Friday, July 3, 2009

Welcome to Freedom In Spokane!

This site is dedicated to people in eastern Washington who are sick and tired of their local, state, and federal governments taxing and regulating the them to death and who actually want to do something about it. It has been stated that "Communism is the product of the apathy of many and the audacity of the few." Well it is time to remedy this situation. A variety of organizations that you can get involved with to help promote the ideas of freedom and liberty are listed on this page. We suggest that you sign up to as many different mailing lists as would interest you to help fight for the cause of freedom. The Marxists are certainly not letting up pushing such measures as banker bailouts, carbon taxes, and national health care--unless we get active and put up a strong front against them, this nation is doomed to suffer the same fate as the former Soviet Union.

Perhaps the most impactful project that we are currently pursuing here is the "Initiative Convention" idea. The state of Washington has an incredibly versatile initiative and referendum provision built right into its constitution. It has been used successfully by many groups across this state to limit Olympia's power to tax and regulate us to death. Just this year I-1033 will be on the ballot to limit property tax increases, and groups are attempting to get R-71 and R-72 on the ballot which would overturn recent legislation on gay marriage and the ability of cities to annex properties WITHOUT a vote of the people. However, the current process is often expensive to carry out statewide and, in my opinion, if we want to reverse course in this state we need a LOT of initiatives to get the politicians to change course. And the great thing about a statewide initiative is once passed the state legislators CANNOT overturn it for three years!

The pilot project here involves the city of Spokane. For those that are not aware, the City Council voted in May by a five to two vote to approve the Mayor's Sustainability Action Plan. While there are several admirable goals present in this plan, thrown in is the abominable view that we need to alter city policy to reduce greenhouse gases. This is the same false doctrine held with religious fervor that led the U.S. House of Representatives to pass the Waxman-Markey Economic Suicide Act (hopefully this will be halted in the Senate). Only two Spokane Council Representatives -- Nancy McLaughlin and Bob Apple -- had the courage to vote against this plan whose implementation could result in Spokane taxpayer money wasted just to reduce a non-toxic non-harmful gas which is produced by all animals NATURALLY.

On July 2, 2009 an initiative was filed in the city of Spokane (2009-03) to amend the city's charter to prevent the government from wasting taxpayer money to meet dubious greenhouse gas emission goals. It also puts additional restrictions on the ability of the City to reduce a person's property value through zoning changes or to seize it through eminent domain methods. The latter provisions were written to prevent a situation such as ruled on in Kelo v. New London from happening in the City of Spokane. It is an ordinance the City Council would probably never want to have to take a vote on because most voters UNDERSTAND that global warming is a fraud and private property rights need to be respected. Guess what--if we get just under 3,000 signatures before the November election, we can FORCE the City Council to take a vote on this PRIOR to the election, so the entire city knows exactly where they stand. More importantly, the PEOPLE get the final vote!!

This pilot project is testing the hypothesis that initiative signatures can be gathered more efficiently using tools such as viral marketing without the need to raise a bunch of money to fund the petition. We also want to collect a mailing list of people who are interested in signing such measures for future reference. If we CAN MAKE THIS WORK, there is no reason we cannot do this subsequently, not with one, but MANY initiatives covering every aspect of City Hall that we find appalling. We also want this to be the precursor to a STATEWIDE initiative conventions which bring the same economies of scale to the process to pass initiatives TO THE LEGISLATURE, which will FORCE them to vote on measures such as the sovereignty amendment they would not even give a hearing in committee last year -- if they do NOT vote for it the people will have the final say.

This initial petition is not likely to get on the ballot this year UNLESS we can get just under 3,000 valid signatures by Monday, July 6. Realistically this will likely not happen; however, I want to see how many signatures we can accumulate in such a short period of time using viral marketing techniques--who knows, maybe there is a 1 in a 1,000 chance that we get those signatures by Monday--never underestimate the power of the internet. We will also have petitions for people to sign at the upcoming Spokane Tea Party (Saturday July 4 at 1PM, Where: Plantes Ferry Park; 12308 E Upriver Dr;Spokane Valley, WA 99206).

Unlike state initiatives, the City of Spokane allows for people to use normal letter paper that everyone has on their computer to print out signatures. The PDF of the petition is available for download by clicking here and anyone can print it out at home--just make sure that the front side of the paper contains the signatures page and back contains the measure itself. You can do this on a laser printer by putting the original printed copy back in the paper tray, in a reversed orientation. There is also copy of the measure in larger print which you can download by clicking here which you can show to people who have trouble reading the full text of the charter on the reverse side. Take the sample email or an email of your own and send it as an attachment to everyone you know. If you are coming to the Tea Party there will be people there to collect signature pages and we will also try to arrange for pickup points at places around the city on Sunday and Monday. Check back at this website - FreedomInWashington.com - for updates. Let's see how many signatures we can get in a short amount of time. Even if we do not get all 3,000 this weekend (which is highly likely) we have almost a year to continue to collect signatures to get it on the ballot eventually, although preferably I want to force a City Council vote on this BEFORE the November elections, preferably in October so the vote is still fresh in people's minds.

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