From: owner-roc-digest@lists.xmission.com (roc-digest) To: roc-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: roc-digest V2 #461 Reply-To: roc-digest Sender: owner-roc-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-roc-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk roc-digest Tuesday, August 14 2001 Volume 02 : Number 461 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2001 12:15:11 -0700 From: Bill Vance Subject: VIN: Public school industry (fwd) From: Rich Martin Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2001 10:06:39 -0700 (PDT) Subject: VIN: Public school industry FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz They can never meet the 'demand' for free sandwiches There's been much piteous mewling of late about an ongoing "teacher shortage" in the government schools. Additionally, the collectivists moan we're not doing enough to "meet the demand" for new youth propaganda camps, or for "homeless facilities," either. These statements are nearly devoid of discernible meaning. However, it is apparently no longer safe to merely ignore them, since some guy who earned a doctorate in education by writing a slim report on the benefits of air conditioning (many know him as Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn) now actually proposes to squeeze more money from the productive classes in order to meet these "needs" and "demands." What's going on here is that words which have real use in analyzing a private economy are being borrowed and inappropriately applied to collectivist looting schemes. What is the "demand" for Jaguar motor cars in the Vegas Valley? Bob Kane tells me they move about 350 new cars per year out of Gaudin Jaguar-Porsche. And "No, we don't have much trouble meeting demand; there's no waiting list." So only 350 people in a valley of millions would like a new Jaguar? Not quite. They start at $30,000, see, and can cost as much as $85,000 if you want one of the fancy convertibles. Still a good buy for all that British hand fitting and finishing, in my book. But clearly a lot of folks decide to spend less on a car -- or to invest in something more suitable for hauling hay bales through the mesquite -- leaving local Jaguar "supply and demand" pretty much in balance. But let us suppose that some politician took it into his head that it was a travesty for so many of his worthy constituents to do without Jaguars, instead hauling around their precious children -- our nation's future! -- in flimsy Japanese sheet-metal jalopies. Emergency legislation would be enacted, requiring Mr. Kane and company to give out free Jaguars to anyone who wants one. When both the dealership and eventually the parent company went belly-up trying to meet this "demand," the government would simply nationalize Jaguar U.S.A. and put government bureaucrats in charge of handing out the free cars. What would Jaguar "demand" look like, then? To meet this "demand," quality would quickly be cut -- the new government managers would start welding Jaguar hood ornaments onto any sheet-metal contraption they could manage to throw together. "You dare complain about the quality of your new, government -issued 'Jaguar?' Don't you understand the problems we face?" the superintendent of the County Jaguar Distribution District would whine. "We can't get enough quality raw material; we're having to train non-English- speaking workers straight out of the celery fields ... Besides, if you don't like it, you can always go spend your own money on a private-sector car." "Gee, not many of those old for-profit dealers left around any more, now that you guys are giving away stuff for free." "Aha. Not much 'demand' for what they offer, is there?" Government can similarly never meet the "demand" for free food and beds for the shiftless winos we're now instructed to call "the homeless." Spot 12 hungry hoboes downtown this week and set up a table to give away 12 free sandwiches for lunch. Tomorrow 50 people will line up for your free sandwiches, and by next week 500, including courthouse secretaries in high heels. Start applying a "means test" to limit your expenditures and you'll only end up servicing a new class of skilled government form-filler-outers, while the 12 hoboes you started out trying to help will end up washing down Ring Dings with Old English 800 back under the overpass -- with no fixed address and no writing skills, they can neither fill out nor satisfy the requirements of your new "free food" forms, see. It's the same with the "demand" for free welfare schooling. No one seems to know what it really costs to run a child through 12 years of government day care, any more, what with the expenditures scattered around in so many budgets. Let's conservatively call it $6,000. Want to eliminate the "teacher shortage" overnight? Just start billing the parents that $6,000. (Heck, make it $6,700, admitting 10 percent of each class on full scholarships for poor kids who can do best on competitive entrance exams.) Competing private schools charging less for more would spring up like mushrooms, rescuing an entire generation from the clutches of the current "reproductive organs of the welfare state." With a new emphasis on "getting what you pay for," they'd probably pay higher salaries for the best teachers , driving up average teacher pay while attracting many new recruits from among folks who actually majored in something other than "Education" -- while two thirds of the unemployables currently holding down such jobs could be fitted for new uniforms at Wendy's. (Remember, de Tocqueville found this "the most literate nation on earth" in the 1830s -- 20 years before Horace Mann & Co. opened the first tax-funded "public school" on the Prussian model, in Massachusetts.) The union seeks to increase average teacher pay while solving the current "teacher shortage"? Be careful what you wish for. Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Subscribe to his monthly newsletter by sending $72 to Privacy Alert, 561 Keystone Ave., Suite 684, Reno, NV 89503 -- or dialing 775-348-8591. His book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998," is available at 1-800-244-2224. *** Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com "When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right." -- Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926) "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken * * * To subscribe, send a message to vinsends-request@ezlink.com, from your NEW address, including the word "subscribe" (with no quotation marks) in the "Subject" line. All I ask of electronic subscribers is that they not RE-forward my columns until on or after the embargo date which appears at the top of each, and that (should they then choose to do so) they copy the columns in their entirety, preserving the original attribution. The Vinsends list is maintained by Alan Wendt in Colorado, who may be reached directly at alan@ezlink.com. The web sites for the Suprynowicz column are at http://www.infomagic.com/liberty/vinyard.htm, and http://www.nguworld.com/vindex. The Vinyard is maintained by Michael Voth in Flagstaff, who may be reached directly at mvoth@infomagic.com. - -- - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- RKBA! ***** Blessings On Thee, Oh Israel! ***** RKBA! - ----------------+----------+--------------------------+--------------------- 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 - ----------------+----------+--------------------------+--------------------- Constitutional Government is dead, LONG LIVE THE CONSTITUTION!!!!! - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2001 12:16:16 -0700 From: Bill Vance Subject: Executing Criminals -- The Death Penalty in Focus (fwd) From: Rich Martin Subject: Executing Criminals -- The Death Penalty in Focus Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2001 11:45:41 -0700 (PDT) Shonda M. Ponder 10300 Harwin Drive #520 Houston, Texas 77036 713-771-4752 Friends of Liberty, International http://www.friendsofliberty.com shondaponder@worldnet.att.net ============================================================ Executing Criminals -- The Death Penalty in Focus August 6, 2001 - by Shonda M. Ponder http://www.friendsofliberty.com/shondaponder/shondaponder080601.htm The Death Penalty seems to be gaining a lot of attention these days from those who would like to see it removed from our society. Let me ask you...is death worth the consequence of a life taken? On Tuesday, August 7 at 2:30pm at the old courthouse at 111 Main St. in Hickory, Ted Cummings, one of the trial attorneys for Ronald Frye, and Robert Null, one of the jurors in Frye's trial, will talk about their concerns with the scheduled execution of Mr. Frye. Mr. Frye is scheduled to be executed on August 31st for the murder of his landlord. Serious concerns have recently been raised about the trial of Mr. Frye and the quality of defense he received. During the penalty phase of the trial, the jury was never told about Mr. Frye's past which would help explain his actions. Members of the jury have signed sworn affidavits saying they would have voted for life in prison rather than the death penalty, had they known about Mr. Frye's troubled past - which includes his mother's turning him over to strangers when he was four, and being beaten so badly that pictures of the wounds have been used in North Carolina police training on child abuse. If you are a Christian, you will note that in the Bible's old testament there were many crimes that are punishable by death. Including adultery and fornication. God wanted his people to be a pure people at any cost. And, at the time, it was necessary for His work to be done the way He wanted it to be done. In the New Testament, Jesus forgave an adulteress, knowing what her sins were, and that she was guilty of the crime in which the scribes and Pharisees had accused her. He told her to go and sin no more. Not to go and take the opportunity to sin more. However, in so doing, he did exactly what he set out to do: turn mother against daughter, father against son, and brother against sister. The forgiving society that Jesus would have had has given way to a society where slaps on the hand are acceptable punishment. "They know they did wrong because I told them so. So now that they know, leave them alone." Somehow, I don't think this is what Jesus had in mind. So let me attempt to straighten some people out here: Jesus forgave the woman because he COULD. He is God. He had the authority. And, she did exactly what He anticipated that she would do, and served Him from that day forward. He didn't do it to show us an example of how to live, he did it to show the scribes and the pharisees that they did not have the authoritative conscience inside them to be in the offices that they held. Don't tell your brother about the moat in his eyes until you get the one in your own out. Only when you can own up and pay for the sins that you yourself have committed, have you any right whatsoever to condemn someone else. Our government is full of murderers today...is it any wonder that they would wish to do away with the death penalty? When a wrong has been committed there are ways in which you are supposed to react. It has been laid out in the Bible in both the old and the New Testament. The first step is to take your complaint to your brother in private. If the complaint has not been settled in private there, you take it to your brother in the face of two or three witnesses who are called to try to mediate between the two of you before any harm is done to either of you. If, in the face of two or three witnesses the dispute or complaint cannot be handled, there is only one place left to go--court. A righteous judge has the power to oversee any sentence that is placed on the criminal. Most of the people in a jury trial setting have never committed cold-blooded murder or raped a four year old. I don't care what their past is like. A normal human being learns from other's mistakes, and from the past. My parents spanked me when I was a child. Sometimes they went overboard. This has not caused me to murder anyone. If anything, it has caused me to not spank my children unless they understood perfectly what they were getting the spanking for to begin with. And, many times, I find that spanking isn't necessary when they show remorse for the wrongdoing--rather than the fact that they are going to get the punishment for doing it. The death penalty is reserved, today, for those who have no regard whatsoever to any life whatsoever, other than his own--for whatever reason. If my son were raped and killed by a man who had a really horrible childhood, do you think I would care whether he was beaten as a child or not? I dare say, if my son were Mr. Frye's landlord, and he were murdered, the punishment should equal the crime. The crime was the murder of someone's son. Mr. Frye, therefore, should die regardless of what his childhood was like. ======= Don't forget to check out our messageboard at http://www.friendsofliberty.com/messageboard/intro.htm Want to submit your article or news? http://www.friendsofliberty.com/submit/arsubmit.htm Got an editorial you'd like to see posted? http://www.friendsofliberty.com/submit/oesubmit.htm Want to make a complaint about a product or service at fli? http://www.friendsofliberty.com/submit/complain.htm Want to submit your press release? http://www.friendsofliberty.com/submit/prsubmit.htm Need to gripe or inquire at the FLI webmasters? http://www.friendsofliberty.com/submit/webmaster.htm Show Your Spirit, America! http://www.friendsofliberty.com/affiliates/flagline.htm ============================================================ Get FREE business cards for your business or personal use! VistaPrint.com is giving away 250 full color business cards - an $85 value. Claim this unique FREE gift now! http://click.topica.com/caaacA5a84uq6a89B8Bf/VistaPrint ============================================================ === Shonda Ponder is the editor and owner of Friends of Liberty, International at http://www.friendsofliberty.com Cut out the middlemen. Send your donation to: Boys Scouts of America National HQ 1329 Walnut Hill Ln. Irving, TX 75162 http://www.SaveOurScouts.com ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ - -- - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- RKBA! ***** Blessings On Thee, Oh Israel! ***** RKBA! - ----------------+----------+--------------------------+--------------------- 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 - ----------------+----------+--------------------------+--------------------- Constitutional Government is dead, LONG LIVE THE CONSTITUTION!!!!! - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2001 13:24:10 -0700 From: Bill Vance Subject: Police Abuse (fwd) From: Rich Martin Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2001 11:52:19 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Police Abuse - --- mikepiet@aol.com wrote: > Reply-to: FPE@yahoogroups.com > Subject: [FPE] Police Abuse > > From Drudge Mike P > http://www.freep.com/news/mich/lein31_20010731.htm > > > Cops tap database to harass, intimidate > > Misuse among police frequent, say some, but > punishments rare > July 31, 2001 > > > First of two parts. > > > BY M. L. ELRICK > FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER > > > Police throughout Michigan, entrusted with the > personal and confidential > information in a state law enforcement database, > have used it to stalk women, > threaten motorists and settle scores. > > > Over the past five years, more than 90 Michigan > police officers, dispatchers, > federal agents and security guards have abused the > Law Enforcement > Information Network (LEIN), according to a Free > Press examination of hundreds > of pages of LEIN records and police reports. > > > In many cases, abusers turned a valuable > crime-fighting tool into a personal > search engine for home addresses, for driving > records and for criminal files > of love interests, colleagues, bosses or rivals. > > > Even police are vulnerable to having their privacy > violated. Former Center > Line Police Chief Adam Garcia's name was run through > the LEIN by one of his > own officers when he took the job in June 1998. > Garcia said his record was > clean and he had nothing to hide. > > > "It was meant to harass and intimidate me," Garcia > said. "And to let me know > that they knew all about me when they weren't > supposed to know." > > > Police said they think the system, which is used to > make about 3 million > background checks each month, is more widely abused > than anyone knows. > > > "I wouldn't doubt that it happens very often," said > Lawrence Carey, who > retired this month as Plymouth Township's police > chief. "A lot of them are > taken care of internally." > > > Since 1967, the LEIN has been a powerful weapon in > the fight against crime. > > > Using the FBI's National Crime Information Center, > Michigan Secretary of > State vehicle registrations and driving histories, > and other databases, the > LEIN can tell police whether someone is wanted on an > arrest warrant, is a sex > offender, was reported missing, or is deemed > dangerous. > > > Police can find out where someone lives as well as > confidential information > such as whether the person applied for a concealed > weapon permit or has a > suppressed juvenile record. > > > All it takes to access someone's detailed personal > information is their name > or license plate number. Sometimes, one officer will > have another officer run > a questionable LEIN check for them, possibly as a > way of avoiding detection. > Despite rules limiting LEIN use to law enforcement > purposes, police told the > Free Press their colleagues use LEIN to check out > attractive people they spot > on the road. > > > "I'm not going to be so naive as to say an officer > hasn't seen a pretty girl > and run her plate," said Carey, who also was once > chief in Troy. > > > Former Memphis Police Chief Phillip Ludos said the > practice is so common it > is known simply as "Running a plate for a date." > > > Unwanted interest > > > > Part-time Memphis police officer Scott Woods -- also > known by his Internet > nom de plume, BRN 2B NAKED -- used the LEIN to find > out personal information > about a woman he met on the Internet around March > 1999, according to Memphis > police reports. > > > Woods, who was also working as a Macomb County Jail > guard, asked a friend in > Detroit's 9th (Gratiot) Precinct to get information > on a St. Clair Shores > woman, according to a Memphis police incident report > and Macomb County > sheriff's investigation report. > > > Woods began corresponding with the woman, and over > the course of two months > told her he was a widower raising a baby daughter. > The woman told the Free > Press she was afraid to talk about the case and did > not want her name used. > > > According to police records, the woman gave Woods > her phone number and > arranged to meet him after work one night. > > > But instead of going on a date, Woods sat outside > her workplace in his > sport-utility vehicle, the woman told police. She > said she waved Woods in, > but he just sat there. > > > Woods later told the woman he had followed her home > the night before, > according to police records. He called her by her > middle name, which she had > not told him. He described her height and weight. > And he went on to call her > at home and work up to three times a day, according > to police and sheriff's > records. > > > Woods declined to discuss the case. "It's something > from my past," he said. > "That was all blown out of proportion." > > > Ludos, who was Memphis chief at the time, said Woods > confirmed the woman's > account when confronted. > > > Ludos said he fired Woods from the Memphis force for > conduct unbecoming an > officer in 1999. He resigned from the Sheriff's > Department. > > > Sharing LEIN information is a misdemeanor in > Michigan, punishable by up to 90 > days in jail and a $500 fine, upon conviction. > > > As is often the case, the Detroit officers accused > of abusing the system to > help Woods were not prosecuted. Both are facing a > hearing on possible > departmental discipline, but it has not been > scheduled. > > > LEIN for leverage > > > > Sometimes the LEIN is used as a weapon in domestic > disputes. > > > Former Oakland County Assistant Prosecutor Cathy > McGuigan said she should not > have been surprised when her ex-husband, John > Knechtges, ran her new > husband's information through the LEIN. > > > "When you start getting into the romantic > entanglement department, I think > that's when the cops abuse it a lot," she said. > "Anybody who's ever been > involved with a police officer should be concerned > about it happening to > them." > > > Knechtges, then a Troy police lieutenant, and a > friendly FBI agent ran > McGuigan's husband through LEIN. Armed with > information, Knechtges took > McGuigan to court and attempted to gain custody of > their son. > > > McGuigan said Knechtges was unsuccessful, but his > power play helped end her > new marriage. > > > Knechtges was reprimanded and suspended for a week > without pay. > > > FBI agent James Triano, who ran McGuigan's husband > through LEIN, received a > letter of censure and was put on probation for six > months, said Detroit FBI > Special-Agent-In-Charge John Bell Jr. > > > Bell called the incident "very serious -- you're > talking about our bread and > butter, controlling information." But, he said, the > agent acted out of > concern for the couple's child. > > > Triano did not respond to requests for an interview. > Knechtges, who now works > for a glass manufacturer, declined to comment. > > > Friends helping friends > > > > It's not uncommon for police to help friends get > information through LEIN. > > > One hour after Carl Daisy exchanged heated words > with another motorist in > Northville on Aug. 7, 1998, Highland Park Public > Safety Officer Eric > Hollowell -- who was not involved in the altercation > -- asked a dispatcher to > run Daisy's license plate number through the LEIN > system, state records show. > > > Less than an hour later, Daisy received the first of > many ominous calls. > "You're talking to God. I know everything about > you," the man told Daisy. > > > On at least one occasion, Daisy said the caller told > him he "had a beautiful > wife and that it would be a shame if anything > happened to her." > > > The caller was never identified. > > > Hollowell is not suspected of calling Daisy -- and > he denies abusing the LEIN > system. But Ronald Parham, who was Highland Park > Police Chief at the time, > said he concluded that Hollowell used the LEIN to > help an acquaintance locate > Daisy. > > > Parham said he reprimanded Hollowell, and Wayne > County prosecutors declined > to prosecute. > > > That outrages Daisy. > > > "What would happen if I accessed that information?" > he asked. "There are > stalking laws. I'd be creamed." > > > Hollowell's explanation for being linked to the LEIN > check on Daisy: a > bookkeeping error or another officer requesting a > LEIN check under his name. > > > "I honestly don't remember running that plate," > Hollowell said. "If I did run > it, it was legitimate. It wasn't for any bull." > > > Investigations exposed > > > > In 1996, police running license plates through LEIN > exposed a secret > surveillance operation, according to state records. > > > St. Clair Police were investigating a major seller > of illegal cable boxes > when a Detroit police detective and a Michigan State > Police trooper > separately ran LEIN checks on their undercover > vehicles, St. Clair Police > Chief Donald Barnum said. Records don't show why the > checks were made. > > > St. Clair police didn't learn they had been exposed > until they searched the > suspect's home and found LEIN printouts, Barnum > said. "That information was > very, very classified and very, very difficult to > obtain," he said. "That > information could have been very detrimental to the > outcome of our case." > > > Investigators were unable to determine which trooper > tapped into the > database, but records show that the Detroit > detective was suspended for two > days. > > > Political trouble > > > > Sometimes LEIN abuse becomes a part of political > campaigns. > > > Genesee County Sheriff's Department Sgt. Chuck Melki > blames LEIN abuse for > undermining his campaign against incumbent Sheriff > Robert Pickell in the 2000 > Democratic primary. > > > On June 21, 2000, Genesee County Jail Administrator > Kenneth Emigh, a Pickell > appointee, had deputies run the license plates of > three cars with pro-Melki > bumper stickers. > > > State police investigated after an anonymous letter > writer reported the > incident. As word spread within the department, > Melki said his supporters > became intimidated. > > > "A lot of my support shrunk up, went underground > when they found out they > were running people's plates," Melki said. > > > Pickell suspended Emigh for three days. Emigh said > he used bad judgment, but > was not trying to help Pickell. > > > "I really regret doing it," Emigh said. "I have not > run one since. It's not > worth the trouble." > > > Said Melki: "The public can't use it for personal > gain, why can a police > officer? ...If you'd have done that, we'd have been > getting a warrant on you." > > > > > Tomorrow: When police break the LEIN law, punishment > varies -- or doesn't > happen at all. > > > Contact M.L. ELRICK at 313-223-3327 or - -- - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- RKBA! ***** Blessings On Thee, Oh Israel! ***** RKBA! - ----------------+----------+--------------------------+--------------------- 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 - ----------------+----------+--------------------------+--------------------- Constitutional Government is dead, LONG LIVE THE CONSTITUTION!!!!! - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2001 18:23:28 -0700 From: Bill Vance Subject: Proposed Treaty Threatens Internet (fwd) From: Carl William Spitzer Subject: Proposed Treaty Threatens Internet Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2001 21:11:19 PDT by Wes Vernon Wednesday, June 27, 2001 WASHINGTON - A new proposal coming out of an inter- national conference threatens the freedom you enjoy through "the people's medium," the Internet. James Love, writing in News Viewz, reports that the just-concluded conference at the Hague in the Netherlands would impose "a bold set of rules that will profoundly change the internet" and "extend the reach of every coun- try's intellectual property laws," including those that are not related to the Internet. Last December, NewsMax.com reported on efforts within the U.S. government to make Web sites responsible for everything said by the other sites to which they provide links. In other words, if a nonprofit Web site provides links to a partisan political site, the nonprofit would lose its tax-exempt status because that would count as a campaign contribution. This is widely feared to be a leftist reac- tion to the Internet's ability to get around the mainstream media and expose the public to the other side of issues. That would apply even to those sites that provide links to both the Republican and Democrat parties. It would put a lot of sites out of business or constrain their ability to reference other sources. A similar concept envisioned on an international scale by the Hague convention could "effectively strip Internet service providers of protection from litigation over the content they carry." As Love puts it, the new international treaty, if it takes effect, "will strangle the Internet with a suffocating blanket of overlapping jurisdictional claims, expose every web page publisher to liabilities for libel, defamation and every other speech offense from virtually any country." Membership in the Hague Conference now includes China and Egypt. One can hardly imagine an American Web site relishing being held to the "speech standards" prevailing in places where repressive civil actions that crush dissent are commonplace. But the European delegates would not even consider adding favorable speech language. In answer to an inquiry from NewsMax.com, Love said that "every country can refuse to enforce a judgment if a judge finds that to do so would be manifestly incompatible with public policy, a fairly high standard, but not impossi- bly high." Those who have observed the antics of some of the more activist judges in this country can imagine some sig- nificant lines being crossed and precedents being set. Love also told NewsMax that under the Hague convention, "nations agree to enforce each other's judgments, if they follow a common set of rules regarding jurisdiction. In terms of the Internet and speech, just about everyone gets jurisdiction, which causes all sorts of problems." One of those "problems" is that the treaty would give "businesses who sell goods and services the right to dictate via con- tracts countries where disputes will be resolved and rights defended." What caused all this activity to muzzle the Internet? Get this: "European negotiators were also unhappy with the gener- ally free and unruly nature of the Internet, and saw the convention as a mechanism to reign in hate speech." To some, that raises a red flag and sounds eerily similar to frequent leftist rhetoric in the United States. Who defines "hate speech"? Is it defined by the prevailing ultra-left tone on many of America's campuses where professors lose their positions and students are suspended or refused graduation for speaking against politically correct orthodoxy? The News Viewz paper adds: "Europe was also alarmed and jealous of the U.S. leadership in the development of the Internet. European negotiators pushed hard to impose a treaty based on the European Union's Brussels Convention, not only to preserve the European approach, but to lead, for once, in an important area for the Internet." Presumably, there will come a time when the president will be asked to submit this treaty to the U.S. Senate for ratification. Look for another controversy over yet another document which, according to the report cited above, would "diminish national sovereignty http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/6/26/205952.shtml - -- - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- RKBA! ***** Blessings On Thee, Oh Israel! ***** RKBA! - ----------------+----------+--------------------------+--------------------- 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 - ----------------+----------+--------------------------+--------------------- Constitutional Government is dead, LONG LIVE THE CONSTITUTION!!!!! - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2001 23:34:28 -0700 From: Bill Vance Subject: VIN -- ignoring the tax riots (fwd) From: Rich Martin Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2001 22:30:03 -0700 (PDT) Subject: {NewsUCanUse} VIN -- ignoring the tax riots FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz The natives are restless "As key Democrats and Republicans huddled behind closed doors trying to break an impasse over a proposed new Tennessee income tax, 2,000 protesters rushed up the Capitol steps, screaming, 'No means no!' and smashing a few windows," the Los Angeles Times reported from Nashville in mid-July. "It was a bona fide tax revolt, and it worked. ... The tax-thwarting protest was the handiwork of two talk show hosts who took to the airwaves and put out an urgent S.O.S. ..." Next, coming on the heels of the successful Tennessee revolt, "Taxpayers in Tennessee's parent state of North Carolina held their own protest ... during which they tossed teabags at legislators and gained the upper hand on Democratic lawmakers who are pushing for a dramatic tax hike," wrote Andrew Cline, managing editor of the Carolina Journal, last week for the National Review online (www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-cline080301.shtml.) "They just keep raising taxes," Cline quoted one protester, as "About 1,000 North Carolina taxpayers rallied behind the state legislative building on Tuesday for a 'Tar Heel Tea Party' in hopes of halting in its tracks a nearly $600 million tax increase proposed by the Democrats who control both houses of the state legislature and the governor's mansion. ..." Is something happening here? And if so, why is the news so well hidden by much of America's print media? "If this was a groundswell around the nation to have bottle bills, it would be the cover of Time magazine, 'Bottle Bill Mania Sweeps the Country,' comments Grover Norquist of the Washington-based think tank Americans for Tax Reform. Print coverage may have been less thorough than broadcast coverage of these events for three reasons, surmise Mr. Norquist and John Hood, of North Carolina's John Locke Foundation, which helped promote the North Carolina event. First, the events are happening far from Washington, D.C., from which many of the nation's news desks now operate. It's easier for the cable TV networks to pick up colorful footage of protesters dressed as grim reapers or colonial Minutemen and beam them around the country in minutes than for deskbound editors to dispatch reporters to seldom-visited locales like Nashville and Raleigh during the understaffed summer. Second, the more hidebound media outlets tend to be pro-government and pro-tax in their outlook -- there may be evidencing a subconscious reluctance to give credence to such groundswells. And last, these events are being promoted by talk radio hosts. Some in the print media are still reluctant to acknowledge the growing upscale audience of these radio stations in the cell phone era, and also still look down on them as unworthy competitors "leading the hunt for the black helicopters." But why are the protests happening in the first place? "In history class we learned about rising expectations," replies Mr. Norquist of ATR. "People revolt not when the French king is at his most Draconian, but when the French king is loosening up, liberalizing. Then people say, "Well, we want more of this," Similarly when we cut taxes we remind people that it's possible to cut taxes. ... Federal spending has fallen from 22 percent of GNP to 18 percent today, while the percentage of the nation's economic output being consumed state and local spending has grown from 9 to 12 percent over the past 20 years, Mr. Norquist notes. "So thanks to the victory in the Cold War, thanks to welfare reform, thanks to some restraint from the Republican Congress ... that's almost a 25 percent cut in the size of the federal government as a percentage of the economy. There has been no state that has done anything close to that level of reform. ..." "Six percent of the nation's GDP is spent on education, and private schools spend half what government schools do (per student.) So ... you could drop state and local spending by a quarter just by getting state government schools as cost-effective as private schools ... I think that people are coming to demand of state and local governments the reforms that they've seen in the past six years in Washington. ..." Norquist identifies Florida, Arizona, Colorado and Texas -- but not Nevada under Gov. Kenny Guinn, who he declines to identify as a fiscal innovator -- as states where Republican dominance in both statehouses and governors' mansions could soon bring that kind of cost-cutting to the local level. "Tax reform, tort reform, property rights -- it's Reagan and Gingrich brought down to the local level. After Reagan was elected it took 14 years to have Reaganism take over the House and Senate, and now that's finally being pushed down into the state level. ... "People are growing impatient, because they're not seeing those kinds of reform at the local level. So in those states that are refusing to reform, that are in fact moving in the wrong direction with new tax hikes like Tennessee and North Carolina, you're seeing riots." Successful riots. Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Subscribe to his monthly newsletter by sending $72 to Privacy Alert, 561 Keystone Ave., Suite 684, Reno, NV 89503 -- or dialing 775-348-8591. His book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998," is available at 1-800-244-2224. *** Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com "When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right." -- Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926) "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken * * * To subscribe, send a message to vinsends-request@ezlink.com, from your NEW address, including the word "subscribe" (with no quotation marks) in the "Subject" line. 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The Vinyard is maintained by Michael Voth in Flagstaff, who may be reached directly at mvoth@infomagic.com. - -- - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- RKBA! ***** Blessings On Thee, Oh Israel! ***** RKBA! - ----------------+----------+--------------------------+--------------------- 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 - ----------------+----------+--------------------------+--------------------- Constitutional Government is dead, LONG LIVE THE CONSTITUTION!!!!! - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - ------------------------------ End of roc-digest V2 #461 *************************