A Reading: The Sixth Amendment
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused enjoys certain rights. Yes, even tyrants and traitors.

A Discussion: 2011-2012 SILP Officer Candidates & By-Law Amendments

• Confirm officer candidates/positions so we can reconcile scope of executive committee and related by-laws for 2011-2012
• Propose/approve any amendments to our by-laws prior to convention

A Strategy: Outreach & Recruitment
Dave Narby will outline a strategic initiative for developing working relationships with other civic and political organizations in Richmond County.
A Legal Defense Plan: The Constitution Lobby

• A discussion of the new Constitution Lobby (We The People Foundation) and how the libertarians could (and arguably should) play a significant role
• Update on We The People of New York, Inc.

The People Speak: Your Topics, Your Thoughts
We yield the floor to any and all NY-13 neighbors and residents, regardless of political affiliation or subject matter. Speak your mind; observe your First Amendment rights. We respect all points of view.
Free Pocketsize Constitution!
The SILP will once again be offering to all in attendance free pocket copies of the Constitution of the United States and Declaration of Independence.

A Personal Reflection
Though I had to work a little last weekend, I was thankfully able to spend the bulk of Father’s Day with my wife and seven-year-old daughter. At morning church service, I shed a few tears for my own father, whom I miss very much. My perceptive little girl knew exactly why I was troubled, and offered a small hand against my back to console me.
Following service, we lit a few candles, and she asked about Dad. She never got to meet him; my father was gone far too early in his life, and, sadly, before hers had even begun.
From time to time she will ask about him, the curious man in the photo, placed in a position of honor on the shelf in my office. But old photos never quite do the story justice.
Being the day that it was, I showed my daughter some things around the house, now innocently taken for granted, that once belonged to my father, as well my grandfathers:
My pop’s old wooden desk and fountain pen; his father’s gold pocket watch, received from his father (my great-grandfather) for his 21st birthday; a comfy old 1930s reading chair; a poker-playing card table; a bright yellow step stool; and that 1964 Dodge Dart parked and covered in the driveway (that my father-in-law helped to refurbish).
I shared with her the colorful collection of delicate, old trout flies, tied by grandpa’s own hands, and my dad’s catfishing rods, too. My daughter will learn this summer, and chose the same rod with which I caught my first fish.
Then there are the tools, those well-cared-for Tools. Now the pride of my workshop, still shiny and sharp and strong and sturdy. All good as new, and all American, too. Of course, you couldn’t buy anything else back then.
And in the corner stands my grandfather’s impressive woodworking chest, finely appointed with chisels and planes and levels and picks and rasps and his initials stamped into each handle. He carried the box on his shoulders to the bus stop for 30-odd years, as he went off to build patterns for planes and trains.
All of this will one day be yours, I promised her. She smiled and seemed impressed, I suppose, as much as any little seven-year-old girl could be. Our little stroll down memory lane had done much for my spirit, and it had become a memorable day in its own right.
That evening, with my daughter safely tucked into bed, my thoughts returned to my forefathers and my own childhood. I thought about the life they had made for us, through their sweat, sacrifice, and resolve.
I thought about these Tools that had forged my family, put a roof over our heads, and fish in our bellies, these tools that had built our life, as we once knew it.
Things being what they are today, my wife and I now wonder if we can possibly deliver for our child the same life and opportunities that our parents had secured for us. It was our promise to give our children better, remember, as our fathers had done for us.
This was the real American Dream, a simple tradition of values, like self-reliance and hard work  and perseverance. And I shudder to think what our forefathers would say of the mess we have made of it. Things being what they are today.
Next week we will celebrate our other fathers, our Founding Fathers, and the 235th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. I shudder again, to think what they might say of the America we prepare to pass on today.
Indeed they had bequeathed the most precious gift in the course of human history, when they left to us our constitutional guarantees of liberty and natural rights. The same guarantees for which generations of fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers had worked, fought, and died.
And they warned us that the people we sent to represent us in government would one day conspire to take it all away. This is why the Founders left to us something else equally treasured, outlined within our federal and state constitutions: the Tools to defend and preserve those very freedoms.
The electoral process;
The right to dissent through speech, the press, and assembly;
The right to petition for redress of grievances;
And if all else fails, God forbid, the second amendment.
Now it has fallen to us to implement these tools. We must dust them off and begin anew, to reclaim our rightful place as the leaders of our governments, whether local, state of federal. Yes, you and me.
It is our duty to act, just as surely as it is our sacred responsibility to provide and care for our sons and daughters. For if we cannot provide Liberty, we will be hard pressed to provide anything else of genuine value or consequence.
We have the Tools. All that is left is to summon the Will to wield them. And so We Shall.
This solemn promise I make to my Daughter, steeled by the indelible memory of our Fathers.
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Good day Congressman Grimm –
I am writing to inquire what your plans are to reign in inflation and protect the US currency. As you may be aware, the Federal Reserve is engaged in round two of Quantitative Easing. Commodity prices have sky-rocketed as a result of this unabashed money printing.
The bottom line is this: The people of the United States are having their wealth and wages robbed from them. When the Federal Reserve prints money, under the moniker of Quantitative Easing, the dollar is openly devalued in terms of goods and services, as well as in terms of other currencies.  When commodity prices are up 35%+, people are finding their cost of living up 35%+, with no wage increases. We are being robbed, plain and simple.
Article 1, Section 8, of the US Constitution clearly states among the sworn duties of Congress:
– To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
– To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;
Mr. Grimm, I am urging you, as a duly elected member of Congress, to stand by your sworn duty and take action against the Federal Reserve’s Easing policies. The American People need their representatives to protect them from the crushing consequences of a significant inflation of the money supply. Even more so, we need Congress to protect us against a wholesale collapse of the US Dollar.  This possibility, far from a fantasy, has never been closer to reality in the history of America.
I await eagerly your response and action plan.
In Liberty,
Tom Vendittelli
SI Libertarian Party
P.S. Ben Bernanke’s own words from longer speech here, http://www.federalreserve.gov/BOARDDOCS/SPEECHES/2002/20021121/default.htm —
“The conclusion that deflation is always reversible under a fiat money system follows from basic economic reasoning. A little parable may prove useful: Today an ounce of gold sells for $300, more or less. Now suppose that a modern alchemist solves his subject’s oldest problem by finding a way to produce unlimited amounts of new gold at essentially no cost. Moreover, his invention is widely publicized and scientifically verified, and he announces his intention to begin massive production of gold within days. What would happen to the price of gold? Presumably, the potentially unlimited supply of cheap gold would cause the market price of gold to plummet. Indeed, if the market for gold is to any degree efficient, the price of gold would collapse immediately after the announcement of the invention, before the alchemist had produced and marketed a single ounce of yellow metal.”
“What has this got to do with monetary policy? Like gold, U.S. dollars have value only to the extent that they are strictly limited in supply. But the U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost. By increasing the number of U.S. dollars in circulation, or even by credibly threatening to do so, the U.S. government can also reduce the value of a dollar in terms of goods and services, which is equivalent to raising the prices in dollars of those goods and services. We conclude that, under a paper-money system, a determined government can always generate higher spending and hence positive inflation.”

Dave Narby, SILP Secretary, was elected as one of five Members at Large during the recent LPNY State Convention. Danny Panzella (AD 63), was chosen in a special election to assume the post of State Committee Representative.