X-Message-Number: 30944 Date: Sat, 16 Aug 2008 08:34:26 -0700 (PDT) From: William O'Rights <> Subject: Maybe not the whole Story 2. --0-2123607491-1218900866=:61257 Maybe not the whole Story 2. I would like to address other statements that can be found in the link in X-Message-Number: 30884 by FlavO Noid, posted on July 21st. Chana de Wolf AKA Undertoad posted some fair commentary under the post named"providing information before asking for money”. She wrote the following "This kind of appeal doesn't work for me. I find this description lacking in the kind of information I would want to have in order to make an informed decision as to whether or not people should give money to this guy. Not questioning his integrity, but if he's such a cryonics supporter, how come he hasn't been signed up for years? Why wasn't he "able to get his suspension funded at CI?" In addition Chana de Wolf wrote "I am not interested in making up the slack for those who have known about and "supported" cryonics for years and yet never made provisions for their own cryopreservation at any point along the line. As Aschwin points out in this post, making arrangements as early as possible (and keeping them) is the best strategy a cryonicist can have. These are tough questions that Chana de Wolfwrites, but they are fair and they are deserving of an answer. Also Posted in the thread titled "Maybe Not the Whole Situation.” The Finance Department wrote; "And I have to wonder about those who made posts requesting these donations, as to why they are not telling the full story.” I have a plausible answer. I don't think you can sum up my life based on the fact that I was arrested and convicted on a felony Marijuana Possession charge. Although I may have chosen otherwise, I don't think it's necessarily fair to expect that the information about my legal issue should have made it on the first page of a fund raising effort. In fairness to the Finance Department however, I goggled my own name, the results were less than flattering. But is the fact that I was arrested and convicted of felony possession of Marijuana the whole story? Nowhere will you find the fact that I have on numerous occasions defended against laws that violated the first amendment rights of everyone in my State. I had in fact never lost a constitutional challenge until the year 2005. The details off that loss I would be more than happy to share with you should anyone show any interest in hearing about that. Dave has mentioned my assistance on the Stump bill, which was a bill intended solely to regulate or close down Alcor. For those of you who may be new or not aware of that episode, I'll run that down for you. I posted a warning on January 5, 2004 at Immortality Institute prior to the "Stump Bill". I was tempted to just provide a link because of the length of the post, but I'm leaving it intact and reposting that below. "Can't you just see it now, some legal action relating to cryonics or something? Or some other life and death issue." William Constitution O'Rights, BJ Klein, Lazarus Long, and Bob Drake Defendants Vs. United States of America.... Shaky or not, let's try to see through the looking glass more clearly. In the future modern science will rip gaping holes in the realm of the impossible and modern law will struggle to keep pace. Revolutionary advancements in science will threaten ancient notions of immortality. Instead of accommodating the new realities, there will be powerful people, chiefly political and religious leaders, who will bend the law into a reactive, even reactionary force in the path of Cryonics. Religious and political leaders on the global stage, from popes to presidents, will unite to demand an end to cryonics. The Ted Williams' story shocked people all over America and spawned a frenzy of political and legal action. The facts and the science of cryonics capabilities were swiftly lost in the dust cloud stirred up by people rushing to do something, anything, to stop cryonics. The use of the science and technology of cryonics have produced some startling headlines and emotional reactions, and in the future it may ignite a firestorm of denunciations and vows to ban cryonics permanently, under all circumstances and for all purposes. Perhaps the president of the United States, the pope, numerous senators and members of Congress of both major political parties, and hosts of world leaders will speak with virtually one voice in decrying the freezing of humans, irrespective of the potential benefits that could be realized. When the people speak with one voice it is often out of pure prejudice. Fear and misunderstanding may spawn extreme, and extremely vocal, opposition to cryonics. If that comes to pass, the opposition will take root in the form of several highly restrictive state laws and threaten to become a federal ban as well. There is little doubt that at least some of the fuel that will ignite the legal opposition to scientific forays into the frontiers of immortality is the strong primeval sense that we should not be allowed to "play God.” This belief has been both explicitly and implicitly at the core of much of the resistance to most scientific advances. Fundamentally, the idea is that our ability to perform certain tasks should not be coterminous with the legality of doing so, at least with regard to living things. There is a belief, usually implicitly and often explicitly religious in origin, that places some life-related areas of medical and scientific endeavor in the category of taboo, top-sacred, forbidden mystical practices reserved exclusively unto deity. Some people are afraid that human attempts to "play God” are fraught with overwhelming peril. The powerful message and visceral impact from these fantasies is clear, when we meddle in the secrets of life, we risk unleashing the anger of God. Popular opposition to cryonics may be formidable enough in its own right, but it may be dwarfed by legal opposition. During this, the dawn of the cryonics age, our government may hastily act to place severe restrictions, including outright bans on cryonics and the degree of unanimity in opposition to cryonics may be astounding, possibly uniting liberal and conservative, pro-life and pro-choice, and secular and religious people of various persuasions. Many of the reasons that will be marshaled in opposition to cryonics, are directly rooted in religious, ethical, or moral beliefs that this is just something people should not do. Whether couched in terms to the effect that our efforts are tantamount to "playing God” and should be reserved for God alone, or phrased in less overtly religious language, this type of argument represents deep personal convictions. The people who hold these beliefs are convinced of the fundamental correctness of their position, and both the people and the sincerity of their beliefs are entitled to great respect. We however hold opposing beliefs, and our beliefs represent our deeply held personal convictions, and are entitled to equal recognition. Passion has its place, but not to the exclusion of logic, reality, and the rule of law. We need to explore the wisdom of the legal measures already taken within the United States, particularly we need to address possible anti-cryonic legislation before it is even fully drafted. To the extent anti-cryonic sentiment is rooted in religious doctrine, there are important First Amendment concerns implicated in any marriage of religion and state-sponsored legal action. Religion-based belief simply cannot be permitted to manifest itself in a ban of cryonics. There are doctrinal strands that tie cryonics to the "free-exercise" clause of the First Amendment. Of course the sentiment of the opposition is often not based on any clearly articulated principles. Opponents of cryonics simply refer to the putative immorality of it, as if it were intuitively obvious to everyone, and sometimes offer by way of explanation something on the order of "It just seems wrong.” Fortunately for us, such vague, emotion-rooted, gut-level aversion is a poor foundation on which to build a set of legal requirements or arguments. However the same type of sincerely held yet poorly defined abhorrence has led, in the America of not so long ago, to antimiscegenation laws, legal ownership of and commerce in slaves, legally sanctioned racial segregation, denial of equal rights to African Americans, denial of suffrage to women, and many other grave injustices.. We need to examine cryonics in a new light, one that relates to our rights and liberties. We need to seek an appropriate, rational, and constitutionally sound course of action for a defense. We need to meet any new challenges proactively. We need to look through this window into the future whereby today's bans on cryonics form the foundation for tomorrow's denial of our very lives. That future does not have to be. It is the purpose, the very essence of this organization that we look into the future and change the path we are on, before that tomorrow becomes today. Shortly after posting this, that tomorrow became today real fast. Less than two months later the Stump bill began to wind it's way through the legislative process on to become a law that would have an negative impact on all of those who were frozen at Alcor. I posted the following, Do,,, or Die...The War on Immortality, Call to arms, Stump Bill 22-Feb 2004, 11:40 AM In the Threats to Immortality section, government is listed as one of the greatest threats. Well here it is folks, up close, in your face and personal. The government is seeking control of Alcor, so what are we going to do about it? If Imm wants to be considered relevant in the field of Immortality, now is the time to show what we got/ or that we are not. We have 3 working days to make a difference, let's get to it. Do we have the resourses to make a diffeerence??? We should, let's take inventory. Full Members 62 minus leadership leaves 48 remaining members. If half, HALF, get involved that's 24 additional callers. That's 288 calls together with 156 makes 444 calls. We have 1249 "Members" If only one% join in the effort, that's 12, in fact that's too optimistic, let's say 6 regular members join, that's another 72 calls. 516 calls, That's more than enough to make a major impact. So are we a group that just comes here to chat about things, or are we really about doing something about that mission statement. Article II. -- Mission & Function * Section 1 -- Main Mission The mission of ImmInst is to conquer the blight of involuntary death. Well, here's our chance to do something about it. I called Randolf this morning, he is attempting to get the spotlight on this issue to the media. We all know the forms of Kryptonite to politicians... and one of them is bad press. Here are some links if anyone wishes to read more on some of my legal writings surrounding the Stump Bill. http://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?s=&showtopic=3153&view=findpost&p=27101 http://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?s=&showtopic=3153&view=findpost&p=27120 http://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?s=&showtopic=3153&view=findpost&p=27165 http://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?s=&showtopic=3153&view=findpost&p=27207 Shortly after the defeat of the Stump bill I started to do vast research to prepare various defenses to potential new laws. I easily spent well over 100 hours and I was just getting started. I had not even scratched the surface of my research. I was preparing for the next legal battle and that consumed me every day of my life, because I would rather be a regular person who has eloquently prepared for a case than a person with an extraordinarily high IQ who hasn't been bright enough to prepare. You have little idea Chana de Wolf of the months that I had already put in and the years that I would have spent in lonely isolation preparing for this battle. Indeed, I had watched the reflection of the rising sun on my computer screen many a morning while others slept their lives away peacefully. Perhaps had I not spent well over 100 hours researching legal issues surrounding threats to all of us, and instead used that time to concentrate on just taking care of my own suspension I would not find myself in the current situation I am in. Perhaps if I cared less about the cause in general and paid more attention to my own personal survival I would be in a far better position than the one I currently find myself in. Perhaps in an ironic twist of fate, you Chana de Wolf will have your suspension all in order only to find that the government has just passed legislation to out law cryonic suspension. Make no mistake, I may die in a few short months and you may never hear from me again, but you haven't heard the last from your government. Sometime in the future, they will be at it again. Now if you'll excuse me Chana, I have a Death Sentence I'm trying to appeal. Live Long and Well William Constitution O'Rights --0-2123607491-1218900866=:61257 Content-Type: text/html; charset=windows-1252 [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=30944