At 05:16 PM 8/5/96 -0400, hallam@Etna.ai.mit.edu wrote:

Making that argument defeats your case. Irespective of the framers of the constitution nobody in Congress or the Administration believes that you have a right to take up arms against the government.

Have you checked with Helen Chenoweth (R-Idaho) or B1-Bob Dornan (R-Orange County) about this assertion. Not to mention our former black radical friend from Oakland in Congress. I bet you could find a fair number of supporters for the concept of the "right of revolution" in Congress and other parts of the government. Better hunting on Usenet, of course. When former Idaho congressman and senator Steve Syms was first running for Congress, his slogan was "Traditionally, Americans have had three means of preserving their freedoms. The jury box, the ballot box and -- when those failed -- the cartridge box." In addition it seems to me that a certain "Mobe" leader and campus revolutionary made it as far as the White House (or was he just spying for the Company at the time?). (Mobe = Student Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam) Try not to say "no one believes X". That statement can always be falsified and usually with thousands of counter examples. DCF "Article 1 Section 1 of the Constitution of the State of Oregon - All power is inherent in the people and it is their right to alter or abolish the government whenever they believe it necessary or appropriate to do so."

From memory but that's the substance of what it says.