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A Message to the Nation

By
Branden Espinoza
– June 19, 2011Posted in: Blog
A Message to the Nation, from The Resistance: When individuals, steeped in the traditions of their patriot fathers, witness the ebb of liberty and the sunset of that corps of...
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A Message to the Nation, from The Resistance:

When individuals, steeped in the traditions of their patriot fathers, witness the ebb of liberty and the sunset of that corps of rights once christened indivisible, and their humanity stirs their souls to pursue an honorable course to reclaim those self-same principles of freedom, it is incumbent on them to lay bare the injustices they have endured.

We hold with firm conviction that the individual is the supreme sovereign, that no just law can separate him from his life, liberty, and property without his consent, that when the express limits of government are usurped it is the right of the individual to disobey and to cast off each unjust and unlawful convention that violates his individual welfare and happiness. But when the custodians of our Constitution seek the edification of a despotic empire, it is our individual right, it is our individual duty, to nullify those decrees which violate our conscience.

The serenity of our citizenry in the face of such abuses is testament of the virtue of the American man, the self-same virtue that now compels him to refuse submission, conformity, and obedience to the illicit demands of tyranny.

We, The Resistance, recognize that the eternal disposition of the despot is to employ coercion, terrorism and violence in the subjugation of mankind. Each American citizen has endured violations designed to subjugate the individual under an evolving form of tyranny. It matters not which party rules; both require the sacrifice of subjects to the god of power.

The laws of nature compel us to accept that any unjust law, consistently applied as a boot to the throat of the sovereign, is unfit in the cannon of liberal jurisprudence and therefor null from the perspective of the individual. For too long, we as individuals have embraced the soft seductions of apathetic separation from our greatest of duties: the application of sovereignty. For too long we have accepted the role of the government of the noble oppressor. For too long we too have stood idly by in a state of willing ignorance.

As individuals we proclaim once again that every man is his own sovereign, to be judged according to his own obedience to principles of freedom, responsibility and tolerance, and that it is not the nature of man to be reformed by government, it is the nature of government to be reformed by man.

Every man is hereby absolved from the moral conflict restraining him from throwing off the shackles of unjust, immoral, and unconstitutional law. In so doing, the political connection between him and his nation is magnified and made living the furnace of disobedience. No longer will we live with blood stained souls in willing ignorance of the carnality that our sweat stained dollars have endorsed. We make our stand here. We make our stand now. We each proclaim, in no uncertain terms, that no more shall the downtrodden remain nameless. No more shall the government fain reason and eloquence, for it is brute force and our hearts are sounding, our minds are firm. We choose to disobey.

We join history’s historic objectors, that we too may find the courage of character to face the bludgeon, the gun, and the gavel; that we too may be remembered by our friends and our beloved families; that we too may be memorialized, not by the waves we made but by the principles we refused to abandon.

You are witnessing the rise of The Resistance. We are your neighbors, your students, your sons and daughters and our ranks are swelling. You see us and you know us not but for the smiles we carry, for we are at peace with our principles. In the days that come you will come to understand that we seek not for power but to pull it down. We employ no violence in our methods. We have no general, no organization, no weapons; but we are an army. Our members carry conviction in their hearts as they live by the motto: “I do not consent. I am The Resistance.”

Let Freedom Ring,

The Resistance

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1

Think Twice Before Buying

By
Branden Espinoza
– June 7, 2011Posted in: Blog
So, you’ve graduated, got a good job, have a partner you want to settle down with. Now you are thinking about buying your first home. Think again. A friend recently...

So, you’ve graduated, got a good job, have a partner you want to settle down with. Now you are thinking about buying your first home. Think again. A friend recently asked what I thought about buying a house right now. I figured I would share my response with all of you. My fiancée and I have talked about this a lot, and we have decided not to buy in the near future. This is why.


  1. The Three Principles

    2. We have decided, out of principle, to not buy until we can fulfill the following 3 principles.

    1. We will put down a 20% down payment.
    2. We will only buy under a 15 year mortgage.
    3. We want our mortgage payments to be no more than 25% of our take home pay.

    So for now, we need to increase our savings, increase our income, and be willing to compromise on our living standards.

  2. The Double Dip Dilemma

    3. Though home prices are low today they have not hit a solid bottom. Google “Double Dip Housing” and you will see that we still have about a 2-3 year glut in inventory. That excess inventory drives prices down. People who say that “this is the best time to buy” and “you are guaranteed a great deal” are looking backward, not forward.

  3. The Inflation Hedge Myth

    4. Interest rates WILL begin to increase significantly. Most Real Estate professionals will say that it is best to buy when interest rates are low, and they argue that interest rates are at historic lows. So buy now! That is true if you are entering into a 30, 40 or 50 year mortgage. Interest rates can rape you over the long run. However, think like an economist for a second. Artificially low interest rates do not create buyers markets, they create sellers markets. Where credit is cheap, prices always are higher. When interest rates finally rise, what is going to happen to the market? Less people will be buying because the high interest rates will price them out of the market. In order to attract buyers, home builders must lower prices on their homes. More profit will flow to the banks and less to the builders. That sucks if you are looking at a long term mortgage. However, if you are shopping for a 15 year mortgage, and can drop 20% on your house, you will be able to buy more house for less because your interest isn’t compounded over 3-5 decades.

  4. The Menacing Fed

    5. Interest rates will increase because the Federal Reserve will have to reign in inflation (Obama and Bush have almost tripled the M2 money supply to try to avoid the inevitable market corrections of the recession). So one of 3 things will happen.

    1. Perhaps they will not increase rates enough and inflation starts to ramp up. Again, real estate professionals will tell you that highly leveraged property is a great hedge against inflation, especially if you lock in your interest rates at these “historically low rates”. (I’m tired of hearing that meme). They say that even if hyper inflation kicks in, you will be able to pay back the debts quicker because you will make much more. That is a fundamental misunderstanding of how inflation works. The old adage, all boats rise with a rising tide, does not apply (at least not at the same rate). In fact, it is impossible to escape the detrimental effects of the time lag between the rise of different prices and wages. Your income will be the last to rise should inflation kick in, however you will be paying more at the pump, at the grocery store, and at the movie theater. Those prices will likely push most people into default on their mortgages long before they can reap the “benefits” of the real estate hedge.
    2. The Fed may miraculously contract the money supply to keep it at current levels. That may be fine for your mortgage as your buying power will remain the same. However, increased cost of credit means your next car payment will be higher. And since you are locked into a 30 year mortgage, you have to realize that your ability to pay for your kid’s college will be pinched by your mortgage as well. If you had a 15 year mortgage, you’d be in the clear.
    3. They may contract the money supply too much, causing deflation. In this case, you would find yourself upside down rather quickly, unless you were to pay down a large chunk at the beginning (say 20%). Also, in deflationary times businesses are more likely to lay off workers and higher cheaper ones than simply adjust pay downward. So you are more likely to find yourselves w/o a job.


  5. The Renter’s Serenity

    6. There are real benefits to renting. Do you know how to make all the necessary repairs that WILL be needed in your home? Can you afford the risk of code enforcement officers ordering you to make major changes? What if Matt has a great opportunity to take a job or go to grad school elsewhere? What if you child gets sick and needs to be treated by specialists in another state? In the end, if there is a high probability of flux in your life over the next 5 – 10 years, then now is not the time to buy, as romantic as it may sound.

That is why fiancée and I have decided to wait and save. However, that is just our risk management strategy. Yours may be different. In any case, learn everything you can about the economics of inflation and deflation before buying. I recommend reviewing articles at the Mises Institute. I can email some relevant commentary to any of you if you want. Cheers, and good luck with the decision.

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And The Young Tyrant Delivers

By
Branden Espinoza
– June 7, 2011Posted in: Blog
If the definition of dictatorship is a form of government in which the ruler is not restricted by a constitution or laws or opposition, then I submit that we are...

If the definition of dictatorship is a form of government in which the ruler is not restricted by a constitution or laws or opposition, then I submit that we are there. Sure, the Constitution still extends some marginal protections to us as citizens. But isn’t that in and of itself a bastardization of the purpose of the Constitution? Was it not written to limit the powers of our leaders, regardless of who they hope to oppress? There is a doctrine, first proposed by the Bush administration now championed by Obama, that argues that the Constitution protects only the rights of US citizens and that non-citizens on foreign soil are not parties to that particular social contract. What a load of crap! The Constitution was not written to extend rights to the citizenry. It was written to restrain the tyrannical nature of leaders, especially would be kings, regardless if they want to project that tyranny at home or abroad.

President Obama has presided over a threefold increase in the number of detainees being held at the controversial military detention center at Bagram Air Base, the Afghan cousin of the notorious prison at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. It’s the latest piece of news that almost certainly would be getting more attention — especially from Democrats — if George W. Bush were still president.

There are currently more than 1,700 detainees at Bagram, up from over 600 at the end of the Bush administration.

via The Gitmo no one talks about – War Room – Salon.com.

The article goes on to state that the administration’s policies fall short of international law. To hell with that, it falls short of Constitutional Law. Obama now stands guilty, as far as I am concerned, of gross war crimes.

But this should come as no surprise. I remember finding myself in rare, shocking agreement with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow back in January. In a speech at the National Archives, in front of the Constitution, Obama declared that he was going to ramp up Bush’s precrime doctrine to levels unknown in American history. Well, with this news, I can declare that just as Hitler delivered on his promises in Mein Kampf, so has Obama delivered on his opressive and grossly tyrannical pronouncements. Watch him in his own words.

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