From: owner-roc-digest@lists.xmission.com (roc-digest) To: roc-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: roc-digest V2 #100 Reply-To: roc-digest Sender: owner-roc-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-roc-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk roc-digest Tuesday, March 31 1998 Volume 02 : Number 100 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 29 Mar 1998 23:52:47 -0500 (EST) From: Brad Subject: FLC - Why Drinking and Driving Should not be a Crime: Version 2 (fwd) - ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 30 Mar 1998 01:17:30 +0100 From: Sean Gabb Subject: FLC - Why Drinking and Driving Should not be a Crime: Version 2 Free Life Commentary =20 Editor: Sean Gabb Issue Number Fifteen 28th March 1998 =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D "Over himself, over his own mind and body,=20 the individual is sovereign" (J.S. Mill, On Liberty, 1859) =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D Why Drinking and Driving Should not be a Crime: Version 2 by Sean Gabb Introduction Last December, I devoted issue number seven of Free Life Commentary to explaining why drinking and driving should not be a crime. I am now returning to this theme. I do so not because I am short of material. Being a libertarian activist in modern England is rather like getting to the top level in one of the more violent computer games: you are running low on ammunition and energy, and the enemy is rushing at you from all directions in greatly increased numbers. My reason is that I seem to be winning this argument. For the past three years, I have been the only person in the country willing to go on air and oppose the general hysteria over drinking and driving. My media database records 25 appearances since November 1994, most of them against spokesmen from the Campaign Against Drinking and Driving. This is a movement run by people for whom I have much respect. Unlike the sordid liars of the anti-tobacco lobby, men like Ron Jessup and Graham Buxton believe what they are saying. In various ways, they have been made to suffer by drunken drivers, and their object is to reduce the chances that others will suffer as they have. For this reason, I am always polite to them. With the exception of someone called Harry Capes, who fell to insulting me last Wednesday evening on a BBC Radio programme called Late Night North, they are polite to me. And they are losing. During the past few months, they have been less confident in their arguments than they used to be. Sensing this, the programme hosts have started putting difficult questions of their own. Of course, winning an argument does not lead immediately to changes in the law. If it did, drugs would have been relegalised a long time ago, and handguns would never have been banned in the first place. Where drinking and driving is concerned, there are too many vested interests to overcome, and too great a mass of prejudice built up in the public mind. Even so, unless the argument is won, there can be no prospect of changes in the law. Being just one person, without any burning commitment in the issue, and without a penny of funding, I think I can be proud of what I have done. For this reason, I feel inclined to share my latest thoughts on drinking and driving with the thousand direct subscribers to Free Life Commentary and with the further but unknown thousands who read me on the newsgroups and discussion lists. Drinking and Driving: What I Believe I do not approve of drinking and driving. A motor car in careless hands is a very dangerous thing; and though I doubt some claims about the degree of impairment, I do accept that drivers who drink beyond a certain level become careless. I never drink and drive. Those drivers who lack my sense of responsibility earn my contempt. Those who go on to cause damage to the lives and property of others earn my utter condemnation. My disagreement with the established point of view lies not in whether drinking and driving ought to be deterred. It lies instead over the means by which deterrence ought to be achieved. Deterrence by Prior Restraint For at least the past 30 years, deterrence has lain in prior restraint - in the setting and enforcing of strict upper limits on how much alcohol someone may drink before getting into a car. The present limit - pardon the metricism - is 80 milligrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood, or about two English pints of beer at normal strength. Under the Road Traffic Act 1988, the Police have the right to test any driver who has been lawfully stopped. This obviously covers drivers who have been involved in an accident. It also covers those who have been stopped on suspicion of any offence. Turning to punishments, the normal penalty for driving or attempting to drive while under the influence of drink or drugs is six months imprisonment, or a fine up to level 5, or both. Disqualification and endorsement are obligatory unless "special reasons" are adduced in court. And the vehicle may be forfeited. For being in charge of a vehicle while over the limit - this may mean having been caught at the wheel of a stationary car with the keys in the ignition - the maximum penalty is three months imprisonment, or a fine, or both. Deterrence by Punishment I disagree with this entire approach. If I had my way, drinking and driving would not in itself be a crime. It would be possible for a person to drink a bottle of whisky, get into a car and drive away - and the authorities would have no power to stop this. Punishment would only come if an accident was caused. But it would then be very severe punishment. There would be no more of those cases we read about in the newspapers, where a driver kills three children on a zebra crossing, tests at three times above the legal limit, and gets away with a one year driving ban and a suspended sentence. I want to see the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 applied to traffic accidents. Causing death by dangerous driving would then not carry a maximum penalty of ten years imprisonment plus fine, as it now does. it would instead be classified as negligent homicide, or manslaughter, the maximum penalty for which is imprisonment for life. Where sufficiently gross negligence could be proved, I would see the offence classified as murder, for which imprisonment for life is now the mandatory punishment - - and for which I would like to see the death penalty restored. In this scheme of deterrence, drivers would still be tested for alcohol after an accident. But they would be tested only after an accident, and a positive result could only be used as evidence in a prosecution for crimes against life or property to prove the degree of negligence, and therefore to determine the level of punishment. The Success of Prior Restraint It may be asked what benefit would be gained from substituting my scheme for the one already in place. After all, prior restraint does appear to have worked. I have before me the Drinking and Driving Statistics issued in September 1997 by the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions. These show that in 1979, there were 1,643 "fatal casualties in accidents where one driver or rider was over the legal limit". By 1985, this number had fallen to 1,040, by 1990 to 760, and by 1996 to 540. Since then, it has almost certainly fallen again. Some of this reduction may be due to the public awareness campaigns. Much of it, though, must be due to the fear of punishment if caught over the limit in charge of a car. The Costs of Prior Restraint The answer is that criminal laws are not to be judged simply in terms of the benefits derived from them. We need also to look at the costs they impose. Laws that on first inspection seem beneficial often turn out on balance to be far less so. This is the case with prior restraint in drinking and driving. It has succeeded in forcing down the number of alcohol-related road deaths. But it has done so at costs that are both exorbitant and unnecessary. Consider: First, the present law is in itself a breach of this country's liberal traditions, and is conducive to further breaches. To be stopped, on no probable cause, and forced to explain ourselves to the authorities - and even sometimes to provide specimens from our own bodies for inspection and recording -is a violation of our liberty. Until a time still within living memory, the Common Law was emphatic in its prohibition of searches and seizures, except by judicial warrant and on evidence of some specific criminal behaviour. The Road Traffic Acts abolish this prohibition partly by defining as crimes behaviour that is not an attack on life or property, and partly by encouraging indiscriminate searches to uncover such behaviour. The Acts may disallow drivers from being stopped without probable cause. Plainly, however, drivers are so stopped. Of the 781,000 breath tests administered in England and Wales during 1996, 87 per cent - that is, 680,000 - were negative. The overwhelming majority of these must have been victims of some unofficial policy to stop every tenth car, or every blue car, or every car with a number place ending in a vowel, or whatever. And this is an unavoidable consequence of the law. At the present alcohol limit, there is seldom any visible impairment of driving ability - - indeed, most drink-related accidents are caused by drivers far in excess of the limit. For the law to be effectively enforced, the Police must stop drivers virtually at random. If the limit is lowered - as the Campaign Against Drinking and Driving is now demanding - the number of tests and the number proving negative must both rise still further. Moreover, once set, despotic precedents are always extended. The present law puts us to the authorities as a child is to its guardian. No matter how friendly, or efficient, or honest the enforcement may be, the law breaks us into the notion that we have a duty of accountability to the authorities, and that this is for our own good. But to be obliged to stop our cars and provide a specimen is no different in principle from being made to carry identity cards and produce them on demand, or having to provide a set of our house keys to the Police, so they can more easily check us from time to time to see if we are receiving stolen goods or hiding bodies under the floorboards - or from being electronically tagged, so the authorities can see where we are at any given time. In spite of having much reduced the number of alcohol-related road deaths, the present law is flatly in contradiction to a thousand years of English constitutional development. It is instead the mark of a police state. Second, the law involves a waste of the tax payers' money. Of those 680,000 negative tests in 1996, let us suppose that each one cost =9C10 of Police time. That brings a direct cost to the tax payers of nearly =9C7 million. Turning to waste less easily quantified, every officer assigned to looking for drivers over the limit is one officer fewer to catch real criminals. This is specially the case at Christmas, which has lately become carnival a time for burglars and muggers. There are fewer officers around to deter them, and fewer to go looking for them after the event. Third, the law has a double agenda, one open, the other hidden; and pursuit of the latter compromises pursuit of the former. Years of propaganda about the horrors of drinking and driving have tended to obscure the fact that alcohol is not the only cause of driving impairment. Rather as I have, most people have come to attach notions of extreme immorality to drinking before driving. Few such notions are attached to driving while tired or stressed, or after drinking lots of tea or coffee, or while in desperate need of a pee. Yet these are often at least as dangerous as driving slightly above the legal alcohol limit. And they are ignored. Even if some of these causes of accidents are naturally hard to measure, some effort could be made at least to acknowledge their existence. None is made. The spokesman for the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions thought at first I was joking when I called last week to ask for statistics on caffeine-related road deaths. Then, after I had insisted, he came back with an explanation that no such statistics were gathered, and that there were no plans to start gathering them. This indicates that much of the propaganda against drinking and driving has nothing to do with reducing injuries to life and property, and everything to do with making it harder to enjoy a drink in good company. Macaulay once said of the 17th century puritans that they hated bearbaiting not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators. His epigram applies equally well to the modern puritans, who bray about the horrors of driving after half a pint of lager while refusing even to consider the effects of half a gallon of black coffee. Now, if these were the unavoidable costs of preventing thousands of road deaths, there might be a case for the present law. Though it is not a case that I would accept, I could understand the willingness of others to accept it. But this is not so. People who reply to my talk about civil liberties with talk about the civil liberty to stay alive are missing the point. By returning to our old tradition of deterrence by punishment, exactly the same legitimate object could be achieved - of ensuring that drivers only took to the roads while in a reasonably fit state to drive. It could be done without turning the Police into a British Gestapo, and without stopping seven sober drivers in order to find one who is slightly over the limit - and without letting entirely just concerns about road safety be hijacked by closet prohibitionists. Objections I never get time to say all the above on air. That is the nature of broadcasting. But I usually do get the main points across. If they are not accepted, it is most often for two reasons: First, people often doubt if punishment after the event can have as much deterring power as prior restraint. I cannot say for sure that it would; and I am at a disadvantage in arguing against a scheme of deterrence that does work in spite of what I see as its high costs. Sometimes, I reply that people generally do avoid breaking laws where obedience does not involve going against fundamental desires or principles, and where the punishment is sufficiently heavy. Let causing death by dangerous driving be treated as manslaughter, and there would be no need of breathalysers and intoximeters. More often, I make the point indirectly. Whenever I do a call-in programme, there is always at least one tearful caller lined up to say: "I lost my sixteen year old daughter to a drunken driver. She was coming home after celebrating her exam results. What do you have to say about that?" My response is to ask what punishment this foul beast received. The answer commonly involves something about a =9C500 fine. My answer to this is to explain how under my scheme of deterrence, that driver would still be rotting in prison - or might even be rotting underground if I had my way with the restoration of the death penalty for murder. This always silences further questions of the same kind. I suspect it also satisfies most listeners. Second, many people cannot see the point in laws that only come into action after something terrible has already happened. As an extreme example, take Harry Capes of the Campaign Against Drinking and Driving. He came on air against me the other evening, and spent the last minute of the programme insisting over and over that I was "provoking" criminal acts with my view of what the law ought to be. He seemed genuinely outraged that I was denying any place for prior restraint. However, that is what the law must be like in a free country. It must be essentially passive. It must leave people to go about their business, free of inspection and control, and do nothing even when it is plain that some of them are up to no good. It must act only after a crime has been committed against life or property, and must then hit out very severely - so far as possible deterring the lawbreakers from misbehaving again by the weight of punishment, and deterring others from similar misbehaviour by the example of punishment. This is not terribly efficient, I grant. But the reason for that lies in the limited value of law. It is not a magic wand, able to solve whatever problem it is waved over. It is the immaterial equivalent of a baseball bat - effective, though best used not very often. To demand otherwise of the law - to insist on a role for it in preventing crimes - is to think like the citizen of a slave state. I have spent more time in waiting rooms and VIP lounges with spokesmen from the Campaign Against Drinking and Driving than I have in studios. In this time, I have discovered that they are not professional health fascists interested in advancing an agenda of control. They are ordinary people brought into public life by extraordinary misfortunes. One of them even shares my dislike of the European Union and its assault on our native traditions. This being so, I want to end by calling on the Campaign Against Drinking and Driving to continue its work by more British means. Instead of pressing for lower alcohol limits, let it seek an improvement in road safety by pressing for the recovery of freedom and responsibility. Instead of demanding "unfettered discretion" for the Police to enforce the commands of a European-style police state, let it demand a return to our old system of real punishments for real crimes in a free country. =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D Free Life Commentary is an independent journal of comment, published on the Internet. To receive regular issues, send=20 e-mail to Sean Gabb at old.whig@virgin.net Issues are archived at Contact Address: 25 Chapter Chambers,=20 Esterbrooke Street,=20 London, SW1P 4NN;=20 Telephone: 0181 858 0841 If you like Free Life Commentary, you may also care to subscribe to my longer, hard copy journal, Free Life, subscription details for which can be obtained by writing to me at the above address. =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D Legal Notice: Though using the name Free Life, this journal is owned by me and not by the Libertarian Alliance, which in consequence bears no liability of whatever kind for the contents. - --=20 Sean Gabb | "Over himself, over his own | E-mail: old.whig@virgin.net | mind and body, the individual|=20 | is sovereign" | Mobile Number: 0956 472199 | J.S. Mill, On Liberty, 1859 | - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Mar 1998 08:15:06 -0600 (CST) From: Subject: TWA800: Major Meyer Speaks (fwd) - ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 29 Mar 1998 22:58:00 -0500 From: Ian Goddard To: liberty-and-justice@pobox.com Subject: TWA800: Major Meyer Speaks Major Fred Meyer is a TWA 800 "missile witness" and veteran military pilot who says that the streak that he saw ended in an explosion that he says "was military ordnance." About TWA 800, he says in no uncertain terms: "somebody shot this aircraft down." At the following webpage you will find the transcript (thanks to Mike Hull) of a speech that Major Meyer gave to the Granada Forum: http://members.aol.com/bardonia/meyer.htm **************************************************************** VISIT Ian Williams Goddard ----> http://www.erols.com/igoddard ________________________________________________________________ TWA-800 CASE CORE --> http://www.erols.com/igoddard/twa-core.htm ________________________________________________________________ - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Mar 1998 10:08:11 -0500 (EST) From: John Curtis Subject: Re: Conservatism Is at Crossroads Due to Unbridled Capitalism (fwd) >> Demanding that a corporation provide jobs... > >The language used, "demand", tells you from whence it derives and where >it's all going: Use of force or compulsion to achieve results. A >"free exchange" and "demand" are fundamentally different things. >"Demand" implies the use, or the threat of use, of force. > >Hardly a Libertarian principle. Yup, if you want predictability, and a placid existence, dead is the way to go. Of course, an out of control State is really the most reliable way of filling graveyards, at least by the evidence of this century. As a firm in-the-closet Libertarian, I don't think that hijacking the U.S. mechanism of State coercion (<- my new prefered language, it's crisp, it's precise, and its cuts out a lot of obfuscating bullshit) in order to guarantee everybody a job is a good deal. In fact, its a rotten deal, as it just adds more power to a guv that is already out of control and controlling record levels of private production. My real opinion is that the fact that self-described freedom lovers are asking for job protection is a measure of how deeply the pro-statist unspoken ideology has penetrated into our society. My grandfather was living in a simple frame house on the prairie, plowing fields with animal power. His father built a sod hut and lived in that for four years. Now we have an explosion of material goods. I know "poor" people with t.v.'s, cars, jobs, and apartments. I don't understand all the changes in attitude, it sure seems like difference in "opportunity" isn't really part of the equation. jcurtis - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Mar 1998 10:24:14 -0500 (EST) From: John Curtis Subject: Re: Conservatism Is at Crossroads Due to Unbridled Capitalism (fwd) Mr Toty: I guess you have some secret method of distinquishing capitalists from capitalists who are pillaging, or whatever you regard as What really got me going was the phrase "needed killings". Like you're going to go out and decide who to kill, based upon your idea of what is and is not "good capitalism". This whole unbridled capitalism debate has been going on for a while and will probably go on forever. I don't know any hire today, fire tommorrow employers (except to some guy picking up wetbacks to go tend his lawn). My job is dependent upon the whim of my employer. People can and do get fired and laid off. Earth to E.J.: there isn't going to be a revolution! There might be some random violence, but the "revolutionaries" are about 15% Federal agents and 15% informers. Best case for the "revolution" is that it will be the L.A. riots in a redneck version. ciao, jcurtis - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Mar 1998 10:29:22 -0500 (EST) From: John Curtis Subject: Re: Conservatism Is at Crossroads Due to Unbridled Capitalism (fwd) Brad wrote: > >Anybody wants to move his factory or whatever to Mexico, Indonesia or >wherever, hey, that's ok with me. I just have a little trouble >understanding why my blue-collar neighbors and I should pay for a bailout >every time something goes wrong and - most especially - why we should have >to go get our butts shot at if the locals start making trouble. I supsect >Citibank and Intel and the rest would be more careful about deploying >assets overseas if they weren't confident that we would always be here to >provide bailouts and bodies. I agree 100%. "Too big to fail" is bullshit. Bailing out investors in Mexico - ditto. Chrysler - ditto. This is the flip side to unbridled capitalism. I think you should be focused on the taxes you're paying, as they are the simplest, most honest measure of how much government is oppressing you. ciao, jcurtis - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Mar 1998 11:29:42 -0500 From: mestetsr@dunx1.ocs.drexel.edu Subject: Re: Yet Another Gun Control Poll (Please Vote) (fwd) >Guns in America: Should Americans have the right to keep and bear >(concealed) arms? > >http://www.VOTELINK.COM/test/questions/politics/monday5_vot.html > >As of 3/29 @ 2:50pm EST >Yes: 63% >Uncertain: 2% >No: 33: >Out of 223 votes I just voted. As of 3/30, 11:28am Yes: 95% No: 4% Uncertain: 0% Votes tallied: 2124. I know it doesn't add up to 100%. I'm just reading what it spit out. Rachel *************************************************************************** * Windows 95: n. 32 bit extensions and a graphical shell for a 16 bit * * patch to an 8 bit operating system originally coded for a 4 bit * * microprocessor, written by a 2 bit company that can't stand 1 bit of * * competition. Rachel.D@Drexel.edu * *************************************************************************** - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Mar 1998 09:14:32 -0700 From: "E.J. Totty" Subject: Re: Conservatism Is at Crossroads Due to Unbridled Capitalism (fwd) Mr. Curtis, and a few others . . . [...] Mr Toty: etc. . . [...] The name has two 't's, not one. Its known well in internet circles, that the first step in displaying your displeasure with someone is to purposely misspell their name. Sort of like an infantile insult. But in your case as with others, it is more of the nature or arrogance. Arrogance suits you well. Don't wrap yourself too tightly in your flag, it may stifle even you. Obviously you find what I have to say not suitable to your liking. I certainly would not have taken umbrage with any comment of yours, even had the initial statement been taken as crass as you took mine. There are two ways to communicate, one of them does _not_ consist of attacking the author, but instead the idea. But obviously your style is to censor everything you either don't understand or don't like. But be that as it may. You are welcome to your opinions. ET - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Mar 1998 12:44:29 -0500 (EST) From: John Curtis Subject: Re: Conservatism Is at Crossroads Due to Unbridled Capitalism (fwd) > > Mr. Curtis, > and a few others . . . > > [...] > Mr Toty: > etc. . . > [...] > > The name has two 't's, not one. > Its known well in internet circles, that the >first step in displaying your displeasure with someone >is to purposely misspell their name. Inadvertent error. I apologize, as no insult was intended. > Sort of like an infantile insult. But in your case as >with others, it is more of the nature or arrogance. > Arrogance suits you well. > Don't wrap yourself too tightly in your flag, it may stifle >even you. I have posted nothing that can be construed as wrapping myself in the flag, I am very concerned that a non-workable, liberty destroying agenda is going to come to us wrapped in the flag. > Obviously you find what I have to say not suitable >to your liking. I certainly would not have taken umbrage with >any comment of yours, even had the initial statement been >taken as crass as you took mine. You started talking revolution and "needed killings", with the implicit threat that some flavor of capitalist was the ones that needed killing. I don't think you have any kind of firm ground to stand on when you then take umbrage at a misspelling of your name. > There are two ways to communicate, one of them >does _not_ consist of attacking the author, but instead the idea. > But obviously your style is to censor everything you >either don't understand or don't like. > I believe that I have consistently tried to show what is erroneous in your ideas. If you feel that I have made an ad hominem attack, then please quote the relevant piece of my writing back to me. > But be that as it may. > You are welcome to your opinions. > >ET > You're correct on that last statement. jcurtis P.S. the closest thing I wrote to an ad hominem attack was "Earth to E.J.:". I believe that sarcasm is well within the toolkit of rhetorical tools that I may use. - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Mar 1998 10:56:46 -0700 From: Boyd Kneeland Subject: Re: Conservatism Is at Crossroads Due to Unbridled Capitalism (fwd) At 10:29 AM -0500 3/30/98, John Curtis wrote: >Brad wrote: >> >>Anybody wants to move his factory or whatever to Mexico, Indonesia or >>wherever, hey, that's ok with me. I just have a little trouble >>understanding why my blue-collar neighbors and I should pay for a bailout >>every time something goes wrong and - most especially - why we should have >>to go get our butts shot at if the locals start making trouble. I supsect >>Citibank and Intel and the rest would be more careful about deploying >>assets overseas if they weren't confident that we would always be here to >>provide bailouts and bodies. > > I agree 100%. "Too big to fail" is bullshit. Ask Ford, even after welfare handouts they're profits are -way- down and last year they sucked 50% of the funds our of their "satisfaction" accounts. Ask IBM in the early 80's ask Apple in the late 80's. Ask ADM, you don't burn alcohol in your gas because they produce it, you burn it because your government spends your money forcing EPA to mandate and ADM to make it. Large, in capitalism is far and away most synonymous with "inflexible" wich normally (in the absence of wacky Federal interference, like with ADM) leads to "failing". > > Bailing out investors in Mexico - ditto. Chrysler - ditto. > > This is the flip side to unbridled capitalism. Ditto. Brad, have you read my contributions to this thread? I don't think a single post has gone out on this topic from me without deriding the IMF, GATT and similar Welfare agencies. -Freedom-, means freedom. People who understand that know that it applies to employees (not having their taxes spent on bailouts) just as much as it should to employers ( largely not being told where/how to do business). Every one of my posts has consistently reflected that, I suspect jcurtis didn't as much because I had so much. > I think you should be focused on the taxes you're paying, as > they are the simplest, most honest measure of how much government > is oppressing you. > > ciao, > > jcurtis Yeah, try not paying those taxes. My Aunt Alice, well known in Seattle as an opponent to Scoop Jackson and a War tax resistor did that and fell into the lucky group: IRS waited until she died to decimate her finances. Most people end up taking a ride with unfriendly armed people to places where no one picks up the soap. Has the power we've given government so far (most people pay 50-70% of their income in federal, state and local taxes) been used wisely? Should we put -more- power into government? Because that's what you're talking about when you talk about regulating TNC's. Perhaps we could slow the biggest TNCs more effectively by not buying their product, and getting the US Federal Government out of the busines of - -creating- them. All IMHO -Boyd - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Mar 1998 14:37:55 -0500 (EST) From: John Curtis Subject: Re: Conservatism Is at Crossroads Due to Unbridled Capitalism (fwd) Boyd writes: > > Has the power we've given government so far (most people pay 50-70% of >their income in federal, state and local taxes) been used wisely? Should we >put -more- power into government? Because that's what you're talking about >when you talk about regulating TNC's. > I agree. For me, this is a simple yardstick. "Does measure XYZ put more or less power in the hands of government?". I pretty much don't have to know anything but that to know where I stand on an issue. IMF? I'm on the fence, not really sure they are competent to actually prevent a bad global economic event. Its taxpayer money going to bail out u.s.banks and shore up foreign bankers. Senator McCain's campaign finance reform? Definitely against, the last thing we need is to add a level of guv bureaucracy handing out campaign money, violate the 1st Amendment. I think we need to be talking in terms of cutting Federal spending in real dollar terms and limiting Federal intrusion into private industry. Large corporations don't scare me, they employee me. Large government does scare me, they are already hitting me for a large tax bill, and no party seems capable of reducing it. "Conservatism Is at Crossroads Due to Unbridled Capitalism" is a good title. This is a classic debate between economic and libertarian conservatives and cultural conservatives. ciao, jcurtis - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Mar 1998 17:28:22 -0800 From: Liberty or Death Subject: Michael New & the Supreme Court StencilPlease repost
TO: Americans RE: Supreme Court 30 March 1998 The Supreme Court today, in a one sentence message, denied the writ of certoriari filed by Attys. Mike Farris and Herb Titus on behalf of Army Specialist Michael New. This writ was a request that the higher court order the Federal Court of Appeals to hear the case. The Court of Appeals had denied Michael New a hearing on the merits of the case last November, arguing that they have no jurisdiction. The next step is the Army Court of Criminal Appeals, meeting in Falls Church, Virginia on 28 May. The Army has already filed its brief, in which they will tell the judges that this case is "non-justiciable," in the military courts. (Which means that THEY have no jurisdiction!) This will not be a hearing open to the public. If the ACCA agrees with the Pentagon, and they are expected to do so, then we will be witness to an American citizen-soldier who has been ex-patriated, stripped of his legal protection by both civilian and military courts, forced out from under the umbrella of the legal protections provided in the Constitution. This government is moving perilously close to the position of declaring, in effect, that the Constitution does not apply because it has been rendered irrelevant by treaties, by an activist judiciary, and by a spineless Congress more interested in re-election than in doing what they took an oath to do. Can a government FORCE a citizen, to whom it guarantees "freedom of religion," to serve in a foreign military capacity under an anti-Christian, un-elected, anti-American United Nations military? Can a Christian, or anyone for that matter, be legally required to serve two masters? The implications are staggering. Yes, you have suspected it all along. The awkwardness of their position is that none of them want to admit it, because it can radically change the way Americans view this "New, Improved State." Where does a citizen appeal, when stripped of legal protection by both military and civilian courts? Under what courts can SPC Michael New find justice? The Hague? We don't think so! Well, there is still Congress, there is still the Court of Public Opinion, and there is still a merciful and just Judge of the Universe, in Whom we believe, in Whom the Founders believed, but in Whom the current rulers do not believe. We are confident in that position. Faith and Obedience to God is the most dangerous thing in the world to Tyrants. Daniel New Michael New Action Fund 3333,3333,ffff 0000,0000,fefehttp://www.mikenew.com cccc,0000,0000The Sovereignty of all countries is endangered cccc,0000,0000when the USA concedes any degree of its own cccc,0000,0000sovereignty.
- - Monte -------------------------------------------------------------------- "Maybe freedom's just one of those things that you can't inherit." - Peter Bradford, in the film "Amerika" -------------------------------------------------------------------- The Idaho Observer http://www.proliberty.com/observer - - ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 31 Mar 1998 11:27:09 -0500 (EST) From: John Curtis Subject: New death (from Imus in the morning) My wife heard the Imus radio show discussing the death of someone in a car accident. This may be a somewhat garbled account, as I have not heard the report. - the guy who discovered the boxes full of Whitewater records and cancelled checks in the trunk of a car was killed in a auto accident. He was apparently speeding, lost control, and struck a utility pole. - Imus and crew were making quips about "oh yeah, just another accident". Has anyone heard confirming information about this? ciao, jcurtis - - ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 31 Mar 1998 11:51:01 -0600 (CST) From: Subject: RE: [Fwd: Foster's last weekend, and the Landow connection] (fwd) - ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 31 Mar 1998 09:04:05 -0800 From: "Timothy Lee, Richardson" Reply-To: act@efn.org To: Against Constitutional Terrorists Subject: RE: [Fwd: Foster's last weekend, and the Landow connection] Subject: Foster's last weekend, and the Landow connection Date: Tue, 31 Mar 1998 08:26:42 -0800 From: wolfeyes