The Rise of Anti-Science

Western culture has had a lot of ups & downs over the centuries, but one of the anchors for it was the concept of a world of order:
1. consistency in natural law
2. Use of the scientific method
3. the logical pursuit of truth
4. peer review, critical thinking, & skepticism were a balance to 'science by decree'.

These concepts reached their heyday in post ww2 america. Engineers & scientific researchers leapfrogged advancement after advancement dazzling everyone with their ability to harness natural law as a tool.

But to some, these things were not seen as a harnessing of laws of physics, but a creative & almost godlike power. A mystique built up around the fields of engineering & science, & it was a magnet to young people when they pursued a career. The fields of technology were major draws in the middle of the last century in america. Breakthroughs in medicine, manufacturing, computers, & just about every part of human life has been positively affected by these technological advances, & families encouraged their children to be part of that growth & advancement of humanity.

The technological advances brought unprecedented prosperity & luxurious conditions for even the poorest in the nation. And as often has happened throughout history, with prosperity comes complacency & growing lethargy. Hard work loses its appeal, & easy living seems to be an easier route. Why work hard if you don't have to?

But as the culture has declined, so has the magnet for technology. Fewer & fewer american youth desire a career in science or engineering. Non productive elements of society have taken center stage. Sports, entertainment, celebrity worship, money shuffling.. these things are valued & esteemed over the mundane & difficult scientific disciplines.

Now, we are in a time of anti science. Social issues & cultural manipulation is taking place, of course claiming truth or science as a basis. But instead of open scrutiny, mandates. Instead of the scientific method, decree. Instead of logic & critical thinking, truth is declared & propaganda has become the new goal. Truth becomes what the establishment says, rather than something based on reason or facts. Critical thinking is not encouraged, just memorized dogma. History is not taught as dispassionate facts, but to mold a belief. Conclusions are presupposed, & memorized, instead of arrived at by research & thinking. THIS is the greatest failure of american education, which once was a beacon of classic liberal thought.. Now, it is just another state propaganda tool.

As the adoration of elitism grew, so did education transform as a classic liberal tool of enlightenment to a propaganda tool of indoctrination. At one time, critical thinking was emphasized, & 'liberal' meant an expansive, enlightened, open minded view of things.. a broader view of the nuances in thought, ideology, & critical thinking processes. Now, it is an indoctrination.. dogma is pounded into young people, so they do NOT think or consider alternatives, but have everything neatly defined for them, complete with demonizing any alternate views.

The result has been LESS thought, more dogma, & a subservient electorate. The concept of human liberty is redefined, & revisionist history is shoved down people's throats. Open, scientific method enquiry is squashed, while memorizing indoctrination is employed. The results are clear: Less educated citizenry.. no sense of history or continuity. Dogmatic view of life & simplistic solutions. Bumper sticker slogans, rather than nuanced discussions of issues. Stupidity running rampant, & hysteria valued over reason.

And like in the dark ages, the powers that be try to mandate truth by decree, instead of arriving at it through the scientific method. As a culture, we are moving away from a scientific view of the world, & into a faith based reality. 'Really smart people' make decrees about 'truth', & we are told to believe it.. don't question the experts or their handlers. Critical issues for us are not open to critique or examination, but we are indoctrinated from birth into state centered ideology. It is a giant step backward for humanity, as we surrender our minds to the puppet masters.

Historically, truth eventually overcomes those who suppress it because it inconveniences their agenda. But man has not changed, & his basic tendencies to use power & decrees to control people are still there. There are always various flavors of superstition intermingling in a culture. If one gains prominence, it can dictate the rules & the facts. Reason is suppressed, critical thinking condemned, & questioning authority is punished.

Eternity, from start to finish..

Eternity & infinity are abstract concepts that give us humans a difficult time. We see most things as beginning & ending.. almost everything in our lives has a start & a finish, including our own lives. But the concept of eternity has no beginning.. time drifts on from the past, with NO apparent start, & no explanation. Gurus, holy men, & philosophers have speculated & pontificated about eternity for as long as man has the capacity of thought. But we are no more closer to understanding it or grasping its meaning than when we first defined the term.

1. We have no awareness of eternity past. Eons passed before our brief existence.. Universe after universe could have come & gone, while we were yet unborn. Go back as far as you can imagine.. before any 'big bang', or creative action from a deity. Some theorize that the universe is expanding. How can this be? If matter has been simplifying & spreading out, how can it come together for any reason? Was there a 'beginning'.. a 'start' of matter? Matter is incredible. Life is irrational. All matter should have drifted to infinity in complete equilibrium.. stars burnt out eons ago, & the miracle of life not even a dream. The vastness of our universe is a tiny speck in the face of infinite space. How can there be matter? It is only a collection of infinitesimal, tiny space particles.

2. The existence of an 'Eternal soul' is just as disturbing as if there is not a soul. How is it even possible that life should exist, or that our minds could even grasp things like eternity? Eternity past went on without us.. it can easily go on for eternity future, & our existence a meaningless blip in the face of time. We are a collection of matter & molecules, with a mysterious mechanism giving us life. Mixed in with that is the ability to grasp abstract thoughts, like eternity, & our existence is amazing. Whether we cease to exist at death, or go on in some mysterious supernatural state, the mere ability to see those possibilities is troubling. We went from eternal nothingness, to a brief awareness. And now we try to make sense of our existence. It is no wonder there are so many religions, philosophies, theories, & abstract reasonings to explain ourselves. Our existence is amazing & unbelievable.. impossible, really, yet here we are.

3. Existence is terrifying, non existence is worse. As humans age, we become tired of life.. at least many of us do. How can we face the idea of eternal existence? As terrifying as non-existence is, eternal existence is equally disturbing. Soul or not, our future is grim & mysterious. Will we drift through eternal time & space with some kind of awareness, linked to other souls, or deities? Or will we simply cease to exist, like we did for eternity past?

4. Some people seem to be mad at god &/or the universe, throwing tantrums because they exist. Man is not comfortable with his existence, but needs an explanation. There is a 'why' that gnaws at us, that no other life forms or matter seem to have. This angst is an awareness of eternity, & it's awful implications. If there is a god involved in our existence, we do not know why, or have a definitive reason. He has shrouded the explanation & himself in mystery. Holy men, witch doctors, philosophers, & spiritual gurus speculate, but we do not really know. The universe is awful, terrifying, & too vast for our finite minds to grasp. So we either cling to someone else's explanation, or avoid the subject, living in denial about our eternal fate. If there is no god, our tantrums for understanding fall on eternal darkness, devoid of any reason or meaning. God or not, the universe is terrifying.

5. If there is not a god or some kind of supernatural power, life is short & pointless. If there is a god, it is short & uncertain, & we still do not know why we exist. It may still be pointless, & our existence just as fleeting. We live. We die. The universe goes on until all the stars burn out in eternal darkness & silence. Or, if there is some kind of divine order, we don't know what it is.. even a vague definition of heaven or hell is only a blurry glimpse into something we do not have the capacity to understand.

When I gave my heart to know wisdom and to see the task which has been done on the earth (even though one should never sleep day or night), and I saw every work of God, I concluded that man cannot discover the work which has been done under the sun. Even though man should seek laboriously, he will not discover; and though the wise man should say, “I know,” he cannot discover. Solomon c. 1000BC

Life is a Journey

It is said that life is a journey, not a destination. Few of our views remain fixed for all our lives, but we change as we grow in knowledge, experience, & awareness. I grew up in a secular home.. no church, very little politics.. & as i went to school, i learned all i needed to know about life (so i thought).   I was a liberal hippie.. crazed with sex, drugs, & rock & roll. The back to land movement was very appealing to me, & i was an early advocate to 'save the earth'. I became an atheist, & explained everything with naturalism. Evolution, & animal instincts were the only real motivations in life, & naive theists or altruistic ideals were for the superstitious & deluded. I voted for mcgovern in my first election, & did not believe in absolutes in morality.  But, i was a philosopher even then, & was fascinated by discussions of abstract thinking. So by college, my indoctrination from the 'world' was complete. Here were the tenets of my faith.
1. no god
2. man is an accident of nature.
3. no morality
4. love & altruism was for fools
5. man is the lord of his environment
6. grab all the gusto you can, you only go around once
7. the educated elite are supreme.. only deluded superstitious people cling to illusions
8. democrats were the educated elite, & would control the stupid masses

There are probably a few more tidbits of leftist indoctrination in there, but you get the idea.  :D

My problem was i was still looking for truth. I was intrigued by life, & wanted to know. That quest led me to an encounter with the Living God. My whole world crashed around me, & EVERYTHING changed. ALL the sacred tenets of my faith (i didn't call it that, then) became suspect, as i looked for a basis for my views, & valued reason & thought over blind faith. It was not immediate.. i voted for carter in '76, & was still liberal in many of my views.. and still am, in the more classic liberal sense. But now my views are more along these lines:
1. God is
2. man is a creation
3. man has accountability for his thoughts & actions
4. Love & altruism were genuine traits, originating in the divine
5. Man is not in control, & is an arrogant fool in the face of the universe
6. Live your life circumspectly, as you will answer for your thoughts & actions
7. Liberation of humanity, spiritually & physically, is the goal
8. Freedom from control, & liberty for the individual, is the ideal, not dictatorial rule

These are all completely antithetical to my original views.. but since the root was changed, it is to be expected that the branches & fruit would change, too. I now see the progressive left as enemies of humanity, & especially the american ideal. Their view of god is not important, since they miss the basic point of freedom. There may still be some tweaking in my world view, but this is where i am in my journey.

Blurred Lines (parody)

Ok, i've been sick. I've had a severe head & chest cold symptoms for over a week. I finally took some codeine last night, to help sleep better. I didn't really help much, but i woke up with some alternate lyrics to robin thicke's 'blurred lines' song.. Imagine nancy pelosi twerking in the role of miley cyrus, but instead of a big forefinger, it is a middle one. It's not a word for word, perfect tone copy, but it's not bad as a parody.
Anyway (cough, cough) here it is..

Blurred Lines
(parody)

Everybody trust us
Everybody trust us
Hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey

Redefining language, the simple way to do it,
It might seem too easy, but there's really nothing to it.
Maybe you're going deaf,
Hey, hey, hey
Maybe you're going blind,
Hey, hey, hey
As long as you doubt your mind,
Hey, hey, hey
Everybody trust us!

Ok, now we're close, try the great fiction again,
where everybody lives, baby, off of everybody else.
it's never worked before.
Hey, hey, hey
It always ends in war,
Hey, hey, hey
But it can work this time,
Hey, hey, hey
turn off your mind, and i will take a good girl,
like Lady Liberty,
like Truth & Justice,
that's how i want it.
You are good girls!
you won't get past me,
I'll redefine you,
fundamentally change you.
That's how i want it.

Don't read no Bastiat,
Hey, hey, hey
ignore the 10 cannots,
Hey, hey, hey
new lies i'll rearrange,
how 'bout some hope & change? 
I love those Blurred lines!

The challenge for the ages,
is for some to tell the many,
you make bread, we'll eat it!
It's the oldest scam in this place!
But i've got luck, too,
Hey, hey, hey
I'll take your stuff, too
Hey, hey, hey
what rhymes with 'luck, too'?
hey, hey, hey

Ok now we are close, nearly subjugate you,
We have not yet run out of other people's money, hey, hey!
I'll liberate it,
hey, hey, hey
i'll fornicate it,
hey, hey, hey
see, i'm your maker
And that is why i am going to take your money!
that's how we want it. 
You know i want it.
I know you want it.
I love those blurred lines!
We keep it muddy,
'cause we're your buddy.

I'll take your property,
Hey, hey, hey
revise your history,
Hey, hey, hey
A few more years of me,
Hey, hey, hey
goodbye to liberty!
I love those blurred lines!

One thing i'm a tellin' you,
I'll be the one that rules over you.
I'm smarter than anyone, with swag to boot,
You gotta have a king, it is me for you,
Just do everything i tell you to,
I'm big enough to tear this world in two,
No brag, just fact, i'm not being simplistic,
But walkin' past a mirror makes me narcissistic,
I am the best ruler a nation could find,
elite & humble, & out of my mind,
Not like your last guy, too square, not cool,
but I'll pull your hair & make you salute,
You make me rich & i'll make you my bitch,
I'll smack you down so don't dare refuse this pimpin',
'cause nothing i take from you is enough for me.

Imagine yes we can, it's so orwellian,
next stop utopia! Thank me for the gift of propaganda!
I like it to hurt, like it hurt
what, do you like work?

Baby take your soma, 'cause we're your momma.
I'm your nanny honey, you don't need any money, uh huh,
How 'bout some new QEs?
Hey, hey, hey
Some fiscal fantasy?
Hey, hey, hey
no point in working more
Hey, hey, hey
pretend to help the poor, 
Hey, hey, hey
we'll tell you anything as we take more & more! We love those blurred lines!
I know you want it
You know i want it
i know you want it

Everybody trust us
Everybody trust us
Hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey

It's kind of funny.. until yesterday, i hadn't really listened to the lyrics of the song. I've heard it a few times, here & there, & it has a catchy tune & some nice walking bass riffs, but once i read the lyrics, i was shocked! This is a hateful, anti woman, demeaning song if there ever was one! Just the kind that fits into the grammy, progressive, marxist philosophy. And they have the gall to call republicans anti woman! The 'blurred lines' that thicke sings about is being rough with women, & saying, 'i know you want it'. So a woman screaming, 'No! Stop!' isn't really what she wants.. she really means, 'yes! yes!'

Where are the PC feminists? They should be all over the grammys. But it fits right in with the hip hop attitude toward women being 'ho's' & 'bitches'. They objectify women more than anyone, yet have the smug hypocrisy to label conservatives as 'anti women'.

More 'redefinition' & orwellian newspeak. More 'blurred lines'. Check out the parody lyrics. They actually have a better, clearer, & more appropriate message than the original. For the left, 'blurred lines' is very important. Clear definitions are anathema to them. They don't want a clear definition of when life begins, but keep it blurred. Fiscal policy & economics HAVE to be blurred & fuzzy.. common sense & regular arithmetic exposes them as corrupt & financial failures. The only thing they want clear is their right to full power rule. THAT is the one thing they do not have the right to, yet they claim it as divinely bestowed. But according to thicke, liberal women want to be raped, smacked around, their hair pulled, & bullied. 'I know you want it!'

And this is what the left thinks americans want, as well.  We WANT to be bullied, nannied, & oppressed.

War as due process

The american constitution has strict limits on what the executive branch can do. This is a 'check & balance' that the founders worked for. It keeps executive power in check, & forbids them from making war at will. They have to go through the congress, which is like a jury in a due process judicial matter.

Say there is a threat to the nation. The president or intelligence community brings the evidence to congress. They look at it & determine if there is a need for military response.. international justice. If the evidence is vague or insufficient, congress should turn that request down. If they determine there is a direct threat to the nation, it is fitting for them to declare war & make appropriations. The president then commands the armed forces to eliminate the threat, as mandated by congress. This is the way of the american constitution. We the people, pay for the war, kill, & die in it.

But what do we have, now? A president has become judge, jury, & executioner. They say, 'trust us, we have the inside information', then proceed to bomb or invade other sovereign nations, without a declaration of war or any due process. The executive branch has taken a role that is not granted by the constitution, & now makes war indiscriminately.. killing anyone they want. This is completely contrary to a free people, ruled by Law.. we are a republic, with clear procedures for justice. It is not up to the whim of a bureaucrat to decide who lives or dies.

1. Constitutional war in america is a matter of due process. Congress must declare it, & the executive branch carries out the order. Violations of this basic protocol strikes at the very heart of what america is about. Due process, checks & balances, & separation of duties are core american values. This is the most basic covenant of american justice. Without it, we are another state centered ruling monster, with no individual rights.
2. Killing ANYONE is a violation of their individual sovereignty, & is contrary to the concept of due process. American citizens ESPECIALLY should have the full protection of the constitution, & not have their rights waived whimsically by a bureaucrat for vague notions of 'national security'. Let charges be filed, & let the accuser face the accused. Review the evidence, & let a jury of peers decide their guilt. THAT is the heritage of justice we have arrived at, & the current violations are a step backward for mankind.
3. If core values are set aside for convenience, then there are no individual rights. America is a farce.. justice, liberty, & individual freedom are an illusion & have no meaning. There MUST be consistency in our policy. It MUST reflect the core values of america, which are due process, individual sovereignty, & the securing of basic rights.
4. If liberty, due process, & the separation of powers as outlined in the constitution are ignored, we have lost the heart & soul of america. We have become just another oppressive state, where the individual's rights mean nothing, & the rulers can whimsically give or withhold our rights. The constitutional guarantees are mere suggestions to them, & their ignoring & trampling of these basic motivational ideals are a treasonous act. They are anti american, anti human, & should be deposed swiftly & ruthlessly.

Survival of the fittest.. 4 ways to do it

1. work
2. theft
3. dependence
4. luck

If you are to survive in this world, you need one of these methods to do it. I can think of no other way within the bounds of possibility. Only these things can provide the necessities of life, which are sustenance & protection. Under sustenance, i put air, food, water, sleep, etc.. the things we need to live, biologically. Under protection, i put clothing, shelter, medical care, police, military.. those things that protect us from the elements or other aggressors, human or animal. Nothing else is essential for our survival.

You can work & produce these things yourself, or you can take them from someone else, hire a thug to do it for you, depend on someone else who works or steals, or get lucky & win the lottery or find some diamonds. That's it. There are no other means to get the necessities of life. BTW, working to steal from others, or con them out of their labors is NOT work.. it is still theft.

Most babies start out dependent, but as they grow up, they are able to work & pay their own way. If they set some of the fruits of their labors aside, they can provide for themselves in their old age, when they are no longer productive workers. But someone who has worked for their savings or investments is still living off of past labors. Some people become dependent on their children, or parents, or the rest of society, but a culture with a strong work ethic promotes individual responsibility, so the rest of society is not overburdened with dependents.

The conclusions on this reality should also be obvious, but for some reason, there is a mindset of entitlement that thinks it is a person's 'right' to be provided the necessities of life. Their existence is reason enough for them to expect full care for all their physical & emotional needs. If this mindset becomes too prominent, it destroys the culture, as there is not enough productive workers to support the growing dependent class.

It will be up to the producers to correct this faulty thinking, by applying 'tough love' & not enabling this delusional thinking. This applies not only to deadbeats who don't want to work, but also the proliferation of govt leeches.. bureaucrats, contractors, elected officials... any who do no productive work themselves, but leech on the producers.

I'm a home builder.. well, i was in my working years.. now i'm a glorified handyman. But to build a structure, you start with the foundation. This is about the foundation of life.. survival. How we do it reveals our character & view of ourselves & mankind.

No one uses just one of these means their whole life. Most of us use different ones or all of them throughout our lives. A baby is born helpless.. they are completely dependent on someone else for their survival. A person grows, & gets a govt grant, or scholarship, or food stamps in their youth. This is survival by theft. I'm sticking with my labels for simplicity, and i know they are charged words, which are useful to make a point. But any govt program is funded by theft. Taxpayers do not voluntarily give their taxes, they are taken by force. Most of the time, we understand that this is part of the way society works, & we will tolerate a little 'theft' from our govt. But it is good to see it for what it really is: Theft. This is how radical libertarians & anarchists define it, so we'll use this definition.

Ok, so you've used both dependency & theft to survive for some of your life. Now, you begin to work. You get a job making widgets in a factory, or use that degree in french poetry to sell timeshares. We would have to follow the money for a while to determine if the job income comes from real production, or if it is just part of theft shuffled around to launder it. If you land a job working for the post office, you are providing a useful communication & marketing service that society has deemed to be important & has levied taxes to fund. The source of your money is theft, but you are working for it, now, & giving a return to the taxpayers, who pay your salary. So while this is a bit fuzzy, i'm putting you in the 'work' heading for this part.

Then one day, you drop into the casino & put a a dollar in the slot. Jackpot! You won a million dollars! So you quit your stupid post office job, since you were very near going postal, & buy a house & car & live it up for a while. This was just dumb luck. It can be argued that the gambling industry relies on theft, but it is not forced. It is voluntary. So i would call it stupidity, rather than theft. The odds are bad for winning, & the hordes of people working, the buildings & entertainment are funded by the gamblers. There is nothing useful being produced.. it is a ponzi style operation, that requires the constant infusion of funds from stupid losers to operate. But that is an aside.

Soon you realize that a million dollars doesn't go that far. You've still got your house & car, but the parties have depleted your winnings. So you decide to start a business. You remember how to make those widgets when you worked at the factory in the summers while in college, so you rent some floor space, hire a few people, & begin to make your own widgets. They sell like hotcakes! Your widgets are better quality, & have some innovations that you thought of while working at the factory. You expand. You hire a sales force, & buy your own building. You hire more employees, & pay them well for their work. You learn from the mistakes of previous employers, & try to make a positive working environment. Your widgets are wildly successful, & you get a cover story in forbes magazine. Your spouse & children adore you, & you die peacefully in your sleep at a ripe old age.

So you covered all of the list, but you are mostly defined by work.. dependency, theft, & luck were short lived, & you relied on hard work to sustain you most of your life. Now lets look at some stereotypes.

1. rich kid. Your parents were rich, & left you a fat trust fun. You went to college, but just played at it. You never took any govt assistance, but didn't work summers, either. You went to europe every couple of years, & partied with rock stars & other rich kids. Again, we'd have to follow the money to see if its source was from work, luck, or theft, but in this case, your money was luck. You were born rich, & just lucky, if we consider riches to be something to aspire to. Some rich kids squander their inheritance in lavish living, others invest & work it & become richer. If you contribute to some politicians elections, & get some increase from those connections, at least some of your riches are from theft, or 'lawful plunder' as bastiat puts it. Or if it is from a solyndra type venture, it is all theft. If you're just playing the market, that is a lot of luck.. some educated guesses, but you still need a little luck. Overall, luck was the driving force behind your survival.

2. welfare queen. You got pregnant as a teen, moved into the projects, got food stamps & adc. Your boyfriends would bring over some weed, & you'd party at the house when the kid was asleep. Soon, you had more kids, & made more money. You always had plenty of food around, & could even trade some for a bit of crack if you wanted. Men were always around giving attention, & occasionally you'd have one stick around for a few years. He'd have to duck out the back when the social worker came around, but you got good at playing the game. The boys began to hang out with gang bangers, but since they were your social network, that's what boys do. Your older daughter got pregnant, & moved to her own place. But she got into crack & lost the kids. You took them, which helped your income a bit until you could get on disability from being obese. Since most of your life was from dependency on govt, which relies on theft, theft is the driving force behind your survival.

3. Rugged individualist. You were raised by wolves, & began to come into human society when you started school. You caught all your own food, & even made the pencils you needed at school. By high school, you already owned a couple of businesses that made widgets for the aerospace industry. You majored in engineering in college, paid your own way, & developed some new patents while working on your thesis. You made your own car from scratch, & built a treehouse in the woods to live in. No one gave you anything, & you never took anything from anyone. You overcame every obstacle by hard work & determination. Work was your main means of survival.

There are a lot more, but this is getting long & silly, so i'll stop. But there are corporate cogs, ponzi scheme promoters, minimum wage dead ends, lottery winners, & myriads of other stereotypes we could include. No one is a stereotype, though, & most of us are composites of many of these. The serious question to ask is this:

What means of survival defines your life?

The next serious question is this: What is a widget?

Dilution of wealth

I've been trying to get a simple, clear explanation of fractional reserve banking & monetary policy for years. I could see the evils of inflation, & how it robs people of their life's savings, & i could see the dangers of fiat money, & the seemingly automatic degeneration of a culture or empire once that becomes the basis for the currency. But i haven't been able to get it boiled down to the essence.. the simple basics of what is actually happening, & tying it all together.

As usual, it is not the system that is necessarily flawed, but the way govt has worked it. Fractional reserve banking has been with us for centuries, & if managed in a responsible way, is a workable system for a nation to regulate it's currency & money supply. Here is the progression that i see, & how we have gotten to where we are. And of course, none of these things happened in a vacuum, either, but were part of the timeline of events in history, from the american revolution to the civil war, to the new century.

1. Creation of the federal reserve, 1913.

These periodic banking panics were symptomatic of a less dramatic but more regular problem:
the seasonal variation in the need for currency for transactions. The system of gold and legal
tender notes was not elastic, and it was subject to money “shortages” especially at harvest time.
In 1913, this problem was addressed by the creation of the Federal Reserve System (Fed).33 The
Fed was to remedy the situation in a two ways. First, it would provide a means by which banks
could borrow in times of stringency to satisfy their customers’ demand for cash. Second, it could
create a new form of money, Federal Reserve notes, which could be expanded or contracted in
quantity to respond to the need for more cash.
The creation of the Federal Reserve had little if any effect on the gold standard. The dollar was
still defined in terms of gold. Federal Reserve notes were redeemable in lawful money. The Fed
not only operated under the gold standard, but was charged with maintaining it, and kept a
percentage of gold cover for its notes. Gold still dictated the value of the dollar.
source

Basically, the fed was created to allow banks to extend themselves more in fractional reserve banking.. IOW, they were not required to have ALL the assets on hand to make loans, but would get guarantees from the fed to cover any runs on the banks. This took some risk away from the banks, & also seemed to insure the deposits & savings of the people. But, it created unintended consequences, which had to be addressed by more govt measures.

BTW, the creation of the fed was a private entity not run by elected govt officials, & not really accountable to the american people, congress, or other banks. This institution was given tremendous power, to control the nation's money supply. While it was still under the gold standard, it ability to manipulate the currency was limited.

2. FDR ends the gold standard, 1933. 
This was one of the greatest administrative overreaches in american history. He got congress to rubber stamp it.. which, btw, was controlled by the democrats. The senate was 59/36 & the house 313/117 in dem/pub ratio. Basically, the problem was runs on the banks, & a lack of confidence in the banking system. People were converting their liquid assets to gold, & the federal reserve bank was finding itself overextended, as the fractional reserve created bubble in the roaring 20s had burst. But instead of letting a correction happen, the govt intervened. Private gold ownership was outlawed. People had to conduct all transactions with federal reserve notes. It was all done under the guise of 'save the economy, save the children!' It provided a temporary solution to the failing banks. Socialism was growing in the world, as was a sense of entitlement to basic needs.

The problems of fractional reserve banking became obvious in the roaring 20s. The stock market was booming, & margin buys were common. That is essentially buying stock on credit.. you have money to buy 10 shares, but can buy 100 on margin. This is fine as long as stock keep rising. But if they fall, the bill comes due for the rest of the stock purchase, which has not decreased in value so selling it does not provide the money to pay the original cost. Eventually, all liquidity is lost, & bankruptcy ensues, or jumping out of the wall street windows.

But this was the start of the dilution process. Margin buying was not 'creating' anything, or actual production, but was 'fake' wealth.. an illusion of increase, based only on monetary policy & inflation. This boom in the money supply, created by the fed, was not justified by actual, physical production in the nation. The economy was booming in the postwar 20s.. farmers were growing & expanding, with production increasing exponentially with the appearance of the internal combustion engine.. tractors could do the work of many mules & horses, with one man driving it. Building was booming.. houses, factories, economic growth was exploding. But much of it was on margin.. credit. When the bubble burst, it took many people down with it.

The statist cheerleaders could not face the prospect of taking blame for their own govt meddling, so they blamed gold. It was a roadblock to continued economic expansion. So the solution? Outlaw gold, & force usage of the declared (fiat) money.

This is also when people began to get rich from money shuffling.. sure, there have always been money lenders, who get rich off of usury, but this was different. It was cutting the real wealth with a bulky filler.. printing more money with the same basis, & allowing middle men to skim off for their own enrichment. This was different than the typical money lender, charging interest for the loan. This was not REAL value, but something 'created' by the fed, then skimmed off by multiple middle men.. money shufflers who don't produce anything. They are leeches in the system, & the new structure was causing an explosion of growth. But the actual production was not growing at the rate of the money supply, so the producers were not able to support all of these middle men, each diluting the original value of the product. It is drug dealer dynamics.. a ponzi scheme system of monetary supply.

This is getting too long, so i'll quit for now.. maybe later i'll finish up with the rest of the progression, from ww2 to nixon, skyrocketing inflation, opec, & the growing explosion of the money supply, along with the dwindling production. Some people already know this, as it is nothing new. But most people do not grasp the significance of the financial meddlings by the govt. 

What it all boils down to is confiscation of wealth.. REDISTRIBUTION from the producers to leeches, via dilution of the value of the currency. The leeches early on were the money shufflers.. bankers, wall street tycoons, etc, & the progressives want to 'share the wealth' with a bunch more leeches in the welfare state. But it is all done on the backs of the producers, & is unsustainable.

I am myself persuaded, on the basis of extensive study of the historical evidence, that... the severity of each of the contractions - 1920-21, 1929-33, and 1937-38 - is directly attributable to acts of commission and omission by the Reserve authorities and would not have occurred under earlier monetary and banking arrangements. ~Milton Friedman

The Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the private economy. ... Roosevelt's policies were very destructive. Roosevelt's policies made the depression longer and worse than it otherwise would have been. ~Milton Friedman

In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. ... This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold.Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard. ~Alan Greenspan

With the exception only of the period of the gold standard, practically all governments of history have used their exclusive power to issue money to defraud and plunder the people. ~Friedrich August von Hayek