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Mitchell’s laws:
●Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
●The more federal budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes. .
●Liberals think the purpose of government is to protect the poor and powerless from the rich and powerful. Conservatives think the purpose of government is to protect the rich and powerful from the poor and powerless.
●The single most important problem in economics is the gap between rich and poor.
●Austerity is the government’s method for widening the gap between rich and poor.
●Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the upper 1% will rule.
●To survive long term, a monetarily non-sovereign government must have a positive balance of payments.
●Everything in economics devolves to motive, and the motive is the Gap.

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All the Constitution says about religion is: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

Taken at its face, the Constitution says our government is not supposed to be a theocracy. The reason: God never is wrong and so, cannot be criticized. By extension, a theocracy never is wrong and cannot be criticized — the perfect recipe for the enslavement of the masses.

We all have our own religions or no religion at all. And each of our religions has different requirements and different prohibitions and different interpretations of those requirements and prohibitions.

No two of us uses exactly the same religion. And we are not consistent even in that:

“You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth;

If you never have drawn a person, a house, a stone, a fish or a god, or if you have none of those drawings or statues (i.e. graven images) in your house or workplace or place of worship, please raise your hand.

Abercrombie Headscarf Case Splits Conservatives
10 JUN 1, 2015 1:57 PM EDT, By Noah Feldman

Striking a blow not only for religious liberty, but also for diverse standards of beauty, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Monday that Abercrombie & Fitch could not deny employment to a young woman because she wears a headscarf for religious reasons.

The court also clarified that the job applicant, Samantha Elauf, didn’t have to tell her interviewer that she needed a religious accommodation.

If the company chose not to hire her because it didn’t want to make an accommodation by allowing her to wear the headscarf, that amounted to prohibited religious discrimination.

The difficulty here is that we are not a nation of religion; we are a nation of religionS, and these religions can have some peculiar requirements.

And sometimes these requirements and prohibitions conflict with civil rules and laws and what others might consider common sense.

Not being intimately familiar with the wide variety of religions in this world, I looked up just a few, and here is what I found:

Islam Question and Answer
Ruling on Muslim women working as nurses and doctors

If a woman (nurse or doctor) works in complete hijaab, without touching a male patient, or being alone with him in any way, and as long as there is no fear that she may be the cause of temptation or be tempted herself . . . and she has the permission of her guardian, then it is permissible for her to work.

In principle, men should be treated by male doctors and nurses, and women by female doctors and nurses. There should be no mixing of the sexes in medical treatment, except when it is necessary and as long as there is no fear of temptation.

As I read it, a female Muslim nurse can’t touch a male patient, except when she deems it necessary.

Can you visualize any life or death situations that could arise? Would a hospital legally be liable for a nurse’s negligence if she refused to administer care to a critically ill man, based on her religious beliefs?

What would the Supreme Court say?

Kaparot is a Jewish religious ritual that is performed by grasping a live chicken by the shoulder blades and moving (it)around one’s head three times. The chicken is then slaughtered.

On the eve of Yom Kippur 2005, more than 200 caged chickens were abandoned in rainy weather as part of a Kaparot operation.

Jacob Kalish, an Orthodox Jew from Williamsburg, was charged with animal cruelty for the drowning deaths of 35 of these chickens.

I am Jewish (for 80+ years), and I never had heard of this one, but hey, if your interpretation of your personal god’s will is to parade around, holding a live chicken by its wings, apparently that bit of cruelty is Constitutionally protected . . . (unless the chicken dies by drowning rather than by head chopping or some other means).

Digambar is one of the two main sects of Jainism. Senior Digambar monks wear no clothes. They do not consider themselves to be nude — they are wearing the environment.

Digambara ascetics have only two possessions: a peacock feather broom and a water gourd.

A naked man, carrying a broom and a gourd, is walking down the street, when the police arrest him for public indecency. Does he have a Constitutional religious defense? What would the Supreme Court say if Abercrombie & Fitch barred a naked Digambara from walking in their store?

A fundamental doctrine of the Jehovah’s Witnesses teaches that the Bible prohibits consumption, storage and transfusion of blood, including in cases of emergency.

This doctrine was introduced in 1945, and has been elaborated upon since then.

Jehovah’s Witnesses doctors and nurses (have been) instructed to withhold blood transfusions from fellow Jehovah’s Witnesses. As to administering transfusions to non-members, The Watchtower stated that such a decision is “left to the Christian doctor’s own conscience.”

The accident victim is bleeding out. The paramedic refuses to give him a transfusion that would have saved him, because a religious rule invented by someone 70 years ago, forbids it.

As a result, the victim dies. Constitutionally protected by the Supreme Court?

Peyote has (been) condemned by the Spanish conquerors for its “satanic trickery”, and attacked more recently by local governments and religious groups.

The (hallucinogenic) plant has nevertheless continued to play a major sacramental role among the Indians of Mexico, while its use has spread to the North American tribes in the last hundred years.

In America, hallucinogenic drugs are outlawed. Peyote is legal if its use is based on religion.

If there were a good, public reason why hallucinogenic drugs should be outlawed (doubtful), why does religion faith trump that good, public reason?

Human sacrifice in Aztec culture

The practice of human sacrifice was widespread in the Mesoamerican and in the South American cultures during the Inca Empire.

Like all other known pre-Columbian civilizations of Mesoamerica, the Aztecs practiced human sacrifice. The extant sources describe how the Aztecs sacrificed human victims on each of their eighteen festivities, one festivity for each of their 20-day months.

It’s the time of a festivity, and a group of people who became Aztecs, have selected their victim in an Abercrombie & Fitch store. The store objects.

Attention: U.S. Supreme Court: Is human sacrifice Constitutionally protected?

Supreme Court Keeps the Faith in Hobby Lobby

The U.S. Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby case, (in) a majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito, stated that closely held corporations are exempt from the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate.

So, closely held corporations are exempt from any law their owners happen to believe violates their individual religious beliefs? Instead, they are free to overrule the religious beliefs of those who disagree?

I strongly advocate the separation of church and state, but I believe the intent of the First Amendment is being misinterpreted and distorted. The basic idea is to prevent any one religion from forcing itself on all others, which many religions have done and do (ala the Inquisition).

The Constitutional idea was not to give license to every claimed “religious” activity that violates civil laws and common sense, including drug dealing, medical negligence, cruelty to animals, and murder.

There are certain points that must be considered:

1) There are thousands of religions and sects around the world, each with different customs, different requirements and different prohibitions, and each claiming to represent the word of a different god or gods.

Thus religions, like laws, are man made, not god made. (Unless you believe that your god, being the only true god, intentionally made all those other gods, to give those thousands of contradictory statements, just to confuse us mortals.)

2) Being man made, not god made, religions, like laws, constantly change their requirements and prohibitions.

Many of the acts religious people consider “traditional,” were invented a relatively short time ago, some in the past century or even the past decade.

3) While religions are exclusionary, federal civil and criminal laws in America are inclusionary, covering everyone in America.

Religious laws exclude non-believers. You are expected to use peyote, carry a chicken, wear a hijaab, or refuse a blood transfusion, if you belong to the particular sect of the particular religion that demands it.

By contrast, every American, must obey, and is protected by, the current interpretations of the U.S. Constitution.

The Constitution is superior to state constitutions, which in turn, are superior to city and village laws. So-called “states rights” are granted by the U.S. Constitution, not forced by state laws.

Clearly, a line must be drawn, and the Supreme Court is having trouble drawing it. So here is my suggestion for the Justices:

U.S. civil and criminal law must take precedence over religious law.

I don’t care how strong your Aztec religious faith may be, murder is a violation of our laws. So is withholding blood from a dying person, or allowing a hospital patient to suffer or die.

So is not vaccinating an innocent child, who is too young to make his own decisions. So is refusing to allow legally mandated insurance to cover legally allowed abortions. So is walking the streets naked, where local law prohibits it, or even torturing a chicken to death.

Yes, there are laws that can be construed as targeting certain religions.

New York Penal Law 240.35
Being masked or in any manner disguised by unusual or unnatural attire or facial alteration, loiters, remains or congregates in a public place with other persons so masked or disguised, or knowingly permits or aids persons so masked or disguised to congregate in a public place; except that such conduct is not unlawful when it occurs in connection with a masquerade party or like entertainment if, when such entertainment is held in a city which has promulgated regulations in connection with such affairs, permission is first obtained from the police or other appropriate authorities.

Yikes! What should a Muslim woman do? What should “the police or other authorities do”? Does this law unnecessarily target Islam?

This kind of question is both complex and simple. It is complex because it falls into what some might consider a “gray” area. But fundamentally, it is simple. The law has but two questions to answer:

1) Do the legitimate needs of society trump the needs of the followers of any particular religion.
Answer: Yes.

2) In this particular case, are the legitimate needs of society important enough to trump the needs of Muslim women?
Answer: In each particular case, society (not any one religion or pious person) must answer that question. (In New York, is the need to prevent masked people from assembling important enough to override the religious needs of some Muslim women to cover their faces?)

Courts of civil and criminal law, not courts of religious law, will decide that question. And that is the whole point the Supreme Court seems to miss.

As we said, in our society, civil and criminal law must, by necessity, take precedence over religious law.

Can this lead to religious persecution? Yes. Every form of law can lead to some sort of persecution.

For instance, police “profiling” can prevent crime or lead to racial persecution.

Reserving the best parking places for those who display handicapped cards, helps the sick but “persecutes” the able-bodied.

In each case, society must weigh the effects of the law.

If the law accomplishes an important civil purpose, any religious accommodations must not burden non-believers.

That is what the Supreme Court should remember.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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The Ten Steps to Prosperity:

1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D plus long term nursing care — for everyone (Click here)
3. Provide an Economic Bonus to every man, woman and child in America, and/or every state a per capita Economic Bonus. (Click here) Or institute a reverse income tax.
4. Federally funded, free education (including post-grad) for everyone. Click here
5. Salary for attending school (Click here)
6. Eliminate corporate taxes (Click here)
7. Increase the standard income tax deduction annually. (Refer to this.)
8. Tax the very rich (.1%) more, with higher, progressive tax rates on all forms of income. (Click here)
9. Federal ownership of all banks (Click here and here)
10. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (Click here)

Initiating The Ten Steps sequentially will add dollars to the economy, stimulate the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.
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10 Steps to Economic Misery: (Click here:)
1. Maintain or increase the FICA tax..
2. Spread the myth Social Security, Medicare and the U.S. government are insolvent.
3. Cut federal employment in the military, post office, other federal agencies.
4. Broaden the income tax base so more lower income people will pay.
5. Cut financial assistance to the states.
6. Spread the myth federal taxes pay for federal spending.
7. Allow banks to trade for their own accounts; save them when their investments go sour.
8. Never prosecute any banker for criminal activity.
9. Nominate arch conservatives to the Supreme Court.
10. Reduce the federal deficit and debt

No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia.
1. A growing economy requires a growing supply of dollars (GDP=Federal Spending + Non-federal Spending + Net Exports)
2. All deficit spending grows the supply of dollars
3. The limit to federal deficit spending is an inflation that cannot be cured with interest rate control.
4. The limit to non-federal deficit spending is the ability to borrow.

THE RECESSION CLOCK

Long term view:

Recent view:

Vertical gray bars mark recessions.

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the growth lines rise. Increasing federal deficit growth (aka “stimulus”) is necessary for long-term economic growth.

#MONETARYSOVEREIGNTY