The Rise and Fall of North Carolina’s Leadership in Gold and Sound Money

by Joshua D. Glawson
LPNC Strategic Communications Adviser

The first gold rush in North America began in North Carolina in 1799 after a 12-year-old boy named Conrad Reed found a 17-pound gold nugget. The news spread, drawing the attention of tens of thousands of prospectors to begin mining operations throughout the state.

This gold rush made North Carolina a central hub for gold mining and private coining. Gold mining became North Carolina’s second-largest market, behind agriculture.

When people mined gold in the U.S., they could turn that gold into standardized coins by taking it to a private mint or the U.S. Mint and would receive completed coins in return.

Private mints existed in America, such as John Higley’s private mint in Connecticut which minted copper coins as early as 1737; John Chalmers’ Maryland-based mint that started producing silver and gold coinage in 1783; and, Templeton Reid’s Georgia private mint beginning in 1830.

Until 1835, the only federal government minting location was the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia, which was too far away and costly for most people living in the Carolinas. Certainly, that would be a dangerous journey to be carrying large quantities of gold.

Since 1792, the U.S. Mint had provided free coining of gold, silver, and copper when people turned in their monetary metals. However, since it was free of charge, the process was slow as many more people turned their metals in.

In contrast, private mints charged a small fee but could coin much quicker than the Philadelphia Mint.

The private options for standardizing the content, purity, and weight of a gold coin were not guaranteed by the government as “legal tender,” but banks and everyday people readily accepted them.

These private mints were praised for their highest quality standards well trusted by the market and competed directly with government mints. Privately minted coins were quite common.

Although the Coinage Act of 1792 specified what the content, weight, purity, and denominations of U.S. coinage would be, the gold and silver coins produced were out of sync with world standards at the time in the sense that, in the U.S., silver was slightly overvalued versus gold.

Spanish silver coin - “Pieces of Eight”

Foreign coins (e.g. Spanish silver dollar known as “pieces of eight”), privately minted coins, and U.S. Mint coins all circulated within the United States. (That is until Congress intervened by passing The Coinage Act of 1857 to stop the circulation of foreign coins.)

From 1799 through 1830, North Carolinians either made the long trek to Philadelphia to have their coins minted or traded with local banks that then took the raw gold to the Philadelphia Mint.

Answering the market demand, Christopher Bechtler opened a private mint in Rutherford County, North Carolina, in 1830 and began privately minting gold coins in 1831 and 1832. Bechtler minted $1.00, $2.50, and $5.00 face value gold coins. The Bechtler dollar gold coin was the first gold dollar coin in the United States. The Bechtler family minted coins until the 1850s.

Both sides of a Bechtler gold dollar coin

Each Bechtler gold coin had the face value, “A. Bechtler,” “Carolina Gold,” and the weight in grams. For about 5 years the Bechtler Mint was the sole provider of gold coins in the Carolinas.

The federal government finally saw the need to open other mint locations around the country. In 1835, the U.S. Mint opened the Charlotte Mint, Dahlonega Georgia Mint, and the New Orleans Mint.

The Charlotte Mint in 1837

From 1835 to 1861 the federal government operated the Charlotte Mint and produced gold coins. During the Civil War, the Confederates converted the Charlotte Mint into a hospital and military office.

After the Civil War, the Charlotte Mint was converted to an Assay Office (1867-1913) before eventually being closed altogether on the notion that there was ostensibly no longer enough gold available to justify minting activities.

 Front and back of an 1860s Greenback

At the same time minting abruptly ended in North Carolina, central planners created the first U.S. income tax in 1861 and fabricated the US-Union fiat currency known as greenbacks in 1862 (Confederates made fiat greybacks). Truly a monetary seigniorage scheme.

They also created the IRS in 1862, established the federal tax levy court system, made private minting of coins or money illegal in 1864, expanded federal powers and territory through the National Banking Acts of 1863 and 1864 to create a false sense of demand, and created the Secret Service in 1865 to enforce those anti sound money laws and system.

Call me a skeptic.

This series of events that echoed throughout the American Civil War effectively ended North Carolina’s growth and leadership in gold mining and the private minting of sound money.

Today, you can still visit Reed Gold Mine in Midland, and the site of the Bechtler Mint in Rutherfordton. The Charlotte Mint building was relocated and reconstructed into the Mint Museum at Randolph in Charlotte in 1933 -- which was the same year that the U.S. government made owning gold bullion illegal.

Joshua D. Glawson is Content Manager for MoneyMetals.com and a writer and speaker in the Liberty Movement. He has been active with the Libertarian Party of California since 2015. He now resides in his home state of North Carolina. Check him out at Home - Joshua D. Glawson (joshuadglawson.com)

by: Rob Yates, LPNC Communications Director

I went to Orlando a couple of weeks ago for a long weekend celebrating my brother's birthday. We spent essentially three full days at Disney. While not necessarily my first choice, I would be lying if I denied having fun or being incredibly impressed.

First of all, the security there was magnificent. Somehow, they manage to get the guests into the park quickly and with relatively little inconvenience, while making me feel completely safe. This is in stark contrast to the comedy of errors that was the TSA (but that's a story for a different day). Suffice to say, when a private organization is incentivized to keep guests safe while moving them through a checkpoint quickly, they do it well. When government employees are incentivized to follow a bunch of ineffective rules and guidelines, they do it well, and the end result is no one is safe and the process is laughably inefficient.

Nevertheless, we made it into the park, and then we experienced the full extent of the outcome when a company with Disney's resources is incentivized to create a world of complete fantasy and wonder. The "Magic Kingdom" moniker is well-deserved. The parks each built an illusion of magic, imagination, and wonder, spanning past, present, and future. They explored the fantastic and the wonders of the seemingly mundane, crossed great geographies and distances, and brought the extremes of science fiction and the beauty of the natural world right to you... Whatever your fantasy, Disney had anticipated it, curated it, and perfected it.

The illusion was perfect, and it was complete. We were immersed in the world of Disney for a few days, adults and kids alike, and, while Disney is not my normal cup of tea, and I also have some serious trepidation about supporting them in any capacity (another story for another time), the trip was fantastic, a sentiment echoed by everyone who went.

Of course, on the flight back, we were flung back into the real world as we had another miserable experience with TSA. Perhaps it isn't surprising, given that TSA security officers consistently report the lowest satisfaction and have some of the highest attrition rates of any government job. But we suffer the indignation of airport security because it ensures our safety, or at least we are told. It's true that we have not had another major terrorist attack on an airplane since 9/11. Of course, it's also true that we didn't have a long history of them before 9/11 either. But that safety seems to be more of an illusion, as a third truth is that the TSA has failed major audits in recent years where undercover agents were able to sneak 95 percent and 80 percent of hidden weapons through the gates. 

In fact, under the auspices of "keeping us safe," we have seen the perpetual re-approval of the Patriot Act, the creation of the DHS, illegal spying on citizens by the NSA, and the framework by which the government is now trying to control speech on the internet, even going so far as to propose the Orwellian "Disinformation Board," which, among other things, considered people who questions vaccine mandates as potential domestic terrorists (you know, like the kind that they can't find in the TSA, but they need to justify their existence).

Politicians from both parties create the illusion that your life or livelihood is at stake if you vote for the other person. Then they propose policies, which they rarely actually enact, without being honest about the potential downsides of what they propose. They rely on our tribal nature to rally support for their cause, building on this illusion and making anyone who supports the opposition candidate a mortal enemy. Whatever else you might think about Disney, at least they create a happy illusion for gain.

Politics, on the other hand, obfuscates basic truths that are disadvantageous to them getting elected, consolidating power, and hiding what they are doing from us. Then, they can enact the policies supported by their big money donors; the same donors who fund the marketing campaigns that build the illusions that we should hate each other based on political beliefs.

Here's the truth. Unless you are a shill for the state seeking to oppress people, defraud them, or take away their rights for your own gain, then I am not your enemy. We have more in common with each other by magnitudes of life than we do with the political elite and the corporate-connected dark money that keeps them in power.

Freedom can be scary, but the alternative is the illusion of safety at the cost of our rights, and that is much scarier.

A Presentation Given at the LPMeck Convention*

*edited slightly for print

by: Jp Cortez, Executive Director, Sound Money Defense League

What Happened to Sound Money?

It didn't fail, to be sure. The gold standard did not fail. It was killed, by dishonest politicians who do not like honest money. The main way it was killed was by taxes. You can't use gold and silver anymore as money, largely because of the taxes associated with doing this.

In some states, when you buy gold and silver, you pay a sales tax. In every state, and then again with the feds, you're hit with a capital gains tax when you sell. There's too much friction involved to use gold and silver as money. So what we do [as an organization] is go state to state and DC, removing the disincentives, the frictions, the taxes, and the regulations around using sound money as actual money.

So maybe we'll take a step back. What we're talking about here when we say sound money, we mean money that has long-term purchasing power that has been tested by markets. Money is not determined by a government. If the world were flat, no executive order could make it round. And if the world were round, no act of Congress could make it flat.

On a long enough timeline, money wins out. The government does not get to decide what money is. The market's cheaper.  So what we're talking about here is a money that retains its purchasing power over the long-term. There are two pretty simple value propositions to understand the importance of sound money.

The first is that it allows people to plan for the future. If I were building a house, if I were taking out a 30-year loan, I would want to know that the unit in which the loan is denominated will hold its value. I need to be able to make that sort of planning to be able to build infrastructure, to be able to long-term plan.

And that long-term planning and the infrastructure is what increases livelihood, and what decreases is the mortality rate. These are the things that make a difference long-term.

And so you need a solid money to be able to do that. There are places around the world today where you have to be paid multiple times a day for your job, where you're paid in the morning, and then you're paid again at night, because if you hold the money for too long, twelve hours from now, your money's worthless.

In those places, they're carrying wheelbarrows of cash. Money is broken, and it's not that far away from happening here. This isn't an obscure thing. Historically, this happens all the time. On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for all fiat paper monies is zero. Every single one of them dies. It's just a question of when.

So the first reason why sound money is important is to be able to plan for the future. The second is that it shackles a government that would otherwise support it, spend recklessly, and do things that it's citizenry wouldn't pay for voluntarily through taxation. 

We're talking about wars of choice. We're talking about giant domestic programs, retirement programs. They're so bloated that they don't actually provide any safekeeping for the people who are relying on these things to retire, for example, for the future. So sound money is not just for the ability to plan. It also constrains the government. It keeps the government from doing things that we know we don't want governments doing. 

This idea is sort of for the academic heads, the Miseses, the Rothbards, the Hayeks of the world. This idea is Rothbardian. This definition of sound money comes from the Austrian or the free market tradition. While we know that the monetary problem is largely a federal problem, this is a problem that stems from the federal government and the Federal Reserve monetary system.

We know that, but that doesn't mean that states have to sit idly by and watch the purchasing power of their money be zapped away. All over the country, not just North Carolina, you have people unable to afford housing, unable to afford food, medicine, transportation, and that's not an act of God.

Inflation is a policy choice. This is something that the federal government is choosing to do. States do have options. And one of the primary things they can do is re-monetize other forms of money to allow for competition in currencies. If it weren't for legal tender laws, and if it weren't for the government requiring payment of taxes in the U.S. dollar, we likely wouldn't use the U.S. dollar. Just objectively, this is a piece of paper without any backing. very easily debased. They literally print millions upon billions of them a day, and that money that's regularly printed goes to fund really nefarious and horrible things all around the world.

Fortunately, I'm happy to say that sound money itself is in the middle of a movement. This past year, there were 26 states in the United States that introduced legislation to adopt sound money, and to remove taxes around the use of sound money. To invest physical gold and silver in state pension funds and in state reserve funds. In North Carolina's case, there is active legislation for the state to conduct a study about whether they should store gold, silver, and Bitcoin on the state's balance sheet.

Eight years ago when we started this project, it was a very minor thing. It was me and the people on our staff running around asking states and asking legislators to introduce this stuff. That's not the case anymore. Against a backdrop of record high inflation, of kids not being able to afford to go to college anymore, of public schools failing, of infrastructure failing, and of America regularly fighting wars that they have no business fighting, or at least funding wars they have no business funding, things are changing.

Against the backdrop of all of this, people are starting to say, wait a second, why is this the money we're using? And how does this money enable all of this horrible stuff?  So, again, states themselves are doing a lot of things to encourage individuals to invest in gold and silver, and for themselves to also invest in gold and silver. This was the list of more than half of the states in the country in 2023 that introduced legislation to promote sound money, to promote the preservation of purchasing power, to allow people to save long term.

Historically, in the past, when people wanted to save money, they would simply hold money, because the money itself would hold value. But that's not the case anymore. You can't just hold money as wealth preservation or as a savings vehicle. Because it loses – on purpose, a stated purpose - it loses at least 2 percent of its value a year.

And that's if you buy the official inflation numbers. Closer to 7 or 8 percent if you've walked into a grocery store in the last year, and you know for a fact it's not 2 or 3 percent. So, historically, people were able to store money and because the government broke the money, they're no longer able to do that.

Now you have to invest in risky stock market casinos. Now you have to buy ETFs and mutual funds and stocks. Now you have to buy third-world debt just to have your money keep up. And so now people who are planning for the future, myself, my younger brother, the people in this generation, they need to be working.

They need to be increasing their output by at least 2 or 3 percent a year just to break even. And that's impossible for this many people, the ask is way too high. And too many people are suffering because the money has been broken. People work for money, that broken money, that somebody else prints for free.

And that actually is, at its root, the nature of the failure of the central banking system like one we have today. These are called Cantillon effects, an economic term to describe how, when central banks print money, the people who get that money first are government actors. They're politically tied people.

And by the time the money comes down to you and me and the people in this room, inflation has already adjusted and prices have already risen. It's the people most entrenched, the people with political power, that get the easy money first. And by the time it reaches us, it's the same broken money that we're carrying in our wallets today.

There are also federal initiatives. It's not just on the state level. To be sure, I think at the state level is the best chance of passing policy. D.C. is largely a gridlocked place, a place for people who want to make a name for themselves, who want to grow personas. People interested in actually making a difference are in Raleigh, are in Nashville, are in Albany, are in Tallahassee, in the state capitals.

And that's where you can affect change. And so actually, maybe more than anything I've said today, the largest thing you can take away from what I'm saying is to please be an active participant in your legislature. You don't have power in D.C. I'm sorry.

You call D.C., an intern is going to answer the phone. The congressman may or may not get your message. Probably won't. It'll be filed away. You'll never be heard. When you call Raleigh, when you call state capitals, these people are not used to organized efforts.

Even just ten or twenty calls phone calls to a state switchboard and all of a sudden you have a hot issue on your hand. I understand the belief that political efficacy is at an all-time low, the belief that you don't have much power to change what happens in D.C. I'm sorry, that's probably true. But that doesn't have to be true on the state level.

And so I encourage everyone, be it sound money, be it drug legalization, be it civil asset forfeiture, be it education, no matter what the issue, be an active participant in your state legislature, because you have a voice there.

But we are doing things in D.C. We worked with Congressman Alex Mooney from West Virginia, who has really carried the sound money torch since Dr. Ron Paul retired. Congressman Mooney has introduced several D.C. federal sound money bills. The Gold Standard Restoration Act would peg the dollar to a price of gold based on the market price at the time.

The Monterey Meadows Neutrality Act, and Ted Cruz also introduced something similar to this as well, but Congressman Mooney has a federal bill that would exempt capital gains from gold and silver, which would mean the friction that I talked about, the tax that enforces or levies a tax on anyone who sells their gold or silver capital gains, this on the federal level would completely remove that. And most states operate their tax return based on the federal AGI. So doing this in one fell swoop would be an incredible win.

Many of you may know there is allegedly gold in Fort Knox. I personally have never seen it. I know that there is some sort of made-for-Hollywood TV showing where someone took a camera and they sort of looked at it for a second and then quickly panned away. And we're supposed to believe that there are hundreds of millions of billions of dollars worth of gold in there?

Maybe there is, maybe there isn't. More important than that, though, is whether or not it has any financial encumbrances. The gold might be there, but who owns it? Who has this been pledged to? Does China own it? Does Russia own it?

Does Germany own it? Whose gold is this? And so this bill would call for a full accounting of all transactions, all encumbrances, all financial swaps, or leases, or anything on the gold that supposedly is the backbone of America.

Central banks and the Federal Reserve are still buying gold, and they're telling you gold is not money, but central banks around the world are still actively buying gold. The question as to whether or not it's still there is incredibly important.

In North Carolina, there is legislation on the state holding gold, silver, and bitcoin on its balance sheet. Representative Mark Brody introduced legislation. We did pass it out of the House and we're hoping to get hearings in the Senate this year.

This is my first time at a Libertarian party event, I've never done this, thank you for having me, thank you. I was struck once, I remember having a conversation with someone who said something to me in reference to the Libertarian National Convention. Something like, well, you know, those Libertarians, those people are crazy, you know, they've got shirtless people on stage, they've got, you know, people with hats on, these are crazy people. 

And I said, yes, totally crazy. You know what else is crazy? Bombing the shit out of Aleppo. You know what else is crazy? A system that enables civil asset forfeiture, that allows a cop to pull me over and just take the things in my car because they say so, and with very little recourse for me after they've been taken. You know what else is crazy? That the Revolutionary War was fought over like a 3 percent tax on tea, and now 35 to 40 percent of my wages and everything I do is regularly taxed. Crazy? You guys want to talk crazy?

Come on. National debt will hit $35 trillion this summer. This is a massive issue. And the idea, like, Libertarians are so active, they've been so good for decades on gay marriage, on drugs, on war. Libertarians are the voice. They have been the voice of this country for decades. Long before Barack Obama endorsed gay marriage, Libertarians were writing about it in the 70s.

Libertarians are the background and they're the moral fiber of this country and they're such an important voice. The voice for Liberty, the voice for freedom, the voice for self-choice, for self-efficiency, for self-efficacy. Huzzah for being ahead of the curve. Thank you.

Javier Milei, the guy who just won the presidential race in Argentina. I'm here in L.A., I wake up every morning, I see this guy has cut another government agency, this guy has laid off another thousand government workers. Man, talk about a dream, right? But maybe we do live in the best timeline. Maybe we do. At the end of all his speeches, he says something and he says it in Spanish.

He ends all his speeches with the saying Viva la libertad carajo, which is Spanish for "Long live freedom, dammit." This should be the default. This is not for questioning. My rights are not up for a debate. They sure as shit aren't up for a for a vote.

Thank you so much.

by: Trevor Miles

The Middle East. Just mentioning it in political circles creates tied tongues and a list of opinions longer then the number of years the United States has had troops deployed there.

An economic and energy powerhouse, an area of deep history and powerful religious dedication, a region shaped by substantial external meddling and imperialism, and the graveyard of countless American youths since the early 2000s; the Middle East is everything except simple. Being only 27 years old, I’ve never truly known a United States at peace, and at the rate the current global geopolitical situation is deteriorating, I fear I never will. Now, even after we have left Afghanistan, at least for the moment, we find ourselves once again threatened with a Middle Eastern conflict, this time sparked by the ever-present issues presented by the United States’ entangling alliance with Israel. 

Since coming to have some understanding of global geopolitics, I can’t help but wonder why we the people continue to tolerate the government supporting a country who is clearly able to defend itself (see the multiple full-scale conflicts between Israel and its Arab neighbors). Perhaps it’s because the conservatives feel some theological need to protect the Holy Land (even though we are not a Christian nation, and never have been), or maybe because the warhawk democrats feel the need to ensure control over a constant supply of oil to line their pockets with lobbying money. 

Understand, I am not defending any of the actions of Hamas, nor am I taking a side in this conflict. Rather, I am saying that, in my political opinion, the U.S. needs to exit the Middle East entirely. The people of the Middle East have suffered from centuries of imperialism by the Europeans and Americans. The first step to ending the American empire and restoring our country to the Shining City on the Hill - a beacon of freedom and peace for the whole world - is to stop distracting ourselves with pointless conflicts in the sandbox. Israel has proven itself capable of its own defense. Let them be the ones to bury their sons and daughters in defense of their nation, as it should be with all foreign conflicts, instead of bleeding us dry and shattering another generation of American youth with the horrors of war that can never be won.

by: Rob Yates, LPNC Communications Director

In just over a week, many of us in the LPNC, around our state, in the U.S., and across the globe will come together in any one of a beautifully diverse set of traditions for the single most celebrated holiday in the world, marking the day we observe and celebrate the birth of a child some two millennia ago.

Suspend for a moment, if you will, all considerations of the religious aspect of Christmas, and ignore historical accuracy questions about Jesus' birth date and adopted pagan holiday dates. Instead, examine the actual story of the birth of Jesus, the message he brought, how the state at the time responded to it, and how those lessons remained true throughout history and still apply today.

Simply as a result of being born, before he was a day old, Jesus faced mortal danger from King Herod, who, responding to a prophecy, decided he would rather kill a baby than chance the emergence of someone who could challenge his power. In early chapters of both Luke and Matthew, the wise men of the nativity story, who met Herod on the way to Bethlehem while following a star, take a different route home after seeing the baby Jesus so they could avoid Herod as they learned of his plans to kill the baby. But, as we know all too well, one recalcitrant collaborator is not enough to deter the state, driven by its insatiable hunger for power. Mary and Joseph had to flee to Egypt to protect their newborn, which so enraged Herod at his inability to kill this infant that... well, this is how Mathew tells it:

Matthew 2:16-18 Then Herod, when he saw that he was deceived by the wise men, was exceedingly angry; and he sent forth and put to death all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its districts, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the wise men.

The CIA or KGB assassinating political opponents is just the latest version of a tactic that dates back to biblical times. Of course, Herod didn’t have Epstein's client list or similar leverage more appropriate to the time, and so he failed to kill Jesus and eventually died himself, leaving Jesus to grow up and become the protagonist in the most influential tale in known human history.

You need be neither Christian nor even religious to appreciate the gospels. Jesus lived by a code that sounds strangely familiar. Don’t hurt people (Matthew 7:12 So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.), don’t take people’s stuff (John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy), and don’t initiate violence (Matthew 5:9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.). We even have an idea of how he might have viewed the Fed, when he overturned the money changers’ tables and called them a den of thieves for making money their religion.

In fact, Jesus specifically called out the abuses of power inherent to the state, and instead advocated for lives of service as an act of resistance. Matthew 20:25-28 But Jesus called them over and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones make their authority over them felt. This must not be so with you. Instead, whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your servant."

We all know how the story ends, of course, when the state had reached a point where it could no longer tolerate the threat to its power posed by the existence of someone who had the audacity to promote peace and harmony over violence and coercion. To put an end to Jesus' revolution of love, the state paid 30 silver pieces in blood money to Judas Iscariot, the first of so many Judas Iscariots who have killed innocent people on behalf of the state since. Even facing death, Jesus was defiant in his refusal to acknowledge the false charges he faced, and the state was forced to spread a little (very) old fashioned misinformation, stirring up the people to call for the release of Barabbas instead of Jesus to ensure the assassination they desired.

There are any number of other examples of Jesus committing great acts of revolutionary defiance by simply being peaceful, but I am not here to give a lesson on the Bible (nor am I qualified to do so). Instead, I want to fast forward about 1850 years and ponder, for a moment, if the state would tolerate the return of Jesus any better than it did his first stint on earth. In other words, have we learned anything? Fortunately, someone far smarter than I makes a solid case. In The Grand Inquisitor, a standalone chapter (and arguably the greatest single piece of literature in history) in the novel The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky wrestles with this problem in a profound way.

Two of the titular brothers are talking, and one has composed a prose poem imagining the return of Jesus during the fifteenth century, at the peak of the Inquisition. Accused heretics, condemned for even being suspected of challenging the state's proclaimed orthodoxy, are burned in droves daily. Amidst this, Jesus simply appears, in Spain, walking among the actual ashes of the bodies. People are immediately drawn to him, as he radiates peace and love. A blind man is given sight, sick are healed, and pain is no more for the crowd around him.

The people, broken and conditioned to a state of fear and subservience, flock and rejoice. By his presence alone, Jesus gives them freedom, the first time they have experienced freedom, and they revel in the joy it brings. His very existence is an act of resistance, founded in love, even as he does nothing but walk among the crowd, except when he says two words, “Talitha cumi,” which is Aramaic for “Little girl, I say to you, arise,” and brings a little girl back from the dead (This is the same thing he says in Mark 5:41 when he brings Jairus’s daughter back from the dead.).

Drawn out by the commotion, the Grand Cardinal Inquisitor comes with his guards, and the people fall instantly and instinctively back into their fearful obedience, begging for the blessing of the highest official in the state. As the state does to those who worship it, as long as they are useful, he blesses the re-subservient crowd and has Jesus arrested and placed in a solitary jail cell, which he enters alone. At first, the Inquisitor questions if it really is Jesus, but quickly turns to berating him. He is furious that Jesus would dare return and threaten what he calls the "freedom" that the world has been granted through obedience and fear, built carefully over fifteen centuries. He says to Jesus:

"For fifteen hundred years we have been at pains over this freedom, but now it is finished, and well finished. You do not believe that it is well finished? You look at me meekly and do not deign even to be indignant with me. Know, then, that now, precisely now, these people are more certain than ever before that they are completely free, and at the same time they themselves have brought us their freedom and obediently laid it at our feet."

The Grand Inquisitor continues his rant, admonishing Jesus for his actions described in the Bible passage where the Devil tempts Jesus three times in the desert (Matthew 4:1-11 and Luke 4:1-13). The Inquisitor is furious that Jesus did not accept the Devil’s offers, as mankind would never have suffered what the Inquisitor sees as the unbearable burden of freedom, and would thus have been happy. He tells Jesus how they, the elites of the world, have worked for centuries to undo the choice Jesus made, working diligently to take away humanity's freedom and instead give the happiness of obedience.

"And if it is a mystery, then we, too, had the right to preach mystery and to teach them that it is not the free choice of the heart that matters, and not love, but the mystery, which they must blindly obey, even setting aside their own conscience. And so we did. We corrected your deed and based it on miracle, mystery, and authority. And mankind rejoiced that they were once more led like sheep, and that at last such a terrible gift, which had brought them so much suffering, had been taken from their hearts."

The Inquisitor tells Jesus the work is not yet complete, but it will be. He promises Jesus that eventually all of humankind, save the elite few rulers, will know the happiness only possible in the absence of freedom, and the elites shall suffer the great burden of freedom as they rule over everyone else.

"With us everyone will be happy, and they will no longer rebel or destroy each other, as in your freedom, everywhere. Oh, we shall convince them that they will only become free when they resign their freedom to us, and submit to us."

I encourage you to read it yourself and see how it ends, but we know how it ends in real life. Malcolm X was not assassinated until he started preaching peace and unity. Julian Assange and Edward Snowden have suffered unimaginably not for any harm they did to anyone else, but for exposing the crimes of the state, crimes which the government codified and even extended just recently. Malala Yousafzai was nearly assassinated for seeking the freedom of education. LSD and psilocybin were proven highly effective for treating alcoholism in the 1950s until they were associated with Timothy Leary and counterculture, which threatened the state, and thus made so illegal that even research was forbidden. People present at the capital on January 6 have received prison sentences that are many times longer than the sentences given to child rapists, because of the willingness to defy the state they represent, reckless though they may have been. Even journalists there in that capacity have been found guilty, like North Carolina’s own Stephen Horn.

Of course, as influential as some of those people are, none of them redefined human history for the last two millennia. Again, completely separate from the religious implications, the joy associated with Christmas and the birth of a child is because of the freedom that child represents. It is the pure and profound freedom, inherent and gifted to every human on the planet, from which our natural rights are derived. And it is a freedom that does not ask permission, which is something the state – whether it manifests as a religious tyrant, a military tyrant, an elected tyrant, or any other authoritarian tyrant – cannot abide.

The choice we have, the real choice, is whether we will submit to the tyranny and accept the reprisals of a state terrified of a free people, or if we will live freely and accept the consequences as the state inevitably asserts its monopoly on violence and tries to regain control and obedience. I know what I choose. Merry Christmas. Be Free.

Buckle up, the 2024 Campaigns have Begun

When the 2024 filing window closed at noon on Friday, December 15, the LPNC had an incredible 46 candidates file for 44 races. In total, we will have candidates running in four Council of State races, four federal congressional races, 13 NC Senate races, 16 NC House races, and seven local municipal races. We also currently have ten candidates to consider for our presidential preference poll (the nominee is chosen at national convention).

While some candidates have been campaigning for a while now, most will begin to ramp things up in the next few weeks. Libertarians can mark their calendars for the primary day vote on March 5, when Mike Ross and Shannon Bray will see who made the better case to NC voters for the governor candidacy, and House District 44 voters will select either Christina Aragues or Angel Yaklin to be their candidate. Primaries are relatively uncommon for the LPNC, especially two in one year, but this just marks one example of a growing surge of excitement that is translating into action.

Political and Policy Director, and Lieutenant Governor candidate, Dee Watson agreed with this sentiment. "First and foremost, thank you to all our amazing candidates who filed. They are giving voters in NC the only real choice for freedom in the state. It is impossible to quantify the personal investments our candidates have made so far, but the total amount they spent on their filing fees surpasses the state party's budget on operational items. They donate their time and treasure and do it to give voters a true freedom option. I am in awe of them.

"This year I really concentrated on helping candidates across the state file for office. In the 2022 election cycle I was on the Wake EC and worked with the great Brad Hessel and watched how he recruited and placed candidates. In the 2022 first filing there were 19 candidates from Wake and only 11 from the 99 other counties. After I became the LPNC Pollical & Policy Director, I really wanted to expand the Wake apparatus for candidate recruitment to the rest of the state. This year, as always, Wake did an amazing job. They ran more state legislature candidates than the Republicans.

"But the story this time is that a lot of counties are stepping up. This year, the other 99 counties ran 32 candidates, nearly tripling the prior year's total! Wake still sets the standard, and I haven’t managed to approach their success, but this huge improvement is encouraging, and show Liberty spreading across the state. I want to give a special shoutout to Cumberland and Durham counties who worked to recruit candidates and now have similar candidate/registered Libertarians numbers as Wake County.

"There are two people who went above and beyond. Ryan Brown, the state chair, created the website for the candidates, helped me organize the board of elections download, and found the candidates in non-partisan races. He is an incredible asset to the LPNC, and he does so much for candidates for which I am so grateful. Christina Aragues, our Candidate's Coordinator, has an unmatched passion for Liberty candidates. She brings much needed insight and energy to the team in a way that no one else does.

"We obviously have lots of work to do, getting people to file is just the first step. Next, we plan to get candidates on our web page, help them with social media, get them connected in MatterMost and introduce them to the rest of the Libertarians in NC."

There are a number of intriguing candidates and races this election cycle. Steve Feldman is a first-time candidate running for U.S. Congressional District 10. While he will be competing with some recognizable names in NC politics, they will have to focus on the primary first, giving him the opportunity to make his case to the unaffiliated voters who now dominate NC registrations. Steve plans to run a campaign based on aggressive civility and a commitment to principle. "I became a Libertarian because our ideals resonate with me. I think the electorate is ready for a breath of fresh air to replace the stale politics of polarization that set people against each other. I’m confident that, like us, our opponents truly want what’s best for people, and I refuse to demonize them as we debate what policies will best achieve that. I greatly appreciate the support of our state party and the enthusiasm and guidance they’ve given me in this quest," Steve told the Tar Heel.

Another race worth watching at the federal level is U.S. Congressional District 3, where Gheorghe Cormos is the Libertarian candidate. Gheorghe, who previously ran for Town of Cape Carteret Commissioner, will go head-to-head with Republican Greg Murphy, as the Democrats did not field a candidate in that race. Murphy has skeletons in his closet, even by politician standards. He has a voting history that aligns with support for big government and more regulation. He is chair, vice-chair, or member on eight state legislative committees, including the ABC Committee, completely intertwined with a political machine his party claims to want to restrain. He also has a series of controversies in his past, including a tweet (which he later deleted) implying that woman could not be raped because they actually want it. He also raised significant objection to Davidson College removing a requirement that its president and trustees generally be Christians.

The Tar Heel will profile all our candidates in the coming months, and will also provide details on how you can support campaigns, attend events, volunteer, and vote. Additionally, information on all the candidates will be posted to the LPNC website over the next couple weeks, and updated throughout the year. We will include websites, social media, videos, and much more. We will be contacting all the candidates over the next week to help you get started with the resources available from the state party.

by Joshua D. Glawson
LPNC Strategic Communications Adviser

One of the nicest parts of driving around the United States is getting to experience different views of diverse terrain. From the serene Outer Banks of North Carolina to the golden sands of California, the memorable panoramic aesthetics are worth the drive. 

Along with differences in landscape, there are diverse cultural differences that include tasty and exotic cuisine, music, fashion, language, and norms. Experiencing a wide array of civilizations within the U.S. can enrich a person’s happiness and life trajectory, while it can also teach how to interact with a variety of personalities and effectively deal with cultural differences. 

North Carolina has some common cultural traits that are blatantly visible to domestic and foreign migrants flocking to the state. The positive traits found in North Carolina include family-orientedness, classical education, Carolina BBQ, Appalachian Bluegrass, and a communally shared sense of unique accomplishments that help set North Carolina apart and above the other states in the region. Some of the more common negative traits found in North Carolina include a pseudo-attachment to freedom, cantankerous and imperious personalities, and an ongoing embrace of nativism. 

This article will highlight these negative traits to help the North Carolina Liberty Movement avoid and overcome these potential downfalls. Just as most North Carolinians are proud of the uniqueness that encompasses the state, the North Carolina Libertarian Party should also actively work toward setting itself apart from and above the common masses. 

Freedom 

Although North Carolina has a rich history of celebrating freedom, there is frequently more lip service than actionable measures taken. For starters, there is serious speculation that North Carolina was not the “First In Freedom” as the state so often likes to claim. According to the Cato Institute’s State Freedom Index, North Carolina has dropped in overall freedom rankings from 20/50 to 24/50. 

Additionally, as many North Carolinians are well aware, the state authorities continue to micro-dictate almost every act of freedom, including the Alcoholic Beverage Control system (ABC), exorbitant barriers to entry for a wide range of careers and industries, and Certificate of Need regulations which effectively prevent healthy competition and service regarding healthcare provisions. It is as though the North Carolina state slogan “First In Freedom” is in direct conflict with the North Carolina state motto “Esse Quam Videri” (i.e. “To Be Rather Than To Seem”). 

Personality 

One common characteristic found in North Carolinians is a pugnacious personality that exalts derision and then calls upon the strong arm of the state to enforce their will upon others. This disdainful attitude is intensified towards those viewed as social pariahs of the state, which typically hyperfocuses non-natives. 

One place these behaviors are witnessed is on highways. In North Carolina, it is the norm to be in the left lane of a two-lane road going well under the speed limit - although there are people behind trying to get around and the lane is clear ahead. They speed up when trying to pass, and utilize the slower right lane to their advantage of not allowing others to pass although they are going under the speed limit itself. It is as though ensuring that others are not allowed to move freely, and enforcement of laws by the common citizen, are the higher values for many North Carolinians. Then, when accidents occur, they often cry to the state for protection for themselves and the punishment of others, as they wait in the middle of the road for the police to arrive causing further traffic and frustration. 

Diversity

North Carolina has been notoriously cynical and critical of perceived outsiders since the state’s early beginnings. This has been seen through laws of the past that included anti-Black laws, anti-Catholic laws, policies and laws against civil liberties, anti-Hispanic sentiments, hostility toward those from India, and the general disdain for those who do not speak English. These approaches, among many others, have created an environment that is unwelcoming to foreign and domestic immigrants moving to the state. Tactics such as these facilitate a static economic environment that is not conducive to variety, change, improvement, or flourishing. Furthermore, it instills a sense of heteronomous authority as opposed to autonomous individuality. Such approaches can have detrimental effects on the populous and the state itself. 

If the Libertarian Party of North Carolina wishes to make ground toward achieving greater liberty in the state of North Carolina, we have some work to do. We must work together to resist adhering to false narratives of liberty, and live our individual lives that reflect the non-aggression principle in every facet of life while encouraging tolerance and welcoming diversity.

Joshua D. Glawson is a writer and speaker in the Liberty Movement. He has been active with the Libertarian Party of California since 2015. He now resides in his home state of North Carolina. Check him out at Home - Joshua D. Glawson (joshuadglawson.com)

by: Rob Yates, LPNC Communications Director

Last week my bid for mayor of Charlotte, NC ended on election day. While I fell short in my candidacy, I don’t consider the effort a failure. I got to meet some great people, and I learned a lot. I want to share a bit of that here, and hopefully someone will find it helpful or illuminating, and be motivated to run as well.

I know many people have run before me in NC (respect), so I suspect some of this will be familiar fare. Even so, we need people to run and continue running, so I am hoping that my insight will further that objective.

The first thing to think about when considering what a successful campaign looks like is how important it is to have money. I ran under the $1000 limit, but just the filing fee ate up half of that on day one. Then you need a website, cards, flyers, banners, yard signs, potential media buys on radio, tv, or social, and that’s just the starter pack. You need money to hold events, you need money for tabling, you need money to hold fundraisers to raise more money.

You need money for mailers, money for volunteers, money for phone banking, money for text messages… Sometimes, you need money to rent an airplane to take a jab at your opponent. I’m not making that up, either.

In Charlotte's hotly contested District 6, Democrat Stephanie Hand challenged Republican incumbent Tariq Bokhari, ultimately losing by 352 votes, which is nearly identical to the 357-vote margin of victory for Bokhari over Hand in 2022. How much were those five votes worth? Nearly a million dollars, by several estimates. Counting money spent directly by each campaign and the money from outside groups and State parties, total expenditure on a section of the city with a population around 120,000 with only 23,044 votes cast for the city council seat was a staggering $750,000, apparently the most expensive municipal race in North Carolina history.

One of Bokhari’s expenses was $5,700 on a private plane to pull a banner over the district on election day that read “Want the plane truth? Vote Bokhari.” in reference to claims Hand had previously made that she had run an airport. All of this for a job that pays around $40,000 a year.

Granted, this is an extreme example, but its not as far out there as it might seem at first glance. North Carolina had one of the most expensive Senate races in history last year. Billions are poured into campaigns at every level. Special interests do not like taking chances on who gets elected, and they use their deep pockets to secure their candidates. Competing with this requires money.

The next thing that really jumped out at me during this election cycle was how frustrated people are with the current state of affairs. Granted, we have not quite yet hit the inflection point where a critical mass abandons their “teams” and casts votes outside the uniparty, but we are getting close. The dissatisfaction with the current state of things was palpable, and people are starting to question the system.

I connected with people from the entire political spectrum and then some. Connecting with people, one-on-one, instead of leading with partisan politics, really showed me how exasperated people are. Inflation is hurting family budgets, and they are asking why government is raising taxes to fund failing schools or militarize police departments when violent crime is increasing. Political affiliations mattered less when people are hurting and they see things failing around them.

Most encouraging, though, is that I saw Libertarian messaging work, in real time. We face substantial hurdles in getting our message out more broadly, without a doubt. But the message itself works.

A lot of people didn’t know what a Libertarian was. I told them, “It’s simple. Don’t hurt people, don’t take their stuff. Everything builds from that.” That’s an easy message to convey.

When people inquired further, we discussed decentralization, self-ownership, government accountability, and the deliberate nature of polarization by uniparty politicians. No one disagreed. Some still have hope for the party where they came up, and I’m sympathetic. It’s hard to realize that you have been sold a massive lie by your anointed leaders your entire life. It’s even harder to stop seeing the other side as an enemy and embrace different ideas while rejecting partisanship. I’m confident we’ll get there.

Finally, I learned that we can win. It’s a long road, though. We need candidates who relish the rigors of campaigning, we need money to support them, and we need to get our message out consistently, targeted properly, and unapologetically but with empathy. The other two parties don’t see people as human, they see people as votes, and they turn people against each other to get those votes. We need to do the opposite. We need to show people we are the pro-human party, and that we want to win them over so they vote for us, not against someone else.

by Joshua D. Glawson
LPNC Strategic Communications Adviser

A North Carolina man and woman were recently accused of counterfeiting $100 bills made from bleached $1 bills.

The small team, with two additional co-conspirators, traveled through a few cities in North Carolina and into West Virginia spending their counterfeit hundreds. They were finally caught in West Virginia and prosecuted federally.

Do you see the irony in this example of private counterfeiting?

Working in concert, the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury have effectively done the same thing over the past 110 years of the Fed’s existence.

They have printed trillions of "dollars" that aren't worth what dollars are supposed to be in their original, Constitutional sense.

Except when these central planners do it, no one goes to jail.

Aside from the obvious act of fraud, counterfeiting money – whether it be done by public officials or private persons – is detrimental to economies in multiple ways.

The businesses that the counterfeiter deals with first – along with the counterfeiter himself – benefit most from the production prompted by the money received. As long as they can pass that money along without restriction, the greatest losses will be absorbed by others.

This continued counterfeit process tends toward price inflation because the circulating bills are diminishing in value, even as this process occurs largely undetected.

As socialist economist John Maynard Keynes stated:

“Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing society [Capitalist System] than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and it does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.”

In 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Order 6102 which made the holding of gold coins, gold bullion, and gold certificates illegal within the United States. This also ended the U.S. Mint’s production of gold coins.

This executive order stayed in effect until 1974.

As the debasement of America’s currency has accelerated, U.S. government debt has grown and fiat dollars have been spent increasingly on entitlements, military, and global aid.

Accordingly, fiat money enables the U.S. government to overpromise, overextend, and overspend at home and abroad.

Today, we are seeing a mass deterioration in the standard of living and the decay of the Federal Reserve note dollar’s purchasing power while the U.S. national debt is swiftly reaching $34 trillion.

The debasement of U.S. currency allows for greater spending and the generating of new bills (or the electronic equivalent) with no stable value associated with them, and the result is felt in the symptoms of price inflation.

Sadly, $20 purchasing power in 1932 is now equivalent to around $450 according to government-admitted inflation statistics, which is over 2145% inflation. An ounce of gold, roughly the amount found in a 1932 $20 face value Double Eagle gold coin, is now almost $2,000. That reflects a 99% devaluation of the dollar.

While federal prosecutors may punish private counterfeiters of the paper currency, the federal government itself engages in a similar process, except on a much larger scale.

This article originally appeared on Money Metals Exchange.

Joshua D. Glawson is a writer and speaker in the Liberty Movement. He has been active with the Libertarian Party of California since 2015. He now resides in his home state of North Carolina. Check him out at Home - Joshua D. Glawson (joshuadglawson.com)

by: Rob Yates, LPNC Communications Director

Christopher Columbus was a genocidal maniac, murdering, raping, pillaging, enslaving, and wiping out entire populations. Everything we learned in school, starting with “In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue,” and ending with Columbus discovering the new world, is completely wrong. We should not rest until every single statue of him is torn down, and anyone who does not eschew Columbus Day and give land acknowledgments to displaced tribes is a demon.

Unless Columbus was actually a great man, loathed solely because he personifies Western culture. He was a brave explorer who selflessly and courageously sought a trade route by sea to East Asia. His morals were his guide, as he was a dedicated Christian and man of God, concerned first with serving the Lord and his fellow man. And he should be venerated with a day in his dedication and anyone who disagrees deserves to be expelled from the country in shame.

That about sums up the two current perspectives on Christopher Columbus, neither of which matter at all until we get to Columbus Day, aka Indigenous People Day. Then everyone has to virtue signal as loudly as they can for a day, making sure the whole world knows which side of the fence they fall on, respectively.

I am here to tell you this is stupid, and you should be supporting Columbus Day. It doesn’t matter what you think of Christopher Columbus. In fact Chris the Conqueror has almost nothing to do with the day bearing his namesake except that he happens to be Italian.

The White House gets it:

The first celebration of Columbus Day, or at least a holiday to mark his arrival in the Americas, was in 1792, hosted by the Columbian Order of New York, commemorating the 300^th anniversary of his arrival. Over the next 100 years, the holiday was celebrated haphazardly – and unofficially – until 1892, when President Benjamin Harrison held the first national Columbus Day celebration to commemorate the 400^th anniversary of his landing in the Americas.

Harrison made this an official holiday for a particularly harrowing reason. In 1891, the prior year, eleven Sicilian immigrants were murdered in a savage lynching in New Orleans at the height of anti-Italian sentiment in the country. The details of the attack are too gruesome to put into a distinguished family publication like the Tar Heel, but rest assured, they are atrocious. It actually created a diplomatic crisis with Italy. The attack was so supported by politicians, blinded by hatred for Italians, that the conspirators were said to operate essentially out in the open with no fear of reprisal. Essentially, the government signed off on it.

Over the next 50 years, Columbus Day remained a haphazardly celebrated holiday until WWII, when Italians were designated “enemy aliens.” Again, the government went after Italians for being Italian, despite the numerous contributions and commitments they had made, broadly, to the growth of the United States (including their role in ending prohibition).

FDR again made Columbus Day a federal holiday as a mea culpa, this time for the government’s racist stereotyping of an entire people for who they were. This was done annually but not permanently until 1972, when Nixon established the modern holiday by presidential proclamation.

So before you go trashing Columbus Day, remember that it exists far less to honor the man himself, a controversial and complicated figure with a nuanced history, some of it awful and some of it magnificent, all wrapped up in the context of the time 600 years ago, a setting none of us can truly imagine. Instead, think of it as a holiday that stands as a testament to the egregious acts of the government against Italians in the United States, and make sure to wish someone a “Happy Columbus Day!”