The Anger of Compassion

No Cash Accepted

An American cowboy or prospector could walk into a saloon, toss a gold dollar onto the bar, and tell the barkeep, "Gimme a shot of Red Eye." It wasn't so long ago, really, but you don't want to try that kind of all-American, individualist crap in Buffalo, New York:

Southtowns businessman Daniel Buczek said he has had "no trouble" using Liberty silver dollars to buy coffee, oil filters for his car and other items at a number of area businesses.

But when someone in his family tried to use them to buy beer at a Buffalo Sabres game, Buczek and his son wound up in trouble with the law.

Buczek, 55, and Shane Buczek, 34, both of Derby, are believed to be the first people to be charged in this region for trying to make purchases with the Liberty dollar, a privately minted $20 coin.

That's right, charged with trying to buy something with a silver coin. "Charged with" trying to exchange one value for another.

According to police, the Buczeks were arrested after they tried to buy beer with $20 Liberties from "numerous" vendors at the Dec. 26 Sabres game against the New York Islanders at HSBC Arena.

Acting on a complaint filed by a security officer at the game, Buffalo police charged the two men with felony counts of criminal possession of a forged instrument and criminal impersonation. A misdemeanor count of harassment was also filed.

I think I have an idea from which quarter the "harassment" came...

"We did send an agent to question [the Buczeks], but we determined this was not a counterfeiting case," said Michael C. Bryant, special agent in charge of the Buffalo Secret Service office. "Counterfeiting is when someone illegally makes a copy of actual U.S. currency."

Liberties are not made by the government, are not legal tender and "the U.S. Treasury Department does not approve of it," said Michael J. White, a spokesman for the U.S. Mint.

No business is required to accept Liberties, White said, but he added there is no law preventing businesses from accepting Liberties for goods and services, if they choose to do so.

Okay, so it's not a case of counterfeiting. There's no question of fraud involved, and no coercion. So what is Buffalo's heartache with use of these silver coins? It's not as if people don't want them:

"About 20 of my regular customers use them. They pay me with silver, and they accept silver as change," said Daniel Hyman, owner of the Red Apple convenience store on Route 78 in Strykersville. "With inflation and government deficits, I see more and more people who don't trust paper anymore. Eventually, I hope the banks will accept Liberties for deposits."

"We take it at par with dollars," said Shawn Clawges, owner of Opener's Grille, a restaurant on Seneca Street in East Aurora. "They're a pretty coin, and they're backed by silver. It's a commodity that's going up in value, unlike the U.S. dollar."

Yes, heaven help us if we allow adults to structure or conduct transactions the way they want to. You never know when some anti-social bastard might come up with something dastardly like penicillin or futures contracts or software. Hell, they may even try to sell it.

And if you allow them to get away with that, why, they may just demand payment in silver.

Posted by Craig Ceely at January 25, 2006 08:56 AM