Information sheet thingie

Kevin Dempsey Peterson (kevin@cafe.berkeley.edu)
Tue, 16 Dec 1997 10:29:54 -0800 

I'd like to have something that we can send to all the new subscribers
to the mailing list, and post to this newsgroup, and possibly
ucb.politics, regularly.  Sort of a FAQ, but not really.  Here's what
I currently have.  Send me your comments, and I'll revise it, and
eventually, we can probably get something that the club agrees on.

                    Cal Libertarians Information

This is a short information sheet about Cal Libertarians, the
libertarian student group at UC Berkeley.  It is posted regularly to
the ucb.org.cal-libertarians and ucb.politics.  If you received this
message through email, it's because, a) you requested it, b) someone
messed up, c) we thought you'd like to know about it or d) we're
desperate for members and are spamming you.

Contents:
    What is libertarianism?
    Activities
    Bureaucratic Stuff
    Online Stuff

What is libertarianism?
    Basically, libertarianism is a philosophy/political position that
    says government does more harm than good.  Libertarians are
    opposed to government taking money from the people in the form of
    taxes, because the people themselves can better decide how they
    want that money spent.  Libertarians are also opposed to
    government limitations of freedoms, thinking that there is no
    reason that government, a group of people, has any moral
    jurisdiction to tell people how to live their lives.

    Libertarians do not fit on the convential right/left political
    spectrum, but for issues, they will likely agree with the left on
    issues of personal freedom (abortion, free speech, legalization of
    drugs), and with the right on economic issues (taxes, welfare,
    regulation of corporations.)  It would probably help to understand
    the libertarian position by thinking of them as both more extreme
    and more consistant than either the right or the left.  For
    example, the right only want to end welfare to the poor;
    libertarians want to end welfare to corporations in the form of
    subsidies as well.  The left may want to allow doctors to
    prescribe marijuana for medicinal purposes; libertarians don't see
    where government gets the moral right to dictate what you are
    allowed to put in your body in the first place.  I couldn't
    (personally), tell you that if you smoke pot I'm going to shoot
    you (at least not morally), but government does that every day.

    The standard recommendations on where to learn more about
    libertarianism are _Libertarianism_in_One_Lesson_ by David
    Bergland and _Why_Government_Doesn't_Work_ by Harry Browne.  You
    could also come to our meetings or ask questions on the newsgroup
    (see below)

Activities
    Dates and times for meetings and such next semester are not yet
    set.  This semester have had a table on Sproul two or three days a
    week, and meetings once a week.  We had a "anti-authoritarian
    movie night", which was intended to be a monthly thing, but it got
    started too late in the semester.  Hopefully for spring.  The
    first thing to be done for next semester will be deciding on a
    good time for meetings and holding elections for officers.

    We're kicking around ideas for something to protest, and whether
    we should get an "Operation Politically Homeless" booth for next
    semester.  You might want to check out the newsgroup or the
    archives (see below).

Bureaucratic Stuff
    Mako Shuttleworth is going to be acting president until we have a
    chance to do elections (probably at the second meeting).  We will
    have to do another SAS (student activities services) form next
    semester, but it looks as if we have signatories lined up.  I'll
    add the officers here as soon as the elections are done.

Online Resources
    Cal Libertarians maintains a web page at
    http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~callib
    It provides some basic information on Libertarianism, information
    about the club, and links to other sites of interest.  Getting
    more information online is one of the goals for the near future.

    There is a newsgroup, ucb.org.cal-libertarians, which is probably
    where you are reading this message.  It has a charter:
        ucb.org.cal-libertarians is an unmoderated local newgroup for
        the discussion of issues of interest to libertarians and
	things related to the Cal Libertarians student group.
    The newsgroup is archived at
    http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~callib/archives/

    There is an announcement mailing list that currently runs of
    Uclink4.  We hope to move this list to the OCF eventually, which
    will enable us to make it possible to add yourself to the mailing
    list automatically.  For now, send mail to
    cal_libertarians-owner@uclink4.berkeley.edu to have yourself
    added.

Last Updated: 12/16/97, KDP

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