Re: Article V

[Steven Moyer]

Thanks, Arden.

Even though people think voting is a right, that's not true.  Voting is a privilege controlled by the States.  In some States you can be denied the voting privilege because you were growing marijuana and convicted of a felony!  In my State of Vermont, the only reason you can be denied the privilege of voting is for "voter fraud" which at least makes some sense.

Hey, we might want to make homosexuality a felony.  Then we could keep the homosexuals from participating in democracy.  Oh wait, we already did that years ago.

One more point.   Rights don't come FROM governement, they come from a reasoned understanding of "justified needs" and  "right relationships" to each other and nature itself.

Rights come from nature and reason, or a "reasoned understanding of nature."  This is why it is important to "stand up for your rights."  That means you use reason to assert that you have a right.  The 9th Amendment states we have rights which are not mentioned in the Constitution.   What might they be?  One of them has to be the "right to be one with nature"

because we ARE nature and cannot be justly separated from it.   This means you can grow, consume or use any natural plant, such as marijuana.  You have the RIGHT to be "one with nature."

You have a right to speak the truth.  Any law which says you must "stay silent" is not righteous or reasonable.  You have a right to a voice in your government.  Any law which says you can be denied this right is not a righteous law.  And so forth.   Rights are assertions of 

"justified needs."  Rights are about our understanding of justice, which is constantly evolving.

Therefore, women are allowed to vote now but once were denied.   Homosexuals are allowed to marry now, but once were denied that right. ( still working on this ) Perhaps we will eventually learn that no nation has the "right" to invade and occupy another on the basis of a perception of danger.  That's what happened in Iraq with the illegal invasion and occupation. We were governed by false perceptions of danger ... WMD and a "brutal dictator."

No nation has the RIGHT to invade or occupy any other nation for any reason.   We don't have the RIGHT to make war for any reason.  We have the RIGHT to defend ourselves.  We need to understand these things.  There has been a deliberate attempt to confuse the people about what rights are and what justifies military action.  Beware of more confusion and misinformation about Iran and their alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons.  We do not have the RIGHT to invade and occupy another country based on PERCEPTIONS.

As far as participating in democracy, anyone who is capable of making a reasoned argument that they have a right to participate should be allowed to participate.  I have done so in regards to this "virtual convention" to propose amendments to the Constitution.  For the creators of the Convention to deny me that right based on money is simply wrong.  For that reason, I ask that everyone boycott this convention.  It is not a righteous activity.

Steve Moyer

P.S. If the purpose of voting is to direct the activities of government and taxation is the means by which government conducts it's activities, why can't 16-year-olds vote?  They work and pay taxes, right?

So if we can deny the right of voting to felons, all we have to do is decide we "really, really hate" your actions and call it a felony.  Then we can deny you the right to vote.  If you don't like that, then you can change the law, right?  How?  If you can't vote you can't vote the legislators out of office who made the bad law in the first place.  CATCH 22.

On Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 10:05 PM, Arden Kirkman <akir...@triad.rr.com> wrote:

Maybe it's a good time to add my 2 cents worth. Are we voting, or are we being "polled"? As long as the places where we "vote" are called "polling" places, and the Electoral College is choosing the winners, it clearly seems to me we are not voting, we are being polled.

Steve, I agree with what you say here.
Arden

PS. This email to you addressed to "Steven Moyer <st...@stevemoyer.us>" came back as undeliverable, just so you know.

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Bill,

Thank you for the helpful information.  I was unaware that the government was charging for the privilege of voting was a practice which ended in the 1960's.  That says something about our nation, doesn't it?  Politics is all about money in America.  What would it be about if it wasn't about money?  Good question to ponder, I think.

BTW, if the government was able to charge for voting then voting is a PRIVILEGE and not a RIGHT.   I think most people think of it as a right.  You might want to clarify this idea in your literature promoting your convention, that voting is a privilege and not a right.

I'm not concerned with law when I object to paying a fee to participate in an online convention.
You're right about that point.  You have a LEGAL right to charge for participation in the convention because it is a PRIVATE activity.  I grant you that. 

My main point is that it SHOULD be a PUBLIC activity, not a PRIVATE one.  Too much of our politics is private in my opinion.  Did you know that primary elections like those that are happening today in many States are PRIVATE FUNCTIONS of the political parties funded by PUBLIC monies?   Doesn't that strike you as an abuse of public power for private purpose?

Primary elections should not even exist.  There should be no mention of political parties on any ballot in association with any candidate for any office.  I have already proposed an Amendment to the Constitution to prohibit it.  We don't need parties to have politics.  Parties DISABLE the people in my opinion.  

For example, suppose your purpose in politics was to legalize marijuana and that was the only issue you really cared about very much.  What should you do?  Well, in our system you would almost immediately be corralled into one party or another.  You have already limited yourself in terms of gaining support from others who share your purpose.  Divide and conquer!
Then you will discover how you have to deal with PARTY LEADERSHIP to accomplish anything within that party.  That will further limit your effectiveness.  

Parties DISABLE progress!

UNITY is achieved through a focus on purpose.   If you purpose is to legalize marijuana then you want to unify with all those who support that purpose, regardless of their party.  But we have no easy way to do this.  There are dozens of web sites, perhaps hundreds, which share this purpose and may have membership organizations and petitions on their site.  But there is no single point of focus for the issue.  That's what we need.  That's what government could provide.  That's what an INTERNET DEMOCRACY such as I have proposed with the Synergy Nation proposal ( http://synergynation.net ) would provide the people.  We need to "come together" around specific proposals.

Here's another example:  CORPORATE DE-CHARTERING.   WE THE PEOPLE should be able to DE-CHARTER any corporation at any time through a vote on the ballot.  You don't like BP doing business in America?  Well, you can take away their charter if you get the majority of people to agree with you.  That would make certain that the corporations operate in the public interest 100 PERCENT of the time.

The central issue behind a convention is ACCESS TO POWER.  If your virtual convention is doing the work of a real convention then it is essentially the same thing.  From my perspective the PURPOSE of the activity in either case it the formation of a 3/4 consensus.
Once that is achieved the details of how the government changes are much less relevant.
Congress could pass a law.  The States could pass a law.  The Constitution could be amended through an Article V Convention.   It's the results that I'm looking for in the end.

If a State passes an initiative saying "marijuana is legal" then the purpose has been achieved.
If the Constitution is amended to make marijuana legal then the purpose has been achieved.
If the Attorney General refuses to prosecute cases of simple possession then the purpose has been achieved.  IN politics it often takes a series of small victories to collect before a grand change is realized.  That's OK, and every small change is a good result for the purpose.

I support the idea of an Article V convention and have done so for decades.  But I don't worship the idea.  It's one of many paths which can satisfy my purpose.   I want to increase the liberty of the people and restrain the tyranny of money.  I see the Government as the enforcer of an evil system, the money system, and any movement which liberates the people from that system is a good result.  Conversely, any movement which RESTRICTS the liberty of the people using the money system is a bad result.

Therefore, you attempt to charge people MONEY to participate in the convention is at odds with my purpose and I am unable to honestly support it.   I have already stood up in the public square and urged others to reject your convention because it is "classist."  Money is classist by its nature.  It isn't the amount I object to but the principle that participation in a discussion designed to come to consensus about what kind of government we want in the future shoudl be restricted based on money.

I stand in firm resolve against your convention for this reason.

Sincerely,

Steve Moyer
http://stevemoyer.us
http://metamind.us/cc


On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 11:49 AM, Bill Walker, FOAVC co-founder <fo...@isomedia.com> wrote:
Actually Steve people were charged for voting until the 24th Amendment which eliminated poll taxes. The taxes were used to pay for the costs incurred in running the election. It's only been since the 1960's that charging for elections wasn't done so the practice of not doing so is not that old.
 
Hence your example is a poor one at best and pejorative. You are mixing private and public and the law is well settled that these are two separate areas of law. What applies in the public sector may or may not apply in the private sector.
 
Your problem is you are trying to equate access with equality such that you hold equal access must be "free" or it is not equal. Simply put the law doesn't agree with you. For example private companies offer services or products. You like anyone else have equal access to them assuming you are legally allowed to (meaning if you want liquor you have to be of age and so on) but just because you have equal access doesn't automatically presume the product or service must be free, that is, you are given it. There are other  rights involved other than your own Steve. One of them is people got a right to make a living and that means they have a right to charge for their product or service.
 
Equality only goes so far. You have access to the site just like anyone else. Whether you choose to use that access is up to you and if you do then it must be under the terms and conditions established by the provider of that access. This is well settled law and unless you can show that access is discriminatory, that is it is being denied to certain individuals on the basis of race, creed... you know the scenario, you've got nothing. There is nothing the civil rights law about discrimination on the basis of inability or unwillingness to pay.
Bill Walker
FOAVC Co-founder
www.foavc.org
http://foavc.org
AVCY2KX

--
"Consume less and share more."

Think virtue.  Teach virtue.  Live virtue

Steve Moyer
http://stevemoyer.us  
http://synergynation.net
http://nodes.net  ( NODES Network )

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