Let’s be clear: what’s at stake is the very future of our society. While it is true that the government often plays by different rules than you and I, there is only one rule in economics which is absolute: if you spend more than you make, you are failing. You can only live on credit for so long. The end result is always the same. By allowing our federal government to manage our currency by fiat, we have placed ourselves in a precarious situation where the failure of one begets the failure of the other. If the value of the dollar equals zero, then the government will collapse. Likewise, if the government finally impresses itself too heavily upon the People so as to invite insurrection, or if it becomes too corrupt to be considered representative of the People, the economy will also fail.

First let me explain the concept of fiat currency. Our founding fathers, who we all agree were political geniuses, mandated in the Constitution that the government could not “make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts.” This doesn’t mean that we all have to carry around gold bits to buy things, but that’s not far from what they intended. What guaranteeing our currency using gold and silver does for our economy is prop the dollar against a permanently precious metal, insuring its ability to retain purchasing power in any event or incident. This is important because the only other thing other than precious metals upon which a currency can be built is a dangerous and fleeting resource, often far more rare than even the scarcest material: faith in the government.

This is the very reality of fiat currency. Fiat is Latin, meaning “there shall be” or “let it be done.” That is exactly how our money is made. Our government, in collusion with the Federal Reserve, dumps currency into the market and puts its own credibility on the line to back it up at will. As long as you and I have faith in the government the economy will succeed. When we start to doubt our representatives, or more critically when they begin to blatantly and criminally abuse their positions in obvious and unmistakable ways, then our currency collapses along with our confidence. Even more importantly, when our representatives begin to make violating the one basic rule of economics the very cornerstone of every vote they cast there can be no trust at all. When a mere 14% of Americans approve of the decisions made by the Congress (which should by definition carry a minimum 51% approval rating) it’s not difficult to understand why our economy is also grinding to a halt.

The permanent solution is to cut our ties to the Federal Reserve, the private agency which controls the rates of inflation and deflation by regulating the supply of currency on the market, and return the dollar to the gold and silver standard as envisioned by such men as Thomas Jefferson. Besides virtually eliminating our national debt overnight, we the People would also then be capable of surviving any financial hardship regardless of how delusional our federal government becomes. In fact, that is likely the reason that our brilliant founding fathers placed our fledgling nation on the precious metal standard. As a sovereignty born of insurrection, we were accustomed to removing our government from power when it became too invasive. Thomas Jefferson believed such a thing to be absolutely mandatory “now and again.” Of course the notion of a revolution in modern America is but a farce, if only because such a thing would permanently reduce the value of the dollar to zero, a side-effect even the most ardent patriot is unwilling to accept.

The more reasonable solution is for our elected representatives to join the rest of us in real life. Neither of the primary political parties have a shred of credibility anymore. Representatives of both continue asking us to believe that while they have the technological know-how to put a bomb through a skylight from a continent away, they still can’t figure out how to spend only one dollar of every dollar they take in. Most of these men and women have fortunes in the millions and tens of millions. Yet their financial and social incompetence when playing with our money is epic in its profundity.

We need sound representation, particularly when it comes to economic matters. Unfortunately for the future of our country, we seem to honestly believe that placing the government in charge of more programs dealing with matters such as health care and child development are reasonable financial decisions. Even so, if by electing someone who pushes through a financially crippling socialized health care plan we also restore some of the faith we all seem to have lost in the government, we may still realize a net gain. Our national debt will grow ever quicker, and the eventual collection calls will approach that much sooner, but in the short term our dollars will sustain affluent lifestyles predicated upon of a government promise that our economic future is in competent hands. It’s the social equivalent to living hard and dying young.

But there is a bigger issue. Fiat currency requires not only the trust of the People, but of other governments and trading partners around the world as well. Our federal government has made the U.S. Dollar itself a commodity on the world market, and many nations have pinned their own economies to ours. As these nations lose faith in our country and divest themselves of dollars in order to protect their own future, ours will be further shortened as a result. Moreover, our adherence to fiat currency has also placed us in a predicament which could eventually see our economy destroyed intentionally by a foreign power. China, for example, has the power to economically wreck us at the time of their choosing given the obscene stake we’ve allowed them to take in the dollar.

This, of course, should be the dictating factor in our foreign policy. Our future representatives must not only restore the faith we the People once had in them, but more importantly must elevate our nation to its former respectable position in the world. It is a difficult enough task when it is merely the right thing to do, made even more so due to its being mandatory to the future of our way of life.

As a country we are all-in. We have a faith-based government, and everything that we have, everything that we stand for, is tied directly to our perception of our representation, which is currently setting record lows. Everything that our country represents to the world has likewise been called into question in recent times. In the past we have always promised the world only the best of who we are, and upheld our oath to take in the world’s tired, poor, and huddled masses yearning to be free. As our priorities have shifted toward conflict and our message has begun to faintly echo that of our enemies in recent times, it is no surprise that our currency on the world market has fallen at the same pace as that of our respect.

We as a People are going to make a monumental series of decisions in November. We are divided on many issues, all of which will have an impact on our future. Our representatives are likewise divided on issues, but they must be made to understand that there are matters on which no disagreement will be tolerated, the most prominent of which concerns the federal government’s further intrusion into matters of our lives beyond our collective economic solvency. We are already committed too heavily to maintaining an unrealistic and superficial trust in our representatives in order to keep ourselves from economically collapsing, and we certainly don’t need that compounded by erroneously allowing the next batch of politicians to predicate the survival of even more critical social infrastructure on the questionable continued solvency of the federal government. To do so would only dilute the value of trust people have in the United States, and that, it seems, is the most precious and elusive resource in the world right now.

The most overlooked aspect of energy is not sustainability, conservation, alternatives, or pricing, but rather a complete refusal to admit that energy is in fact our most pressing foreign policy matter. According to the government numbers, the United States currently imports more than half of the oil necessary to keep our country on its feet. Any significant reduction in those imports for any reason could seriously disrupt trucking, air traffic, and other infrastructure. It is therefore of paramount importance to ensure that any event, no matter how profound or tragic, and no matter where it occurs geographically, is wholly unable to halt domestic production for any prolonged period of time. The only way to do that is to develop energy at home.

Renewable sources such as wind, hydroelectric, thermal, and solar are unquestionably our long-term energy future. In order to take advantage of these technologies an entirely new and expanded infrastructure needs to be built, and that takes time. Almost the entire sum of America’s energy capital today is invested in oil-based equipment, but as renewable sources of energy are stood up in the future the market should produce goods which take advantage of the new technology. It is irrational to believe that renewable energy sources can offset a significant portion of our energy needs in the short term, but the long term possibilities are quite literally endless.

In the meantime a fully-functional oil-based energy policy must be maintained, and that means reducing dependence on foreign oil while we convert to renewable energy sources. It’s a simple enough thing to talk about, but there are truly only two methods by which our dependence can be lessened: we can stop using as much of their oil and we can produce more of our own oil at home. To ensure that we have what we need while we convert to a renewable future, it is incumbent upon us to drill for oil in every available corner of land belonging to the United States of America, and to do so immediately.

For environmentalists, ecologists, or any other concerned party, this is the moment that you have been fighting for. The nation is desperate for domestic energy production, and your concerns will be heard and fairly implemented as our resources are tapped, but only if you speak up now. If you need oil companies to spend three dollars planting trees for every dollar of pipe they lay, put the argument on the table. If you need to protect some animal species from certain doom, factor it into the cost and get the machinery rolling. One thing is for sure: if interest groups don’t take their seat at the table right now, they’re not going to get one down the road when the cost of domestic solvency demands payment in expediency.