Common Law Institute

The Common Law Institute is an international organization whose purpose is to promote and facilitate a return to Common Law as defined using the Non-Aggression Principle (NAP). Note that this meaning is slightly different from what "common law" has come to mean in practice; however, this meaning is truer to the real intent of what common law was supposed to be. Thus, our purpose is to promote the understanding, acceptance, and use of  NAP as the true Common Law of all civilized nations.

We hope to establish courts of Common Law that will run strictly according to these principles, regardless of the laws of the various countries they're in. These Common Law Courts would be ideal for use by pro-freedom occupied nations struggling for independence (especially in the early years when those nations have only a few citizens), because when selecting juries for court cases, they can supplement the member nation's citizens with a few people from the host or occupying country, thus educating the occupation country's people about NAP. This helps freedom spread in a way similar to the Planetary Bill of Rights project (with which we are not associated but which we admire). Thus, recruiting and educating citizens from occupying or nearby countries not only promotes freedom and justice, it can indirectly help recruit citizens for interested countries and independence movements as well. By the way, just to be clear, we do NOT support or advocate terrorism or the illegal or violent overthrow of legitimate governments or countries. That would be a violation of NAP.

Obviously some countries might not take too kindly to people setting up and running their own court under any laws other than the those recognized by the occupation country. However, most civilized countries have laws supporting (or at least allowing) alternative dispute resolution methods such as arbitration, and if all of the participants become "Common Law Citizens" (members of the Common Law Institute) and thus recognize the authority of the court, then the court case could be considered as simply a matter of a membership organization using its own arbitration procedures (already agreed to by its members) to settle a dispute among its members. While this may not always work in practice in major criminal cases or those where the occupation government wants to press charges regardless of the victim's wishes, and sentencing could be a practical problem, for minor or civil cases, it should work well. An additional benefit would be reducing the case load in the occupying country's own courts, which might even be appreciated. If the Common Law Institute and its courts are promoted carefully and avoid problems, perhaps the occupation might even pass minor cases (with the consent of those involved) to our courts, which would increase justice as well as our publicity, prestige, and viability.

Common Law Money

Obviously, it wouldn't do for our courts and laws to rely upon the worthless, fraudulent fiat currencies of the occupation regimes, as they clearly violate NAP. We should allow and promote the use of real money such as gold or silver coins or rounds, trustworthy warehouse receipts for them, and digital gold/silver currencies, such as Phoenix Silver and GoldMoney. We're thinking of creating a few hundred custom 1 ounce .999 fine silver bars promoting the Common Law Institute, which would be ideal for use as money by us, appropriate organizations, and the members of all of these. A very rough preliminary draft of the front and back of the bar is shown below and suggestions are welcome. Right-click here and select Print to see more clearly what the 2" x 1-1/8" silver bar would actually look like. These might find wider acceptance (and thus better benefit from economies of scale) than country-specific rounds for each interested nation or organization-specific rounds for each interested organization. Whether we do this or not, imagine what new jurors will think of being paid in real silver (e.g. 1 ounce/day) rather than fiat currency - and probably worth more than the few dollars/day the occupation government would pay them anyway. If the losing party doesn't have real gold or silver money to pay the judgment and/or court costs, there should be some moneychangers and lenders around near the courtroom to facilitate things. As the number of Common Law Citizens in an area grows, especially including small businesses, such common law money will become more widely accepted and familiar in the community, further educating other people and helping recruit them. This also strengthens the local economy and helps protect it somewhat from the financial chaos and civil disorder caused by collapsing fiat currencies.

The US Government's illegal and unconstitutional raid on the Liberty Dollar organization on 11/15/2007 was probably a deliberate tactic of intimidation and retaliation for the Liberty Dollar's lawsuit against the US Government's lies about the Liberty Dollar being illegal, and we hope that Liberty Dollar triumphs in the end. But for now, this creates an even more hostile environment for real money, and we wonder if the US Government might even try to attack the phrase "Common-Law Money". Perhaps we should just recommend that members and supporters become acquainted with the various generic and other bullion rounds and coins already in the market in both gold and silver forms, and use them for common-law money. Although we're not making any official endorsements, some of us especially like Phoenix Silver, which has digital silver and silver rounds (temporarily out of stock) and is working on silver certificates. We also like GoldMoney, which so far has only digital gold and silver. We also like AMark silver rounds and there are many other brands; we especially like the ones that quote the part of the Constitution that specifies that only gold and silver can be real money. For more general information on using gold and silver as money, see the Gold and Silver Money Foundation and the Small Business Goldmine . The Gold Digital Currency Association appears to be a trade association to help the industry police itself. In fact, it appears to have issued a warning about e-bullion (which some of us had evaluated in the past and had already decided to switch to other vendors).

Nevertheless, we decided to create essentially the design shown above on a standard .999 fine silver 1 ounce 2" x 1-1/8" bar - we hope that the more exhaustive disclaimer on the back, plus using bars rather than rounds, will avoid any possible confusion and make it absolutely clear that this is not an attempt to imitate the official currency of any country. We got as far as to submit the design, get a quote, and place the order with SilverTowne Mint, and then they chickened out! The lady that took the order said that management told her not to accept the order and no explanation was given. We can only infer that they were afraid to produce even such a well designed, heavily disclaimed bar that promoted the concept of "common-law money", which has not specifically been targeted or even mentioned by the government - the very term "common-law" means non-governmental and explicitly avoids confusion. Please let us know if you can recommend a good private mint (not NW Territory or SilverTowne) that will process an order for 500 of these bars at reasonable turnaround and price.

(to be continued...)

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