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The following is an excerpt from the most disappointing letter I have received to date, it is from a NORML Representative about the "Ohio Freedom festival" ...
Regarding you addressing the crowd I don't think so. I guess the next thing you'll will be asking is to get in free at the fest. Sorry only volunteers get free admission.
I don't mean to bum you out, but this is just old hat for me. I would work out getting my financial life in order and not worry about running for president and then you could really help advance our agenda. Put your photo on the web page. I never trust anyone that's not willing to expose themselves publicly. John
John,
First off, you come off pretty poorly for someone who thinks
they are an activist,
while I'm out trying to bring people together you blow me
off because you spent ten minutes at my web site and saw only what you wanted to
see... This guys got a catch, find it and smear him. So quick to judge , are you
sure you're not a closet Republican? I haven't addressed the crowds directly about
about my candidacy for president, had you asked or looked about you would have seen
that my speeches concern re-legalization, activism, voting, civil rights and the
environment.
Have you ever heard of divide and conquer? The laws you are fighting to change are exactly the same laws the rest of us are fighting.
But on the presidency issue who do you think you are, to decide for everyone may be attending the event? Have you actually read the Libertarian platform?
The real reason I wrote to you, was to get the date of the event for my events page. I thought I
might make a speech, if I decide to attend, I will be handing out literature and
working the crowd even if I don't get to address the crowd from the stage...
you continued, I guess the next thing you'll will be asking is to get in free
at the fest. Sorry only volunteers get free admission.
I guess I can't Volunteer? I am not good enough for Norml?
then you insult me with ...
I would work
out getting my financial life in order and not worry about running for president
and then you could really help advance our agenda.
What the hell do
you know about my financial life? I am so close to debt free, that I don't even worry
about it. I traveled the entire country this year on my own cash,
I have not
asked for any financial support from anyone nor have I accepted it from those who
offered. If you think cash is the only thing that will advance your cause, then you
have joined the money grubbing system, that I am fighting. You just are not paying
attention to what's happening in this country...
Jesse Ventura did not buy his votes.
Perhaps you're jealous because I really am doing something. After all if Norml hadn't
dropped the ball in the seventies Marijuana would be legal today...
Finally you say
Put your photo on the web page. I never trust anyone that's not willing
to expose themselves publicly.
Not willing to expose myself publicly? I attended
fifty protests this year, I held signs and passed out literature. It so happens that
I was very well received at the events at which I spoke this year, as matter of fact,
I have been invited back to each of them and a dozen more for 1999. I even spoke
at a few Libertarian events. I was interviewed and quoted by several papers, appeared
on television news a number of times. I have exposed my face to hundreds of thousands
of people this year alone and my thoughts to even more though my web site ...
So my question to you is what did you do for the cause in 1998, while I was working
the state and county fairs or while I stood in front of a courthouse for fifty hours
during Global Awareness days?
Out trying to raise money no doubt, to give to
dirty politicians, who have no intent to re-legalize the sacred herb. If you really
want to know what people think look at the editorial pages of the newspapers or check
out the hightimes 100 lists for the last year and see if I am making an impact...
I don't want to argue with you, I don't need the Freedom Festival or Norml,
but remember we are fighting the same battle and the other side is winning.
John Regarding questionnaire...
Do you think that Mandatory sentencing should be expanded or eliminated?
Definitely eliminated. Each case is unique and requires a suitable punishment or deterrent. With mandatory sentencing, a Judge has no authority or discretion. He could easily be replaced by a computer run program. His instincts, experience, and humanity are removed.
Death penalty for repeat violent offenders?
No. I believe that we can learn from such criminals. Mass murderers, rapists, etc. may provide us with clues as to the origins of behavior. By studying these people we may learn what hereditary factors, what environmental factors (including chemical factors), affect behavior. We also might learn about our spiritual nature I am here referring to something beyond the genes, perhaps our Ka.
Do you favor decriminalization of victimless crimes (in order to facilitate education and treatment)?
Yes. As I am basically anarchist in my thinking, I don't agree with a justice system at all. I realize that means vigilantism would probably occur. If that is a deterrent to crime and a more accurate representation of what is not acceptable to the majority of the people in a given area where the so called crime occurred, isn't that what the criminal justice system is supposed to do now?
The government has a track record for failing, inefficient, and corrupt
programs. You will find this to be true even in privatized health care however, privatized
programs are more responsive to public pressure than are governmental programs. I
think it ought to be kept out of government control.
I definitely will say that government should not be in the business of education. Education could be better designed by parents and business. Parents understand how to get their children involved while business understands the skills that are required to get real jobs that exist within a school district. Skills for businesses in other areas will require many of the same basics and can be taught at the college level.Decriminalization of Marijuana? I don't believe people should be punished for what they do to themselves. If the residents of a given area are opposed to marijuana use they can effectively shun the user if they even realize that he/she is a user. Many drug users do not behave any differently than nonusers. There would be no reason to treat them any differently.
From: ET
Subject: conversion to small communities
The development of relatively small, self- sufficient communities creates, in general, greater accountability and there- fore responsibility. However, this in itself in no way suggests the elimination or even reduction of inequality and oppression. Examinations of history reveal that many pre-modern agrarian societies (and examples seem obvious) maintained rigid class structures, with class privileges often enforced in a brutal fashion..
This next statement will probably anger some people, but it has been my experience that many 'alternative' communes and communities rely heavily on advanced technology (such as photovoltaic technology) which I applaud; it is a great advance over fossil fuels and uranium. Some of these communities retain other features from modernity, like complex stereo systems, apparently unwilling to completely forsake the modern world. My point is that the solutions to a complex world are themselves complex, and we must critically re-examine our solutions as conditions change; otherwise we risk substituting one dogma for another.People bound to self-sufficient communities risk isolation, and the provincial ignorance and prejudice that develops as a result. I agree that we must move beyond capitalism, but not towards some mythical, idealistic agrarian past that in actuality never existed. Some forms of oppression, such as the oppression of women by men, predates the rise of capitalism by several thousand years. Instead, I prefer to look forward, using our skill and knowledge (and technology), our ability to reason and to feel, all our qualities as social beings, to confront the ever-changing challenges of the day. Many communities simply cannot be self-sufficient; even Squashville relies on trade for tomatoes, rice, hemp, pork, soybeans, etc. How will we maintain the necessary transportation infrastructure, the storage facilities, etc.? I agree generally with the dismantling of global capitalism, excessive heavy industry, stopping reckless destruction of the environment, and the move towards small scale production. But such changes also create new problems, and neglect many of the current issues of inequality and oppression. Blaming modernity for all our problems resembles religious zeal; the great green or anarchistic revolution seems more like waiting for the 'second-coming' than a way of dealing with concrete problems of the real world. ET
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