NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/phl/misc/327

Internet Message Format | 1992-12-26 | 5.8 KB

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From: [e-mail] (William A Bacon)
Newsgroups: phl.misc,pa.general,alt.conspiracy,alt.activism,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Philadelphia -II
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 26 Dec 92 15:04:04 GMT
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    MIKE GRAVEL AND PHILADELPHIA II
    During our nation's bicentennial year of 1976, then U.S. senator Mike
Gravel (D-AK) rged his constituents and all Americans to learn to be "world
citizens first and Americans second." When others were trying to get fellow
citizens to appreciate the marvelous Declaration of Independence and the
great heritigeit inaugurated, here was one of the nations top elected
officials suggesting that they subordinate their patriotism to an undefined
world citizenship.
    At the very next opportunity, in 1980, Alaskan voters had endured enough
of their eccentric and frequently apalling leader and sent him packing.
   Did he stay in Alaska? like most defeated politicians, he went elsewhere.
But unlike most who find themselves unable to break free of the heady
atmosphere in the Washington DC area, he went to California where he has just
re-emerged as the leader of a controversial scheme known as "Philadelphia
II."
      WORLD GOVERNMENT HOKUM
   If you feel threatened by war, pollution, hunger, and the loss of human
rights, Mike Gravel has an answer. If you would like to swap national
sovereignty and the U.S. Constitution for a "world federal government" and a
"world constitution," his Philadelphia II plan is for you.
    The wayit is supposed to work is quite simple. The people call for a
worldwide convention, elect delegates who draw up constitution for a world
government, and then vote referendum-style to accept the new system.
According to GRavel, it's all very much like events in the early days of this
nation when a call for a convention was held in 1787, the delegates met in
Philadelphia, and the Constitution they  wrote was eventually ratified by the
separate states. If it worked in Philadelphia in 1787, it could work for the
world in the 1990's.
    How does all of this get started? Gravel's two-page flyer (realize that
he's just getting started) proposes "a world referendum that asks the people
if they want a convention to address global problems." If they want it, then
"delegates are elected and the convention is convened."
     Realizing that "not all political jurisdictions...permit referendums for
their people," Gravel's plan calls for starting the processwhere they do
exist. He claims his plan "will permit the American people to circumvent
their unresponsicve leadership." And he has chosen Calfornia as the place to
begin because it "has an excellent referendum law." Believing that California
voters can "awaken the people of the world to the possibilities of a world
convention," he intends to submit the philadelphia II initiative to the
Secreary of State of California in January 1994 "for placement on the general
election ballot in November 1994."
  As soon as he meets with success in California, he will go to the other
sates and even force the enactment of a federal law permitting national
referendums. With the U.S. in his camp, he will then spread his wings and
gather in, country by country, the rest of mankind.
   Because so many truly wild ideas have already achieved legitimacy in this
nation, it's a bit dangerous to stick one's neck out say that Gravel's
cockamanie scheme will go nowhere. Surely, the good people of California will
recognize Philadelphia II as subversive nonsense. Or will they?
    Appeals to the people.
   Appeals to the people have been long been the tools of demagogues who
intend to rule rather than be ruled. What too many Americans have forgotten
is that freedom exists where government power is limited merely to protecting
rights. The reason America has slowed down is not that government isn't
working, it's that government is working too much. Its powers andits cost
have soared far beyond the limitations set in the Constitution created in
Philadelphia I.
     When a politician prates about the people ruling, he intends that they
give him power to do whatever he wants in their name. Daniel Webster once
stated, "There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but when they
mean to govern.
   They promise to be good masters, but they promise to be masters."
Precisely! And Thomas Jefferson warned that "confidence is everywhere the
parent of despotism... In questions of power, then, let no more be heared of
confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the
Constitution."
Yet the Gravel plan would cast aside the chains of in this nation's
Constitution."
   In 1848, an ambitious demagogue named Karl Marx set down a plan to rule.
COmplete with appeals to the people, His COMMUNIST MANIFESTO actually stated
that "the first step in the revolutuion [is] to win the battle  of
democracy."Like Marx, Gravel wants a world democracy and the unrestrained
rule of the majority. But the awful truth is that the tyranny of a majority
is historically as violent a tyranny as could possibly exist.
   If Mike Gravel's Philadelphia II stimulates anyone to learn about
Philadelphia I that produced the government-and majority limiting U.S.
COnstitution, then it will have produced some good effect. By itself, it is
unadulterated and dangerous Hokum.
John F. McManus
National president of theJohn Birch Society
1-800-JBS-USA1
have your major credit card ready so you can order
our $5.00 informational packet.
770 Westhill Blvd.
Appleton, Wis. 54915-5787

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[e-mail] (William A Bacon)
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