves closer examination.

The Framers of the Constitution’s Bill of Rights did not see a clear distinction between soldiers and police officers. There were no municipal police departments in the United States at the time the Bill of Rights was under discussion, and crime control was the responsibility of the citizenry at large, responding to a “hue and cry” and organized ad hoc under the Power of the County — today still known using the original Latin phrase, posse comitatus. The American experience of the recent British subjects was that British soldiers were used by the royally-appointed governors as police officers. Embedding such officers among the people by quartering them in private homes was just one particularly egregious way of taxing the Americans to pay for the protection “services” being provided to them by their government.

Neighborhood Watch Volunteer George Zimmerman

After the 1992 Los Angeles riots I applied for and received a California license to carry a concealed firearm — which I carried in California until 2007 — and as training I took California’s PC-832 course, and passed the California POST exam. My Powers of Arrest and Communications and Tactics instructor, Jim Saharek, was a retired U.S. Secret Service agent; my Firearms instructor, Barry Dineen, was an LAPD officer. I got a perfect 4.0 grade in all three modules, as well as on the final POST exam.

POST Certificate

Regarding the George Zimmerman case.

There’s an aspect to this case which I have not heard discussed: that the “police” powers of a private citizen are in many cases identical to a sworn police officer’s — and for a good reason; most police powers originate with the private citizen. George Zimmerman was a neighborhood watch security volunteer on private property that he was authorized to be on.

When George Zimmerman observed Trayvon Martin acting in a manner he considered suspicious — walking around in circles in the rain — Citizen Zimmerman was acting within his assigned role to investigate further.

Citizen Zimmerman was acting within his proper role as a private Neighborhood Watch security volunteer to track Trayvon Martin, and to approach Trayvon Martin to ask him whether he lived on the property or who he was visiting.

The police dispatcher Zimmerman was talking to on the phone had an inferior understanding of the tactical situation than the security officer on scene (Zimmerman) and the dispatcher’s statement “We don’t need you to [follow your suspect]” was a well-intentioned attempt to keep Zimmerman out of jeopardy; but Zimmerman was the security officer on scene and was within his duty to pursue if he thought by doing so he was acting in protection of his neighbors’ safety.

I’ve heard TV pundits refer to George Zimmerman as a wannabe cop or “self appointed” neighborhood watch volunteer. This is a denigration of the private citizen’s responsibility to protect his neighborhood that would have shocked the Founding Fathers, who considered it was precisely the role of the private citizen to protect his neighbors whether as posse comitatus or as militia; the idea of standing police departments or military officers quartered among the people (Third Amendment prohibition) was exactly what the American Revolution — and the preservation of its principles in the Bill of Rights — was designed to escape.

I’m suggesting the Third Amendment opens a window to the context and mindset of the Framers regarding a standing paramilitary police department embedded among the people — beyond the literal and narrow text of the Third Amendment. The Supreme Court might well call this the “penumbra” of the Third Amendment.

It’s the denigration of the private citizen using “police” powers to protect his community — and the usurpation of these powers by a centralized authority — that is one of the principal methods by which Americans are infantalized by a paternalistic government.

It’s one of the main Progressive strategies since the late nineteenth century tilting us into a top-down authoritarian order. We now see how these usurped police powers are commonly abused against the citizenry.

We see it in SWAT teams breaking down the doors of private homes, and sometimes killing the homeowners, in a War on Drugs that trivializes the Fourth Amendment and usurps rights still held by the People under the Ninth Amendment.

We see it when police racially profile minorities, whether black youths like Trayvon Martin or Hispanics like George Zimmerman, who police think might be illegally in the country.

We see it in police officers arresting citizens who legally have the right to video or photograph them while executing their police powers in public places.

We see it in the common excessive use of police powers, in handcuffing even a six-year-old girl being taken into police custody for throwing a tantrum while in a kindergarten class.

We see it in TSA officers touching the private parts of women, children, and senior citizens, whose only crime is an intent to board a commercial airliner.

If merely by following Trayvon Martin, pursuant to his responsibilities as a Neighborhood Watch Volunteer, Citizen Zimmerman loses his right of self-defense, then there is one more disempowerment of the sovereign American citizen as understood by the Founders.

This prosecution is one more indication that the progressive centralization of authority in soldiers embedded among the citizens is a counterrevolution far along its way of reversing the liberties fought for and won in the American Revolution.

This article is Copyright © 2012 The J. Neil Schulman Living Trust. All rights reserved.

What is the tipping point when government overspending collapses the buying power of the dollar?

Business as usual.

That’s the assumption underlying everything you see on the news: coverage of the 2012 election, the Dow Jones Industrials, the price of gasoline, and the rate of workers filing for unemployment insurance. The acceptable limits to major media coverage of economic indicators only ask whether the United States is still in an economic downturn or whether the economy is slowly heading toward a recovery.

All of these discussions assume only mild risk to the economy from paying interest on a national debt above sixteen trillion, more than the gross domestic product, plus current government spending in the trillions, more than can be collected in taxes from the American people. Adding new taxes or increasing tax rates does not increase tax revenue, for two reasons: investors seek lower tax rates and move businesses overseas; and domestic bottom lines shrink because business spending on new production or hiring is instead taken by the government first.

Given that old government debts and new government spending can’t be paid for by taxes, payments can only be made by the Federal Reserve making up the difference by increasing the supply of dollar-accounted money and credit.

It’s called Quantitative Easing. It devalues the dollar, making everything paid for in dollars more expensive.

History shows us that there’s a tipping point beyond which a shrinking economy and an expanding money supply causes a currency to collapse in a catastrophic hyperinflation: what the theories of Austrian economics calls a “crack-up boom.”

It happened during the French Revolution in 1793 and in Weimer Germany in 1923.

It’s sometimes called “wheelbarrow” inflation because the amount of cash needed to buy groceries can only be lugged around in a wheelbarrow.

That tipping point — what for a private business would be called “bankruptcy” — needs a different term when we’re talking about the lawful currency of the United States: Federal Reserve Notes issued with the signatures of the Treasurer of the United States and the Secretary of the Treasury.

I’m labeling that tipping point — government spending more than what can be paid for by the American people as a whole — “Yankruptcy.”

We’ve already passed that tipping point.

We’re already “yankrupt.”

The only question is how long the rest of the world is able or willing to continue tying their own currency to the dollar in international trading — and willing to accept dollars in exchange for things they sell to America.

If the media pundits are right and the choice this November will be between President Barack Obama and his replacement by Governor Mitt Romney, then the problem of American Yankruptcy will not be addressed.

Nothing drastic — such as eliminating cabinet departments, firing hundreds of thousands of federal regulators and administrators, or eliminating foreign military deployments — will be done.

The spending will increase and the economy will collapse under the burden.

The dollar will go wheelbarrow.

I was aware of this pending problem decades ago when I wrote a novel about it.

Look for the movie later this year.

Alongside Night Movie Poster

It won’t be a documentary because it’s an action story taking place in the future.

But Addison Wiggin who heads up Agora Financial has already called it “The Hunger Games for adults.”

This article is Copyright © 2012 The J. Neil Schulman Living Trust. All rights reserved.

I wrote,

I downloaded the 911 recording off the web, isolated the phrase, and enhanced it with Roxio.

What George Zimmerman said in rainy 63 degree February weather in Sanford Florida was, “It’s fucking cold.”

The remark is not out of context. A minute or so earlier on the 911 tape George Zimmerman tells the 911 dispatcher, “It’s raining.”

Click on the mugshot of George Zimmerman to listen to my enhanced recording.

George Zimmerman

Rich Lowry blogged this article on National Review Online.

Now CNN has redone its original audio analysis and concurred with my analysis.

Here is CNN’s video report:

George Zimmerman’s 911 call: Audio enhanced

CNN did not acknowledge that I beat their report by nine days but my readers — and National Review Online readers — know that you heard it here first.

J. Neil Schulman

This article is Copyright © 2012 The J. Neil Schulman Living Trust. All rights reserved.

Yet if it was any Florida law that made any physical combat between George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin discriminatory in favor of George Zimmerman, it was Florida’s concealed-carry-weapons licensing law’s minimum age of 21 that denied the 17-year-old Trayvon Martin a right of self-defense with a concealed handgun.

Our laws are schizophrenic on the question of age, and infantalize post-pubescent human beings that thousands of years of human culture — and many cultures around the world today — have regarded as adults.

Trayvon Martin

By age 17 — the age Trayvon Martin was this past February 26, 2012 when he died from George Zimmerman’s fatal gunshot wound — my maternal grandfather, Samuel Lindenbaum, had been working for a living for six years; and my paternal grandfather, Abraham Schulman, had traveled by himself from Russia to the United States then journeyed from New York City to New Orleans, carrying a concealed handgun for protection. At age 16 my own father, Julius Schulman, was a professional musician playing on cruise ships. At age 14 I was regularly selling professional photography to local newspapers in Natick, Massachusetts.

At age 17 Trayvon Martin could not sign binding contracts in his own name, for example, an apartment lease, a purchase agreement for a car, or a credit-card application. He could not live on his own, legally drink alcohol, buy cigarettes, purchase a lottery ticket, marry, vote, or own a firearm and apply for a Florida CCW license. Yet, if the situation had been reversed and Trayvon Martin had killed George Zimmerman, there is virtually no doubt the 6’3″ Trayvon Martin would have been tried in Florida’s criminal courts as an adult.

A society in which a class of individuals has none of the rights of an adult yet at the capricious decision of a judge can be held criminally liable as an adult is a society with a legal underclass as much as the Jim Crow-South where blacks were taxed the same as whites — and subject to the same criminal liabilities — yet could not sit in the front of public-transit buses, use whites-only public restrooms or public-park water fountains, or marry outside their own skin color.

Regardless of how it finally emerges who attacked whom on that chill and rainy evening, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was denied the right exercised by George Zimmerman to armed self-defense as he walked from a local convenience store to his father’s fiancee’s home in Sanford, Florida’s Twin Lakes gated community.

Author’s Note: Thanks to my reader Anthony Beecher who commented on my previous article “What George Zimmerman Really Said.” He commented, “The real tragedy of this stand your ground law is that it is inherently stacked against youths because they are not permitted concealed carrys. Trayvon was not legally old enough to be prepared to protect himself from this stalker,” which inspired this article. I’d previously written on the topic of the double-standard of adult liabilities with no rights in my March 2001 Sierra Times article “Justifiable Insanity, reprinted here.
–J. Neil Schulman

This article is Copyright © 2012 The J. Neil Schulman Living Trust. All rights reserved.

Update April 5, 2012: CNN Audio Engineer Confirms My Analysis of “What George Zimmerman Really Said”!

There are millions of loud voices discussing the incident of Sanford, Florida Neighborhood Watch Captain George Zimmerman’s shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin on a chill and raining evening on February 26, 2012.

The incident has become a genuine Bonfire of the Vanities as Rev. Louis Farrakhan, Rev. Al Sharpton, and Rev. Jesse Jackson (so many revs it sounds like an engine starting!) are campaigning for “Justice for Trayvon.”

Millions have signed a petition demanding that Zimmerman be arrested.

The New Black Panther Party has issued a “dead or alive” fatwa on George Zimmerman — a Latino with a surname more common among Jews.

President Obama has said that Trayvon Martin looks like the son he would have had.

In Florida a Special Prosecutor and Grand Jury are both in the process of re-investigating the Sanford Police Department’s conclusion that Zimmerman legally shot Martin in self-defense, while Congressional and Department of Justice investigations are already making this a federal case.

And the question supercharging this shooting of a 6’3″ African-American teenager by a 5’9″ Latino-American man in his 20′s is a 911 recording in which George Zimmerman is widely reported to have muttered under his breath, “Fucking coons.”

If George Zimmerman said that, the shooting could be classified as a hate crime under federal law.

There is controversy about what George Zimmerman can be heard saying on that 911 tape. The sound quality is marginal. Some hear “Fucking coons.” Some hear, “Fucking tools.” Some hear, “Fucking punks.”

They’re all wrong.

I downloaded the 911 recording off the web, isolated the phrase, and enhanced it with Roxio.

What George Zimmerman said in rainy 63 degree February weather in Sanford Florida was, “It’s fucking cold.”

The remark is not out of context. A minute or so earlier on the 911 tape George Zimmerman tells the 911 dispatcher, “It’s raining.”

Click on the mugshot of George Zimmerman to listen to my enhanced recording.

George Zimmerman

Now can we all just get along?

Author’s Note March 28, 2012:

Rich Lowry has blogged this article on National Review Online.

A lively discussion follows so I added my own comment:

I wrote the article that Rich Lowry linked to.

My enhancement of the recording was increasing the volume of the upper frequencies — nothing else.

As Rich Lowry notes, the word “It’s” is in both versions, and the phrase, “It’s f***ing coons” is therefore a nonsensical interpretation.” The racist interpretation suggesting a hate crime is therefore not present on the record.

According to Weather Underground, which keeps an hour by hour record of weather on file for numerous locations (I link to its page for Sanford, FL on February 26, 2012 — the evening in question) the temperature was 63 degrees Fahrenheit and we hear George Zimmerman in the beginning of the 911 call telling the dispatcher that it’s raining — confirmed by Weather Underground.

Is 63 degrees and raining “f***king cold”? When I lived in Southern California I used to refer to 60 degrees Fahrenheit as a “bone chilling twenty below eighty.” I’m told Floridians are just as much infants about weather as I was.

J. Neil Schulman

This article is Copyright © 2012 The J. Neil Schulman Living Trust. All rights reserved.