Banks, Guns, and Feudal Lords
by Don Cline 05.11.01


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BANKS

Bank of America has now arbitrarily decided, like Citibank before it, that it will not provide merchant services to any firearm-related business. Citibank finally rescinded that stupid tyranny after half the people in this country raised hell and threatened to close their accounts and the same groundswell of opinion must be brought to bear against Bank of America.

However, there is more to it than that. We have here one of the most dangerous tyrannies our nation has ever faced. We are, literally, right on the hairy edge of a government-sanctioned plan where you get with the political program designed for you or you don't eat or pay rent. There are three separate threads of tyranny coming together here.

For some time now, Bank of America (and most other banks) have required a fingerprint of any non-accountholder who wanted to cash a check -- specifically, a payroll check. They claim, falsely, they need to do this to stop check fraud. The claim is false because it is very easy to stop check fraud -- but they won't employ the means to do it because if they did, they
wouldn't have any grounds to force electronic money down our throats or demand a fingerprint as a condition of cashing a paper check.

I talked to the retired FBI agent who designed this inkless fingerprint system the banks are using to force us into their system. I pointed out that requiring a fingerprint from me as a condition of cashing a payroll check and thereby providing me with my own property lawfully due me -- my wages, in legal tender -- was a direct and egregious violation of many of my rights.

First of all, the fingerprint is not used for identification. It is merely kept on file in case the check turns out to be fraudulent. That is the very definition of a warrantless and a priori restraint on my rights to privacy and due process in the absence of probable cause of wrong-doing.

Secondly, I have a right to my property -- my wages -- and this is a violation of my right to receive my property lawfully due me.

Thirdly, this is twice a violation of my right to be secure from impairment of contract -- once a violation of the contract between myself and my employer in which he agrees to pay me for my services and once because the purpose of this is to force me to open a bank account, thereby becoming subject to the surveillance of my financial affairs afforded by the Bank Secrecy Act.

The retired FBI agent dismissed all that with the statement that he didn't care; all he was doing was supplementing his government retirement by designing this program for the banks. Then he said, "Anyway, your fingerprints are already all over this payroll check. Why do you care if we require you to put your fingerprint on it before we cash it?"

"If my fingerprints are all over the check, why do you need me to put my fingerprint on it?" I asked in reply.

"Oh, uh, well ..." he hemmed and hawed, "because it has to be voluntary," he admitted.

"Uh-huh. It has to be voluntary so that a few years from now when all of our fingerprints are loaded into a database and we no longer have any financial privacy at all, we can't complain about it because we volunteered now.
Right?"

"Well ... I can't get into that." He terminated our conversation and walked away.

Two years after the fingerprint program started, they tightened the noose. Suddenly you had to give a fingerprint and show two forms of identification, both of which had to be from an "approved list". Every form of identification on that "approved list" was a bank card of some kind with the exception that a "department store membership card" was acceptable as one of
the two forms of identification.

A year later they tightened the noose still further. Now you need a fingerprint, two forms of identification from an approved list and you need to pay a fee to collect your own wages in legal tender.

Now, guess what...all the alternative methods of cashing your payroll check, such as supermarket customer service kiosks, are now refusing cash checks at all. They have now installed "RPM" machines where you have to punch in your government-issued serial number (Social Security Number) so they can look at
your credit history. The machine then takes your digital picture so they can identify you in a crowd at the next Super Bowl, you insert your check and punch in the amount and it gives you the cash -- less a 1.75% (minimum) processing fee rounded off to the next highest dollar because the machine doesn't give you coins. The bank fee is cheaper, of course, because they
want you to open an account -- but you have to give your fingerprint and be forced to contract with other banks or department stores.

The banks can get away with all this because the banks have court rulings in their favor all the way back to the beginnings of this country to the effect that as soon as you put your money in a bank, it is no longer yours. If the bank goes belly up, you have no specific right to YOUR money. You have only the same rights as any other general creditor. Also, if the bank refuses to
cash your check for any reason or no reason at all, you have no right against the bank. You have a right against the person who gave you the check, but that's all. If you go back to the person who wrote you the check, you find that he has no right to his own money he put into his account to cover the check either because it has been "co-mingled" with everyone else's money.

Government loves that word, "co-mingled". If you co-mingle your money with the money of others, you no longer have any claim to your money. But if government robs you in an illegal IRS or RICO confiscation and co-mingles your money with other legalized thefts, robberies, and euphemistically-labeled confiscations, you don't have any right to their money either.

If the bank can refuse to cash your payroll check because you claim your right to the privacy of your fingerprint, then the bank can refuse to cash your payroll check for any reason at all -- or no reason.

If the bank can refuse to cash your payroll check because you refuse to pay their extortionate fee to collect your own wages, then the bank can set any fee it wants and keep your earnings if you don't want to pay the fee.


GUNS

So here is how it all ties together: If Bank of America can refuse to provide merchant services to a gunsmith, then they can refuse to cash a check on their bank which is presented by a gunsmith. And when the gunsmith goes back to the customer who wrote him the check, Bank of America can refuse to
return the customers' money to him on the grounds he is consorting with a gunsmith. I believe Moscow employed a similar brand of totalitarianism against anyone not in favor with the Communist Party.


FEUDAL LORDS

The banks can do all of this primarily because they hold a "Title of Nobility" which is specifically prohibited by our Constitution. The purpose of a Title of Nobility under feudal law was to elevate an individual above "the common herd" and make him less accountable to his "subjects" on the theory that his actions were in "the public interest." This is exactly the same purpose for creating limited-liability corporations. If some jerk in a bank decides to use the enormous economic power of a bank you advance his personal political agenda, he is legally untouchable so long as government believes his actions are "in the public interest".

Our nation if founded upon the principle of equality under the law. This is precisely why Titles of Nobility are specifically prohibited by the U.S. Constitution, and why Thomas Jefferson considered banks to be the greatest threat to liberty the world had ever known. I agree with him and I have not had a bank account for 25 years. Now those who are trying to avoid
entanglements with banking systems and maintain their sovereignty as natural individuals at law are facing the very real possibility of not being able to eat or pay rent unless they are willing to pay a fee for the privilege of receiving their own property lawfully due them (their wages) AND get themselves on a banking (government) fingerprint database in the absence of
any probable cause of wrong-doing.

The cashless society is right on track. First everyone had to use ATM machines, now the tellers are gone from most banks and there are just ATM machines to bank through. I have never heard of a finger print being asked for to cash a cheque, but we will be using strictly electronic money soon. The company I work for no longer issue pay cheques just a pay stub and the money is sent by automatic bank deposit to my account at the bank by the company.

If you lick your envelopes...You won't anymore!!!!


A woman was working in a post office in California. One day she
licked the envelopes and postage stamps instead of using a sponge.
That very day the lady cut her tongue on the envelope.


A week later, she noticed an abnormal swelling of her tongue. She
went to the doctor, and they found nothing wrong. Her tongue was not
sore or anything. A couple of days later, her tongue started to swell
more, and it began to get really sore, so sore, that she could not
eat. She went back to the hospital, and demanded something be done.
The doctor took an x-ray of her tongue and noticed a lump. He prepared
her for minor surgery. When the doctor cut her tongue open, a live
roach crawled out. There were roach eggs on the seal of the envelope.
The egg was able to hatch inside of her tongue, because of her saliva.
It was warm and moist...


This is a true story reported on CNN.

This is a most unusual but likely an isolated incident. Because it was on CNN does not make it gospel. It would be a very unfortunate and unforgettable situation.