From: owner-roc-digest@lists.xmission.com (roc-digest) To: roc-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: roc-digest V2 #143 Reply-To: roc-digest Sender: owner-roc-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-roc-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk roc-digest Friday, May 29 1998 Volume 02 : Number 143 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 27 May 1998 17:32:48 -0400 (EDT) From: John Curtis Subject: Dr Laura's monologue on the Oregon Shootings I think that Dr. Laura's comments are largely correct. There are a lot of kids being raised irresponsibly, a lot of kids who are hurting in many respects, a lot of kids without moral anchor. I do think that it is possible to exaggerate the problem, as many kids are being raised very well, or at least moderately well. First observations: If, say, 8% of kids are involved in violent or self-destructive behaviour, whereas this was formerly 2%, the impact on society as a whole is enormous. Second observation: Kids today watch an amazing amount of violence, that is more graphic, more omnipresent, and more disturbing than it was 30 years ago. Ask anyone in their 40's about what was available on TV (4 channels only) and at the movies. Anyone heard of the violence increases in South Africa after the introduction of TV? There is some sound social science on this - TV and movies are very big business and they don't want to hear it. ciao, jcurtis - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 May 98 00:12:35 PST From: roc@xpresso.seaslug.org (Bill Vance) Subject: Fratrum: A Letter to Us from the Future (fwd) On May 27, Eugene W. Gross wrote: [-------------------- text of forwarded message follows --------------------] The United Socialist States of North America - November, 1999 Dear friend: It is late November, 1999. Things are very different now in the United Socialist States Of North America, formerly the USA.It's freezing outside, and not much better inside, since the EPA ordered most of the power plants shut down a few years ago. We have lots of trees around here, so we'll make it through the winter alright, I guess.Good thing I saved up lots of canned food; the grocery stores stay empty most of the time these days, what with the government run farms that can't produce enough, and the constant truckers' strikes. Some food shipments are even being hijacked. Lots of folk have died of starvation and disease recently; and remember that health care plan they passed in '96? What a joke - you could die of old age standing in line. Most hospitals had to close, and few folks can afford to drive to Memphis with gas at $3.85 a gallon, thanks to the big Eco- Summit in '96 that tripled the price of fuel to raise money for the new Environmental Police Force. Those are the guys in the green helmets, they carry guns too. I remember how controversial that NAFTA treaty was before they passed it, and now I understand why so many fought it so hard. You see, we don't produce much here anymore, and with a primarily service oriented economy, we lost our standard of living and are now just like one big underclass.Of course the government bureaucrats still live on easy street, but nobody says too much about that kind of thing anymore; I mean after they took over the radio stations and most of the newspaper companies were bought out by the government, the news is mostly world events, and we really can't tell what is happening in the USSNA.All of the last conservative columnists and talk show hosts were imprisoned in late '96; rumor has it some were executed in detention camps out west, but we can't be sure. I remember a small handful of preachers that always tried to warn us about the possibility of all of this happening, but they were gradually railroaded out of the main-line churches for upsetting the people too much. Now, it seems they were right, but they too, are all gone. We don't go out much anymore, the constant roadblocks and the vehicle searches make just going to the store a frightening experience, for the children especially. The U.N. soldiers are everywhere; you see after they suspended the Constitution back in '97, the old U.S. Army was merged with the U.N. units, and now we can't tell who the Americans are anymore. I guess it really doesn't matter, they court martialed most of our troops who resisted the merger, so everyone in blue these days is part of the North American Occupation Force one way or the other. Many people formed small militia groups in the summer of '98, but it was already too late. They put up one heck of a fight, especially down South, but there just weren't enough of them. You see, when the Brady Bill passed, nobody took it seriously. Then came the Crime Bill of '94. The Patriots tried to sound the alarm back then, but not enough people called their Congressmen.... it passed also. Next was the assault weapons ban. This one had significant opposition, but at the last, even the pro-Second Amendment politicians caved in and allowed the bill to pass, helped greatly by the socialist media's lengthy propaganda blitz. By the time enough people understood what was really going on, they had already passed Brady II, which made every house with a gun subject to random government searches.Thousands of homes were assaulted in late '97, and the government forces killed so many private citizens, the population had to make a choice... disarm or die. Most people then gave up their guns to keep from being killed or imprisoned. I remember that deal back in '93 at Waco, Texas. I didn't want to believe our government was really capable of mass-murder, but looking back on it, Waco was just a test, to see how much the people would put up with. I guess we failed the test; soon after Waco, they started raiding churches, patriotic meetings, and religious groups all over the country.If only we had listened to those who tried so hard to warn us back then. And you know, all of that New World Order stuff has come true, and I fear it's not over yet. I don't know what we can do though, all private meetings are outlawed, we have no guns, and folk are too scared to even discuss the new government. I would now give anything, to be able to go back ten years; back when we could speak, write, preach, and assemble together for the good of the nation; if only we had gotten involved while we were still free. Well, I better close for now; the night security forces will be making their rounds, and you know I could be beaten and imprisoned for writing an unauthorized letter. I'll get it to the underground postal service when it's safe again. A complacent citizen,If only I had done.... something.... for freedom... "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion."Psalm 137:1.... it doesn't have to end this way... the choice is ours.We stand for Liberty now...Or we serve under Tyranny! Brad Peterson, Chaplain - E Pluribus Unum [------------------------- end of forwarded message ------------------------] - -- - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ***** Blessings On Thee, Oh Israel! ***** - ----------------+----------+--------------------------+--------------------- An _EFFECTIVE_ | Insured | All matter is vibration. | Let he who hath no weapon in every | by COLT; | -- Max Plank | weapon sell his hand = Freedom | DIAL | In the beginning was the | garment and buy a on every side! | 1911-A1. | word. -- The Bible | sword.--Jesus Christ - ----------------+----------+--------------------------+--------------------- - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 May 98 00:13:21 PST From: roc@xpresso.seaslug.org (Bill Vance) Subject: Fratrum: The Looting of America (fwd) On May 27, Eugene W. Gross wrote: [-------------------- text of forwarded message follows --------------------] The Looting of America How over 200 Civil Asset Forfeiture laws enable police to confiscate your home, bank accounts & business without trial. by Jarret Wollstein `A police dog scratched at your luggage, so we're confiscating your life savings and you'll never get it back.' In 1989, police stopped 49-year-old Ethel Hylton at Houston's Hobby Airport and told her she was under arrest because a drug dog had scratched at her luggage. Agents searched her bags and strip-searched her, but they found no drugs. They did find $39,110 in cash, money she had received from an insurance settlement and her life savings; accumulated through over 20 years of work as a hotel housekeeper and hospital janitor. Ethel Hylton completely documented where she got the money and was never charged with a crime. But the police kept her money anyway. Nearly four years later, she is still trying to get her money back. Ethel Hylton is just one of a large and growing list of Americans -- now numbering in the hundreds of thousands -- who have been victimized by civil asset forfeiture. Under civil asset forfeiture, everything you own can be legally taken away even if you are never indicted, tried or convicted of a crime. Suspicion of offenses which, if proven in court, might result in a $200 fine or probation, are being used to justify seizure of tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of property. Totally innocent Americans are losing their cars, homes and businesses, based on the claims of anonymous informants that illegal transactions took place on their property. Once property is seized, it is virtually impossible to get it back. Property is now being seized in every state and from every class of Americans. Seizures include pocket money confiscated from public housing residents in Florida; cars taken away from men suspected of soliciting prostitutes in Oregon; and homes taken away from ordinary, middle class Americans whose teenage children are accused of selling a few joints of marijuana. No person and no property is immune from seizure. You could be the next victim. Here are some examples: - -- In Washington, D.C. police stop black men on the streets in poor areas of the city, and "routinely confiscate small amounts of cash and jewelry". Most confiscated property is not even recorded by police departments. "Resident Ben Davis calls it `robbery with a badge'."[USA Today, 5/18/92] - -- In Iowa, "a woman accused of shoplifting a $25 sweater had her $18,000 car -- specially equipped for her handicapped daughter -- seized as the `getaway vehicle'." [USA Today, 5/18/92] - -- In December 1988, Detroit drug police raided a grocery store, but failed to find any drugs. After drug dogs reacted to three $1.00 bills in the cash register, the police seized $4,384 from cash registers and the store safe. According to the Pittsburgh Press, over 92% of all cash in circulation in the U.S. now shows some drug residue. - -- In April 1992, Dr. Joseph Disbrow was accused of practicing psychiatry without a license. His crime was providing counselling services from a spare bedroom in his mother's house in Monmouth, New Jersey. Counselling does not require a license in New Jersey. That didn't stop police from seizing virtually everything of value from his mother's home, totalling over $60,000. The forfeiture squad confiscated furniture, carpets, paintings, and even personal photographs. - -- Kathy and Mark Schrama were arrested just before Christmas 1990 at their home in New Jersey. Kathy was charged with taking $500 worth of UPS packages from neighbors' porches. Mark was charged with receiving stolen goods. If found guilty, they might have paid a small fine and received probation. The day after their arrest, their house, cars and furniture were seized. Based upon mere accusation, $150,000 in property was confiscated, without trial or indictment. Police even took their clothing, eyeglasses, and Christmas presents for their 10-year-old son. The incentive for government agencies to expand forfeiture is enormous. Agencies can easily seize property and they usually keep what they take. According to the Pittsburgh Press, 80% of seizure victims are never even charged with a crime. Law enforcement agencies often keep the best seized cars, watches and TVs for their "departments", and sell the rest. How extensive are seizures in America today? In April 1990, The Washington Post reported that the U.S. Marshals Service alone had an inventory of over $1.4 billion in seized assets, including over 30,000 cars, boats, homes and businesses. Federal and state agencies seizing property now include the FBI, the DEA, the U.S. Marshals Service, the Coast Guard, the IRS, local police, highway patrol, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, FDA, and the Bureau of Land Management. Asset forfeiture is th industry. Seizures have increased from $27 million in 1986, to over $644 million in 1991. In 1992, seizures may exceed $1 billion. Civil asset forfeiture defines a new standard of justice in America; or more precisely, a new standard of injustice. Under civil seizure, property, not an individual is charged with an offense. Even if you are a totally innocent owner, the government can still confiscate your "guilty" property. If government agents seize your property under civil asset forfeiture, you can forget about being innocent until proven guilty, due process of law, the right to an attorney, or even the right to trial. All of those rights only exist if you are charged with a criminal offense; that is, with an offense which could result in your imprisonment. If you (or your property) are accused of a civil offense (offenses which could not result in your imprisonment), the Supreme Count has ruled that you have no presumption of innocence, no right to an attorney, and no protection from double jeopardy. Seizure occurs when government takes away your property. Forfeiture is when legal title is permanently transferred to the state. To get seized property returned, you have to fight the full resources of your state or the federal government; sometimes both! You have to prove your property's "innocence" by documenting how you earned every cent used to pay for it. You have to prove that neither you nor any of your family members ever committed an illegal act involving the property. To get a trial, you have to post a non-refundable "bond" of 10% of the value of your property. You have to pay attorney fees -- ranging from $5,000 to over $100,000 -- out of your own pocket. Money you pay your attorney is also subject to seizure (either before or after the trial) if the government alleges that those funds were "tainted". And you may be forced to go through trial after trial, because under civil seizure the Constitutional protection against "double jeopardy" doesn't apply. Once property is seized, expect to spend years fighting government agencies and expect to be impoverished by legal fees -- with no guarantee of winning - -- while the government keeps your car, home and bank account. As bad as current asset forfeiture laws are, far worse is just ahead. Hundreds of expanded asset forfeiture bills are pending before Congress and state legislatures. The 1991 Omnibus Crime Bill (passed by Congress, but vetoed by President Bush for being "too soft" on crime), increases from six months to six-and-one-half years the time officials have to return "improperly seized" property to its rightful owners. The 1992 Omnibus Crime Bill extends civil asset forfeiture to political dissent. Under this Bill, if "violence" occurs during a political activity, the assets of the sponsoring organization are subject to forfeiture. If a fist fight broke out during a union picket, all of the union's assets could be seized. Even before this Bill has passed, cars belonging to Operation Rescue demonstrators are being confiscated. Civil asset forfeiture is the beginning of the end of justice in America. Current and pending laws give government agencies the legal right to loot at will. The threat of asset forfeiture can be used to intimidate businesses, silence dissent, and destroy families. Some people are fighting back. A New Jersey-based group, Forfeiture Endangers American Rights (FEAR), is lobbying Congress and creating a national network of forfeiture defense attorneys. The Drug Policy Foundation and the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation (both based in Washington, D.C.) are fighting existing and proposed asset forfeiture laws. These groups need your help to succeed. The fight against civil asset forfeiture is a battle against tyranny in America. If forfeiture squads continue to expand, liberty and justice in America will become a fading memory. We must stop government looters and restore the rule of law now. Tomorrow will be too late. Jarret B. Wollstein is a director of ISIL and the author of 300 published articles. GROUPS FIGHTING ASSET FORFEITURE Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, 2000 L Street, NW, Suite 702, Washington, DC 20036 (202) 835-9075. $90 per year. Drug Policy Foundation, 4801 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Suite 400, Washington, DC 20016 (202)895-1634. $35 per year. Families Against Mandatory Minimums, 1001 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Suite 200 South, Washington, DC 20004. (202) 457-5790. $35 per year. FEAR (Forfeiture Endangers American Rights), P.O. Box 5424, Somerset, NJ 08875 Tel: (908) 873-1251. $55 per year. RECOMMENDED READING The Closing Door by Dan Rosenthal ........................... $30.00 Presumed Guilty by Schneider/Flaherty ....................... $6.00 Spectre of Forfeiture by Judy Osburn ........................ $14.95 For these and other books and tapes write: Freedom's Forum Books, 1800 Market Street, San Francisco, California 94102. Add $2.50 P & H for 1st book and $1.00 for each additional item. Attractive two-color hard copies of this pamphlet are available for 5 cents each (minimum order $1.00). Price includes shipping. This pamphlet is produced as a public service by the International Society for Individual Liberty. If you would like to receive free literature about ISIL's activities around the world, and receive a sample copy of the FREEDOM NETWORK NEWS newsletter and book catalog, please write: INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY 1800 Market Street, San Francisco, California 94102 Tel: (415) 864-0952 Fax: (415) 864-7506 [------------------------- end of forwarded message ------------------------] - -- - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ***** Blessings On Thee, Oh Israel! ***** - ----------------+----------+--------------------------+--------------------- An _EFFECTIVE_ | Insured | All matter is vibration. | Let he who hath no weapon in every | by COLT; | -- Max Plank | weapon sell his hand = Freedom | DIAL | In the beginning was the | garment and buy a on every side! | 1911-A1. | word. -- The Bible | sword.--Jesus Christ - ----------------+----------+--------------------------+--------------------- - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 May 1998 12:14:13 -0700 From: Cyrano Subject: Fong calls Issa an "Extremist" for supporting right of self-defense I just got off the telephone with Jason Miller at the Issa for U.S. Senate campaign headquarters (11 a.m. on Thursday, 5/28/98). Jason told me Darrell Issa is debating Matt Fong, his opponent for the Republican nomination, in the bay area. During the debate, Fong reportedly called Issa an =93extremist=94 due to = his support of the Second Amendment and the right to self defense. Fong also came out in favor of the Brady Law, the so-called assault weapon ban and the ban on =93Saturday night specials.=94 He also made the absurd suggestion that stricter gun contro= l would end the type of tragedies which recently occurred in Springfield, OR, and Jonesboro, AR. Fong has refused to sign the =93Pre-Oath of Office=94 prepared by The Lawyer's Second Amendment Society, Inc. The =93Pre-Oath=94 is a written promise by the candidate stating that, if elected, he will not vote to infringe the right to keep and bear arms. Darrell Issa signed the =93Pre-Oath,=94 as have Susan Brooks (36th U.S. Congressional District), Ollie McCaulley (State Senate candidate) and others. Fong finally came off the fence, and we now see what side he's on. A candidate who does not support the right to self-defense, and who believes a person who supports the Bill of Rights is an =93extremist,=94 does not deserve to be in public office. A candidate who would use the blood of innocent children to boost his campaign prospects is beneath contempt. The winner will face incumbent Barbara Boxer. Sen. Boxer has a well-established history of opposing the right to self-defense and opposing the Second Amendment. Her solution to violent crime is to disarm the victim. Matt Fong is no better. A race between Boxer and Fong would be no race at all. I therefore urge everyone, regardless of party affiliation, to vote for Darrell Issa. - -- Steve Silver Proud Member of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy & Vice President, The Lawyer's Second Amendment Society, Inc. 18034 Ventura Blvd., No. 329, Encino, CA 91316 * (818) 734-3066 For a complimentary copy of the LSAS's newsletter, "The Liberty Pole," e-mail your snail-mail address to: LSAS3@aol.com The LSAS is a 501(c)(4) non-profit corporation * * * Self defense is not a crime. Firearms: They save lives. - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 May 98 22:30:36 PST From: roc@xpresso.seaslug.org (Bill Vance) Subject: Taste Massage Tasting, tasting, one, two, three, tasting...... This has been a taste, _only_ an taste, of the tastefully tastefull xpresso boredcasting system.....:-) - -- - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ***** Blessings On Thee, Oh Israel! ***** - ----------------+----------+--------------------------+--------------------- An _EFFECTIVE_ | Insured | All matter is vibration. | Let he who hath no weapon in every | by COLT; | -- Max Plank | weapon sell his hand = Freedom | DIAL | In the beginning was the | garment and buy a on every side! | 1911-A1. | word. -- The Bible | sword.--Jesus Christ - ----------------+----------+--------------------------+--------------------- - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 May 1998 07:17:47 -0400 From: tm Subject: Re: Dr Laura's monologue on the Oregon Shootings At 01:00 PM 5/27/98 -0700, you wrote: >Dr Laura's monologue on the Oregon Shootings >Dr. Laura Schlessinger >5/21/98 Thanks Jack, I needed to read that... Tanya > - - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 29 May 1998 08:26:43 -0500 (CDT) From: Subject: Nation needs to fix its moral compus - ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 28 May 1998 16:13:40 -0500 From: believer@telepath.com Subject: IP: Fix Broken Moral Compass Nation needs to fix its broken moral compass, study group says Copyright =A9 1998 The Associated Press=20 NEW YORK (May 28, 1998 08:50 a.m. EDT http://www.nando.net) -- Americans can reset the nation's broken moral compass through actions as diverse as turning off their televisions and reforming the tax code, according to a report issued Wednesday by a 24-member non-partisan panel. The politicians, clergy, academics and activists who wrote "A Call to Civil Society: Why Democracy Needs Moral Truths," say Americans must find a way to agree on a public moral philosophy if democracy is to survive. "If independent moral truth does not exist, all that is left is power," says the report. "Such a view of reality is, among other things, antithetical to the western ideal of human freedom. In the long run, it is likely to prove fatal to the project of republican self-governance." Among those who served on the Council on Civil Society, which took two years to craft the 30-page report, are: U.S. Sens. Dan Coats, R-Ind., and Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., academics Francis Fukuyama, Cornel West and John J. DiIulio, public opinion analyst Daniel Yankelovich and Boston pastor Ray Hammond. The group was chaired by Jean Bethke Elshtain of the University of Chicago Divinity School.=20 The report's recommendations include strengthening obstacles to divorce and reforming the tax code to provide financial incentives to couples who stay married. It calls on television broadcasters to police themselves by readopting the 8-9 p.m. "family hour" and on Americans to turn off their TVs one week a= year. Religious institutions are urged to reassert themselves into American life, while the Supreme Court is chided for trying to create "a society sanitized of public religious influence." Government is urged to embrace charter schools and school choice, and end state sponsorship of lottery games, which "purvey a counter-civics ethic of escapism and false hope." Without such changes, America is doomed to continue a long-term moral decline that 67 percent of the public already believes is well under way, the report says. "As our social morality deteriorates, life becomes harsher and less civil for everyone, social problems multiply and we lose the confidence that we as Americans are united by shared values," the panel writes. As evidence of the spread of uncivil behavior, the report cites baseball star Roberto Alomar spitting in the face of an umpire, pop star Madonna announcing she wants to have a baby but not a husband, and political consultant Dick Morris going straight from a prostitution scandal to a lucrative book contract. Indianapolis Mayor Stephen Goldsmith attended a symposium held in conjunction with the report's release and said he appreciated the emphasis on voluntary civic action. He said many needed changes are beyond government's reach. "We have by all standards an enormously successful city," Goldsmith said. "Yet we still have large numbers of young people having babies, of school dropouts. No amount of mayoral huffing and puffing is going to solve that." The head of the Institute for American Values, which issued the report, said the panel struggled over how to call for a moral revival. "Democracy's dependence on moral truth was the single most contentious issue," said David Blankenhorn, whose group issued the report with the University of Chicago Divinity School.=20 Such a claim, Blankenhorn added, "is almost taboo within the academy," where a pragmatic, rights-based view of democracy holds sway. Elshtain said panelists agreed that moral truths exist, but argued over whether such truths are theological or secular. Ultimately, the panel adopted the "natural theology" of the nation's founding fathers, who enshrined in the Constitution the belief that, as the report says, "people ... possess transcendent human dignity, and that consequently each person must always be treated as an end, never as a= means."=20 Americans must abandon the belief "that whatever the free market produces must be valid" and that people "are autonomous units of desires, rights and legitimate values of our own choosing," the report says. "Only through ... connectedness can we approach authentic self-realization," the authors write. =20 The report is just one of several coming out on the subject. In June, the Commission on Civic Renewal, chaired by Republican William Bennett and Democrat Sam Nunn, will be finishing its report. The Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank, is scheduled to release a book this month on civil society. By TIM WHITMIRE, Associated Press Writer Copyright =A9 1998 Nando.net - - ----------------------- NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only.=20 - - ----------------------- - - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 29 May 1998 08:18:46 -0700 (PDT) From: Harry Barnett Subject: Re: Nation needs to fix its moral compus On Fri, 29 May 1998 TIM WHITMIRE, Associated Press Writer wrote: A report by a "24-member non-partisan panel", after a lot of high-sounding babble, concluded by the following: > Elshtain said panelists agreed that moral truths exist, but argued over > whether such truths are theological or secular. > > Ultimately, the panel adopted the "natural theology" of the nation's > founding fathers, who enshrined in the Constitution the belief that, as the > report says, "people ... possess transcendent human dignity, and that > consequently each person must always be treated as an end, never as a= > means."=20 Poppycock. The Founding Fathers enshrined "transcendent human dignity" in the Declaration of Independence. It was left out of the Constitution in favor of monied interests, and they enshrined instead the abominable practice of slavery, which resulted in the defining cataclysm of the 19th Century American Experience 70 years later. Slavery is the ultimate result of "treating people as a means". It took the 13th Amendment to "unenshrine" treating people as a means. > > Americans must abandon the belief "that whatever the free market produces > must be valid" and that people "are autonomous units of desires, rights and > legitimate values of our own choosing," the report says. > > "Only through ... connectedness can we approach authentic > self-realization," the authors write. Sure. We need to fix a "moral compass" by abandoning the Free Market, the only moral economic practice, for a Government regulated economy, with all of its immorality and corrupt, demeaning, degrading results. And no "moral" individual should have desires, rights, and values of their own choosing. So we need to abandon Individualism for Collectivism. NOT! We've been "abandoning the Free Market" and society has progressively degenerated by toying with a many and varied array of just these sorts of amoral and immoral collectivist themes for years. If we keep on doing what we have always done, we will keep on getting what we have always got. What we have is 24 people on a non-partisan panel with too little to do. What they need is some serious grief in their life, preferably visited upon them by JBGT's, to give them a new perspective on morality. - ----- Harry Barnett - ----------------------------------------------------------------------- - - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 29 May 1998 08:18:46 -0700 (PDT) From: Harry Barnett Subject: Re: Nation needs to fix its moral compus On Fri, 29 May 1998 TIM WHITMIRE, Associated Press Writer wrote: A report by a "24-member non-partisan panel", after a lot of high-sounding babble, concluded by the following: > Elshtain said panelists agreed that moral truths exist, but argued over > whether such truths are theological or secular. > > Ultimately, the panel adopted the "natural theology" of the nation's > founding fathers, who enshrined in the Constitution the belief that, as the > report says, "people ... possess transcendent human dignity, and that > consequently each person must always be treated as an end, never as a= > means."=20 Poppycock. The Founding Fathers enshrined "transcendent human dignity" in the Declaration of Independence. It was left out of the Constitution in favor of monied interests, and they enshrined instead the abominable practice of slavery, which resulted in the defining cataclysm of the 19th Century American Experience 70 years later. Slavery is the ultimate result of "treating people as a means". It took the 13th Amendment to "unenshrine" treating people as a means. > > Americans must abandon the belief "that whatever the free market produces > must be valid" and that people "are autonomous units of desires, rights and > legitimate values of our own choosing," the report says. > > "Only through ... connectedness can we approach authentic > self-realization," the authors write. Sure. We need to fix a "moral compass" by abandoning the Free Market, the only moral economic practice, for a Government regulated economy, with all of its immorality and corrupt, demeaning, degrading results. And no "moral" individual should have desires, rights, and values of their own choosing. So we need to abandon Individualism for Collectivism. NOT! We've been "abandoning the Free Market" and society has progressively degenerated by toying with a many and varied array of just these sorts of amoral and immoral collectivist themes for years. If we keep on doing what we have always done, we will keep on getting what we have always got. What we have is 24 people on a non-partisan panel with too little to do. What they need is some serious grief in their life, preferably visited upon them by JBGT's, to give them a new perspective on morality. - ----- Harry Barnett - ----------------------------------------------------------------------- - - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 29 May 1998 09:08:36 -0700 From: Boyd Kneeland Subject: Re: Nation needs to fix its moral compus Bravo! Once again, Harry not only nails it on the head but reinforces my standing policy of reading messages with mispellings in the subject line last. (Just teasing you Paul, spelling is not a big deal to me.) Thanks for an excellent post Harry. Having just read the Reuters article "Executive privilege battle recalls Watergate" on excite.com, Harry's sentence; "If we keep on doing what we have always done, we will keep on getting what we have always got." rang true for me with the clarity of the Liberty bell. Boyd "Moral individualist" Kneeland - - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 29 May 1998 09:08:36 -0700 From: Boyd Kneeland Subject: Re: Nation needs to fix its moral compus Bravo! Once again, Harry not only nails it on the head but reinforces my standing policy of reading messages with mispellings in the subject line last. (Just teasing you Paul, spelling is not a big deal to me.) Thanks for an excellent post Harry. Having just read the Reuters article "Executive privilege battle recalls Watergate" on excite.com, Harry's sentence; "If we keep on doing what we have always done, we will keep on getting what we have always got." rang true for me with the clarity of the Liberty bell. Boyd "Moral individualist" Kneeland - - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 29 May 1998 16:59:15 -0500 (CDT) From: Subject: The Probability Broach, excerpt #2 - ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Forwarded: - - ------------------- Date: Fri, 29 May 1998 15:17:45 -0400 From: Patricia Neill Subject: The Probability Broach, Excerpt 2 You folks will LOVE this book! Patty The Probability Broach by L. Neil Smith Tor, copyright 1980, 1996 Available from Amazon.com for $5.59 Also availble from http://www.webleyweb.com/lneil/index.html Best libertarian sci fi/alternate universe book I've *ever* had the pleasure to read! Excerpted, pages 92-95 In 1789, the unlucky year 13 A.L., the Revolution was betrayed. Since 1776, people had been free of kings, free of governments, free to live their own lives. It sounded like a Propertarian's paradise. Now things were going to be different again: America was headed back--so Lucy and the encyclopedia said--toward slavery. The fiend responsible for this counter-revolutionary madness was Alexander Hamilton, a name Confederates hold in about the same esteem as the word "spitoon." He and his Federalists had shoved down the country's throat their "Constitution," a charter for a centralist superstate replacing the minigovermnents that had been operating under the inefficient but tolerable Articles of Confederation. Adopted during an illegal and unrepresentative meeting in Philadelphia, originally authorized only to revise the Articles, this new document amounted to a bloodless coup d'etat. Funny--as near as I remembered, these were the same *events* that had happened in my own world. But in the eyes of my new friends, historic figures like John Jay and James Madison became villainous authoritatians. Of seventy-four delegates chosen to attend the Constitutional Convention, nineteen declined, and sixteen of those present refused to sign. Of the thirty-nine remaining, many of whom signed only reluctantly, just six had put their names to the original Declaration of Independence. By contrast, that agreement had been unanimous, and most of its fifty-six signers actively opposed the Federalist Constitution. All this seemed vaguely familiar--Patrick Henry smelling a rat at Alexander's steamroller derby--but how did it square with what I'd always known? Were there really two distinct sets of Founding Fathers, philosophically at war with one another? Right off the bat, the newly chartered Congress okayed a number of taxes, one of them on whiskey. This upset certain westem Pennsylvania farmers who were accustomed to converting their bulky and perishable crop into White Lightning. They began to wonder what the Revolution had been all about. In 1792, they got together in Pittsburgh to bitch about taxes, Hamilton and his crew, and old General Washington, a once popular hero, now First President and chief enforcer of the hated tax. The farmers feared they'd traded one Tyrant George for another. The next year saw them tarring and feathering tax collectors, a fate formerly reserved for King's minions, and seriously considering hanging a few as examples. Lucy thought highly of this practice; I remembered IRS agents I'd had to work with and grinned. The old General issued a warning proclamation, and when that didn't quiet the whiskey farmers, followed it with fifteen thousand troopers under command of "Light-Horse-Harry" Lee. He quickly became known as "Dead-Horse-Harry" when the crack-shot sodbusters blasted mount after mount from under him--became the Whiskey Rebellion's running gag. I'd always thought Kentucky rifles had made the difference against the British and so on, but rifled weapons were rare during the Revolution and for a long time afterward. Federal troops carried French smoothbores. The "ultramodern" rifled guns were the private property of volunteer guerillas despised by Washington, but the only kind of army Thomas Paine approved of. The encyclopedia waxed downright eloquent about civilians being traditionally better-armed than the authorities, a principal element, it claimed, in the preservation and expansion of liberty. It made me think about my uniformed years packing a bureaucratically mandated .38 against shotguns, magnums, and autopistols. I've sometimes wished the population stripped of weapons, but I never fooled myself that it was right or even possible. Later I simply broke the regulations and carried the biggest cannon I could handle. In 1794, a Pennsylvania gentleman stepped into the fray. A former Swiss financier, Albert Gallatin disapproved of the way Alexander Hamilton handled the nation's checkbook. He organized and led the farmers and began convincing federal soldiers they were fighting on the wrong side--a tactic that created important precedents in Confederate warfare. Eventually he even persuaded General Lee, who was tired of having to find new horses, and the punitive expedition disintegrated. Thus "fortified," the 80-proof revolution marched on Philadelphia, Washington went to the wall, Hamilton fled to Prussia and was killed in a duel in 1804. Gallatin was proclaimed president. The Federalists evaporated, substantial numbers of them winding up neighbors of the Tories they'd driven into Canada. The Constitution was declared null and void, and with it the tax on whiskey. Gallatin's wizardry saved the tiny nation from becoming the world's first banana republic. Economic problems that had precipitated the Constitution Conspiracy were solved with a new currency, backed by untold acres of land in the undeveloped Northwest Territories. The Articles of Confederation were duly revised, with stringent limits on the powers, not only of the central government but of the states. They could have nothing to do with trade--such interference, in Gallatin's view, had caused all the problems in the first place. Only private individuals could "create" money, backed by any valuable commodity, to be accepted or rejected by the marketplace on its own merit. Gold and silver were soon in competition with wheat, corn, iron, and--yes--even whiskey-based currency. Gallatin's land certificates were redeemed, the last money ever issued by a United States government. He served five four-year terms in all, and lived long enough to see his own peculiar brand of anarchism begin spreading throughout the world. - - ------------------------------ End of roc-digest V2 #143 *************************