Freedom died on this day 100 years ago

Today, December 23, 2013, is the 100th anniversary of the passage in Congress of the Federal Reserve Act, which in turn, created the Federal Reserve.  Ever since, our country has traveled down a long path of ruin.  I mean, it tells you something that the Federal Reserve Act was passed just 2 days before Christmas, when the attention of the American people was focused away from Washington D.C. (which was much smaller and more inconsequential then than now anyway) and on the Christmas holidays instead.

As a matter of fact, the whole year of 1913 itself was a horrific year for the continuation of freedom and small government in the United States.  In addition to the creation of the Federal Reserve, 1913 also saw the passage of the 16th Amendment to the Constitution, which gave the American people an Income Tax, and gave our federal government a bottomless piggy bank it could use to grow itself into the grotesque leviathan it has become.  But they weren't done adding freedom-killing constitutional amendments, as 1913 also saw passage of the 17th Amendment, which forever changed the relationship of the federal government and the states.  This amendment changed the way that Senators are elected.  Before, they were appointed by their state's legislature, and answered to that state legislature.  In effect, Senators were representatives of the states, while Representatives were just that: representatives of the People.  Ever since passage of the 17th Amendment, Senators have been elected directly by the people of a state, making Senators nothing but glorified versions of Representatives, and moving our county that much more away from being a republic, and that much closer to being a democracy; a democracy that our Founders intentionally tried to keep our country from becoming.

So 1913 saw the birth of the most evil of triads:

1. Pass an income tax, which gave the government infinitely more power over the American people.

2. Democratize the U.S. Senate, which made it easier for the government to grow, using the powers of the income tax to fund that growth.

3. Create the Federal Reserve, which would now print our money and monetize our debt, making it possible to inflate the nation's money supply, and give the government an endless supply of money to increase the role of government in our lives, but seriously deteriorating the value of our money, and increasing our national debt.

For more on the destructiveness of the Federal Reserve, see this list of 100 reasons the Federal Reserve should be shut down.