live_tv
Livestream Starting Soon
00
Hours
:
00
Minutes
:
00
Seconds
Up next in 10
Discussion at the Austin Constitution Meetup, March 16, 2011, at the North Village Branch Library, Austin, Texas, led by Jon Roland. Accompanied by PowerPoint available from http://files.meetup.com/1241525/volun_oppos.ppt
Show More Show Less View Video Transcript
0:02
all online look pretty good well good evening this is the March
0:09
15th is the 15th yes it's 15th 16th it's the 16th uh
0:16
2011 uh Meetup of the hustin Constitution meetup group I'm John
0:23
Roland and what we're starting off with tonight is a presentation
0:31
entitled leading volunteers against opposition now this is based upon a lot
0:39
of existing material accumulated over many
0:44
decades of uh stuff on leadership generally or management generally or uh
0:53
uh volunteer organizations causes so forth but the I've modified this one to
1:02
uh Focus particularly on the situation where there is
1:07
opposition you know most of the others ignore sort of ignore opposition they're assuming that everybody's just sort of
1:15
you know emerging into a open field that's
1:21
already not already occupied or against which there are not already people
1:27
contending so uh our situation though for the cause of
1:34
constitutional compliance is that we definitely have
1:40
opposition and it's not just ignorance or apathy or uh uh things of that sort
1:48
but we have uh a huge body of what are sometimes called Reliance
1:56
interests these are people organiz ations institutions and so
2:02
forth that rely upon things the way they now are uh the bad laws the bad Court
2:10
decisions all the things we object to have nevertheless created a
2:16
constituency for continuing them and if we were to return to
2:23
constitutional compliance at this stage we would be uh
2:31
cutting a lot of those people out from their
2:37
livelihoods uh just think for example about the prison industrial complex uh particularly the federal you
2:45
know 95% of all federal criminal cases are
2:50
unconstitutional if we were to uh enforce the constitution on that
2:56
subject uh all those people would have to be let go the federal the prison officials would
3:04
have to be let go uh now a lot of those prisoners could
3:11
be retried under state laws which would be constitutional in
3:16
most cases but the odds of the states being able to pick up the slack for that is
3:24
pretty low and so it might mean a might ation
3:30
of uh federal prison officials and law enforcement officials to the
3:36
States but of course if we've seen in the present situation the states don't have the money to pick up a
3:42
slack and the federal government doesn't have the money to give it to them so uh
3:49
it would mean a scaling back of employment in an important area the same is true of a lot of other
3:57
areas now it's sometimes argued that
4:02
um government jobs don't really produce anything are there are that they don't
4:09
really the government funding doesn't really create jobs well of course it
4:14
does that's what most of these Reliance interests are devoted to government jobs
4:20
and government contracts now the fact that the jobs may not make anything of lasting
4:26
value is an issue uh you know a lot of them are just
4:32
pushing paper around and they're not really building
4:37
anything that's going to endure for at least 50 or 60 years or
4:42
so uh of course some of them do they are government does do things like build Bridges and highways and so
4:49
forth but uh most of what they proposed to spend money on now is not for that
4:56
purpose uh most of it is simply either to provide pensions or uh health
5:04
care which as mostly healthare for older
5:10
sicker people who if uh healthc care were not provided
5:17
might die sooner probably would die sooner most of them uh but it's a very high proportion
5:24
of the medical money goes to extending life for less than a year
5:32
so you know we we our hearts break when we contemplate cutting off medical care
5:38
for people who are on their last legs but how much is it worth to society to
5:46
keep someone alive only another year you know a few thousand sure a few
5:52
million well maybe not so uh you know we have to make hard choices
6:00
and that's what the Reliance interests are about and the Reliance interests are organized they take the form of unions
6:09
not just uh public worker unions as we've seen recently in
6:14
Wisconsin but uh also organizations of other kinds
6:21
that represent occupational groups lawyers doctors uh almost every occupational
6:29
group you can imagine has its own organization and of course government
6:34
workers are the single greatest constituents for government
6:40
programs if we were to cut back on federal spending we'd be laying most of
6:46
those people off in fact if we were to cut back government spending as much as we need
6:52
to to end the deficit we might be having to
6:57
create unemployed rates of more than 40% now eventually those people could
7:05
find other jobs as the economy rebounded but in the short term it would
7:12
be disastrous so we have to face the fact that any large
7:20
change of almost any kind is going to be disruptive and potentially so disruptive
7:28
that it can cause a collapse of the economy U and yet we're in a situation
7:35
where we also don't have the time to just phase out things like Social
7:40
Security Medicare Medicaid government pensions and so forth uh ideally we
7:47
should phase them out maybe 5% a year for 20 years but we apparently don't have 20
7:53
years we may not even have one year so any way we go we're in
8:03
trouble um and the recent events in
8:08
Japan are sort of a metaphor for what we can face because what happens for
8:15
example when uh uh the economy collapses and we can't
8:22
pay nuclear workers or the security forces
8:27
surrounding nuclear plants or the utility companies that provide
8:33
them with water and electricity now
8:38
probably those things would not be cut off for nuclear plants but they would certainly increase
8:44
the odds of the Jeopardy of failure if only a few more things go
8:53
wrong so uh imagine a worldwide
9:00
economic collapse that causes most of the nuclear plants in the world to
9:07
meltdown so we'd not only have an economic meltdown we'd have nuclear meltdowns we'd have agricultural
9:13
meltdowns we'd have just about every kind of thing that we engage in melting
9:20
down all within a matter of a few months or at maybe a couple
9:26
years uh that really strains the ability of human society to
9:34
respond I mean we can take care of a few of our neighbors but when it we're
9:40
surrounded by a million people who are all in need of help it's becomes
9:46
overwhelming so uh we're in a dire
9:52
situation but one of the things that we are discussing this
9:58
evening we since we don't have organized institutions trying to provide
10:06
remedies because they don't know what to do or they're part of the problem we have to find ways of
10:14
developing remedies ourselves it's up to us we can't depend on anyone else to do
10:20
it and it does not work to just call for those in
10:27
power to say fix the situation you know save us because they
10:34
don't know what to do and most of the people whove been you
10:40
know rallying and and demonstrating and all that they don't know what to do they
10:45
have a general idea of what they're against but they don't know what to do in terms of a step by step by step
10:55
programmatic solution CU they don't think think in those
11:01
terms and there are very few people in this country in this world that do there are in a few specialized
11:09
Fields Space Engineers can figure out how to send a man to the moon or perhaps
11:14
to Mars uh petroleum Engineers can figure out how to build uh uh uh petroleum
11:24
refineries and uh ship you know petroleum and tankers and do a various
11:31
other things of that sort each one in his own specialized area can
11:36
do programmatic systematic things that solve problems but what we're talking about
11:44
now is a general problem that is beyond any one's
11:52
specialty certainly economists are are not capable of dealing with it uh
11:58
Financial experts are not very expert as we're discovering
12:03
um we have a whole array of problems that no one understands and no one knows
12:10
what to do with do about well somebody has to step in and
12:17
come up with Solutions I'm trying to do that uh I'm having a little trouble
12:23
getting anyone to listen uh there are only a few people who when they hear my
12:29
proposals respond intelligently most just kind of glaze over or say that's too complicated
12:37
that's too much work that's too difficult well all most almost everything that we
12:45
have to do is complicated and difficult so you know if it were easy it
12:52
would already have been done so we don't have the option of
12:57
quick simple Direct easy solutions so whether we're ready or not
13:04
it's up to us to come up with detail programmatic
13:10
Solutions now the question is who to whom do we address these Solutions well the answer is unpaid
13:19
volunteers because we don't have any money we're having to appeal to people
13:25
who uh are earnest dedicated uh who want to do the right
13:33
thing but how do we get them all on the same page all working in
13:40
concert especially when we've got this real opposition some of it even back by guns
13:47
who you know federal agents or state agents who
13:52
will raid our homes in the night and you know drag us off and lock us up steal
13:58
all our guns and do other things like that um so we do not have a u nice
14:07
situation but we do have a duty the duty is to do what we can if
14:13
it's not good enough then we all go together but uh our duty is our duty and
14:21
we shouldn't worry about the odds so let's just
14:27
consider uh this presentation here for a minute leading volunteers against
14:51
opposition the problem is that we have or need volunteers but we don't have any money to pay them or even reimburse them
15:01
um we're presuming that there's a clear course of action that they can
15:07
do the goal is achievable with enough work by enough
15:12
volunteers in other words we're not discussing a situation where it's totally hopeless for that the group that
15:20
we have assembled um that means if we have a small group
15:26
we're not talking about solving all the problems of the world we're talking
15:31
about doing what is within the capabilities of that group within their
15:40
resources but the work effort has a working deadline and there is active opposition
15:46
not just inertia ignorance resistance to change or
15:55
despair okay there are certain steps to prepare ER in the situation first is to research the
16:03
problem we have to develop a deep understanding of what is going on if
16:10
we're going to do anything about it then we need to develop a
16:16
solution that's where the problems develop because uh it's often easy to
16:21
get people to agree on problems but much more difficult to get them to agree on Solutions Solutions tend to be
16:28
complicated at it uh you can present a problem in simple terms but Solutions
16:35
are almost never simple okay then we need to develop
16:41
plans of action to achieve the goal the solution that means we have a a a master
16:49
solution but then we have a lot of little sub Solutions each step along the
16:55
way is a is a subsolution then we need to develop arguments to
17:01
recruit volunteers now in general volunteers are
17:06
not going to be ready for every kind of argument that we can throw at them in many cases all they'll be able
17:14
to do is to respond to the leader because they have confidence in the
17:19
personality and trying to get them to really understand the problem or the
17:25
solution may be beyond the state at which they are then to be
17:30
found so you may have to inspire them to follow and you know you know just trust
17:36
me that we know what we're doing of course that can lead to disaster because there are a lot of
17:42
charismatic charlatans out there who have their own plans that are uh
17:50
bogus that will lead to disaster and most people don't are not going to know how to tell the
17:56
difference okay next we need to identify prospects now in the uh article I sent
18:05
you a link to uh diffusion of Innovations uh it discusses
18:14
that the problem with pushing any
18:20
anything is you're what you're trying to do is get people to adopt something to make it their own to practice it do
18:30
it and in general most people are not initially ready for
18:37
that so he work was done at the University of
18:43
Chicago in the 50s funded by uh large
18:50
broadcasters television was becoming a factor then and they wanted to know what
18:57
they could tell people potential advertisers about what would
19:04
work to sell their products and services and of course their Hope was
19:10
that this the scientists could tell them well you know throw enough money into advertising and people will flock to
19:17
your products and services that's not what they found what they did find was that
19:24
there's a small number of people who will adopt at an early stage
19:32
any new innovation these are called early
19:37
adopters and there's a second tier of adopters called secondary adopters
19:43
naturally enough and their adoption is mainly conditioned
19:50
not upon things like broadcast messages but upon the example of the early
19:56
adopters in other words they are imitating their early adopters
20:02
they see them they see their satisfaction with what they've adopted and they imitate
20:10
them then there's a third tier of tertiary
20:16
adopters they mainly imitate the secondary adopters and a quinary tier and after
20:24
that you kind of diffuses into the general
20:30
Society um it does not in general work to devote
20:37
a lot of resources to directing your message at later stages of
20:44
adoption before the first ones have adopted because it's just going to be a
20:50
waste of money so what you want to try to do is to First identify the early
20:56
adopters Target them then after they are providing the
21:01
example to the secondary adopters uh direct your efforts at the
21:09
secondaries to reinforce the example of the primaries it
21:16
can't succeed all by itself but it can amplify the the example of the primaries
21:23
a little bit call people's attention to them in the same way with the tertiary
21:28
and the quadrant areas so an ideal marketing campaign for any new product
21:33
service idea religion or anything else is to start with the primary
21:40
adopters then move your targets to the secondary then to the tertiary then to
21:46
the quinary and so forth so it becomes a problem how do you
21:51
identify those and that's an a large area of
21:57
research in itself in generally speaking you can get a pretty good idea
22:04
based upon what has been adopted
22:11
previously uh if some new product or service
22:16
catches on you can trace to see who bought first who bought second who
22:23
bought third and fourth and so forth and if you examine these patterns
22:32
you can begin to organize Society the economy really into
22:40
adoption hierarchies adoption tiers now the same kinds of adoption
22:46
tiers don't work for all kinds of Innovations uh religions will not in
22:52
general follow the same pattern as let's say uh uh a new elect IC
22:59
product so you have to uh on the other hand religions may follow a similar
23:07
pattern to previous religions religions tend to spread that way too
23:12
ideologies uh business practices all kinds of things tend to follow similar
23:20
adoption patterns all right once you've
23:26
identified your prospects figured out where it makes the most sense to allocate
23:32
resources then you make your presentation and it's got to be good you
23:37
got to uh close those early adopters because once you can get them
23:44
on board everything becomes easier if you can't get those first ones then
23:50
you've got a problem and particularly in something like
23:57
causes you need to get commitments from people at each stage along the
24:04
way uh commitments to buy it to use it to recommend it to their friends to help
24:11
spread it and so forth uh and uh it's not enough just to get
24:19
them to buy it if they might start using it but using it in sort of in secret nobody knows about it so they also have
24:27
to be able to tell people so it's a a lot of things go into this kind of
24:35
analysis okay on identifying prospects we first
24:41
look for those with a history of activity and similar things then we look at those with some
24:48
background of knowledge if you're trying to introduce a new a making model of
24:56
car then you're likely to do better with those who know something about
25:02
automotive technology uh you might sell a certain number of people just because it's
25:08
pretty but the chances are the early adopters are going to be more impressed
25:14
by things like horsepower and speed and uh various utilitarian factors
25:23
handling uh so if you can identify those with a background of knowledge on which
25:29
you can base your e efforts uh that's important and of course that's one
25:35
reason why uh uh internet marketing is so effective why magazines have
25:41
traditionally been more effective than let say newspapers because uh they tend to be
25:48
things that are bought by people who are already better prepared to accept stuff
25:55
are also better advertising vehicles
26:00
um you're going to look for self-starters who don't require daily
26:06
urging uh daily urging takes money takes effort takes
26:12
time so ideally the first ones you're going to be approaching the early
26:17
adopters are probably going to be people who only need to be shown
26:23
once uh if they have to be shown very often then they're not really primary
26:29
adopters are more likely to be secondaries uh you look for thing those
26:37
who offer suggestions but not diversions now what that means is that
26:44
it's positive uh constructive suggestions uh let's say somebody who
26:52
sees a vehicle and says whoa wow that looks like something I might like but uh
26:58
uh it would be it would be nice if it did something else and uh that provides you with
27:08
either one of two answers it say well it just so happens it already does that or
27:14
just so happens that uh we have an add-on that can allow it to do that or
27:20
we've got something under development we can retrofit to it okay you don't want to tell them that
27:27
that'll be the next year's model CU then they'll say oh I'll just wait till next
27:32
year so similarly with other kinds of products Services ideas or so forth now
27:39
with causes it's easier because they've offered suggestions on causes religions
27:45
ideologies yuk often fix it right then and there and respond to their
27:51
suggestions and if they offer a suggestion and you take it that makes
27:56
them invested in it then they begin to feel it's theirs you also have to be careful of
28:04
diversions because a lot of people would come up with ideas that really take you
28:09
off the track and uh you have to be be careful
28:15
of those steer them back to the main course or or they're just going to take
28:20
you know themselves and perhaps their friends and neighbors off onto a whole different track that's not very helpful
28:28
now we see that in our political activism all the time where we come up
28:34
with a course of action and uh somebody comes up with uh well I think what we
28:39
really ought to do is this and say I think I ought to form my own
28:45
organization and uh you know I've got this bright idea and my idea will save
28:50
the world and yours is nonsense well maybe he's right but the
28:56
chances are he's not and he's just going to be taking people off onto a wild goose chase that uh
29:05
doesn't benefit the cause or him or anyone else okay then we also need to identify
29:11
those who may support the tactics even if not the goal
29:19
uh people reach agreement on goals and tactics
29:25
separately uh you can get people agree on the goal but disagreeing on the tactics who who become unable to work
29:33
together on the other hand they may disagree about the goals but agree on the tactics and they can work together
29:41
so you may be able to get people working together even though they are not in agreement on the ultimate goal they'll
29:48
split up eventually but for the time being they are working together and who
29:56
knows if they work together long enough maybe maybe they'll even Converge on the
30:01
goals but initially it's of more importance to get people working
30:07
together than to get them to agree on the the ultimate goals okay and finally you want
30:15
prospects who want to make a positive difference uh who are not just uh
30:22
looking for a herd to join or for a winner to pick or back
30:29
but who uh feel that or who think that they don't want to do it unless they can
30:34
save the world all by themselves you need people who are realistic you know mature enough to say
30:42
well I can't save the world by myself but I can do something I can make a
30:48
difference and those people can be put to
30:54
work okay now the question is how do we approach prospects
30:59
well of course we start with people we already know uh if you can't recruit your
31:05
friends then who can you recruit now of course there's also the old saw well you know no man is a
31:12
prophet in his own country so sometimes you do have to go beyond your circle of
31:18
acquaintances just because people are not ready to hear the message from you
31:24
you're too familiar and you know ordinary and not impressive enough to
31:30
them they they might have known you when you were little kids together so uh uh
31:36
you know you have you have to pick your audience
31:42
carefully okay it may make sense to publish to a wide
31:47
audience if you don't know who the prospects are uh it may make some sense to spread
31:56
a netwide and Hope catch a few you never know who is liable to turn
32:02
up now you don't want to spend too much of an effort doing that and obviously if
32:08
you spend a lot of time and effort casting a netwide and you get very few
32:15
people uh responding then you may need to drop
32:20
back and reconsider your approach um you need to make presentations
32:28
existing groups generally speaking people who are likely to be active are already active
32:35
chances are those who are ready to become organized already
32:40
organized they just may be in a different group doing other things but you can sometimes take
32:46
advantage of that either people who are already have a background of being
32:53
active and organized who can transfer their skills and their interest to other
32:58
you know causes or who can even bring their whole group with
33:05
them uh getting back to the concept of
33:12
diffusion of Innovations and the uh tears of
33:17
adoption you want to take each person to the extent possible as far as is he or
33:24
she is ready to go at each encounter don't try to take them all the way to
33:30
the end in one step very few people move all the way to
33:36
the end in one step if you look around you if you consider yourself and your own
33:43
involvment the chances are that you didn't take get here in one step you probably took a little step
33:51
then you encouraged to take another step and another step and another step and over a period of time you move forward
33:57
forward forward until you got to where you are now and if somebody had tried to push
34:03
you too far too fast at twoo at a too early stage before you were ready for it
34:09
it might have turned you off so uh you have to figure
34:16
out how far people were are willing and able to go what it takes to take them
34:22
that far then break off and come back later
34:29
so you have to schedule your encounters with people which can be tricky if you
34:34
the large numbers of them it's just like trying to sell U door too encyclopedias
34:41
say um they may not be ready to buy to clothes on the first time you visit them
34:48
but uh you plant the seed and you say may I come back again in two weeks says
34:54
okay sure you come back in two weeks maybe you take a little bit fur further maybe after a third or fourth visit you
35:01
can close and make the sale chances are if it's more than five
35:06
or six visits it's not going to be worth it they're probably not going to buy so
35:12
you have to figure how again how you're going to allocate your resources
35:17
there um as you're
35:23
proceeding ask each person to commit some definite amount and kind of
35:29
effort one of the things I like to do at meetings like this is to hand out paper
35:35
and an envelopes and tell people write a letter to your state legislature write a letter
35:42
to your Congressman uh it's not much but it's a little it's it's something and if you
35:50
can get used to doing one small thing then you can do another small thing and another small thing and after a while
35:57
you develop a momentum you're doing bigger and bigger and bigger things until you're fully
36:03
involved now you you don't want to you know say you know go out and uh get this
36:10
Constitutional Amendment adopted that's too much okay writing a letter is something
36:16
they can do making a phone call sending a fact uh so start out with small efforts
36:24
and build up now there are several motivational types
36:31
that we need to look to First there is what we might call the
36:37
achievement professionalism type the second is the influence
36:42
recognition type and the third is affiliation altruism
36:47
type now these are sort of nebulous Concepts and uh people don't necessarily
36:54
fall neatly into one or the other of these but that there tends to be uh some
37:03
people tend to be more of one than another and depending on which they are more of it may change the approach you
37:10
want to take to them the achievement professionalism types are those who uh want to get
37:19
something done they take pride in accomplishment uh they see something
37:26
they can do and they are looking forward to the satisfaction they can get from
37:32
getting it done the influence recognition types are
37:38
those who uh like to influence others and like
37:43
to be recognized for their efforts they tend to be more her or group
37:50
oriented uh these are people that uh uh particularly respond well to pats
37:58
on the back to praise to uh be being given uh influential positions within
38:05
the effort and so forth then there's the affiliation altruism
38:11
group who genuinely want to help people and who want to feel that they're
38:19
helping people even if they don't get any recognition for it
38:26
uh even if there's not a definite uh mil Stone of
38:34
success it's just a feeling that they're moving forward that they build they're
38:39
building uh relationships that they're doing helping people move along that's satisfying to
38:51
them now let's look at the achievement motivated
38:56
further they respond to recognition that challenges their skills and learns new
39:02
ones that quantifies their success that offers tangible
39:08
rewards that tells others of their achievements that is connected to jobs
39:14
with clearly defined goals that recognizes them to the general public and that recognizes them
39:21
to Affiliated groups the power influence motivated
39:30
respond to recognition that can be used to persuade or recruit others to to the
39:36
cause can be used to broaden Public's knowledge quantify specific
39:42
accomplishments have opportunity to interact with players Pro names an achievement in
39:49
their honor provides recognition by top people and allows them to be promoted and to
39:56
direct others now you'll notice a pattern here there's some
40:02
overlap but in each case it's responding to recognition that recognition is key
40:09
here then the affiliation motivated respond to recognition that
40:16
provides appreciation from person's helped provides a symbol identifying
40:21
them with success offers social opportunities provides appreciation from
40:27
those they admire recognizes their efforts to their peers and is fun with
40:38
others now what are some motivators well first of all positive
40:45
feedback if you're doing well tell them so and if they make a
40:51
mistake uh say well you could have done that a little bit better but do it in private don't criticizing being the
40:59
presence of others uh and always make it positive always says well that's you know you did
41:06
you did fine except that you could have done a little bit better in this way and this way and this
41:12
way um another motivator regular rewards and
41:19
recognition um you don't want the rewards to be too far too few and far
41:26
between uh uh on the other hand if they're too frequent they lose their meaning so you know monthly might be
41:34
good weekly might be good yearly is probably too infrequent daily is
41:39
probably too frequent you need to figure out what it works for for each group and
41:44
each effort um the motivator is to send to meetings
41:52
of similarly committed persons um a lot of these conferences
41:58
that everybody sees advertised are really motivational and one of the things you
42:06
do with them is not so much go there to learn how to solve problems you may send
42:12
somebody there that you want to motivate by sending him there so he can hobnob
42:18
with you know other key players and they may not have a a clue about a solution
42:24
among them but if they can get them stirred up and come back ready to do
42:31
something and of course you then you have to tell them what to do but you know he haven't he hasn't learned at the
42:36
conference but still it's a uh it's a motivational
42:43
Factor uh a motivator is to provide training
42:49
clear tasks with short-term gains uh you might have a long-term goal
42:54
but you want to break it up into short term goals uh in a game like football the
43:02
long-term goal is winning the game the secondary goal is to get the next
43:07
touchdown or field goal and the tertiary uh goal is to move the ball far
43:18
enough down the field to get the next down so you break up the larger task
43:23
into smaller ones and you have successes along the way that you're striving for
43:29
and if you get enough short-term successes that that leads to longer term successes and so
43:36
forth but uh another motivator is to be available to
43:41
them uh it's very hard to motivate people if the motivator is never
43:47
there if people are left to Mill around and they don't know what to do so
43:54
uh a leader has to be right on top of the situation talking to people daily
44:00
you know he can't get him himself get involved in operational things in most
44:06
cases if he's the organization's best writer best
44:11
speaker uh best intellectual uh uh
44:18
Creator he probably shouldn't be in a leadership position because he is needed
44:24
for other things uh he needs other people to get
44:29
out there and keeps the keep the trops the troops moving he you should concentrate on what
44:35
he does best uh if he has to play that role as
44:40
well then it's going to be less effective at providing the uh Gris for
44:46
the meal of the effort so again it becomes a uh tradeoffs that have to be
44:52
taken into account okay another Moor motivator is free food and fun now if you don't have
44:59
money you can do po potluck but uh there needs to be a social Dimension
45:07
people need to have fun doing the doing things together if every meeting is a
45:13
grim uh rendition of the disasters of the previous week well eventually people
45:22
are going to drop out they don't want to be stay in an
45:27
effort that has no good news and it's not really that fun to be
45:33
with people you know if you have a bunch of activists who really don't like each
45:39
other very much they're not going to be as effective as people who do whereas if
45:45
they start developing warm personal relationships then they become a team they become a
45:51
tribe uh it's just like in the military you ask most guys why go into battle you
45:58
know risk their lives they will tell you it's not they might have started out to
46:04
some degree being for his country but after a while it becomes for his
46:09
buddies the personal relationship he develops with other members of his small
46:16
local organization becomes more important as a motivator than the larger goal that he
46:22
might have started with then
46:27
uh another motivator is to appoint those committed to
46:33
volunteers um you need to find and recruit at an early stage those who
46:39
really like volunteers and working with them if your uh lieutenants do not like
46:47
volunteers they don't like getting them to do things then they're not going to
46:52
be very effective they should be put to work doing something else
46:57
uh so you need a certain number of people who are people people to be your lieutenants and to
47:04
deal with the volunteers okay now we get into
47:11
obstacles it's part I promised you at the beginning one key obstacle is the goal
47:18
is distant and complex that's the big
47:24
killer constitutional complt liance is a distant complex
47:32
goal there's no way around it uh the Constitution is a design for a long-term
47:41
solution it's for dealing with the needs of society over the course of
47:48
Millennia you know literally the Constitution was designed to keep the country going for thousands of
47:55
years so a lot of lot of the things that people want to do to violate it seem
48:01
like good ideas in the short term they it may be enough to justify violating the Constitution they almost never
48:09
are but they lose track of the long-term goal in focusing on the short term and
48:18
most of the incentives we have every day all around us is to focus on the short
48:23
term and lose sight of the long term and as anyone who's tried uh uh
48:30
engaging let's say something as simple as a male fundraiser sending out pieces of mail
48:37
ordinary mail as I used to do to try to raise
48:42
money now a lot of you have heard this story about how most of the money for
48:49
fundraising campaigns goes to the fundraisers well that's
48:55
true if a a a mail out brings in 5% more
49:01
than it costs is considered a success if you get a one or 2% response
49:07
rate that's success it's not so much that the money goes to the uh Mailing
49:16
Service way it kind of does but it's mostly not to salaries it's mostly to printing Postage and so
49:23
forth um so uh with the in the era of the
49:28
internet we have less expensive Communications but it's also
49:33
Communications that are easier to ignore people get in the habit of ignoring
49:39
emails whereas they would pay attention to physical postal
49:45
mail uh but my experience and of that experience of
49:51
others the fundraising campaigns I help put on made money
49:57
when the letter only talked about problems heart disease cancer you know
50:03
polio any of the things like that however as soon as they started
50:09
talking about Solutions this vaccine or that operation or that procedure lost
50:18
money so what does that tell us problems sell more easily than Solutions because
50:24
Solutions require people to think and once they start thinking they lose the
50:29
moment that might motivate them to put a check in the
50:35
mail um this is a problem with human beings generally and it's a it's a tough
50:41
one no easy solutions here okay another obstacle is no clear
50:47
easy path forward uh that's certainly true with constitutional
50:54
compliance um the there are clear paths forward I've set forth a lot of them at
51:01
constitution.org but easy no you know everybody wants to glim on
51:08
to something simple direct and obvious I remember the old Reform
51:15
Party uh now the tea party you know they're all continuations of the same
51:21
you know cultural tradition and uh they generally knew what they were against but they couldn't
51:28
agree on what they were for for because they were unable to sit down and work
51:34
out Clear stepbystep programmatic
51:39
Solutions whenever anybody tried to do that one would become would do it and uh
51:45
or start to do it none of them really got any very far uh and become so invested in his
51:51
idea that he just can't imagine anybody else would have another idea that's any good
51:57
another one does the same thing another one does the same thing before you knew it they're all going off in different
52:02
directions and not accomplishing anything
52:09
so another kind of diversion of obstacle are what I call
52:16
diversions um one of course is alternate activities um in any given cause the
52:24
odds are there are other organizations ations other efforts you know all
52:29
claiming to be working for the same goal but not in
52:35
concert and yet they if they seem to be more appealing to your people those
52:42
people may go off and join them instead and again nothing much gets
52:49
done another kind of diversion is a phenomenon we can see in
52:55
biology called displacement
53:01
behavior um it was originally
53:07
observed in such situations as uh fish
53:13
competing maybe for a mate a male loses out in a contest for a
53:20
female with a bigger fish and being
53:27
frustrated he starts hitting his head against a rock now you say why would a h fish hit
53:33
his head against The Rock well they actually do that some of them and what we're seeing is an effort
53:43
to relieve tension by doing something that's totally
53:49
irrational that serves no useful purpose that all it does is relieve
53:55
tension so human beings do this kind of thing
54:01
too uh they engage in displacement activity uh they do something useless
54:07
because they don't know they're frustrated at doing something
54:13
useful um another kind of diversion is simply distractions of all kinds
54:19
entertainments movies televisions football games uh you know somebody
54:26
popping out phone calls uh distractions somebody old friend stops
54:31
by um there's no end to distractions and most people did not
54:37
develop a good very good habits of controlling their susceptibility to
54:44
them okay now the next major obstacle is
54:51
misinformation now our opponents are good at that uh uh if there's true information
54:58
out there that supports our cause in most cases they can't conceal
55:03
it but they can flood the field with all kinds of misinformation so that you don't know
55:10
what's right uh you just if so so bury the truth and
55:17
enough lies and no people can't tell the difference now of course you the
55:24
opposition is not the only one spreading misinformation a lot of earnest
55:30
activists do the same thing they hear somebody that somebody said that somebody said something you know rumors
55:38
spread uh people come up with their own cockamamy ideas uh you know one thing leads to
55:44
another and before you know it uh something is spreading that's not true get everybody going off in the
55:51
wrong direction and course finally a major obstacle or personal
55:58
challenges uh death in the family an illness uh an accident loss of a
56:05
job um a lawsuit a criminal charge all kinds of things can uh divert people
56:13
from From Any Given cause or
56:19
activity okay what do we do when the goal is
56:24
distant well here's where we need to develop inspirational
56:30
techniques Reinhold neber the great Theologian and philosopher once said nothing that is worth doing can be
56:38
achieved in our lifetime therefore we must be saved by
56:43
hope nothing we do however virtuous can be accomplished
56:49
alone therefore we are saved by love no virtuous Act is quite as is
56:56
virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or Foe as it is from our
57:02
standpoint therefore we must be saved by the final form of love which is
57:10
forgiveness this is something and others messages like it that need to be repeated
57:16
often because ultimately what we're engaged in in any given cause any given activity is a kind
57:24
of religion uh it's is similar in many respects if
57:31
not most respects to any other kind of conventional religion but it involves the same kind
57:38
of inspiration and sometimes of course it's blended with conventional
57:45
religion now when the goal is
57:52
complex what do we do all real political reforms are complex and
58:00
obscure if it were easy to understand if it were simple chances are it's already
58:06
in use and maybe has been for hundreds or thousands of years what remains to be done is almost
58:13
always complex usually difficult to understand
58:18
even by the experts uh it can be difficult to
58:24
discern it you know in the complex complexity of everything that surrounds
58:31
it uh when the goal is complex it is not necessary to fully understand to
58:39
act ultimately we don't never really fully understand the world in which we live or
58:47
act uh we have to make educated guesses we have to have develop models that make
58:54
sense uh but they can't be too simple if they're too simple they're
59:01
problem is certainly wrong prob maybe some charlatan idea of a snake
59:07
oil so we have to be aware of snake oil in all of its
59:13
forms when the goal is complex we need to support those who best
59:18
understand the chances are it's not the
59:24
Patriot shyer or uh charlatan who's trying to sell
59:30
some get rich quick solution or some easy way of for to win in court or you
59:37
know some way to make the law the judge do what you want or make the laws not
59:43
apply to you or any of this other stuff that's
59:49
nonsense those people don't understand anything the people who understand will
59:54
in general be highly highly highly educated and intelligent
1:00:00
people they will not be your next door neighbor unless you know you live in a
1:00:06
research Community or something so uh you need to look to
1:00:13
those who know the most about everything or anything uh don't believe or accept the
1:00:22
ideas of uneducated people you need to take one small step at a
1:00:30
time this is important uh in many cases the
1:00:36
complexity uh dissipates to some degree as you get closer to the goal As you
1:00:43
move forward the one St small step at a time
1:00:48
may take you through the forest until you can see the clearing at the other
1:00:54
side you might be confused by the trees as
1:01:00
you in the early stages but uh you can begin to see your way through uh as you
1:01:08
take step by step by step and if it turns out you're headed in the wrong direction maybe you can turn take a
1:01:14
different direction so we can learn as we proceed
1:01:20
and we have to in almost every case which means we have to be prepared to change our PL
1:01:26
our plans of action are working plans that are may be good for to get
1:01:33
started but chances are they're going to have to be changed along the way you know the old military saving saying is
1:01:40
that no plan survives contact with the Enemy uh same is true in any other C any
1:01:49
cause uh you have to be prepared to act quickly respond quickly to changing
1:01:55
situations and of course when the goal is complex
1:02:01
we may pick up others along the way you know as you're taking your steps as
1:02:06
you're learning uh other people may be learning as well or you may be helping
1:02:12
them to learn so people who may not have been fully on board may join
1:02:18
you you know that's what Jon of Arc used to do you know when she was fighting for
1:02:23
her country for France she started out with a small band of
1:02:30
volunteers and as she proceeded and as she began to want to win victories more
1:02:35
and more people rallied to her Banner until she had a whole Army behind
1:02:40
her so uh and she was an is an inspiring figure and by the way for her time
1:02:48
probably one of the best military strategist in history so even though she was
1:02:54
illiterate uh she had a certain amount of natural talent and she had the ability to
1:03:00
inspire and most of the inspiration was of people who didn't understand what she
1:03:05
was doing they just wanted to be to follow
1:03:12
her now we get to opposition um what do the opposition
1:03:20
have going for them first of all they've captured most decision makers and players
1:03:27
in other words most people in government in business in labor in the religious
1:03:34
institutions charitable institutions foundations uh just about everything you
1:03:40
can think of are already on the other side they may not like being
1:03:47
there but the CH odds are that's the only place they can make a
1:03:53
living and if you you know there's a old concept uh due to a guy named Leon
1:04:00
finger of cognitive dissonance that if you do something you
1:04:09
your beliefs your thinking tend to change to agree with what you actually
1:04:17
do now we saw that in the uh uh uh
1:04:23
killing by the Nazis of Jews and slaves and Gypsies and other people in Europe
1:04:30
during World War II with the wardens the the people
1:04:36
holding the prisoners um they may not have believed
1:04:41
in what they were doing but by being forced to do it and
1:04:47
yielding to the pressure to do it eventually they came to think that what they were doing was
1:04:54
right they didn't start out thinking it was right but by the time they did it long enough they did think it was
1:05:02
right and we see that pattern over and over again so it can be real problems
1:05:08
sometimes getting people who are locked into a system to step back and see if
1:05:14
what they're doing for what it really is uh the opposition has cut off most
1:05:21
approaches and opportunities I'm f a point out that we
1:05:27
haven't lost our rights we haven't lost our remedies but we've lost easy access to
1:05:34
our remedies in other words they placed them Out Of Reach made them too expensive too
1:05:40
difficult too complicated they've put up too many Gatekeepers too many obstacles until the
1:05:46
point we've gotten to the point where it's very difficult to achieve Justice in court or in any kind of
1:05:53
administrative proceeding uh in any kind of legislative body you the obstacles
1:06:00
you know are just
1:06:07
Monumental um the opposition has deprived us of resources and skilled
1:06:13
people besides capturing most of those skilled people for their
1:06:19
side uh they keep us so busy just trying to make a living they took say took so
1:06:25
much of our money in taxes or the High Cost of Living the other things of that
1:06:31
sort that we have very little left to devote to any
1:06:36
cause you know I I make fundraising efforts all the time on behalf of the
1:06:42
Constitution society and other uh likeminded organizations do the
1:06:48
same and unfortunately most of the people who support our efforts don't have any money some of them once did but
1:06:56
don't no longer do and if you examine their life stories
1:07:03
Case by case you'll find that in most cases they they were once in a better
1:07:10
position than they are now and the opposition was played a large role in
1:07:15
putting them in the bad position they're in now so if you want to uh you
1:07:24
know take the win out of the sales of dissidents and critics and
1:07:30
opposition just uh make sure that they all lose their jobs me I have had experience of uh
1:07:38
people behind the scenes causing me to lose jobs uh a few words here a few words
1:07:44
there to a a client and uh you know suddenly I don't work there
1:07:49
anymore so it's it's been a familiar pattern uh
1:07:58
now what else does the opposition do well it it funds agents of provocation
1:08:04
and distraction remember a lot of those charlatans I told you about earlier that
1:08:10
spreading misinformation and quick fixes and all that I'm reasonably sure that a
1:08:17
lot of those guys are being handled or even paid by the
1:08:24
opposition they have too much money to work with not to be getting it from
1:08:31
someone other than their scams um I've been in a lot of
1:08:38
gatherings where there seem to be people just swoop in out of the from nowhere to
1:08:46
distract us to uh provoke us to try to get us to engage in violence to do all
1:08:54
kinds of things they come up with all these weird you know wacky ideas they try to sell us on
1:09:02
uh sometimes they almost succeed sometimes they do succeed uh these are not
1:09:10
accidents uh the opposition has a small army of people they employ to do that
1:09:17
the most common technique they use is to charge someone with a crime and say okay
1:09:22
we won't prosecute you but you have to work for us or they say well maybe prosecute your
1:09:30
wife your child you know somebody else that you care about but you've got to work for us so that's how they get
1:09:37
people to work for them to achieve um the opposition has spread
1:09:44
propaganda and misinformation uh they do that in many ways in many
1:09:49
forms uh I encountered it after the Oklahoma
1:09:55
City Bombing when uh suddenly on television there are all these people trying to
1:10:02
blame the event on two things the militia movement and talk
1:10:09
radio and uh so I got to work carrying my a
1:10:15
different message to the media and I knew how to do that I have previous experience in contacting media and
1:10:23
telling them our story or any given cause and I found myself visiting the
1:10:30
same media either slightly before or slightly after these uh fla I call them uh were
1:10:40
spreading the other side of the story in other words it wasn't just spreading you
1:10:46
know by osmosis these were guys actually hired to go out and talk to members of the
1:10:53
media with their missive information and it led to a funny story
1:11:00
because uh I was uh uh once heard back from a producer at one of the media
1:11:08
Outlets that I had contacted and I got there before the
1:11:15
opposition flat got there and the producer told me
1:11:20
privately that her boss had told this flat
1:11:26
act well Mr Roland of the militia movement has already spoken to us about
1:11:32
that in his story is more convincing than yours what I learned is that the people
1:11:39
they send out to do this kind of thing are not necessarily the best and
1:11:44
brightest uh we can beat them if we know what would what we're doing a lot of
1:11:51
them are just do nothing to stay on message and keep repeating the the same crap over and over and over again they
1:11:58
don't know how to think for themselves they don't know how to think on their feet they don't know how to formulate an
1:12:03
argument all they had to know how to do is follow a
1:12:09
script now the opposition has also suppressed
1:12:14
our leaders and our messages uh there are many ways have done that from Prosecuting them
1:12:21
criminally to causing them to lose their jobs to you know perhaps causing
1:12:27
accidents you know there are all sorts of ways of doing that but uh they do do
1:12:34
it um and it's something we need to plan on and be ready
1:12:41
for and the thing to realize about the
1:12:47
opposition it's easy to blame everything on malevolent
1:12:54
individuals we tend to see the opposition as a bunch of Darth
1:13:00
Vaders well I spent enough time years actually in the centers of
1:13:07
power and they are mostly not bad people
1:13:12
most of them think of themselves as good guys uh they're largely wrong but they
1:13:18
think of themselves that way and but what they're doing most of
1:13:25
them are simply making the best of the situation in which they find themselves and the system in which they
1:13:33
find themselves provides the structure the incentives the motivation for
1:13:40
everyone involved to do what they do if you replaced all the individuals
1:13:47
today tomorrow The Replacements would start behaving the same
1:13:52
way so it's not just a matter now that there is an element of a few rotten
1:13:58
apples spoiling the barrel that phenomenon certainly is is a real
1:14:04
phenomenon but once the whole Barrel is
1:14:10
spoiled sometimes all you can do is burn the barrel you know you you can't you can
1:14:18
throw out all the apples you can try to clean it out disinfect it but some but
1:14:24
sometimes they're just the the barrel is gone it's can't it's not not
1:14:29
salvageable so what we need to be looking for primarily is structural and
1:14:36
procedural Solutions we can't depend on just replacing individuals with better
1:14:43
ones uh particularly when we can't replace them all at once um
1:14:50
so the structural and procedural Solutions however tend to to be more
1:14:56
complicated uh it's the the feedback looks be very complicated so that it's
1:15:02
not always easy to tell what CH structural or procedural changes have to
1:15:07
be made or what their consequences will be now what do we do when the public
1:15:16
won't learn or think um in the founding era people were
1:15:23
eager to learn John Adams once said that an illiterate man is as rare as an
1:15:29
earthquake or plague uh almost everybody was literate
1:15:35
well they didn't have a lot of they didn't have public schools as we know them how did we people become so
1:15:40
literate well the answer is they were determined to learn and if you're determined to learn you
1:15:46
will uh we don't need public schools that people were really want to
1:15:52
learn uh public schools are just uh you know an attempt to fix a lacks of a
1:15:58
lack of motivation on the part of kids to teach themselves I mean I didn't depend on
1:16:04
schools to learn I was years ahead of my classmates um would have probably
1:16:12
learned as much or more if I hadn't gone to school at all but I was determined to
1:16:19
learn and what we need to do is to get people to be determined to learn and
1:16:25
they're in a culture that does not encourage that so what do we do when the public is
1:16:32
distracted by unimportant things you can call them generically circuses from the old uh Latin
1:16:39
expression pet censes bread and circuses that was a formula used by the
1:16:46
Roman emperors to keep the people of Rome Placid so they wouldn't throw them
1:16:54
out uh they provided them with free or
1:16:59
lowcost subsidized bread and uh they kept them entertained
1:17:04
with public spectacles and that's the way they kept
1:17:10
control well today uh most circuses are not put on by the government except unless you count
1:17:18
Wars but uh the private sectors does an excellent job of doing it by
1:17:23
itself and so what do we do when the public are afraid of losing what they think they
1:17:31
have uh what we encounter a lot is uh you approach somebody maybe he's got a
1:17:37
job he's got a pension you know he's got a house a business and uh they might be afraid of
1:17:46
losing something but they're also afraid of losing a lot
1:17:51
more and people you know the old song says Freedom's just another word
1:17:58
for Nothing Left to Lose well for a lot of people until they
1:18:03
lose everything they're not in a frame of mind to become
1:18:10
active um a certain amount of prosperity makes
1:18:17
people unwilling to act because they're afraid of losing what they have well the
1:18:22
fact is that we're about everybody's about lose everything anyway so uh the
1:18:28
people don't want to face that fact but uh sooner or later they will and then
1:18:35
we'll have have a different situation okay another thing what do we
1:18:42
do when the public wants to to Ghost Dance Now what do I mean by ghost
1:18:47
dancing ghost dancing is a form of displacement behavior that I mentioned earlier you remember the old story about
1:18:55
the Indians up in uh the Northwest Idaho
1:19:02
Montana uh they developed a religious belief that if they just danced around
1:19:09
that the white man's bullets couldn't kill them so they were invoking their gods
1:19:14
their deities their their beliefs and try to achieve a religious State of Mind
1:19:19
whatever you would call call it through dance and and that if they did they
1:19:25
would make them immune well they got
1:19:31
slaughtered and the same thing happens to people uh in other
1:19:36
areas um people will fasten on an unsound
1:19:43
belief thinking that he will protect them when he won't uh this is a classic form of
1:19:52
pathological behavior that is is very difficult to fight against especially
1:19:57
once it sets in next what do we do when the public
1:20:02
refus to be led and insist on their own programs well sometimes all you all you
1:20:08
can do is just let them go off on their own and fail and maybe after they fail they'll come around and be more
1:20:17
receptive uh what do they do if what do you do if the public lacks basic
1:20:22
understanding and critical skills I mean we've got the problem now you know we didn't have in the founding era
1:20:30
that so many people read at such a low level and are unable to write at an
1:20:36
advanced level uh they lack the basic mathematical skills to
1:20:43
evaluate what is and is not scientifically
1:20:48
sound um Americans is you uh education is not
1:20:55
just to help people do a job it's to help people make sound decisions in
1:21:01
their everyday lives you know you don't just study the Sciences so that you can use the
1:21:08
Sciences to in your work you study it so you can make Intelligent Decisions about
1:21:15
what products and services to buy you know how to invest your money uh what
1:21:20
candidates to vote for uh you know where to go on your vacation you know there are thousands and
1:21:26
thousands of decisions that you will make better if you are educated many
1:21:32
many many different fields so education is broadly useful
1:21:38
for every area of life whether you realize it or not and most people Unfortunately they don't realize it
1:21:45
we've become so focused on education as vocational in nature the Preparing
1:21:50
People for work but we've loost lost sight of the real purpose of education
1:21:55
which is prepare good citizens and then finally what do we do
1:22:01
when the public prefer hopelessness and other excuses uh there's a tendency for people
1:22:09
to say oh the situation is hopeless uh therefore I don't have to do anything
1:22:14
you know uh you know it provides them with an excuse for doing
1:22:20
something for not doing something for not doing anything
1:22:25
um well there are no excuses uh we are in trouble uh it
1:22:32
excuses won't help you it might make you feel a little bit better in the short
1:22:38
term but you know it's not going to save you you have to act whether you know
1:22:45
what to do whether there's hope you know regardless you've just got to
1:22:53
proceed George Washington said it best uh on the final day of the
1:23:01
Constitutional Convention September 17
1:23:07
1787 a lot of the delegates were discouraged they weren't satisfied with
1:23:12
the Constitution they had just drafted a lot of them thought it was too complicated they people wouldn't accept
1:23:19
it you know they or if it was accepted that it would fail
1:23:26
uh but George Washington said these words let us raise a standard to which
1:23:33
the wise and the honest can repair the event is in the hands of
1:23:40
God now what did he mean by that in those few words George
1:23:46
Washington summarized his Central ethic and that of
1:23:53
most of the other Founders it was the ethic of
1:24:04
virtue he was saying that we are not responsible for outcomes only for making our best
1:24:11
efforts to do our duty and he identified virtue as the F
1:24:19
Foundation but of course ver virt it's virtuous to do one's duty
1:24:25
some ethical systems make Duty primary but they don't tell you where the I
1:24:32
understanding what your duty is comes from and the founders recognize that
1:24:39
virtue is more fundamental because you need virtue to figure out what your duty
1:24:47
is so that ends my presentation for right now uh and the floor is open to
1:24:59
questions so where do we go from here what do we do what's the clear course of action that was identified
1:25:04
early following up on that well a clear course of action we've
1:25:11
got right now is is is nullification right now we have a lame
1:25:18
brain bill that's been introduced in the state legislature
1:25:25
by Leo Burman it is too late to file any more
1:25:31
bills it's going to come up pretty soon for a hearing I will be testifying and when I
1:25:39
do what I will testify is that the bill as written should be
1:25:47
rejected but more importantly it needs to be amended it's not too late to make
1:25:53
amendments that's right and the amendment I call for is really more of a
1:25:58
substitution it's replace the whole thing well about the only thing it would have in common would keep the
1:26:05
number but uh it's basically my nullification
1:26:10
proposal and what I could use would be people joining me I'll put out the word
1:26:15
when the time come I get the exact time and day to join me in testifying all to
1:26:22
the same effect if we can get enough people all you know lining up all
1:26:27
supporting my position it can make a difference it just did recently Burman
1:26:34
also introduced the bill to impose a fee on you know to get on the ballot for
1:26:42
third parties he was going to want us to pay $750 or more to get on the
1:26:49
ballot and we testified against that and he withdrew it
1:26:56
so of course we withdrew it because there was opposition on the committee what we need to do now is to
1:27:03
say well nullification is a good idea but not this plan not this bill but you
1:27:11
can amend it and here's how to amend it and I'll I'll hand it hand out the proposal that may not
1:27:18
work even if it works past the committee it may not be get you know adopted by
1:27:25
the legislature or it might be vetoed by the governor although I have some reason
1:27:30
to think he might like it but uh we have to do what we can and you
1:27:37
guys can help particularly those of you who have a job or a non-job that you can take off
1:27:44
during the day which me unfortunately I do have
1:27:50
vacation coming up uh in April I think so if it calls in within my vacation
1:27:55
time I can possibly help them do you know what the date was yet or don't know yet I'll put out the word on the would
1:28:01
you anti the group and everybody else a matter of days or a matter of weeks or months uh within three four days
1:28:07
probably oh very soon very soon yeah oh good probably a get
1:28:15
off anyway do do what you can if nothing else send letters or phone calls or
1:28:20
faxes or whatever you can do I got the first notice of that from Pat and I before I closed that email I
1:28:30
already found the names and got to the web pages and sent the emails to my yeah
1:28:37
reps and then I picked one of the guys on the committee in I forget which one
1:28:43
think I think I tried to pick the chairman of the committee and I said stop this C
1:28:50
yep well another thing we need to do is oppose this guy's proposal for a constitutional
1:28:57
convention the whole there's a whole bunch of legislation most of it is just bad that we need to oppose but some of
1:29:04
it could be fixed and I'm always in favor of fixing things if somebody started something
1:29:11
that needs to be fixed it's a lot easier than trying to get it started yeah
1:29:16
because they've already whatever they've done they've broken that shell and they've got something so yeah that makes
1:29:23
sense so um what's your assessment of Leo burman's uh um bill that he introduced I
1:29:32
you anticipate that he's just misguided or I mean he's typically pretty open to
1:29:37
the you know for lack of a better world the Patriot CA yeah I think he just is a
1:29:43
few bricks short and somebody just gave him a is it actually called a notification yeah he he's a nice old guy
1:29:50
but uh facilities to yeah he doesn't think through these things I think he
1:29:57
can be persuaded he told me that he would vote for my proposal if somebody else introduced it but now what we need
1:30:04
to do is to tell them no what you're doing needs to be replaced with this but where did he get the text or his from
1:30:10
the 10th Amendment Center OH is their standard proposal there are two there are two
1:30:17
competing groups that are introducing legislation and state legislatures the
1:30:23
10th Amendment Center is one group and the other is an outfit called the US
1:30:28
Patriot Union well the 10th Amendment Center is typically pretty solid material right
1:30:36
so they dep their presentation of the problem is and have historical
1:30:43
background but their legislative Solutions are ridiculous
1:30:50
okay and I keep telling them that and I think some of them are showing signs of beginning to realize that I'm right but
1:30:58
it's so problem that once they put something out there they don't want to admit that it's a bad idea i' say well
1:31:04
you don't have to admit it's a bad idea just add my proposal to these others but would say well trouble is if
1:31:10
people look at them side by side they're going to realize that the first ones are bad ideas and the US Patriot Union is uh
1:31:18
really arrogant and obuse I mean they're you know all but call me you know an you enemy of the
1:31:26
country do when I tried to prop tell them that their idea was a bad
1:31:31
one well actually their idea is closer to mine than the 10th Amendment Center
1:31:36
is but they have all these flaws built into it you know it it looks like they
1:31:43
borrow some of my language but then screwed it up as so it was an effort to head me off
1:31:52
with a a bad idea and I get that impression in talking to
1:32:00
them those just that's what kind of thing the opposition
1:32:08
does but again their stuff could be fixed well we need to get in in
1:32:13
Tennessee and uh Idaho and Arizona and
1:32:19
various other states where one or the other of the two groups have in is
1:32:25
stough um I know we've talked about this before but did you just say that you not
1:32:32
in favor of a constitutional convention you want to fight it yeah I'm against
1:32:38
it so you're taking the position of the what legue of Women Voters and JBS word
1:32:45
and such Why are you against it I mean I've made the case many times well I'm
1:32:51
for it so I guess we can have a fight but I think at this
1:32:57
point I mean we're sinking and it's going to sink so we may as well do it
1:33:04
and secondly I I see no scenario where any bad ideas can be ratified by three4
1:33:10
of the states so I don't understand the concern I've never understood well the problem is try to
1:33:16
imagine how would a constitutional convention be convened and who would
1:33:22
attend it would not be People Like
1:33:28
Us the most likely scenario would to would be you can be
1:33:34
seen by imagining taking the Republican National Convention in a Democratic
1:33:39
National Convention having them meet together in the same Hall at the same time and having those guys try to work
1:33:46
out a some amendments to the Constitution I mean they can't even uh
1:33:53
work out of platforms okay so the worst case scenario they come up with a page
1:33:59
two page 10 pages full of garbage what's the risk well the risk is I we might
1:34:04
actually get you know balanced budget amendments and some other things one thing a balanced budget amendment is
1:34:11
another bad idea there's no way to write a balanced budget amendment that can
1:34:16
work um so that that's another one of those
1:34:22
distractions the way you deal with the with the money problem is to do away with the OD
1:34:29
currency you do away with the OD currency then that takes care of the Federal Reserve it takes care of
1:34:35
balancing the budget everything else Falls in place okay well maybe they could propose um getting rid of the fiat
1:34:41
currency I mean there's got to be a few things that could be done well that make come out of it that would POS it's not
1:34:48
going to come out of Constitutional Convention it's going to come out of people in each state developing specific
1:34:56
proposals taking them to their state legislators having the state legislatur
1:35:01
adopt a resolution urging Congress to adopt this exact
1:35:08
language in Congress seeing so many states asking them to adopt this exact
1:35:16
language that they adopted and send it back to the States for ratification with no
1:35:22
changes in other words we the reformers have to
1:35:29
formulate the language we cannot leave it to others particularly the kind of
1:35:34
people who would attend any such of a convention it won't be us it won't be
1:35:40
the experts the Constitutional Convention would just be an exercise
1:35:45
in chaos sure and just be a waste of time that we don't need people how it
1:35:53
would succeed would be the people who are the most devious y to bring some kind of a plan
1:36:01
to where whatever idea they have would Prevail and yeah and in fact there's a a
1:36:09
uh movement that's been more or less in place for almost 50 years now to do just
1:36:20
that I mean they've even drafted a a replacement Constitution it's basically on uses a
1:36:27
parliamentary system sort of like a written Constitution but for you know Britain or
1:36:34
other parliamentary uh republics we basically Parliament is
1:36:41
supreme there's no Bill of Rights uh uh Parliament chooses the executive
1:36:49
it chooses the Judiciary everything is in Parliament it's one big
1:36:55
oligarchy yeah that's but again there's no risk if if if three4 of the states
1:37:00
aren't going to ratify it I mean all bad ideas the process Itself by by having ratification already solves that that
1:37:08
conern you cannot depend so uh you cannot depend on these same interest
1:37:14
groups not to get in there in each state and sway the state
1:37:20
legislator which is what's going on now yeah it's already happening so this is this approach is
1:37:27
just it's too dangerous it's a best a distraction there's no way that it can
1:37:34
be helpful there I said it again and again
1:37:41
and again do not leave to others the job of writing reform
1:37:46
proposals we have to write them we cannot depend on anyone else to
1:37:53
do that that I have I have written a whole bunch of
1:37:59
amendments I have yet I have presented them to a lot of people I say okay try to find find some fault with
1:38:07
these only a few people have looked to them seriously and nobody can find any fault with them they agree John it's
1:38:14
right on you it's is perfect it's no room for improvement and after a conversation
1:38:21
some around even I find room for improvement but and they didn't but
1:38:26
uh uh I've done the work now what we need is be people to buy into
1:38:33
that and if we even got a you know two or three of those amendments uh proposed by state
1:38:41
legislature to Congress and then proposed back to the state legislatures
1:38:47
I mean every everyone would make a huge difference don't have to adopt them all
1:38:53
I I admit there are too many of them but uh unfortunately the situation is such
1:39:00
that we're going to have to do a lot of them Randy Barnett started out with
1:39:06
10 and they they didn't go anywhere because they really really weren't that well written and uh then he tried to reduce
1:39:14
it to one and that was lame you can't do it with one
1:39:20
um you have to do it just like you do with with any contractual relationship
1:39:26
when the original contract wasn't written very well you had to get in and
1:39:31
renegotiate and and fix or clar you probably clarify the points of
1:39:37
ambiguity clawed by Clause by Clause by clause and very often a you you start
1:39:45
with a two-page contract you want wind up with a 20page contract but there's no way to avoid
1:39:51
that that's what you have to do so we start out with a four page
1:39:57
Constitution we might wind up with a 400 page Constitution if that's what it takes that's what we have to
1:40:06
do a lot of people will reject that because they say GE this is going to start looking like the tax
1:40:13
code and why because they don't read enough of
1:40:20
yeah but even if the amendments are not adopted simply pushing them getting them
1:40:26
close to adoption would have a tremendous beneficial effect it can it can serve to focus our
1:40:34
entire efforts but we're not even get going to get to the point where we can propose
1:40:39
amendments until we do make progress on nullification we have to get states to
1:40:46
resist Federal efforts to put the whole country in a frame of mind where it
1:40:51
begins thinking in terms of amendments so it's sort of a large two-step
1:41:01
process that's something that would be very subtle but it would
1:41:07
shift the playing field only
1:41:13
to open the door to yeah and I just don't find a lot of
1:41:21
people thinking in these terms we I need more people that
1:41:30
do um that's why the PE party was so successful because it was getting people's reactions people was giving
1:41:37
people things they could react to yeah and that's that gave him something to do in
1:41:42
the moment but yeah it's not really and of course now the guys they've elected
1:41:48
to congress are in the position of having been elected to be against things
1:41:54
but they don't know how to develop constructive
1:41:59
Solutions so there's there's still missing the the uh the creative
1:42:05
intellectual component in all of that the ability and willingness to
1:42:11
develop detailed complex stepbystep you know
1:42:16
Solutions and it has to start here at our level it's not going to happen in
1:42:21
Congress it's not going to happen in some you know bureaucratic agency it's not going to happen in you know the
1:42:29
courts you just explain part of why that is the way it is other than the basic
1:42:35
self-preservation mode and people want things to stay the way they are so inur is a wonderful thing but the people who
1:42:41
function in that environment don't have the intellect to come up with the changes so
1:42:48
they have to be willing to follow somebody who does right and they have to know how to recognize those people and
1:42:54
that's that recog ability to recognize requires an understanding that is deficient in that part of the population
1:43:02
yeah and that means changing out the whole Barrel oh M Leo the risk of changing out
1:43:10
the whole Barrel is are enough of us bright enough and
1:43:15
have we vetted all of the new apples M are we just going to put in all the
1:43:21
people that are going to destroy us yeah who's going to make the railroads
1:43:26
run yeah well anyway we need to aband in
1:43:32
our position here library is about to close
1:43:39
uh I hope you've enjoyed all this worth the wait good said
1:43:50
slides let me ask a dumb question
1:43:55
you got yourself on video I've got a friend in South
1:44:02
Carolina who is boots on the ground for this kind of
1:44:08
stuff his current focus is fair tax but he's
1:44:17
his he's already headed in this direction he just he thinks he's flying
1:44:23
the fair tax flag at the moment but he's totally fed up with everything else you we've we've known each other
1:44:30
been this way for years how do I share that video with him well I'm going
1:44:37
to put it online he can review it okay now I'll be sending out
1:44:43
a a link to it and the message to the group I've looked for a couple other
1:44:50
ones and it's like I there something I didn't understand or
1:44:55
something I failed to ask or there was a couple other ones I was thinking about looking at like this one in particular
1:45:01
I've already told him I sent him a couple of the links that OB what is it
1:45:07
obur obit obit or dictum obit or dictum
1:45:14
yeah and I just sent him the link
#Public Policy