BAMN activities for April 1, and ballot props

Seth David Schoen (schoen@uclink4.Berkeley.EDU)
29 Mar 1998 05:02:01 GMT 

How many of you are on the BAMN mailing list?  I just got the latest update,
which talks extensively about the April 1 Day of Action coming up.  It
should be interesting to see.  I am not going to write to the Daily Cal about
it because they just published my MAI piece on the last day before vacation
and I sent them another piece at the same time about animal rights.

They are going to be holding a rather large demonstration, or so they intend,
on April 1.  This is a good opportunity for Cal Libertarians to counter-
demonstrate, if anyone is interested -- one day after debating with them,
perhaps. :-)

I think the choice of a date for the National Day of Action was _very_
inopportune.  (Of course, it's also the date for the Mozilla Navigator
Source Release party, which is also a little inopportune.)

BAMN is also noting that Ron Unz, the sponsor of Proposition 227, is supposed
to be speaking here on April 1 (co-incidentally).  While I do oppose Prop. 227,
I don't agree with BAMN that it is "racist" or an attempt to be oppressive;
I just think it's a mistake.  I think it might be very interesting to hear
Unz, given that bilingual education is going to be an interesting issue
shortly.

If anyone is interested, I have my opinions (mostly YES/NO) on current ballot
propositions and potential propositions from the California Secretary of
State's web page written up, and I'm going to put them on the web.  I find that
it's not straight libertarian, but fairly close.

The things that gave me the most trouble were all of the propositions that
try to increase funding for schools.  I like that, but I was frustrated that
almost all of the proposed propositions increase funding by creating new
taxes (mostly property taxes or taxes on tobacco), rather than by cutting
other government expenditures.

I was also annoyed that the proposed proposition to outlaw horsemeat (and
the one to outlaw some trapping) not only regulate the action of killing the
animals but also regulate the sale of the dead animals.  I find the second
part inappropriate, even though I support the first part, precisely because
I don't believe in the "by any means necessary" philosophy.

The current ballot propositions are at "http://www.ss.ca.gov/initstat.htm";
only the first 9 are actually officially on the ballot yet.  (The income
tax one, for instance, isn't.)

-- 
   Seth David Schoen L&S '01 (undeclared) / schoen@uclink4.berkeley.edu
Magna dis immortalibus habenda est atque huic ipsi Iovi Statori, antiquissimo
custodi huius urbis, gratia, quod hanc tam taetram, tam horribilem tamque
infestam rei publicae pestem totiens iam effugimus.  -- Cicero, in Catilinam I