Securing Liberty and Property Rights

By Victor Sperandeo

The Founding Fathers of America were a unique and brilliant, group of men, who fortuitously found each other to write the only LIBERTY DOCUMENT IE THE CONSTITUTION in history at that time. This is the legal law of the land in the US today.

The oldest man was Benjamin Franklin, who was born on January 6th, 1706. He was an Author, Scientist and Statesman. In my view he was the brightest, of all these geniuses. What is not generally known is he was the first in America’s formation to write about the absolute need for “Free Speech”. Below, under his Nom De Plume of “Silence Dogood” is one of his letters eg articles: See below in the original text, which has different spelling of some words from today, and written for the Newspaper called” The New-England Courant”. This was published on July 9^th, 1722. In today’s society, with Free Speech questioned, and objected to, in many forms, and in Charlie Kirk’s case the reason given by the alleged assassin Tyler Robinson for murdering him, it seems proper to comment on, as Benjamin Franklin shows its association to property rights aka owning assets. What is jaw dropping, as you read it, understand Benjamin was only16 years old! For a 16-year-old   boy to grasp the “Epistemology and Ethics” of the concept of Free Speech is extremely hard to imagine.

To the Author of the New-England Courant.

[No. VIII.

Sir,

I prefer the following Abstract from the London Journal to any Thing of my own, and therefore shall present it to your Readers this week without any further Preface.5

“Without Freedom of Thought, there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such Thing as publick (PUBLIC) Liberty, without Freedom of Speech; which is the Right of every Man, as far as by it, he does not hurt or controul (CONTROL) the Right of another: And this is the only Check it ought to suffer, and the only Bounds it ought to know.

“This sacred Privilege is so essential to free Governments, that the Security of Property, and the Freedom of Speech always go together; and in those wretched Countries where a Man cannot call his Tongue his own, he can scarce call any Thing else his own. Whoever would overthrow the Liberty of a Nation, must begin by subduing the Freeness of Speech; a Thing terrible to Publick Traytors. (PUBLIC TRAITORS)

“This Secret was so well known to the Court of King Charles the First, that his wicked Ministry procured a Proclamation, to forbid the People to talk of Parliaments, which those Traytors had laid aside. To assert the undoubted Right of the Subject, and defend his Majesty’s legal Prerogative, was called Disaffection, and punished as Sedition. Nay, People were forbid to talk of Religion in their Families: For the Priests had combined with the Ministers to cook up Tyranny, and suppress Truth and the Law, while the late King James, when Duke of York, went avowedly to Mass, Men were fined, imprisoned and undone, for saying he was a Papist: And that King Charles the Second might live more securely a Papist, there was an Act of Parliament made, declaring it Treason to say that he was one.

“That Men ought to speak well of their Governours is true, while their Governours deserve to be well spoken of; but to do publick Mischief, without hearing of it, is only the Prerogative and Felicity of Tyranny: A free People will be shewing that they are so, by their Freedom of Speech.

“The Administration of Government, is nothing else but the Attendance of the Trustees of the People upon the Interest and Affairs of the People: And as it is the Part and Business of the People, for whose Sake alone all publick Matters are, or ought to be transacted, to see whether they be well or ill transacted; so it is the Interest, and ought to be the Ambition, of all honest Magistrates, to have their Deeds openly examined, and publickly scann’d: Only the wicked Governours of Men dread what is said of them; Audivit Tiberius probra queis lacerabitur, atque perculsus est.6 The publick Censure was true, else he had not felt it bitter.

“Freedom of Speech is ever the Symptom, as well as the Effect of a good Government. In old Rome, all was left to the Judgment and Pleasure of the People, who examined the publick Proceedings with such Discretion, and censured those who administred them with such Equity and Mildness, that in the space of Three Hundred Years, not five publick Ministers suffered unjustly. Indeed whenever the Commons proceeded to Violence, the great Ones had been the Agressors.

“Guilt only dreads Liberty of Speech, which drags it out of its lurking Holes, and exposes its Deformity and Horrour to Daylight. Horatius, Valerius, Cincinnatus, and other vertuous and undesigning Magistrates of the Roman Commonwealth, had nothing to fear from Liberty of Speech. Their virtuous Administration, the more it was examin’d, the more it brightned and gain’d by Enquiry. When Valerius in particular, was accused upon some slight grounds of affecting the Diadem; he, who was the first Minister of Rome, does not accuse the People for examining his Conduct, but approved his Innocence in a Speech to them; and gave such Satisfaction to them, and gained such Popularity to himself, that they gave him a new Name; inde cognomenfactum Publicolae est; to denote that he was their Favourite and their Friend. Latae deinde leges—Ante omnes de provocationeAdversus Magistratus Ad Populum, Livii, lib. 2. Cap. 8.

“But Things afterwards took another Turn. Rome, with the Loss of its Liberty, lost also its Freedom of Speech; then Mens Words began to be feared and watched; and then first began the poysonous Race of Informers, banished indeed under the righteous Administration of Titus, Narva, Trajan, Aurelius, &c. but encouraged and enriched under the vile Ministry of Sejanus, Tigillinus, Pallas, and Cleander: Queri libet, quod in secreta nostra non inquirant principes, nisi quos Odimus, says Pliny to Trajan.7

“The best Princes have ever encouraged and promoted Freedom of Speech; they know that upright Measures would defend themselves, and that all upright Men would defend them. Tacitus, speaking of the Reign of some of the Princes abovemention’d, says with Extasy, Rara Temporum felicitate, ubi sentire quae velis, & quae sentias dicere licet:8 A blessed Time when you might think what you would, and speak what you thought.

“I doubt not but old Spencer and his Son,9 who were the Chief Ministers and Betrayers of Edward the Second, would have been very glad to have stopped the Mouths of all the honest Men in England. They dreaded to be called Traytors, because they were Traytors. And I dare say, Queen Elizabeth’s Walsingham, who deserved no Reproaches, feared none. Misrepresentation of publick Measures is easily overthrown, by representing publick Measures truly; when they are honest, they ought to be publickly known, that they may be publickly commended; but if they are knavish or pernicious, they ought to be publickly exposed, in order to be publickly detested.”

Yours, &c., Silence Dogood.

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In comparison see what the Attorney General of the DOJ, appointed by D.J. Trump, who will be 60 years old in November said about the First Amendment to the Constitution…

"There’s free speech and then there’s hate speech," the attorney general said in an interview on Katie Miller's podcast, which has received pushback from some on the right.”

After receiving a barrage of criticism, she walked back her ignorant comment. There is no such thing as (legal)hate speech to prosecute anyone for. Hate:” an intense or passionate dislike”, is not a crime unless in the following context:

“Incitement to Violence: Speech that directly calls for or is likely to provoke immediate violent acts against a person or group. For example, in the U.S., this is governed by cases like Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), requiring intent, likelihood, and immediacy of lawless action.”

For the Director of the DOJ to be this dumb, reflects on Trump’s continued poor choices in picking so many of his Cabinet choices.

In History many people who don’t make any laws, and can harm no one have been assassinated, merely for being influential. Examples, are Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and Mahatma Gandhi. An incredibly sad time in history.

End quote:

In a letter written in April 17,1787 Franklin wrote :  “Let me add that only a virtuous people are capable of Freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more Need of masters.”

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Curmudgeon is a retired investment professional. He has been involved in financial markets since 1968 (yes, he cut his teeth on the 1968-1974 bear market), became an SEC Registered Investment Advisor in 1995, and received the Chartered Financial Analyst designation from AIMR (now CFA Institute) in 1996. He managed hedged equity and alternative (non-correlated) investment accounts for clients from 1992-2005.

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Victor Sperandeo is a historian, economist and financial innovator who has re-invented himself and the companies he's owned (since 1971) to profit in the ever changing and arcane world of markets, economies, and government policies. Victor started his Wall Street career in 1966 and began trading for a living in 1968. As President and CEO of Alpha Financial Technologies LLC, Sperandeo oversees the firm's research and development platform, which is used to create innovative solutions for different futures markets, risk parameters and other factors.

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The statements in this communication are the opinions of its author, Victor Sperandeo, and are not to be relied upon by anyone as the basis for an investment decision. Any investments made by a party in reliance thereon are made at such party’s sole risk. No guarantee of any kind is implied or possible where opinions as to past or future market conditions/events are provided. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results.