Left to its own devices, gold is the ultimate barometer of public confidence in government. It is also the ultimate means for ordinary citizens to opt-out of an oppressive, fraudulent system.

That is why gangsters who wield power in the name of the “people” always make ownership of gold a crime. So it was in France during the Revolution, in Germany during the Nazi era, in Russia during the Soviet era, in China during Mao’s rule, and in the United States from 1933 through 1974. It is why, even during periods when the ownership of gold is not outlawed, its price is ‘governed’, as one commentator puts it, or officially manipulated, as others of us put it.

It’s often hard for practical men of affairs to understand the vehemence of those of us who assert, seemingly ad nauseam, that gold is money. The truth is, our passion has more to do with the concept of liberty than with that of money. We know from history and experience that once the free market has lost control over the definition and creation of money, individuals have lost their liberty.

Viva la Restoration, Remarks of Robert K. Landis, finews.ch Gold Conference, Zurich, Switzerland, November 17, 2009