I haven’t given the Liberty Dollar raid too much thought.  Personally, I think folks that use an alternate currency are kooky.

The impetus for the raid went beyond just circulating alternative currency.  Mail fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering are also alleged.  I obviously have no idea whether or not the latter three charges can be substantiated, but just what law are they violating by circulating their Liberty Dollars?  Furthermore, why isn’t that law being enforced equally?

As far as I know the Liberty Dollar folks weren’t trying to pass their currency as U.S. dollars, i.e. they weren’t counterfeiting.  At its core what they were doing were trading one thing of value for another thing of value, which is still legal in our country as far as I know.

The case jogged my memory and reminded me of a story I heard on NPR many moons ago about some little town in Massachusetts that was circulating its own currency.

GREAT BARRINGTON, Massachusetts (Reuters) - A walk down Main Street in this New England town calls to mind the pictures of Norman Rockwell, who lived nearby and chronicled small-town American life in the mid-20th Century.

So it is fitting that the artist’s face adorns the 50 BerkShares note, one of five denominations in a currency adopted by towns in western Massachusetts to support locally owned businesses over national chains.

…

There are about 844,000 BerkShares in circulation, worth $759,600 at the fixed exchange rate of 1 BerkShare to 90 U.S. cents, according to program organizers. The paper scrip is available in denominations of one, five, 10, 20 and 50.

In their 10 months of circulation, they’ve become a regular feature of the local economy. Businesses that accept BerkShares treat them interchangeably with dollars: a $1 cup of coffee sells for 1 BerkShare, a 10 percent discount for people paying in BerkShares.

So, if one of the reasons cited for raiding the Liberty Dollar operation was that they were circulating an alternative currency then why aren’t the Feds raiding tiny Great Barrington?

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This entry was posted by Brian on Thursday, November 22nd, 2007 at 8:37 am and is filed under Government, Legal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Please note the copyright policy.