X-Message-Number: 4055
From: Trygve Bauge <>
Subject: The rest of the story!
Date: Tue, 21 Mar 1995 02:54:16 +0100 (GMT+0100)

Open letter to Charles Platt, Perry Metzger, & Bob (Not So) Smart
 
Why do you insist on posting flames based on erroneous, uninformed
misrepresentations of the situation?
And why do you keep repeating errors that I already have rebutted?
My almost complete facility is state of the art, and has received
positive international publicity in its own right (and independent
of its cryonic use) The technology is fire proof, earthquake proof
and storm proof, with vaulted ceilings of reinforced concrete.
I designed it, and my plans also included a state of the art blast 
sheltered earthen berm cryonic laboratory that would fit into the hill
behind the caretaker quarters that I already built.
My battle with the INS has received wide spread international
press coverage for years, and my more recent battle with the town
trustees over cryonics have received multi national attention for almost
a year now. Both battles have been on national TV, on national public 
radio, on Koa and other radio stations that cover the United States.
Every main media outlet in Colorado, and In Norway has also covered
both battles. Not to mention a variety of tv stations and news papers
in Chicago, in the bay area etc. Norway's (Scandinavias) largest news
paper and the two largest Tv stations in Colorado are still covering 
every new development in the case. 
I still get follow up calls from several TV stations and news papers on a 
routine basis. Thus I find it a little odd when somone flames me saying
that they are glad that my story "so far has not been widely reported"
It just says how little they know about the situation they are passing
inflammatory judgment on.
I have been a public person since the mid seventies. Whether it is
cryonics, my stand for entrepreneurial Liberty, my shelter designs, or my
ice swimming, it continues to receive international press coverage.
(A french yogi just failed to beat my world record for ice bathing!)
I built an international reputation for myself long before I got
involved in cryonics. And those good press contacts and a
reputation of full openeness with the press is what I brought with me
when I got involved in cryonics. These press contacts stopped
the town trustees from cremating my grand father last May and have so far
kept the town trustees at bay. 
There were more TV trucks parked in the town of Nederland that week, 
than has ever visited the place.
My phone bills to the press exceeded $ 2,000 that month.
The press has always been my best ally in whatever I have been organizing.
Thus I find it a little odd that people worry about letting the press know!
The situation is still volatile, and my grand father could still
end up cremated, but at least I am fighting it, proudly and in the open.

Charles Platt <> said:

>Perry Metzger accuses Trygve Bauge of being "hopelessly naive." But in my
>experience, almost all cryonicists are naive--thinking they will be able
>to cheat death and will be allowed to do so. 

My involvement in cryonics is not based on naivity,
and I like to think that neither is the involvment of others.
It is not a question of cheating death but of systematically identifying
the main causes of death, and what reactions lead up to each,
and then looking for ways to intercept, stop and reverse the reaction
paths that lead to death.

It is not a question of being allowed to take the most 
life-extending steps, but rather a question of writing a
constitutional charter and organizing a constitutional government
with the purpose of defending those rights that it is the most
life extending to respect, a government with the rational means to
enforce these rights without violating the same.
Like it or not there are certain rights that we have to enforce 
respect for in order to best extend our individual lives.

I am not sitting around waiting for opponents to allow me
to extend my life, I am taking the steps to plan,
establish and enforce rational governments set up to
best enable individual life extension.
You will find a rough charter draft on my WWW pages,
and plans for how cruise ships can be turned into floating
city states, how international freeportcan be established
and expanded, with the goal being to enforce free travel and trade
over still wider areas.
My deportation was just a small skirmish in a much wider battle,
and showed that I am not willing to 
ask permission to do what no one has any right to deny me,
or to thus compromise 
the principles of liberty that I am fighting for.

>I have met only a handful of cryonicists who are, in any real sense,
>"worldly." (I do not include myself among them, incidentally.) 

I on the other hand do regard myself as wordly or a man of the world,
a world citizen if you will. It took a lot of overview, thinking and
understanding to emigrate from Norway in the first place.

>Moreover,
>in many cases the naivety is allied with great stubbornness (natural
>enough--you have to be stubborn to reject the preconceptions which
>everyone else takes for granted). Naivety and stubbornness can achieve
>quite a lot, if you're foolish enough to reject orthodox wisdom and
>pigheaded enough to refuse to give up. Historically this has been a useful
>combination in (e.g.) inventors. 

Yes, I am stubborn but if you knew me, or if you bothered to
visit my world wide web pages, you would see that I am not naive.
Whenever I have rejected orthodox wisdom, it was a lot of rational thought
and a lot of writing and not foolishness that led to the rejection.
 
>Unfortunately, though, the combination occurs even more often in people 
>who are simply out of sync with reality. 

A long time ago I set out to find as many valid integration techniques
or techniques for valid reasoning as I could find. I asked myself:
How can I still better calculate what is, what was and how still higher
goals still better can be reached. I do my best to secure that
valid integration and verification routines lay behind my conclusions.
Let me also quote Ibsen: "the majority is always wrong" and "that
person is most often right, who stands the most alone".
I might be out of sync with the majority, but I am not out of sync
with reality. To be out of sync with reality would be to
believe in something that is not true, or to refuse to acknowledge
what is true. I am very well aware of my reality
and of the opposition and other obstacles I am up against.
But national sovereignty is not a natural law, And refusing to
respect it does not constitute a failure to acknowledge reality.
My motto is: When in Rome, civilize the Romans!
And as I see it: local autonomy is a threat to individual autonomy!
And respect for the autonomy of individuals is the more life extending
solution.

>Thirty years ago, cryonicists started out in much the same style as Trygve
>Bauge, 
NO! THEY DIDN'T! 
As far as I know, they didn't freeze anyone from abroad,
They didn't build state of the art nuclear war proof life extension centers
they didn't push for electrical freezers that were cold enough and large enough
as I have done for the last few years. (now the remaining task
is to make them affordable through varied use, mass production and
placement near cheap electricity (like in Norway))

>doing it themselves with minimal technology on their home property.
How many times do I have to say that I didn't do it just myselves
with minimal technology. The dry ice box has the very best
insulation I could find, including steel wool, astro foil & styrofoam,
And while i maintained it
the 4 person box had a boil off rate of 28 lbs of dry ice a day.
We had an electrical freezer lined up
We were ready to add a metal dewar as soon as we got a client
for it. And i was keeping Acs and the immortalist up to date
with each step I took.
I had my grand father and one other client to start with.
I had several local assistants helping out.
And the plan was to recruit more clients and local assistants
and to run it professionally.

>They were naive to think their haphazard approach would work, and
>pigheaded in their obstinacy. 
It wasn't haphazard, and
It would have worked if the INS had respected my appeals rights.
I expected to have at least another year in court, and more than
enough time to get the cryonic facility up and running,
so I could pass it on to someone else while I organized 
a political fight to overcome the INS.
Without the INS problems it would have been a piece of cake to
overcome the local town trustees!
Likewise I would have overcome the INS by now if I hadn't had to 
fight the town trustees from abroad

>Since that time, some painful lessons have
>been learned by those willing to learn them. Alcor, for instance, has
>fought a number of court battles which provided some hard but useful 
>lessons for all of us re dealing with bureaucrats. 
Add one more lesson: Don't ever be vulnerable. Have enough surplus
and manpower so that you can fight two battles at the same time.

>The problem with Mr. Bauge (whom I spoke with at length on the phone some 
>time ago, when he was seeking money to complete his cryotorium) is that 
>he seems unwilling to learn any of these lessons. That attitude has 
>already cost him dearly. 
I object. A lot of thought has gone into the project. 
And I tried to improve upon everything that was done before.
What specific knowledge did I ignore?
In hind sight I should have invited more cryonisists
to come and join me in Boulder. When I bought land it was selling
for $ 8,000 per lot. When I brought in utilities and a road
and the press, and the view from that hill became widely known,
all the neighbouring properties skyrocketed in price,
and they have since sold for from 2 to 4 times what the price was
when we bought land back in 1991. One of the neighbors complained
to the town trustees. That would not have happened if I had
brought in enough cryonisists to buy up all the lots in the
first place, and they were all available for sale at the time.
I mentioned the avilable lots to quite a few cryonisists
at the time but no one wanted to buy a lot for $8,000
>From one to two years later the same lots sold for from
$16,000 to $ 35,000 Maybe Jim and Charles should think about the
opportunities they didn't jump on when I invited them.
Thus I have learned: Build a strong organization before
you invest substantial amounts of money, so that you better
can defend your venture from any attack, and so that you can harvest
the increase in property values that come about as a result of your 
land development.

>More to the point, however, by precipitating a 
>ludicrous situation (neighbors complaining about dead people stored on 
>his property) he threatens everything that has been achieved by cryonics 
>over three decades.

Do you really have to jump to such ludicrous distortions & conclusions?
ONE neighbor complained. The health department and the general population
came down on my side. Nederland is an old mining town, and there are
dead bodies burried all over the place, mostly in unmarked graves,
and my grand father just ads to the folklore.
The local restaurants are now selling old grandad on ice,
a quite popular drink.
The town trustees overreacted to the one complaint, and had to eat
crow, but then had a wested interest in saving face.
The major and half the trustees have since quit. If I had been there
I could have resolved the problems in this May's election of the town trustees.
It would be nice if other cryonisists would contact the town
303-258-3266 (I think) and ask who the candidates are, and then
contact these and lobby them to see who supports cryonics
thus we could push candidates willing to drop this whole battle
and even willing to let me complete my project as planned.
It is just a question of getting the drawings and plans published
locally so that the candidates will see that there is nothing to
worry about. 
How proudly defending a state of the art life extension center,
that got continuously positive press coverage for its design,
for its use as a club cabin for my polar bear club.
(Charles Kuralts show arranged to have a film crew 
from their local affiliate visit the
house during the olympics, the crew spent 3 hours filming
and we didn't even find time to mention cryonics)

How my project threaten cryonics I don't see.
Misrepresenting it as storing grand pa in the back barn,
and other cryonisists failure to have the courage to defend what I was 
trying to accomplish, would however do a lot of harm to cryonics.
The only negative press coverage I have had in this hold battle
has been when other cryonisists have gone out in the press
and with little knowledge of my project, created a false
picture of what I have been doing, and then soundly attacking
the strawman that they had created.
The more serious media outlets did however send their own folks
to interview me, and to visit Nederland, and were able to
see for themselves that the critique from other cryonisits
where completely off target.

>Unfortunately, he seems either too naive, or too pigheaded, to recognize 
>this. He also seems to have great difficulty even listening to other 
>people's points of view--which may be the source of his problems with his 
>neighbors in the first place. 

Why to you make plural out of one neighbor?
I have no problem listening I am spending an enormous amont of time
trying to correct misunderstandings about the situation, and that
includes listening to a lot of such. A flame or a factual error is not
a point of view, but an error that ought to be corrected.
Don't misinterpret my rebuttal of erroneous flames,
it doesn't mean that I do not take cultivated and relevant and
factually correct observation to hearth. If you had paid attention
you would have noticed that I ask people to be specific in their
objections and suggestions so that I easier can correct what
is wrong and take to hearth what is right.

>I am glad that so far, this story has not been widely reported.

Where have you been the last year?

> But it
>could easily turn into a scandal, 

And how is that again?
How could a story that has already been covered by hundreds
or actually thousands of journalists, and that is still
covered by dozens, how could that suddenly turn into a scandal?
There are no hidden sceletons so to speak.
And there never were. I sent out hundreds of press releases
with all the vital information about the storage of my grand father
and Al, two months before the press even mentioned the story.
And the press is very well aware of that the situation is volatile.
As a matter of fact it was my press contacts who by decending upon
the town last May, that thus prevented the town trustees
from confiscating and cremating both the bodies.

The situation could hardly have been worse than when the press
rode to the rescue. And the scandal was the town trustees action.
All the people who spoke out in front of the trustees
at the town meeting, came down on our side!s

The town trustees initial overreaction
scared off my client David Tate, and he moved Al out.
If he had had as much trust in the press as I do, Al would still
have been frozen. And the situation would have been much easier
to maintain economically. That one client paid more than the cost
of maintaining both the bodies. And instead of making some
money the upkeep of just my grand father with hired help, now cost
us $ 400 a month.

>and the more he complains publicly about
>his "mistreatment," meanwhile also claiming to be a totally rational
>individual pursuing cryonics in a sensible fashion, the more likely it
>becomes that the story will cause a lot of grief for the rest of us.

???? Please elaborate. And please don't distort the fact
or jump to the wrong conclusion as you have done so far.
I have been wronged! I was not the strawman you made me out to be,
I have pursued cryonics in a sensible fashion.
And the only added grief that can come from this situation is
if my grand father gets cremated and burried, because cryonisists
were afraid to stand up for a state of the art life extension center
but instead decided to explain away their own cowardice.

So much for what Charles Platt had to say about a situation he
hardly knew anything about.

The press knows that the situation is still volatile,
and that the battle has been hard fought, and the journalists
have been sympathetic and rooting for my side.
If he gets thawed out, it will hardly be seen as
a reason to attack cryonics, but rather as a reason
to but in place enough checks and balances to prevent
the INS and the local town government from 
impeding similar value creation in the future.

My facility was meant to offer both rejuvenating routines
and cryonic services. It is planned not merely as a cryonic facility
but as a true life extension center. 
And the design I used is just one of many models  I have prepared
of various size life extension centers.
I still hope to complete this facility,
but no doubt I will be back with a different facility too.
However I will build a larger support organization first.


Bob Smart <> said:

>Subject: Facts and Reason: Pro or Con?

An essential part of facts and valid integration is verification techniques.
Let me suggest you apply some, instead of just creating and attacking
strawmen in my name.

>> My other grand father (not the one we froze) was a well known psychiatrist
>> who in his time was in charge of some of Norway's larger mental
>> institutions.
 
>So, because your grandfather did something worthy of respect, that means
>your shit doesn't stink?  

No, No, Keep it clean, unless you want me to respond in kind?

>Your grandfather's character and occupation are
>irrelevant to your mental health and the worth of your achievements.

I mentioned my grand father not because I look like him, and is named after 
him and is as inteligent as him, all of which is true, but to show that
I know the psychiatric profession from both my mother's and my grand father's
side of the fence, and that as a result I know how prevelant it is
to confuse the unusual with the insane. In Norway the rule of thumb was in 
many years that if something was not usual or normal, then it was insane,
a policy that wrongfully classifies as insane anything that is unusual and
rational. In Norway this is called Jante Loven: "don't think you are or know
anything more than anyone else". No wonder there are now more people
of Norwegian decent abroad , than in Norway.

Since I see the value of valid reasoning, and since I spend a lot of time
thinking I often find myself presenting well thought out ideas,
that to other's seem more than a little unusual until they get all
the facts.

When some jerk jump to the conclusion that my ideas are insane
just because they are unusual to him, then I see it of value to respond
as strong as I possibly can. Call it self defense.
It is extremely important that new valid ideas and those who think 
them, are not harassed and shut down by ignorant bullies,
particulary when one take into account how psychiatry often have
been misused to attack rational political opponents. And how 
labeling people irrational is the first step to violate their rights.
I am not used to being libeled the way I was in some of the recent
flames, and I am not about to lay down and give the impression
that those flames were valid or rational, which they were not!

>but while we're on the topic, let's see what else comes along:
 
>> I came to the conclusion that protectionism is a threat to life extension
>> ...To extend life we have to overcome death...
 
>A rambling political manifesto--one which is certainly unlikely to reassure
>any government officials who might happen to read it!--and then:

The ideas I quoted are much better put forth in the articles
posted to my WWW pages. And incidentally most of my arguments
in favor of free travel is already well known to the US government.
I have been sued by and been suing the INS for 8 years.
All my hard hitting aphorism are already on file with every
level of the immigration department and the justice department
and the courts. The only people who haven't heard my
arguments are the general public, Though quite a few one liners
have been used as sound bites on national talk radio shows
in news paper articles and in lengthy TV interviews.
Thus stop worrying about the government finding out what I am
thinking, they already know! After the first few death threats back in 1986
it has been relatively smooth sailing, the cryonics battle of
the last year is just a piece of cake compared to what I was run through
back in 1986.
 
>> [I have been] proudly and openly...refusing to comply with passport, visa,
>> and work permit requirements.
 
>If you proudly and openly break the law, then you can proudly and openly
>expect to be hunted down and treated like a criminal.

Didn't you pay attention a few weeks ago: Being visaless does not
constitute a CRIME!  The government deliberately refuses to treat
undocumented aliens as criminals, beacuse if the claimed we were criminals
they would have to prosecute us as criminals, and the bill of rights
guarantees due process and trial by jury in all criminal cases.
The government knows that they could never get a jury to convict me.
I was living in Boulder for 14 years as a visaless alien,
and my status was widely known, and covered by the press.
Local journalists wrote articles reminding the public
that if my case were to go to trial the jury had the right
to nullify the law, this is called jury nullification.

Thus the INS suspends the right to trial by jury,
suspends all dur process rights,
and detainees the foreign born without ever bringing
criminal charges against these.

When you have not committed any crime,
and still are detained without being charged with a crime
and all your rights are violated,
then we have a police state,
And since you are not charged with or convicted
of a crime you are not in a jail or a prison,
but in a concentration camp!

I was in two of them In Aurora Colorado.
Most larger cities have one.
And most Americans select to look the other way,
just like the good old Germans did!

This is a police state, put since only a few million people
are victimized each year, and since citizens are not
victimized (except when they go abroad)
the practices continue.

Illegal aliens have today become the scape goat in the US,
much the same way Jews were scapegoats in germany.
And very few people are standing up and demanding
a stop to the disgraceful concentration camps that
now blemishes the United States.
I, however, do stand up,
and for that I should be applauded.

>  Is it really necessary for you to drag all of cryonics into your grand 
>and narcissistic gesture?

It is my life extension that is at stake,
and all my efforts are an integral part of my pursuit of
life extension.
Thus all my efforts has to be seen as one coordinated venture
combination. My cryonic ventures does not exist in a vacum
but are part of an overall life extending venture combination.
What I am saying, is that I try to describe and 
implement a life extending society,
a life extending moral system, legal system and way of life.

I try to proudly lay out still more advanced
life extension centers.
And then let people know what it would take to implement
the life extending venture combinations that I have described.
I am not answering to you as to whether or not I should
be involved in cryonics, or as to whether or not
cryonics should be part of the ventures I promote.

I do support private property, and for me to organize
private ventures, is my right.

luckily we do not have guilde socialisme,
and there is no monopoly on who can be involved in cryonics.

If you feel that my involvment drags in the
whole industry, then I select to think that 
the overall effect is positive
and even if I was to fail in some of my ventures,

The nice thing about liberty is that one has the freedom
to do one's own thing and that neighbors and others
who feel they are dragged in, do not have the right to stop
what they can only watch at a distance, and that doesn't
directly trespass on their property.
 
>> I didn't botch it any more than the Jews botched it in WWII.
 
>Yes, you most certainly did.  If you don't understand the relationship
>between your actions and the situation you're in now, then you're in for a
>really rocky life.

Life extension is like a game of chess, you try to look ahead
and go for the best longrun results. I certainly see the relationship
between actions and results. In real life however, as long as one
does the best one can in the face of big obstacles,
one can't really be accused of having botched it.
 
>> Trying to do one's best when one is under a severe and unjust attack is
>> better than rolling over and doing nothing.
 
>No.  Placing the safety of your patients above your ego is better than
>placing them at risk while you spit in the face of the local government.
>"Doing one's best" only counts if you're SOLVING problems--not thrashing
>around compounding them.

You are really offensive. You have no idea what sacrifices I have gone
to to get my grand father frozen and to since maintain him,

You are really good at creating a strawman, putting my name on it and
then attacking it.
But why do you keep turning the situation completly on its head?

I didn't trash around causing or compounding problems,
or attack the local government.
I read and coplied with the existing zoning law, to the letter.
I didn't place the patients at risk by 
going off to attack the local (city) government.
As a matter of fact I didn't go off and attack the local government
at all which I probably should have.

I spent an enormous amount of time building good will in
Boulder over 14 years. And even after I got deported
I continued to live openly for almost 3 months
To work at an office, to do phone sales in person,
to shop, to even visit the local county prosecutor at his home,
to particpate in the community as though nothing had happened.
It took 3 of being myself in public,
before I ran across anyone that turned me in to the INS.
The city has 80,000 citizens, and lots of police officers
greated me and smiled.
The INS in the mean time but out a 10,000 dollar award on my head.
And no one claimed the award.
I finally got arrested by a police officer who
just had been hired from out of town, and who didn't
know me from Adam. One over eager clerk had to point me
out to him, and wave her arms and really go over the edge
to get me arrested, after other officers had just walked by
and smiled to me.
I lived openly as a visaless alien for 14 years, and proudly so,
and most people applauded my stand.
Most aliens get a pardon after 7 years.
The INS had lost face, and celebrated when they caught me,
and took steps to prevent me from getting near a phone
They did everything they could to prevent me from
getting a writ of habeas corpus, and a stay of the deportation
pending the completion of my appeal.
Two INS officers got a free vacation in Europe as part of all this.
Now you know what your federal tax dollars are used for.

It was only after I got deported that one neighbor complained
to the town trustees about my cryonic venture,
and the town trustees overreacted,
and threatened to impound and cremate the two bodies.
They reached me by phone in Norway,
I immediately let them inspect the facility in Nederlandp
I called in the health department who confirmed that
everything was o.k. and that no federal, state or county law
was broken.
I also immediately got on the phone
and spent 2,000 dollars on the phone over the next few weeks,
mobilizing the press and the community, to hold off the
town trustees. After first threatening to confiscate, thaw out
and cremate my grand father and Al Campbell, and outlawing cryonics
post defacto, and scaring off my client,
the town trustees then backed down, and offered us
a deal whereby we could keep my grand father on the property.
The deal set certain deadlines for when we should have the facility
completed, and since the INS could prevent me from meeting those
deadlines I couldn't sign the agreement. If I had signed
any delay caused by the INS would have triggered that my
grand father got thawed out. There where a few other problems
with the contract too. We solved some. They first demanded
that my mother live on site hereafter a kind of serfdom.
But we were able to remove that clause. Anyway we ran out of time
without reaching an agreement, and it went to trial instead
compounded by the fact that my mother in the mean time had
a mental breakdown and missed some crucial hearings
and was completly out of it at others and the town administration
jumped on the opportunity to steam roll over her, and I had 
to get her committed to a hospital,
and to get on the internet to drum up support again
I think I have been solving problems that have been thrown at me.
and that I haven't gone out of my way to create the problems
in the first place.
But I am greatly hampered by the INS.
 
>> And certainly better than denigrating my attempt as best I can the
>> transgressions I have experienced.
 
>There it is: transgressions against YOU.  Your stiff-necked refusal to
>acknowledge another country's sovereignty is leading toward cremation of
>your patients.  

Not really.
In the slighly longer run
I and my patients would not be any better of
if I gave in to the INS.
I wouldn't have been involved in cryonics in the first place
if I hadn't had the guts to stand up for what I see as right,
and my grand father would not have been frozen, If I hadn't
stood up for what I saw as right,
and the house in Nederland would never have been designed
or build if I hadn't had the integrity to stand up for
what I see as right.
It is so easy to say that some problem would have been 
solved by compromising, but then forget that one wouldn't
have come half as far as one did, if one had been willing
to compromise in the first place. 
If I started compromising now, it would reduce the future heights
that I will reach.

YES: TRANSGRESSIONS AGAINST ME.
The United States used to be free.
The pilgrims didn't have any visa or passport.
The founding fathers didn't apply to become Americans,
each declared himself to be an American, and so do I.

Jefferson himself fought the alien and sedition acts,
the protectionist reaction of his time.
The United States was open for free immigration up until
the turn of the century.

National sovereignty doesn't mean a right to do wrong.
And jury nullification and other checks and balances
are supposed to prevent governments from using national
sovereignty as an excuse for enforcing rights violating laws.

National sovereignty doesn't have to mean protectionism,
or visas and passports.
Free ports like Hong Kong used to be open to everyone.

We need more places were everyone is welcome.

I have only one patient, my grand father. Al was on a six month
short term storage contract and his guardian had the option of moving him
whenever he wanted, and he did. He would have been safe at my facility
for the duration of the six months. And both bodies would have been
better off if he had not moved Al. Then there would have been more money
and more people involved in caring for the facility. I had suggested
earlier to David that he move out there and join the facility.
The situation was definitelvly more vulnerable with my mother in charge
and a few friends helping out.

I did not put him at risk,
And to the same extent I have put my grand father at risk,
please remember that he wouldn't have been frozen in the first place
if it wasn't for me doing what I deemed to be the best option
I could afford at each turn of events.

>That's not principled, romantic, or noble--it's just plain
>stupid and outrageously self-absorbed for your patients to be on the line
>over your wounded pride and "principles." 

I guess my grand father is at risk,
However I couldn't afford to store him anywhere else,
which means his best bet were with me
for better or for worse.
And yes I do hold the INS responsible.
Maybe the INS agents were just obeying the law,
but that is what the NAZI officers were guilty of too
that we hanged at Nuremberg.


>You want to make a statement
>about visas and immigration control

No, I want to extend my life, and I can best do that in a free
society among other equally free men and women.
My fight against the INS is probably more life extending
to more people in the long run, than my cryonic efforts ever will be.

>--and by the way, even Norway exercises
>control over its borders and keeps track of visiting foreigners, so why
>shouldn't the US?--

Two wrongs doesn't make one right.


>and because of your deliberate ("proud and open," no
>less) flouting of the law, now your patients are in this precarious
>position.  

Because of my flouting of the law, my grand father got frozen,
and shipped, and stored, and transfered.
The United States is very restrictive in immigration, And I would 
have been
back in Norway already in 1980, if I hadn't flounted the law.
Everything I have created of value has been in violation
of US immigration laws.
Believe me: If there was one place that was open to everyone
I would move there anytime.

>Now cryonics as a whole may get linked to your adolescent
>posturing, and the rest of us are supposed to revere you as some kind of
>hero?

Spare me such patronizing drivel.
It is not adolescent, but well thought out
and battle hardened.
Applaus and approval have never been
motivating factors in my life.
My only standard and motivation is my own judgment
of what is right or necessary to best open up a path to the longest
possible life.
 
>> I hope that a cryonic group will see the long run value I have to offer...
 
>Yeah, the undying enmity of one of the US government's more powerful law
>enforcement agencies.  

Not really. The INS is probably the weakest and most demoralized
group of government buraucrats I have come across.
I didn't meet one INS officer that could defend himself
in a calm and culativated debate,
They know they are wrong, and that it is just a question of
a few years before they will be treated as felons,
the way other concentration camp guards already are being treated,
and the way slave owners were threated after the civil war.


>You may have had something of value to contribute,
>but by now you've pretty much poisoned the well.

What well? One can't please everyone, and that has never been a goal
of mine anyway, but I know what valuable projects I am working on
and what support I have,
and that you are underestimating my work andexaggerating
the opposition.

>  So far, I don't think I
>like this "principle" stuff: your implementation of it leaves your patients
>at risk and makes you such a pariah that it's even dangerous for other
>agencies to become affiliated with you.

Princples are important and needed if one is to succeed
at fighting back death.
Time will tell if the gain was worth the risk.
I don't experience myself as a pariah at all.
The support has at times been overwhelming,
from the population in general.
As far as it being dangerous for agencies to affiliate with me????
What agencies? A few cowards here and there maybe.
But I deal with so many people on so many different projects,
only a few that has to do with cryonics, 
that I am not too concerned about anyone's fear of affiliation.

For cryonics to succeed we need to recruit new blood anyway.
rather than fall into the trap of self censorship,

Cryonics organizations have a tendency to circle the wagons
against the world, each other, and themselves.
To succeed we have to open up and be inclusive
rather than rushing to raise the draw bridge.

>If you were "improving" and "contributing" to the armaments industry the way
>you're "improving" and "contributing" to cryonics, the whole world would be
>now and forever at peace.

Wish I was. I have spent as much time studying and planning
 how to build nuclear war proof life extension centers,
as I have spent planning constitutional charters to enforce
liberty, and rejuvenation and cryonic routines.
Incidentally while some cryonisists accuse my cryonic ventures
of being harmful to cryonics, some peace activists accuse
my blast shelter designs and models of causing war.
Which means that whoever acts, gets blamed for whatever happens.
However I prefere to act and take charge, in the hope
that I at some point will be able to create, defend and make
the most of a free and safe life extension center.



>> It was your choice as a nation to select the INS rather than highly
>> rational foreignborn innovators like myself.
 
>It still isn't clear to me that the choice was incorrect-

My point is that you don't have the right to block free travel
and trade. And that it is not for a government to decide
who gets to come here, any more than it is up to the government
to decide what constitute religion.

>-but in fact, we
>have LOADS of innovative foreigners here, all over the place.

If the word gets out that the United states is a police state.
And if some other country starts offering Jeffersonian Liberty
the United states will soon experience a reverse brain drain.
Ayn Rand was right in suggesting that we go on strike,
What remains to be done, is to create an international freeport
to take over the function that the United States used to have,
as the magnet of the best and the brightes.

>If you're
>such a hot-shit Ubermensch, how come they can figure out how to stay here
>and practice their professions in peace and you got your butt thrown out?

Because I deliberately decided to make a stand for universal liberty,
while many immigrants eagerly want to become members of a
new and protectionistic  American tribe
 
>As for the "highly rational" part, let's have a look:
 
>> My best shot...would be to make a proud and cultivated stand against the
>> ...disgraceful concentration camps that now blemish the United States.
 
>Oh, yeah, REAL rational.  First of all, if the US is such a terrible
>hellhole of oppression, why would any rational person choose to come set up
>shop here in the first place, or wish to stay here?

People still tend to believe in the declaration of Independence.
The INS officers I met repeatedly stated that quote "We don't
practice Jeffersonian Liberty anymore"

So noted.

However there are still more libertarians and Objectivists
in the Unites States than in any other country.
And I for one thought it would be easier to make a stand for liberty
there than in any other country.
Well I lasted 14 years after my visa ran out.
Those were 14 good years, I felt free, and for all practical
puposes I was free,
with the exeption of a few false arrest.
All in all I would say:
America: Improve it or leave it (to others to prosper and excell!)

>  And second, could you
>offer the street address or institutional name of one of these
>"concentration camps," please?  Do you suppose they're holding Elvis in
>there?
 
In Denver you will find one off Smith Road and Peoria
It used to be run by Behavioral Systems South West.
They shut down their operations in Denver, just after I instigate
a food riot.
Wachenhut moved in and built a larger concentration camp,
with a bigger kitchen. just across the street.
These are traditional concentration camps.
People are detained without due process, and in violation
of the common law, and without ever being charged with a crime.
And they are not there as punishment for any crime either.

I never saw Elvis there, but these camps have contained,
polish sailors defecting during the cold war,
Irish, Italians, Swedes, Iranians fleeing the ayatollas,
Nigerians, you name it. Ninety five percent are however
Mexicans, and I am probably the only Norwegian who was ever there.
Norway is the Most Americanized country in the world, next after
the United States. There are as many people of Norwegian descent
in the United States as in Norway. Most of our TV programs are
American made. We all speak English.
And most Norwegians are happy about coming from one of
the worlds richest countries, carrying a passport and a visa,
and being even more protectionistic than the United States.
However I don't see any future in a protectionistic society.
My most life extending ventures can only be implemented in a free society.
I figure I have only 80 years to do something about death.
And in unfree societies one get slowed down to the extent
that one doesn't get to fight back death to the same extent
that one can in a free society.
Thus it is in my self interest to try to enforce liberty,
rather than just resigning myself to whatever limited future
a protectionistic society would assign to me.

>> I have never heard of Bob Smart or Steven Harris before...
 
>And that pretty much sums you up, doesn't it?  You might not have heard of
>me, but if you'd done any serious homework about cryonics at all, you'd have
>inevitably run across Harris' name somewhere along the way.
 
You obviously were off about me too, so then it is mutual.

>> I knew what obstacles a local government and a border patrol can cause.
 
>So you "proudly and openly" flouted their authority.  This must be more of
>that "rationality" stuff?  (Nurse, go very quietly and get the thorazine,
>please....)

What is thorazine? Is that something you take?
(Sorry, I couldn't resist asking )

You ever heard of the Boston Tea Party and the 
civil rights movement?
Civil disobediance has a long and proud history in the United states
What is needed is movement to emancipate the foreignborn!

>> I also knew that only by standing up...can I in the long run turn the
>> population against the government transgressions...
 
>That's JUST what governments like to see: foreign nationals with a stated
>intent of whipping up the population against the government.  Yeah, THAT
>ought to increase the safety of your patients, and the safety of everybody
>else's patients as well!

If you visit my World Wide Web pages, you will see that I have 
stood up to government including the INS from long before I got
Involved with cryonics, and that most of my hard hitting one liners
where on file with every level of INS and every level of our court
system before I even froze my grand father.
Actually while one level of the government were prosecuting me
many other levels were actively assisting me,
Government officials are human too, and most of them dream about
being freer than they are. 
In general the press and the population have been very positive
and supportive through out, and I don't think you have to worry about
any negative repercusions from my efforts.
What you should worry about is how many cryonisists have responded
to my situation.

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