June 2004     

Fighting the "Good Fight"

By Henry Lamb

The 2000 election revealed a nation that is nearly evenly divided. Polls reported on the nightly news show that the division has grown even sharper. The division is not simply between Democrats and Republicans; it is between people who want a new America, and people who want to return to the values and principles that made America great in the first place.

The people who want a new kind of America do not call themselves socialists, but the principles, programs, and procedures they pursue are, indeed, socialist. Their purpose is to put government in control of every facet of human life.

For more than a generation, now, these people have been winning.

Rather than campaign openly for transforming America to a socialist system, they have campaigned to create a system that is socialist, while calling it something else. Protecting the environment, was the battle cry in the 1970s. Who could oppose such a worthy goal? We allowed the advocates to impose policies that empowered government to regulate private property to "protect the environment."

Before we knew it, the advocates of socialist policies permeated the government, and adopted policies to not only control private property, but to buy it, or take it, and extend government's control over land use in ways more severe than in some socialist countries.

Few people recognized the effort to transform America in the 1970s. The "Sagebrush Rebellion" prevented the transformation from happening, in one fell swoop, by defeating the Federal Comprehensive Land Use Planning Act. There were a few organizations that formed to resist the socialist agenda, but most people failed to realize how determined the transformers were.

When the Environmental Conservation Organization (ECO) was formed in 1988, we thought that once we revealed the impact environmental regulations were having on private property rights, the problem would go away. We were wrong. When the "Wildlands Project," was published in 1992, we laughed - Americans would never accept the idea of converting half the land area to wilderness. We were wrong.

Organizations began springing up everywhere, most were organized to defeat a particular proposal in their area: the Northern Forest in Maine; the Biosphere Reserve in the Ozarks; Everglades Restoration in Florida, and hundreds of smaller property-rights-stealing programs across the country.

Then came "Sustainable Development," which took the battle to urban communities that began to see zoning laws and comprehensive planning extinguish property rights in cities. New organizations were formed, all fighting against proposals advanced by a well-organized, well-funded machine, determined to transform America into a socialist system of total government control.

A New Strategy

Six years ago, the leaders of six national organizations met in a small office in Washington, DC., to devise a way to shift the emphasis from a defensive struggle, to an offensive battle plan which would take the fight to the transformers. The result of the discussions was the decision to create a national campaign to advance the principles of freedom in public policy.

If the principles of freedom set forth in the U.S. Constitution are respected and upheld, we reasoned, they cannot be infringed by statute or government regulation.

We decided to call the campaign Freedom 21: Advancing the principles of freedom in the 21^st century. The name seemed to provide a good alternative to Agenda 21, which continues to dominate the transformers' policy proposals.

The first Freedom 21 national Conference in 2000, held in St. Louis, adopted the principles of freedom the campaign pursues. Those principles are posted at the Freedom 21 web site: http://www.freedom21.org. Each year, the national conference has grown, as has the campaign.

The Freedom 21 Campaign is not an organization; it is a campaign waged by hundreds of individual organizations, all working toward their own particular goals, but with a view toward interjecting the principles of freedom into whatever proposals are advanced by the transformers in their community.

The campaign is gathering strength, and positive results are being reported. Organizations are working together and multiplying their effectiveness.

At the Fifth Annual Freedom 21 National Conference in Reno in July, leaders from many of these organizations will gather to report on their local programs, and to hear national leaders report on progress made, and problems yet to be solved. Freedom 21 Santa Cruz is coordinating the development of a national plan of action, which will be presented at the upcoming conference.

We have learned from the transformers that there is power in numbers, and that power is leveraged by working together in a coordinated strategy. This annual meeting is an opportunity to jump to the front lines, and learn how to become even more effective in meeting local challenges.

History has demonstrated time and time again, that victory goes to the most determined, the most passionate, and the best prepared.

Henry Lamb is the Executive Vice President of the Environmental Conservation Organization (ECO), and Chairman of Sovereignty International.