Thou Shalt Not Steal: How the State Replaced Righteous Weights with Rigged Tokens “And taxed you for believing them.”
🇺🇸 Would You Believe… The Rest of the Story?
📎 From the Archives
Seven years ago, I first began exposing this same deception on steemit. That original post is still live on the blockchain, and it laid the groundwork for what you are going to read .
Read the original here: My Original 7-Year-Old Post on this Fiat Lie
The more things change… the more we realize how long the lie has been with us.
While I was preparing this I thought to myself …”Self, you know this would sound great as one of those old Paul Harvey Commentaries we used to see on TV or read in a Magazine and so I put this together with that in mind.
A Paul Harvey–style exposé of silver, lies, vending machines, and the theft of real money.
📻 Good day…
Would you believe… the dollar in your pocket isn’t a dollar at all?
Would you believe… the government once promised never to take silver out of your coins — then paid a man to help them do just that?
Would you believe… that the same government now taxes you not on what you earn… but on what they say you earned?
And now you’ll know…
The rest of the story.
💰 Once Upon a Time, a Dollar Meant Something
Before 1965, U.S. coins were real money — 90% silver, backed by substance, not suggestion.
This wasn’t just good economics — it was biblical law.
“Ye shall do no unrighteousness in meteyard, in weight, or in measure… Just balances, just weights… shall ye have: I am the LORD your God.”
— Leviticus 19:35–36
And the Constitution agreed:
“No State shall… make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts.”
— U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 10
But by 1965, something changed.
🧾 LBJ and the Coinage Act of 1965
President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Coinage Act of 1965, officially removing silver from dimes and quarters, and reducing it in half dollars.
He reassured the American people:
“Our present silver coins won’t disappear — they won’t even become rarities.”
“There will be no profit in holding them out of circulation.”
But within two years, silver coins vanished.
And those who held them?
Profited.
Meanwhile, the average American continued to receive base-metal “clad” coins — worthless tokens stamped with the memory of real money.
🛠️ The Vending Machine Deception
Here’s where the story takes a turn…
The U.S. Treasury had a problem.
If they removed silver, vending machines — which recognized coins by their electrical and magnetic signature — would reject the new ones.
So they called a man whose name was Merrill M.E. Jenkins, a monetary engineer and vending expert.
What they told Mr. Jenkins was that they were worried that vending machines and coin counters could be fooled into accepting counterfeit coins and so they asked him how that could be done so they could retool and adjust and update machines do thwart the possibility…
Jenkins showed them how to:
- Create a copper-nickel clad coin that mimicked the electromagnetic signature of silver.
- And That- would Fool the machines.
- It seemed though that the treasury was more interested in Fooling the people.
And they did.
The Treasury minted those exact coins.
The machines were never updated.
The public never noticed.
The silver disappeared.
Merrill Noticed and spent the rest of his life telling folks about it. Even debating the one of the heads of the Federal Reserve on national TV, getting him to admit the entire system was a fraud.
“The deception was engineered, not accidental.”
— Merrill Jenkins, Money: The Greatest Hoax on Earth (1971)
💸 The IRS's Other Face
Fast-forward to today.
Let’s say you sell a tool for a $1 Silver Eagle — a modern coin issued by the U.S. Mint, marked “One Dollar,” and recognized as legal tender under 31 U.S. Code § 5103.
You report $1 in income.
You traded value for value.
But the IRS says:
“That coin is worth $35 — you owe tax on that!”
Even though:
- You made no profit.
- You accepted legal tender at face value.
- You gained nothing above what the government itself declared.
This isn’t taxation.
It’s confiscation through distortion.
⚖️ What the Supreme Court Actually Said
“The term ‘income’… must be given the same meaning in all of the Income Tax Acts of Congress.”
— Brushaber v. Union Pacific R.R. Co., 240 U.S. 1 (1916)
“Income may be defined as the gain derived from capital, from labor, or from both combined.”
— Eisner v. Macomber, 252 U.S. 189 (1920)
But here's the hidden truth:
“Derived from” means the income comes from something else — like investments, property, or the labor of others.
It does not mean your own time, your own hands, or your own honest trade.
So if you swap equal value — a silver coin for a good — and no gain is realized, then by their own legal standard:
You owe nothing.
Yet the IRS redefined “gain” to mean “anything you touch.”
🔁 Selective Law, Divers Weights
| When You Owe the Government | Silver Coin = $1 |
|---|---|
| When They Tax You | Same Coin = $35 |
They call it legal tender when it benefits them.
They call it capital gains when it costs you.
But the God of Scripture, and the founders of this Republic, called that an abomination.
“Divers weights, and divers measures, both of them are alike abomination to the LORD.”
— Proverbs 20:10
🧨 Let’s Recap…
| Government Claim | Truth |
|---|---|
| “Silver won’t disappear.” | It vanished in 2 years. |
| “Clad coins are just as good.” | They were engineered to fool machines, not preserve value. |
| “There’s no profit in hoarding silver.” | Hoarders made fortunes. |
| “Coins are legal tender.” | Only when they say so. |
| “All income is taxable.” | Not if it’s not derived. |
📖 Biblical and Constitutional Truth
“A false balance is abomination to the LORD: but a just weight is his delight.” — Proverbs 11:1
“Thou shalt not steal.” — Exodus 20:15
“No State shall… make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts.” — U.S. Constitution, Art. I, Sec. 10
Sound money is not nostalgia — it’s justice.
It’s freedom from manipulation.
And it is God’s standard, not the Fed’s.
🗣️ And Now You Know… The Rest of the Story
The silver is gone.
The coins are counterfeit.
The courts were once honest.
The IRS is not.
And somewhere, an old vending machine still takes a silver dime…
Because it knows what we’ve forgotten:
Real money rings different.
📚 Sources & Footnotes
- Coinage Act of 1965: Public Law 89-81, 79 Stat. 254
- LBJ Speech: Remarks at the Signing of the Coinage Act, July 23, 1965 (LBJ Library)
- Merrill Jenkins: Money: The Greatest Hoax on Earth (1971); Free Money for Everybody
- Legal tender statute: 31 U.S. Code § 5103
- Supreme Court precedent:
- Brushaber v. Union Pacific R.R., 240 U.S. 1 (1916)
- Eisner v. Macomber, 252 U.S. 189 (1920)
- Biblical references: Leviticus 19:35–36, Deut. 25:13–16, Proverbs 11:1, 16:11, 20:10, Exodus 20:15