The tea party and constitutionalists seem to be trotting out JBS talking points now, and rants show up on various blog sites and letters to the editor.

When our city council (Missoula) paid its $1200 annual dues to the ICLEA — an organization that helps our city meet its sustainability goals through grants, computer software and the exchange of information — JBS sympathizers from all over Montana went ballistic at a council meeting here. The loss of liberty to “international elites” was their rallying cry.

What’s most amazing is that some of these folks have been elected to our state legislature.

Dick, even you must be aware that the so-called “Climategate” of two years ago (not “now emerging”) was definitively proven to be a big nothing that the climate-change deniers tried to puff up into a scandal, but in any case it involved a British university, not the U.N.

1. What is “big government”. Tell us the unit of measurement for “government.”

2. Why do big corporations know more about what’s best for us than “big government?” For all the problems governments face, and sometimes cause, unlike a private enterprise, governments can have different priorities. For example, they decide that everyone needs a minimum of education, so they provide it. A private enterprise has only one motive- profit. A private enterprise also cannot possibly be held accountable to the public, even in theory.

” but I do know that Uncle Sugar has too much power and doesn’t deserve any more.”

Like what exactly.

“The Government cannot run anything right, want proof look at our debt, SSI, and Medicare/Medicaid . ”

If you want proof of how bad Americans are at understanding basic economic concepts and history, just look at the line above. Social Security has been one of, if not the most effective program the American government has ever had. It is in crisis now because of some “small government” advocates who took power starting in the 1980s and considered the answer to every problem to be “tax cuts.” Our debt is the same deal. The rich wanted to go to war(I mean send the poor to war of course), but they also wanted tax cuts. When you increase spending with wars and military expenditures, while lowering taxes to unprecedented levels, there is only one way to make good the difference- borrow.

“Neither Uncle Sugar nor the UN has any business telling anyone what to do with their own property .”

Yeah, actually Uncle Sugar as you call him does have business telling people about their property, because Uncle Sugar is who backs up your claim to that property.

Wild turkeys can be vicious! I’ve actually seem them attack cars with people inside of them. Not too much fun, I can assure you.

That being said, you gave me a solid smile with that comment. I award you one Certifiably Delicious e-Cookie as compensation. :D

The damning e-mails now emerging from the top scientists with the global warming research grants should be adiquate reason to suspect any claims of altruism from the UN. Al Gore’s Academy Award winng documentary about stranded polar bears is a complete fraud. Carbon credits is bizarre idea that was taken seriously. Even if the JBS is full of kooks, it should be noted that the National Enquirer took down John Edwards when none of the lib media would touch that story.

And finally, our new light bulbs are mercury based and quite toxic if broken. Ask yourselves who gained by eliminating incandescent bulbs?

Dr. Coffman has been a speaker for the JBS, listing positions as President of Environmental Perspectives, Inc., and Executive Director of Sovereignty International. Judeo-Christian “principles of stewardship” are contrasted with “pantheistic-based environmentalism”. His website (www.epi-us.com) has and links to literature supporting his point(s) of view.

Maine has many discussion groups, including, on the far right, the JBS, one or more Tea Parties, and Constitutionalists. The Republicans are sometimes difficult to distinguish from other “parties”. Several national conservative groups are active in Maine, and radio and tv ad rates are cheap here.

In connection with a multi-town, state, and federal effort to preserve US Route 1 in the Maine midcoast area as somewhat rural and “traditional village” scenery (“Gateway1″), a coalition of the above groups killed four million dollars of planning effort, some claiming that residents in rural areas would be required by Agenda 21 to move to urban enclaves in villages, the effort being a United Nations and/or socialist plot. Not so, at least in the knowledge of anyone in the formal Gateway1 organization.

Agenda 21 is focussed on discouraging slash and burn development (perhaps by American interests) in other countries (way too late for Maine and much of the US).

“Seems to me this is more an American issue than any ‘Party’ affiliation issue.”

Yes, Lu, do look at our “debt, SSI and Medicare/Medicaid.” (Let’s assume that by SSI, you mean Social Security, not supplemental security income.) What do we find? The national debt skyrocketed under conservative Republican administrations. Meanwhile, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid all operated efficiently for decades until those same “conservatives” got to work on choking them to death.

So I have to disagree, it is indeed a party issue. As for Agenda 21, opposing it merely because it’s a U.N. platform and not because of what it actually proposes (do you even know?) is like disbelieving scripture if the devil quotes it.

Greenbelts are opposed (maybe on their own, maybe as
Agenda 21) by people who want to develop on them, but are
really essential for air quality and to keep some contact with
nature, especially where they ultimately connect through
undeveloped land to wild places. interesting animals drift in.
Where I live, there is a creek that seems to be home to wild
turkeys, who strut slowly up the road every day, eating slugs
and snails off everyone’s front yards, and at least one deer.

So I am against Agenda 21 and for greenbelts.

St. Basil of Great of the early Church said once, regarding
Christian use of non Christian literature, be like the bee,
who goes from flower to flower, taking the good nectar and
rejecting what is not good.

The same attitude applies to environmentalism, many other
things, and most individual writers.

If the John Birch Society had its way Fulgencio Batista and his mafia henchmen would still be running Cuba, Dwight Eisenhower would have died in a federal prison, and the world as we know it would have been destroyed by a nuclear WWIII.

Cuba did not “fall to communism,” it fell to rebel patriots led by Fidel Castro assisted by Pedro Diaz Lanz who was fired as chief of the airforce well before Cuba “went communist.”

And I’m sorry to say to Mr. Smith, your quote on Google only comes up with four results, all either JBS or libertarian sites. That is a dead giveaway of a fabrication. Castro succeeded in Cuba because Batista was a brutal dictator in league with the American mafia. Castro did America a favor by severely undermining the gangs of Meyer Lansky, Mickey Cohen, and Lucky Luciano.

I call shenanigans on every one of your statements. Especially regarding the one concerning Welch being able to stop Castro.

People really aren’t listening to you anymore.

Go cry about it.

you socialists come up with something different, like liberty based on limited government, and we’ll go away. You first.

I don’t agree with them on all issues, but I have a goos opinion of them..

Government continues to expand….Stop it before it’s too late !!

“i want to meet a JBS member in person
i’ve only seen their bumber stickers”

If your local government, city or county, is considering revisions to its rules for development, go to one of their meetings and there’s a fair chance some JBS members or sympathizers (Tea Partiers) will be there, opposing any restrictions on development by waving the Agenda 21 flag. Local government officials usually are taken by surprise by this tactic (because of course they aren’t actually basing their proposed policies on UN recommendations) and sometimes will delay needed action in order to have time for their staffers to study up on the issue.

And regarding the JBS, the only good thing they ever did was cost Goldwater the presidency.