Apollo BBS Archive - January 1992

Apollo BBS Archive - January 7, 1992


X-Rated Cosmos Bulletin Board command:$C

Message: 5294
Author: $ Gordon Little
Category: Cosmos-Chatter
Subject: Bad news
Date: 01/07/92  Time: 02:49:15

Our neighbor's house burned down at Thanksgiving in 1990.  It's a pretty
devastating blow.  They still haven't got it replaced, though they're still
operating their business on the land (training horses).

The good news I heard this evening is that Russ Whitney is moving toward
consciousness; so much so, in fact, that they're sedating him because he
wants to fight his breathing tube.  They want to keep him well ventilated to
speed up the healing process.

Message: 5295
Author: $ Beauregard Dog
Category: Cosmos-Chatter
Subject: Breathing tube
Date: 01/07/92  Time: 21:22:05

Yeah, but they're going to cut open his throat now and stick in a tube --
tracheotomy, tracheostomy -- and they hope he'll start breathing on his own
within about seven days or there might be complications from this.

Message: 5296
Author: $ Rod Williams
Category: Cosmos-Chatter
Subject: last
Date: 01/08/92  Time: 00:22:58

If I were badly damaged and a good recovery seemed unlikely then I rather be
unplugged and allowed to go it on my own.  If for instance I lost several
limbs or my eyeballs or was mentally impaired then I'd rather be pushing up
daisies than trying to take part in this system.

I know there have been many people who were physically deformed but made
contributions to the human race on one level or another.  Helen Keller comes
to mind.  I just think we humans tend to put too much emphasis on staying
alive in these physical bodies.  

The survivors are the ones who are hurt the most perhaps.

Public Bulletin Board command:$C

Message: 81304
Author: $ Gordon Little
Category: Politics
Subject: Parties
Date: 01/07/92  Time: 02:34:45

Most of the problems with political parties can be boiled down to the fact
that party leaders don't always do the will of the party's ordinary members.
It would be very advantageous to force changes in the way the parties
operate, but the difficulty here is that both the Republocrat and the
Demolician party benefit from the way the system is structured, and they're
both going to fight any changes tooth and nail.

I'm not sure if requiring "members to actually agree with 90% of the party
platform before allowing them into the party" refers to "members" who are
actually running for political office, or ordinary supporters who just
contribute money, votes, and effort, and generally cheer the party on.  If
it means the former, then I wholeheartedly agree.  If it means the latter, I
can't see what would possibly force a party to institute a rule that would
erode its support base by excluding members.  Anyway, it's one thing to make
sure party members agree with the policies of the party; but isn't the real
goal the converse one: to make party policy reflect the will of its members?

A fundamental difficulty in trying to force change in the Federal government
is that there's too little provision for the ordinary citizen to initiate
such change effectively.  Any call for such change is heavily filtered
through the machinations of incumbent politicians and watered down by the
layers of party machinery.  Getting a third party off the ground to the
point that it presents a realistic threat to the two established ones has
been prohibitively difficult so far.

To win votes, a party must have very broad appeal.  This is more true than
ever if it's a newcomer competing with two strongly established parties.
There are lots of smaller parties, though many of them focus on one issue
(tax limitation, "Green" parties and so forth) and so can never have really
broad appeal.  What issue could be general enough to garner widespread
support?  How about the one issue that everybody complains about: the way
government itself is run and its unresponsiveness to popular demands about
the things that never seem to change, regardless of who is in power?

Surely it should be possible to establish a new party whose platform is
simply that it will respond to its members' views on the issues.  This must
be written into the party's own constitution right from the start.  Such a
party, if successful in elections, could act as a kind of "government within
the government".  The party constitution would mandate frequent (perhaps
weekly) newsletters summarizing the pros and cons of issues and legislation
in progress, and provide for initiative petitions from its members and
letter ballots allowing the ordinary member to express his opinions: A, B,
C, D, or "None of the Above", whatever the issue happened to be.  The
party's constitution would bind its representatives elected to public office
to follow the expressed will of the members when it came to voting on a bill
in Congress, for example.  I would expect an enormous interest in truly
participatory government.  I'd think a modest subscription of $100 a year or
so should cover the cost of these services to members.  I think I'd call it
the "Citizens' Party".  Now why hasn't this idea been tried?

Message: 81306
Author: $ Gordon Little
Category: Religion
Subject: Creationism
Date: 01/07/92  Time: 02:37:13

Science is a vast, intricate network of interrelated observations and
theories.  By and large, the pieces fit together fairly neatly, like a well-
done jigsaw puzzle.  The reason they do fit together is that thousands of
people over the course of centuries have examined these pieces and asked
themselves how they fit together best.  There are still a great many small
gaps, and some much larger ones with question marks in them.  There are also
many pieces that don't fit together quite right, leaving lumps and bumps.
Every so often, someone makes a major discovery that just doesn't fit the
rest of the puzzle, and then a whole bunch of pieces have to be pulled out
and rearranged to make room for the new data.

The problem with trying to find a place for a doctrine like creationism is
that it just won't fit.  There is a little data that one could interpret to
mean that the world was made no earlier than 4004 BC, that men were created
from nothing, and so forth.  There's also a great mountain of other data to
suggest that things happened differently.  It's rather like examining
material evidence with a comparator microscope.  "Exhibit A showed twenty-
three points of similarity with Exhibit B, and I therefore conclude that the
bullet found in the body of the deceased was fired from the defendant's
gun."  It's all a matter of probabilities, but the probability of one thing
being true is doubtful, while the probability of the other is overwhelming.

I wonder if people who cling to dogmas such as creationism have a great need
for absolute certainties in life, even though such certainties don't exist.

The great strength of creationism is that if you accept it, it *is* a
certainty.  It's fixed.  It never changes, unlike scientific knowledge which
is constantly being revised.  It's rigid, like the Rock of Ages; and a rock
can be a more comforting thing than shifting sand.  But that same rigidity
makes it hard to deal with.  You can't force it easily into the jigsaw
puzzle of scientific knowledge, because it won't give.

If it were a flexible doctrine, you could look at it and say "the words in
the Book are evidence of some kind, so let's see what set of circumstances
might have caused men to write these words down on paper."  And you'd factor
in what you know about religion, and ancient history, and legend, and
allegory, and you'd even come up with a core of truth that's important.

But when it won't bend even one inch, the only way to fit it into the puzzle
is to hammer it in so that everything else gets twisted out of shape.
Anything that's fundamentally untrue has this kind of effect.  If you tell
one falsehood, you have to tell ten more to cover it up, and a hundred more
to cover up those ten, and so on.

A beautiful example of this kind of distortion is one attempt of "creation
scientists" to explain why the universe looks older than they believe it is.
Assuming cosmology is accurate about the distance of some stars, light must
have taken several hundred thousand years to reach the Earth from those
stars.  How could this happen if the universe was only 6,000 years old?

Their answer is that light must have traveled *faster* in the past!  The
speed of light must be gradually decreasing over the centuries.  This is of
course a possibility, though it's very odd that no other evidence has been
found to support it.  A very large part of physics is based on the hopeful
notion that the speed of light is fixed in all time and space.  In fact, now
I come to think of it, all of science without exception is founded on the
idea that scientific laws are constant in all time and space, as long as
conditions remain unchanged.  Accommodating this particular creationist
hypothesis requires a noticeable bending of the entire framework of science.

One answer to accommodating creationism in schools in past decades has been
simply to leave a big gap in the scientific jigsaw puzzle where it would
conflict with creationist doctrine.  The most glaring gap is in biology,
where you can't afford to speak of evolution -- although evolution is one of
the very foundations of biology.  Perhaps, as I discussed in the FILm SIG
earlier, the idea of Things Turning Into Other Things is a frightening one
for some.  But then you can't do much with geology either.  As soon as you
get into how long it takes for a mountain range to erode, or continents to
drift apart, you have to shut up.  Perhaps you can't afford to teach physics
either, where topics like dating by radioactive decay and the constant speed
of light may be regarded as heresy.

Another solution proposed in the past was "equal time for creation science".

Schools would teach "ten minutes of Darwin, and ten minutes of Creationism",
as one critic put it.  Attempts were made to legislate this "two-model"
approach in several states, including Arkansas and Louisiana.  These
proposals seem to be dead at present, since the Supreme Court saw a
suspicious similarity between the conclusions of "creation science" and
certain well-known religious writings.

I must confess to a slight twinge of regret when this happened.  It's not
that I thought "equal time for creation science" was a good idea, if it
would take time away from teaching *real* science.  I had a slight hope that
if we let the creation scientists have their way, then they might stop
complaining about the teaching of evolution in those same schools and we
could fill in a knowledge gap that many children have been deprived of.  But
the main reason was that I thought the results of the two-model approach
might be unexpectedly amusing.

The human mind has a wonderful capacity for doublethink.  Two completely
opposite ideas can be held simultaneously in the mind for an indefinite
period of time, as long as they're carefully separated from one another.
Alcoholics, for example, are very good at this process of denial.  Even
after numerous blackouts, car accidents, and other embarrassing incidents
due to drink, they can persist in believing that drinking is not a problem
to them.  But you don't have to be alcoholic or otherwise dysfunctional to
practice denial.  I think everybody does it at times.

The key to denial is to keep the two opposing ideas safely apart,
compartmentalized in the mind.  Since so many people cling to creationism
and suchlike doctrines, in spite of so much contradictory evidence, I'm sure
they must be doing something like this.  They can see an item in a newspaper
or magazine about evolution, and ignore it or pretend they didn't see it.
Perhaps they can even take a school science examination and regurgitate
facts that flatly contradict the possibility of creationism.  But as long as
they can keep one story for the classroom and another for the church or
everyday life, they can somehow avoid a real confrontation between the two.

This isn't quite the same thing, but just a year or two ago I made some
remark to my mother about evolution and she stared at me in astonishment.
"What?" she said.  "You don't think we were descended from monkeys, do you?"

(Well, no Mum, that's not actually what the theory of evolution *says*...
but that was beside the point.)  I must have been just as astounded that she
*didn't* believe in it as she seemed to be that I *did*.  The real surprise
to me was not so much that we believed different things, but that in so many
years we had never realized the existence of that conflict.

I'd guess the result of teaching both theories side by side would be that
more children would see that conflict, and would have to confront it there
and then.  It would have to be resolved.  A championship fight can only have
one winner, and the outcome might not be the one the creationists hoped for.

Message: 81311
Author: James Matlock
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: gold fever
Date: 01/07/92  Time: 03:11:25

Honestly, I've just about had it up to here with all of this absolute crap
about gold, is miraculous power to resist inflation, and its eternal value.
 
Gold is no different from any other investment or commodity: you have to buy
at the right time and sell at the right time.  You can't just buy it any
time and salt it away in your vault and hope to keep up with inflation in
any long-term, averaged sense.  I've got a stack of books about things which
really interest me, but I'm this close to visiting the library to do a
little research.  I think it might prove interesting to see how much (if at
all) gold has risen in value in the last six months, and to see if its rise
(if it has risen) even keeps up with inflation, much less provides as good
an investment as an ordinary bank account.
 
I'm also not going to stand for any of this "gold hasn't changed its value,
the dollar has" crap either.  Sure, the dollar has changed in value, but so
has gold, many times.  Perhaps I'll contrast the rise or fall of gold with
the inverse and simultaneous behavior of another precious metal -- like
silver.  The dollar can't go both ways at once, can it?
 
The only thing which inhibits me at all is the certain knowledge that
anything I find will be met with the same dogmatic obduracy as the fossil
record is met with by creationists.  It's largely a waste of my time.
And Rod -- if you want gold or silver, go a precious metals broker and buy
it.  

Message: 81312
Author: $ Nick Ianuzzi
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: last
Date: 01/07/92  Time: 03:32:09

Stop repeating yourself --- you said that in volume 666,901,258,003,242,437.

Message: 81313
Author: James Matlock
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: 1/1
Date: 01/07/92  Time: 03:38:27

I've had requests for the other deleted message, so I decided to edit it 
too and post it again.  It is directed against one individual, but I've 
edited out the purely gratuitous and somewhat pointed remarks:
 
He's a master of the specious argument.  But when you take the time and 
trouble to analyze what he's saying, and research his allegations, you 
quickly come to find that they don't hold water.  When you bring the glaring
weak points in his arguments to his attention, he ignores them if he's able 
and drowns you out in insults and another two-dozen messages if he isn't.  
You may recall when we were discussing income tax.  First he claimed that 
there was no personal income tax until 1937, and claimed that the Sixteenth 
Amendment was not passed with the intent of laying personal income tax.  
When I pointed out that Congress passed the first personal income tax act 
the same year they passed the Sixteenth Amendment, he tried to pretend the 
act only applied to corporations.  When I quoted the act referring to the 
personal income of married and unmarried citizens, he changed his defense 
and tried to claim that he isn't a citizen of the United States.  When it 
was pointed out to him that he is a citizen of the United States according 
to the terms of the Fourteenth Amendment, he whimsically picked certain 
words and redefined them to suit himself.  When this trick was pointed out 
to him, he became insulting and refused to continue the discussion.  After a
suitable amount of time had passed, he pretended he had never been revealed
and went back to grinding out the same old crap, ad infinitum.

Message: 81314
Author: James Matlock
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: Rod
Date: 01/07/92  Time: 03:44:18

Oh, and Rod, I don't know what kind of conducting wire a cent would make if
melted down, but take some copper wire with you next time you go to the
grocery store and see if you can buy a loaf of bread with it.
 
On the other hand, a dollar has no intrinsic value whatsoever.  But as Fred
Smith has pointed out a billion times before, no one thinks it does!  It's
only value is as a medium of exchange.  You can take your dollar and buy
bread, or copper wire, or even GOLD.

Message: 81315
Author: $ Paul Savage
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: Dean/car sales
Date: 01/07/92  Time: 06:13:36

You're probably right there, Dean. In which case, maybe we all better go
back to bicycles. Only problem there would be that the former care salesmen
would become bike salesmen. Just can't win, I guess.

Message: 81316
Author: $ Paul Savage
Category: Politics
Subject: Gordon's party
Date: 01/07/92  Time: 06:18:45

 Your idea of a "people's" party has been tried, I think. It was called
COmmunisim, and was tried in the former SOviet Union.
 It didn't work.

Message: 81317
Author: James Matlock
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: "intrinsic value"
Date: 01/07/92  Time: 07:01:43

Speaking of so-called intrinsic value, gold has far less than is often
suggested.  Gold is expensive primarily because it's rare and because it has
a mystique about it.  If all the gold in the world were to disappear
tomorrow, it would be a minor inconvenience, in terms of utilitarian loss.
 
Copper, on the other hand, is an entirely different story.  It isn't rare,
and it isn't pricey, but it's tremendously useful and employed universally.
 
Gold clearly has its uses, no question about that, but its value is
largely arbitrary; it derives from tradition and popular vanity.

Message: 81318
Author: $ Green Lantern
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: Matlock/Intrinsic
Date: 01/07/92  Time: 08:37:23

value. Do you realize that Gold is God with "l" in the middle ? That must
tell you something. Eh ? Eh ? 

Message: 81319
Author: $ Archi Medes
Category: Politics
Subject: Oh, well!
Date: 01/07/92  Time: 09:58:16

BB> Uh, Andrew Jackson was the 7th President, Lincoln the 16th.

Quite so.  Every once in awhile when I am extemporizing in an ad hoc manner,
my daine bramage takes over and I get sequences out of sequence.  What I
said is still true; it just happened in the correct order.  How's that for
one step forward and two steps back?

BB> And why did the banksters wait until AFTER the Civil War to assassinate
BB> Lincoln?  It would seem to their advantage to kill him during the war,
BB> placing the blame on a Southerner and further inflaming Union tempers.
BB> In this way they might have prolonged the war, making it more likely
BB> the Union would have to borrow to finance it.

Good and pointed question.  I think it is likely that they had a different
plan in mind at first, something that would have done a better job, but it
didn't work out -- however, that is pure speculation.  The correct answer
is, I don't know.  And in all fairness (why I should be fair to banksters, I
don't know either) I have seen no conclusive evidence that the assassination
of Lincoln was really a conspiratorial plot by the banksters as a group.  I
have only seen evidence that one bankster hired the killer, and that the
killer was a member of a troupe going around the country engaged in
political proselytizing -- some would say political subversion -- toward
what we today would call a "leftist" dogma, and that the troupe

Message: 81320
Author: $ Archi Medes
Category: Politics
Subject: Same-same
Date: 01/07/92  Time: 09:59:01

was well financed in that effort, and that while that dogma was
superficially leftist it would have played directly into the banksters hands
if assimilated by the people.

All the above creates a very strong suspicion of general bankster
involvement in the conspiracy to kill Lincoln, but is not conclusive in
itself.  [Yo, Bill!  How's that for not being a True Believer?]

The question might be, does it matter?  The results are the same.

Message: 81321
Author: $ Archi Medes
Category: Politics
Subject: Agreement
Date: 01/07/92  Time: 10:00:17

BD> There you go again, Archimedes.  I thought we'd agreed that we don't
BD> *personally* owe debt because we're using FRNs, but that we (as
BD> citizens and taxpayers) *jointly* owe debt because our government has
BD> been borrowing money and issuing (inflationary) money.

Well, then we need to further refine our "agreement."  First, we cannot
"jointly" owe debt unless we individually owe debt, but set that aside a
moment.  Secondly, the statement I made to which you are responding here is
addressable on more than one level:  On the first level, no, we don't owe
debt collectively because our gov't has been borrowing money and issuing
inflationary money; we owe debt collectively because we "voluntarily" *use*
that debt-money -- more specifically, we voluntarily *accept* that
debt-money in exchange for our valuable labor.  Government likes to place
the people in the position of having no other choice but starving, and then
takes the position that what we do to avoid starving is done "voluntarily." 
But We, the People, having voluntarily accepted this debt-money into our
lives, collectively owe the debt.

On the second level, which is the level I was addressing when I made the
statement to which you are responding, is that by voluntarily accepting this
debt money into our lives we are voluntarily making ourselves individually
liable for the collection of otherwise unlawful taxes -- which is the means
employed to pay that debt.  (Or actually is the means employed
to prevent hyper-inflation and only incidentally to pay that debt.) 
Therefore, yes, by voluntarily using those frns, we make ourselves liable
individually for payment of that debt.

The key word in all of this is "voluntarily."  We may not have any choice in
the matter, but if we play along with it voluntarily and without making any
effort at all to protect our individual inherited and unalienable rights,
then they've got us.  On the other hand, if we exercise our right to object
and protest and live our lives in a manner consistent with that to the
extent humanly possible under the limited choices left to us, then we are
doing what we have to do to stay alive, but because we are doing it under
duress we are not "voluntarily" acquiring the debt.  Since the whole thing
operates by equity contract, and one cannot be lawfully forced to contract,
then we have grounds for refusing to fulfill the specific performance of the
contract which we did not or do not voluntarily accept.  The whole thing is
a "contract of adhesion" which does not adhere because we do not give
informed consent to it.

This is my opinion based upon my research.  I do not give legal advice.

Message: 81323
Author: $ Archi Medes
Category: Politics
Subject: State taxes
Date: 01/07/92  Time: 10:02:43

BD> OK, so the federal government is acting illegally by taxing income.

No, it is not.  The federal gov't is acting illegally by taxing *wages*. 
Income is profit.  Wages are fair exchange of labor for property.  Wages are
not income, because wages are not profit.  [Actually, if this issue was ever
resolved and we turned our attention to the legality of gov't taxing income
(profit) I believe we would find gov't still acting illegally unless it only
taxes profit generated in interstate transactions or the taxes imposed are
properly apportioned among the States according to population, but we've
never reached the point of addressing that issue.]

BD> Do you pay (or think you should pay) state taxes on income/wages ?

I believe the State has the lawful power to impose taxes on income (profit).
 I believe the State has no lawful power to impose a Capitation or other
Direct tax, which a tax on wages would be.  In order to become and continue
to function as a "State," State laws and State enforcement of laws must be
consistent with the U. S. Constitution as well as its own Constitution. 
However, a State tax on wages, which is a Direct tax, *would* be legal if it
were imposed for the purpose of collecting U.S. apportioned (according to
population) Direct taxes.  Direct taxes imposed by the U.S. gov't are legal
if apportioned.  However, if a State imposed a Direct tax as a result of
being sent an apportioned invoice by the U.S.
gov't, the argument could still be made that a tax on wages would not be
lawful on the grounds that it is not apportioned at the State level -- i.e.,
people who earned higher wages would be paying a disproportionately higher
share of the tax.  In my view, the *only* lawful Direct tax would be a tax
in which every man, woman, and child in the population paid exactly the same
amount.

BD> or do you think the 14th amendment (which I remember you saying might
BD> not really have been ratified???) precludes the states from operating
BD> in this manner?

This question is a little confusing.  I did say that I suspected the 14th
Amendment had not been ratified, but I *know* the 16th and 17th Amendments
were not ratified.  However, had all three of these been ratified, I don't
believe they convey any authority to State gov't's to do anything at all.

All of the foregoing is my opinion based upon my research.  I do not give
legal advice.

Message: 81325
Author: $ Archi Medes
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: Eh-eh-eh-That's all,
Date: 01/07/92  Time: 10:04:36

Folks!  Everyone relax.  No book-length manuscripts today.

Message: 81327
Author: $ Apollo SysOp
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: Matlock on gold
Date: 01/07/92  Time: 10:47:25

        I can remember when candy bars were a nickle.  Since then candy bars
have gotten smaller and cost more.  It is not that the chocolate has gotten
move valuable, it's that the frns have lost value.  Gold is the same way.
If you are using frns to measure the value of gold, you are using the wrong
medium.

        If you want to think this out and join in for the FUN of debate,
please do so.  If you want to get nasty and angry, then please bud out!

*=* the 'Mighty' Apollo SysOp *=*  <-clif- 

Message: 81328
Author: $ Gordon Little
Category: Politics
Subject: Paul/Party
Date: 01/07/92  Time: 12:07:40

There isn't any true mechanism in the Communist party to guarantee that the
wishes of the ordinary citizen are followed.  The whole problem in the
Soviet Union has been that the Party *refused* to adopt changes that most
ordinary citizens were demanding.  The problem with Soviet Communism is
*exactly* the same as the problem with political parties elsewhere in the
world: that the wishes of the ordinary members were filtered, watered down,
and distorted by the oligarchy controlling the Party.  The results were far
worse, and far more corrupt, than in a two-party system only because the
Party had no competition at all.

I deliberately avoided a title like "people's party" because of its strong
associations with Communism.

I forget who it was who pointed out that all the countries that have the
word "Democratic" in their name, aren't.

Message: 81329
Author: $ Green Lantern
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: Sysop/Inflation
Date: 01/07/92  Time: 12:51:38

There is nothing wrong with this as long as wages keep pace with inflation.
If I was making $1.10 and hour as I was when I graduated from High School, I
would be spitting mad. As it is, I am not, and I don't mind a little
inflation. 
 

Message: 81330
Author: $ Fred Smith
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: Rod
Date: 01/07/92  Time: 15:50:01

Rod Said >>>
That's is how the government took us over.  They made it illegal to own
coinage that had real value.  From that day we have been real economic
slaves.
 
FS>
How are you an economic slave and how would coinage with
"real value" change that?
 
Message: 81331
Author: $ Fred Smith
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: ARch
Date: 01/07/92  Time: 15:50:55

Arch says>>
 
   Any logical conclusion reached from an argument based upon a false
premise is going to be a false conclusion, and your conclusion is false.
Had you allowed my post on "seigniorage" to sink in, you would have known
it is not necessary to tax the people in order to buy the gold with which
to mint the gold coins.
 
     SEIGNIORAGE:  A royalty or prerogative of the sovereign, whereby
     an allowance of gold and silver, brought to the mint in the mass
     to be exchanged for coin, is claimed.  Cowel.  Mintage, the charge
     for coining bullion into money at the mint.
                                -- Bouvier's Law Dictionary (1914)
 
Fred Says>
 
   Who are you trying to fool??  Seingiorage and the whole "bring me a
dollar and I'll give you a dollar" is a TAX pure and simple and if they
aren't bringing enough "mass" to cover the amount of coins produced then
they are using a fractional backing system of money.
 
   And even if they are NOT charged Seingiorage, they are STILL being TAXED
at a 100% level anyways since they have to bring IN one "dollar" for every
one "dollar" they leave with.

   There is NOTHING false about my premise and YOUR material quoted prior
does nothing but CLEARLY and EMPHATICALLY reinforce EXACTLY what I said in
my original posts.
 
   As long as the gvt sticks with whatever "backing level" they chose AND
as long as people keep bringing in MORE "mass" to convert to money to
support any economic expansion, things will not change.  But if mass gold
becomes harder for the people to find and aquire and they stop bringing in
enough then the money will DEFLATE and will NOT be stable.  Just like I
said.
 
Arch said >>
 Gov't therefore has an incentive to purchase more gold and/or
silver and mint it into circulation, lest gov't go broke.
 
Fred says>
  Now there's an interesting one!  The gvt taxes us one
dollar to buy a dollars worth of gold so that they can mint
it and turn it into one dollar!!!  I guess there really is a
sucker born every minute!!

Message: 81333
Author: $ Dean Hathaway
Category: Politics
Subject: Jury Duty
Date: 01/07/92  Time: 18:40:45

  The law of England will not allow you to part till you have given in your
verdict.
  Jury: We have given in our verdict and we can give in no other.
 
  The jury asked for and was given pen and ink whereupon they retired
again. They soon returned with this written verdict:
  William Penn to be guilty of speaking or preaching to an assembly, met
  together in Grace-Church Street, the 14 of August last 1670. And that
  William Mead is Not Guilty of the said indictment.
 
  Foreman Thomas Veer and the names of the others were on the verdict, the
second being Bushell. The Recorder's reply was,
  Gentlemen, you shall not be dismissed till we have a verdict that the
court will accept: and you shall be locked up, without meat, drink, fire,
and tobacco; we shall have a verdict, by the help of God, or you shall
starve for it.
  Penn then addressed the jurors, telling them that he and Mead had used no
force of arms but had met outdoors because soldiers had kept them out of
their houses. He also said,
  You are Englishmen, mind your privilege, give not away your right.
  Bushell and others: Nor will we ever do it.
 
  One juror now claimed to be indisposed and desired to be dismissed. The
mayor, also a part of the bench, said 'You are as strong as any of them;
starve them; and hold your principles.'
 
  This was on the third of September. It being time for court to close for
the day, an observer (probably Penn) described the proceeding:
  The court swore several persons to keep the Jury all night without
  meat, drink, fire or any other accommodation; they had not so much as
  a chamberpot, though desired.
 
  The next day the jury returned a verdict finding Mead not guilty and Penn
guilty of speaking in Grace-Church Street. The Recorder said he couldn't
receive the verdict because the charge included conspiracy and the verdicts
were inconsistent. Whereupon, Penn said,
  If Not Guilty be not a verdict, they you make the jury and Magna Carta
  but a mere nose of wax.
 
  The jury retired again and returned with the same verdict. This was once
more turned down by the bench. On their part, the jury refused the
suggestion that they return a special verdict. They were remanded to
Newgate for the night. The following day, the fifth, the jury returned a
verdict of not guilty as to both parties. It appears that the jury had been
without food and drink in excess of two days.
  The Recorder fined the jury 40 marks each (a little over 26 pounds) and
sent them to jail until it was paid. Penn was fined for contempt. He
protested, citing passages of the Magna Carta. Penn also had the last word,
saying later, 'Magna Carta is Magna f___ with the Recorder of London; and
to demand right an affront to the court.'
  Bushell, on his part, didn't take the fine lying down. He obtained a
writ of Habeas Corpus. The opinion was written on November 20th of the same
year by Chief Justice Vaughan, and never after were juries to be punished
for not finding in accordance with the court's instructions. The moment is
marked for posterity by a plaque hanging in Old Bailey and inscribed as
follows:
              Near this site
       WILLIAM PENN and WILLIAM MEAD
            were tried in 1670
    for preaching to an unlawful assembly
           in Grace-Church Street
          This tablet Commemorates
The courage and endurance of the Jury Thos Veer,
Edward Bushell and ten others who refused to give
a verdict against them, although locked up without
food for two nights and were fined for their final
Verdict of Not Guilty.
 
The case of these Jurymen was reviewed on a Writ of
Habeas Corpus and Chief Justice Vaughan delivered
the opinion of the Court with established 'The Right
of Juries' to give their Verdict according to their
Convictions.
 
   Because of these jurors and this decision, the jury deserved the high
position it held in the esteem of Englishmen. In time to come, the jury was
to lose much of its vitality in the county that had nurtured it. The
Englishmen, however, who were at that very time settling the American
colonies, carried with them from the earliest the jury as a guarantee of
liberty. On that continent, the jury was to gain now life and new meaning."
 
---
 
Beyond A Reasonable Doubt: Inside The American Jury System
  by Melvyn Bernard Zerman 1981
 
JURY NULLIFICATION
  "Obviously, juries do not very often effectively repeal a law passed by a
democratically elected legislature. But in what are sometimes called
'political trials' - where the defendant's views on a controversial public
issue assume an importance at least equal to the matter of his or her guilt
- jury nullification of the law is not at all uncommon. During the Vietnam
War, for example, men and women charged with destroying government property
as part of their antiwar demonstrations were acquitted even though their
burning of draft board records was beyond question. That jurors, in the
face of decisive evidence to the contrary, should render not-guilty
verdicts is a stunning commentary on the jury system."
  "When jurors deliver a not-guilty verdict, they have shut a final door on
the case, shut it and sealed it forever."
 
 
DIRECTED VERDICTS
  "Indeed, if the judge has concluded that the verdict must be not guilty
because of the evidence (or lack of it), he may actually halt the trial at
this point and either dismiss all the charges or impose on the jury what is
known as a directed verdict of acquittal. A directed verdict can never be a
guilty verdict: the jury alone must reach that decision."
 
---
 
A History of American Law
 by Lawrence M. Friedman 1973, 1985
 
JURY NULLIFICATION
  "A system of criminal justice is more than rules on paper. It is also a
plan for distribution of power among judges, jurors, legislators, and
others. In American legal theory, jury power was enormous and subject to
few controls. There was a maxim of law that the jury was judge of both law
and of fact in criminal cases. This idea was particularly strong in the
first, Revolutionary generation, when memories of royal justice were fresh.

In some states the rule lasted a long time, and in Maryland, the slogan was
actually imbedded in the constitution. But the rule came under savage
attack from some judges and other authorities. There was fear that the
rule, if taken seriously, would destroy the 'chances of uniformity of
adjudication.' It also threatened the power of judges. By the end of the
period, many states, by statute or decision, had repudiated the doctrine.
  In any event, it is not easy to tell what the maxim meant in practice.
Juries did not divide their verdicts into separate bundles of fact and of
law. The maxim did recognize explicitly that the jury held ultimate power
to make decisions about crime and criminal law. Juries were not afraid to
exercise this power. In South Carolina, according to Jack K. Williams, 'the
same jury which would change a murderer's indictment to manslaughter would
condemn a common thief to the gallows without hesitation,' if so inclined.
On the other hand, the jury could be quite cavalier about the letter of the
law, not to mention the facts of the world. In State v. Bennet (1815), a
South Carolina jury found as fact that the goods John Bennet had stolen
were worth 'less...than twelve pence,' even though all the witnesses had
sworn they were 'of much greater value.' This 'pious perjury' let the jury
find Bennet guilty of petty larceny, rather than grand larceny, which would
have sent him to the gallows. The appeal court affirmed the jury's right to
do as it pleased. This same process had made some of the crimes on
England's long list of capital crimes less fierce than they seemed. This
type of behavior has been called jury lawlessness; but there is something
strange in pinning the label of 'lawless' on a power so carefully and
explicitly built into the law. Jury power meant that a measure of penal
'reform' could take place without formal change in legal institutions.
Jerome Hall has suggested that, as social attitudes toward criminals and
crime begin to change, the changes first appear in the administration of
criminal justice; penal 'reform'--enacted laws and new rules--follows as a
'ratification of practices' already developed."
  (Final note from Dean, those who support the current status quo, where
jurors are routinely mislead into voting for convictions they do not
entirely support, seem to rely mainly on two arguments. One is that the
system of laws will suffer if the jury is free to 'interpret' the law and
the other is that uniformity of trial results will suffer if juries know
they do not have to follow instructions which would force them to convict
someone who does not deserve it. Both arguments give short shrift to the
strengths of the jury system and its history in actual practice.
  Why does a jury occasionally reach a verdict opposite that which the
judge would have returned? There are several factors a jury can and will
consider in addition to simple evidence, but which the judge and the law
may not consider. Is the punishment the law calls for upon conviction too
severe for the acts the defendant committed under the circumstances of this
particular case? Has the defendant already suffered enough, either through
the legal system or as a result of the crime itself? Has the defendant been
singled out for prosecution under a law which is seldom enforced? Has the
defendant been singled out for prosecution due to some other conflict with
those bringing the charges? Was the defendant induced by undercover police
to commit a crime that would not have occured otherwise? In general, is the
enforcing of the letter of this law in this particular case a greater wrong
than not enforcing it? This jury power to temper the law with justice does
not create any precedent which must be followed in later cases under the
same law. It does not affect the letter of the law as it may be applied to
other cases or even to the case at hand, it only provides that greater
circumstances may be taken into consideration on a case by case basis and
this overall view may result in an acquittal in the face of the law. Over
an extended period a pattern may emerge where overall circumstances weigh
against convictions under a certain law, and if injustice in that law
itself is the reason, then the jury has fulfilled an important mission
intended for it by the nation's founders in stemming that injustice.
  Uniformity of adjudication is neither a lofty goal nor a practical one.
Trial results should not automatically be uniform because no two cases are
exactly the same. The cold, calculating eye of the law may see them all the
same and expect convictions in every case where a proscribed act is shown
to have occured, but the jury learns much more about the people and events
involved than is shown in the charges, and it should use all this
information to reach an informed verdict which is as unique as the case at
hand. Let us remember that what the judges are doing in the name of
uniformity is denying to the jury the knowledge that they don't have to
convict when it is wrong to do so, and yet, what kind of value to judges
put on uniformity in their own sphere of operations? Bare majorities are
the rule rather than the exception whenever a panel of judges make a
decision. Nearly as many judges dissent as concur and judicial decisions
are routinely overturned on appeal with essentially the same case being
presented.
  Judicial observers who are truly concerned that legislation is rewritten
during trials, and that results are not uniform, would do well to note that
the force behind these things is often a judge, rather than a jury. The
deception of our juries concerning their power to refuse an unjust
conviction is more about reserving unintended power to judges than it is
about protecting the sanctity of the law or the rights of defendants.)

Message: 81343
Author: $ Felix Cat
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: Daryl
Date: 01/07/92  Time: 19:45:28

Re:  And that is exactly why my children will not attend public school as I
had to

I can relate to that.  We pulled our three sons out of grade school at an
early age for the same reason.  The oldest boy (15) now goes to Apollo High
School, but his two brothers still go to a private Christian school.

Message: 81344
Author: James Matlock
Category: Answer!
Subject: SysOp Cliff
Date: 01/07/92  Time: 21:48:45

I was being peevish, not nasty.
 
Let's see...candy bars cost a nickel, and now they cost more.  True.  We
also get paid more.  But really, if you apply the same reasoning to
chocolate that you apply to gold, one is forced to the conclusion that
chocolate is as good an investment as gold.  After all, it's value is
eternal.
 
Matter of fact, in a post-apocalyptic world, I think chocolate would only be
second to tobacco (and possibly, alcohol, and nylons) in value, unlike gold,
which would have little or no barter value (who cares about plating their PC
board leads when they don't even know whether they'll live the year out?)
 
Maybe we should call for a Chocolate Standard.  In fact, we could please
both parties by adopting those coin-shaped chocolates covered with gold foil
which one finds at the cashier's desk of so many Mexican food restaurants.

Message: 81345
Author: $ Apollo SysOp
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: Matlock/last
Date: 01/07/92  Time: 22:33:50

Chocolate is not eternal...  just leave some on the dash board of your car
next summer.

        It has pretty much been a fact that Gold has been a *precious* metal
thoughout history of mankind.  It was long before man needed it to plate
their PC board leads.  I also am not talking about INVESTING in gold, but
getting paid wages in gold/silver.  Money earned is a way of storing labor
given and should be redeemable at a later date for the SAME value. Unlike
Green, I don't buy his *little* inflation as acceptable.  My labor today
should be worth the same 20 years from now if I save my earned wages. I
should not be required to do anything else to make it so.

        I am puzzled why so many of you seem so satisfied in getting paid in
worthless FRNs, and not minding that they will lose value rather quickly or
not minding to place these in a bank and pay taxes on the interest that does
not even keep up with inflation at times.  By time you withdraw to spend
them, they won't buy nearly what they would have a few years earlier.  I
guess you people don't value your labor given for these FRNs.

*=* the 'Mighty' Apollo SysOp *=*  <-clif- 

Message: 81346
Author: $ Apollo SysOp
Category: Politics
Subject: Fred?
Date: 01/07/92  Time: 22:40:28

        I don't understand how you think we would pay taxes to buy gold when
the mere minting of gold is value added.  A million dollars of gold bullion
turns out more than a million dollars in coin.  And that covers the minting
costs.  The Government does not buy the bullion to keep it in some safe, but
to pay it right out again as value added coin.

        Think about it!

*=* the 'Mighty' Apollo SysOp *=*  <-clif- 

Message: 81347
Author: James Matlock
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: gold value
Date: 01/07/92  Time: 22:43:49

Look at it this way:  Let's say I have certain amount of frns.  I can buy 
that much gold at its current price or I can buy stock, or buy some 
real-estate, or put it into the bank, or whatever.  Now, if gold drops in 
value, but some other commodity or investment doesn't, you can't say that 
gold hasn't dropped in value, because I can buy the same amount of the other
stuff as I could before, with the same amount of frns; but you can't trade 
the same amount of gold for those things, even if people were willing to 
accept gold as payment, because they would check on the price of gold and 
see that you were short.   If you insisted that your gold was worth more,
they'd tell you to go and find somebody who would believe that.
 
On the other hand, if your gold increases in value, but those other goods
cost the same amount of frns., then your gold really has increased in value,
because you can take it and trade it for more goods, or equivalently, 
exchange it for its current value in frns. and buy more goods than you could
with the previous frn. equivalent of that amount of gold.
 
The point of all of this is that there is no God determined value of gold.
Gold is worth what you can get for it, just like anything else, including
frns., whether you get things indirectly through frns., or directly through 
barter.  But don't expect anyone to give you more for gold than its frn. 
value, because they would have to be crazy.  And you would be crazy to take
less for your gold than its frn. value if someone tried to argue that your
gold hasn't increased in value but that frns have decreased.

Message: 81349
Author: James Matlock
Category: Answer!
Subject: gold vs. frns.
Date: 01/07/92  Time: 23:15:30

I have no more economic love of frns. than I do of gold.  Gold can be an
excellent investment, but like any other, only if you buy and sell at the
right time.  If I put some money in a bank and collect interest (not a
terribly good investment if using an ordinary account), then in the next six
months inflation will take a very small toll (at least, by current inflation
rates).  Any tax I might have to pay on interest is going to be fractional.
Therefore, I have managed to stay ahead of inflation, though I haven't put
my money to very good use.
 
Now, if gold during that six month period increases in value in excess of
what my net interest provides after taxes and depreciation, then gold is the
superior investment.  On the other hand, if gold loses value, or is just
stable, or doesn't increase in value fast enough, then my bank account
provides a better hedge against inflation.  I think that it is just this
speculative nature of precious metals investment which makes people
reluctant to depend on it, though of course a shrewd person can, as with any
other venture, get a high return if the market goes the way he thinks it
will.

Message: 81350
Author: $ Rod Williams
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: James Matlock / gold
Date: 01/08/92  Time: 00:40:01

I don't want to carry around or store gold, silver or copper.  But having it
would get me further than worthless pieces of paper.  If the citizens
decided to go on the barter system then gold would be pretty much at the top
of the heap althought diamonds and some other metals have this real value
also that numbered government FRNs seem to lack.

By having FRNs it and using them we are inviting the government in on
everything we do.

By the way, I'll trade you 3 bushels of fresh corn for that extra bicycle
rim and tire.  

After having lost all of our precious and semi-precious metals we are
beholden to the government that issues worthless paper FRNs that have no
value unto themselves - not like gold and silver have.  We are controlled. 
Make one error on your tax form and you will be put in for an audit.  You
will have to account for every last FRN.  And then you may discover that you
owe more FRNs or that you were penalized for making an error.  Someone has
to pay for that audit, it AIN'T free.

Love and peace,

                                Rod

Message: 81351
Author: $ Rod Williams
Category: Answer!
Subject: Fred/slave
Date: 01/08/92  Time: 00:52:32

If the people had equal control over the dollar supply then government would
be forced to take an equal seat.  Government, by eliminating something of
value to back our money supply has suckered us in and now has control.  

Ask Felix Cat how we are economic slaves.  A while back he posted how much
his tax base was.  With FRNs the government is not your partner, it is the
Chairman of the Board and you are the worker.  With barter using items of
real value, be it tobacco or condoms, one can better control his economic
destiny.  

Thanks for the question.  If I haven't made myself clear please let me know
because this 'enlightenment' is new to me and has not completely jelled. 
I'll understand better by Spring.  Perhaps I will go the other way, to
the FRNs but I kinda doubt it after realizing just what control government
has using their numbered paper.

Still, I may be missing something.  We'll see.

Message: 81352
Author: $ Rod Williams
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: Gold/James
Date: 01/08/92  Time: 01:02:24

Would it have been just as easy for the moon landing if we used copper for
the wiring instead of gold?  I don't think so.  One can take a small chunk
of gold and smash it out into quite a large surface without any rips or
tears.

Chocolate has value like you say.  Whether it has more value than gold is
difficult to say.  But both have bartering power and that is what I guess I
am talking about, something that has real value that can be traded, not a
I.O.U. with serial numbers that involves a third party dictating the
transaction.  Savvy my friend or am I all wet?

No matter which way I believe or which way Archemedes or Fred Smith believes
we are not doing it with evil in our hearts, only a longing to know 'how
things work.'  That is all I am interested in knowing because that
information is useful in the everyday world.

Message: 81353 
Author: $ Rod Williams
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: Comment
Date: 1/8/92  Time: 1:10:32

Tonight I have 67K of new information and I still haven't read the juicy 
articles from last night.  Some look really interesting.  I've been busy.

I find it interesting that whenever someone suggests that the human race lay 
aside their differences and live and work in peace for a better planet that
there is always a comment that suggests Communism.  I mean, it could be real
but disavowed because of some prior bias.  I guess this generation has to be
wiped off the face of the earth before a new breed can make real brotherhood
work for the benefit of all.

Message: 81354
Author: James Matlock
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: Rod
Date: 01/08/92  Time: 01:37:31

I think you're confusing government interference and power with the medium
of exchange.  And once again, you're free to buy gold or silver or bushels
of corn with those "worthless pieces of paper."  In a post-apocalyptic
barter system,  the value of gold would drop dramatically.  So would the
value of diamonds, at least the kind of diamonds they make into baubles.
When you pay DeBeers thousands of dollars for a stone whose only purpose is
to indulge the vanity of the bearer, you're not getting intrinsic value.
Crush that diamond into dust, use it to make cutting tools or playing
needles or what have you, and it has intrinic value.  Yet that value is far
less that what you paid for the gem.
 
Gold likewise has intrinsic value.  It resists oxidation.  It is a decent
electrical conductor (about 70% as good as copper).  It is very dense and
very malleable, qualities which give it utilitarian value.  But the
difference between gold's intrinsic value and its market value is very
great.  Its market value derives from traditional aesthetic sensibilities. 
Gold, however, is different from diamond in that there is no difference
between "industrial gold" and "jewelry gold" unless that difference is one
of purity.  You can easily get around that.  You can't, however, take
diamond dust and make a flawless gemstone.  Now, if you think about gold's
actual intrinsic value based on useful qualities, it is very clear that,
while it has value, that value is much less than what its market value is. 
That's because people love the stuff and are willing to pay through the
nose for it.

As you say, gold is more malleable than copper and that makes it good for
certain things.  But gold is not the only malleable element, and it is not
common enough to be useful in the way that copper is.  I don't understand
what special NASA equipment has to do with the common man.  If every piece
of gold in your house disappeared tomorrow (most of it is jewelry and you
MAY have a little in some of your electronic equipment) you would not be
inconvenienced one bit.  But if the copper in your house disappeared
tomorrow, you would be in trouble.  It permeates your house and your
appliances, your fixtures and machines and ordinary useful items.  THAT, my
friend, is intrinsic value, as opposed to market value.
 
Steel is another example of something with intrinsic value.  You can build
cars, trucks, farm equipment, tools, skyscrapers, ships, and all kinds of
things with it (including guns to protect you and your family, if desired).
Try doing that with gold.  Yes, gold is useful for certain applications, but
its intrinsic value is being highly overrated.