From: ygoland@edison.seas.ucla.edu (The Jester)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.usa.constitution,alt.politics.usa.misc
Subject: A CALL TO ACTION
Date: 12 Sep 92 20:14:25 GMT
Followup-To: alt.politics.usa.constitution
Organization: The Hacker Conference

For some time I have seen many threats posted in regards to the
constitution and our general freedom. But what I haven't seen is any
organized method to combat this threat. The best I see is 'write
your congressman' (which, in itself, is a damn good idea actually)
but I think more organization is required. 

So never being one to sit down and be run over (I'd rather stand up)
I suggest the formation of an organized group of people, on the net,
to take 'action' against various, well defined, threats to our
general welfare. This 'action' can range from collective letter
writting to attempts to lobby various special interest groups into
actions the group deems favorable (for example, convincing EFF to be
against the fbi wire tab bill (NOTE:IT ALREADY IS, THIS IS AN
EXAMPLE ONLY)) to collection of already available material for the
purpose of rational analysis and summary. I am not proposing a 
funded lobby group or the public's answer the GAO. I'm simply proposing that
members of the net get together and organize their concerns into
action. The idea of the activate citizen is that a citizen can both
be active in his government AND live his own life. I have no more
desired to dedicate my existence to any particular political cause
then any of you do, I simply wish to be a responsible citizen.

This begs the question of what causes to deal with. Because of my
general reluctance to join any group which does not have a VERY
specific charter I would suggest that before any action is taken
people interested in this concept of collective action via the net
identify those areas they feel should be delt with and WHAT they
would like seen done.

Specifically:
	The Second Amendment:While few legal scholars would argue
	that an absolutist reading of the second amendment allows
	for free public ownership of weapons (people seem to
	conviently stop reading the amendment just before 'militia'
	comes up) few can argue against the original intention of
	the writters of that amendment to provide the people with
	the ability to own weapons for self protection and to over
	throw the government if necessary. After all one need but
	look at the purpose of militias (from their role in the
	american revolution to their duty as police men) to see the
	relevance to today's society. As such I would suggest that
	the group would act against laws intended to remove the
	right to keep and bear arms.

	FEMA:Much evidence has been provided regarding the actions
	of FEMA and its 'true' purpose. Since it is almost
	impossible to actually know what FEMA is doing because of
	it's 'top secret' status I would propose that the group
	pressure it's representatives to provide evidence as to
	FEMA'S activities that would justify it's HUGE budget. It
	seems that FEMA is just a replacement for the NSA (whose
	budget secrets were blown a long time ago).

	Federal Search and Seizure laws under RICO:It is becoming
	increasingly clear that these laws have done away with due
	process and given us a government which uses threats in
	order to operate. I would suggest that the group organize to
	contact various groups as well as representatives to
	illustrate the group's strong opposition to these laws and
	it's desire to see them repealed. 

I'm sure that a counter point will be brought to this proposal:There
are already lots of groups like the ones you propose. This is
correct but I find two failings in 'other' groups:
	1.They aren't on the net, which is the best way I have seen
	of communicating with a large group of people at once with
	little inconvience and cost.
	2.They tend to be intensly into alarmism and radicalism. If
	you have read the posting and information these groups
	release (crystic institute, etc.) you will see that they
	tend to draw radical pictures of world take over.
	While there pictures may very well be accurate, they are
	delivered in a form that the general public (and the
	congress) will not digest. Congresscritters simply ignore
	the writting of these groups as the babling of radicals and
	representative of a small portion of the population. I propose 
	that a group of rational people who collect and document
	evidence without succumbing to the dangers of theatrics can
	achieve alot.

If this concept interests you, if your sick of sitting on your ass
and reading about the end of the world, send me e-mail or better
yet, post to alt.politics.usa.constitution. There are ALOT of people
there who are concerned about it. The only way to have
a rational government which is beneficial to the people is to
organize.

				Yaron Goland

-- 
                    The Jester
"It's because somebody knows something about it that we can't
talk about physics. It's the things that nobody knows anything
about we can discuss."- Richard Feynman 
Newsgroups: alt.politics.usa.constitution