I Think It's Still Legal

It seems that each year the members of our congress go out of their way to criminalize some action that, for a private citizen or a business, was previously legal. In response to this ongoing activity whose only real purpose seems to be a deliberate concentration of authority in the hands of the federal government at the expense of civil rights and civil liberties, allow me to identify some of the few actions that are still legal as of April 7, 2009.

It is still legal to print your own money

For the better part of the history of the Republic the federal government allowed both public and privately-owned banks to print their own money, which were collectively known as banknotes. All that ended with the Federal Reserve Act of 1913.

Today there is nothing within the body of United States Code, particularly Titles 12, "Banks and Banking;" 15, "Commerce and Trade;" and 31, "Money and Finance" that says you can't print, as well as use, your own money. Whether you can get someone to accept your private money is up to you and your powers of persuasion.

It is, however, illegal to force another person to take your money during the course of a public or private business transaction and, of course, to print worthless paper money that looks like the worthless paper money printed by the United States Treasury. It is still legal to print worthless paper money that looks like the worthless paper money issued by another worthless country so long as 1) it is not used in interstate or international commerce and 2) you do attempt to exchange it for worthless currency issued by the United States Government.

It is legal to distill your own whiskey, make your own wine, and to brew you own beer

If you remember your American History from when it was still a subject in the public schools, you will know that the first tax revolt in the nation's history was the Whiskey Rebellion of 1791-1794. This almost-forgotten event occurred when George Washington decided that a federal excise tax on whiskey would be a good way to pay off the national debt.

Since that time, but particularly after that greatest failure in the history of government-mandated social engineering known as Prohibition, it has been perfectly legal to make certain amounts of your own adult beverages, for your personal use, as long as you pay the appropriate federal taxation on any amounts in excess of those prescribed limits.

Why do you think that Snuffy Smith was always fighting the "revenoors" (revenue agents) that were trying to find his "still "(distillery)?

It is still legal to grow your own tobacco

It may be illegal to smoke in a public place or, in some locations, within your own home but you can still grow all the tobacco you want. Surprisingly, you can even sell your tobacco to someone else without having to pay a tax in the process. If that "someone else" wants to process your tobacco into to cigars, cigarettes, or some other tobacco product, they will be required to pay a stiff tax before the Food and Drug Administration regulates them out of business.

Freedom of Speech is still Constitutionally-protected

The right to express your personal beliefs is central to the quaint political philosophy known as democracy. There are, of course, certain limits to that freedom that which are entirely reasonable such as the often-cited prohibition against "yelling fire in a crowded theater."

Such reasonable prohibitions have, in our more enlightened society, have been extended to include 1) advocating that any federal official be assassinated, shot by a firing squad, hung, beheaded, burned at the stake, drawn and quartered, or being subjected to any other form of removal from office that history has proven to be effective, 2) not enthusiastically supporting the policies of any elected or appointed official, to include petty bureaucrats, 3) not offending anyone else regardless of the other's degree of imbecility, and 4) promoting any view that might be connected, however tenuously, to Christianity. Other religious or philosophical beliefs, particularly Islam and paganism/Earth-Mother worship, are still protected and may indeed be forced upon those who erroneously believe in any religion whose tenets of faith may not be consistent with those currently espoused by the incumbent President or Tom Cruise.

I don't know what the rest of you might be doing on April 15th, but I'm going to a Tea Party.