User talk:Rasadeva

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[edit] Concerning the Guns and Dope Party Wikipedia article

Please read Wikipedia:Conflict of interest for more information regarding Guns and Dope Party. You have added yourself to the article. Also, your claims relating to the California gubernatorial recall are specious, as http://vote2003.ss.ca.gov shows that this party did not have a candidate nor did its founder run. OCNative 01:01, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

  • Thank you for writing. I agree with your first point. I should not be the one to add to this article. As for your second point, Wilson wrote, "After refusing many pleas to run for governor, I have reconsidered and now enter the race as an unofficial write-in candidate. (GADP Website)" Wilson then created a platform that addressed several serious issues, albeit often using satire as a rhetorical device. Wilson spoke passionately about the issues in person, in radio interviews, on the internet and in the last book he wrote before he died. Largely because of Wilson's literary following, the Guns and Dope Party platform has been widely disseminated. As you have chosen to write about the GADP, I wonder if I might offer the information below for your consideration. --Rasadeva 08:07, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] About the Guns and Dope Party

The Guns and Dope Party arose from the mind of fiction and non-fiction writer Robert Anton Wilson (1932-2007) in response to a request from his friends that he enter the California 2003 special mid-term recall election as a candidate for Governor. The party platform uses both satire and multi-layered political conviction in an effort to inject several alternative views into mainstream political thinking. Wilson, suffering with the physically debilitating effects of Post-polio syndrome, used medicinal marijuana to ease his pain, and wrote the party platform and other Guns and Dope Party musings from his bed in the last several years of his life. These views included advocacy for medicinal marijuana, as well as thoughts on voluntary taxation (citing 19th century legal philosopher Lysander Spooner, separation of religion from politics, and tactical use of the second and tenth amendment of the United States constitution. Wilson, while not exactly a proponent of gun use, used the premise of the second amendment to stress the importance of a citizenry's right to protect itself against the abuses of its own government. The medicinal marijuana collective (WAMM) that supplied Wilson with his medicine was approved by state and city regulations (see California's Proposition 215, also known as the 1996 Compassionate Use Act), but was in 2002 raided by the US Drug Enforcement Agency. In response to that raid and with the support of city and state government officials, organizers held a rally and medicinal marijuana give-away on the steps of Santa Cruz, California's city hall. Wilson attended the event, and from his wheelchair gave the following remarks,

"The 10th Amendment says all powers not relegated to the federal government are reserved to the states or to the people. Nowhere does it say that a goddamn tsar will be in charge of my medical care and interfere between me and my doctor. If anybody in Phi8ladelphia in the 18th Century had suggested putting something like that in the Constitution, they would have been considered a raving lunatic. This Constitution was not created to establish a tsarist tyranny, it was established to create a free society!"

Wilson's view on the US drug war and the actions of the office of the drug tsar led to his inserting an anti-tsarism plank in the Guns and Dope Party platform. While tracing tsarism in America in a convoluted manner from the CIA's recruitment of a former Nazi pro-tsarist intelligence officer, Wilson's primary use of tsarism as a satirical metaphor rose from his defense of the US constitution's Tenth Amendment concept regarding the limitations of the federal government.

Most of Wilson's writings used satire and humor as a way of entertaining, disarming and challenging his reader's belief systems. As a general critique of politics Wilson wrote the following in the party's second Position Paper (labeled Position Paper #5),

"First order of business on assuming office: Fire 33% of the Congress (names selected at random) and replace them with full-grown adult ostriches, whose mysterious and awesome dignity will elevate the suidaen barbarity long established there."

Wilson presumably included ostriches in the Guns and Dope Party platform as a pointed joke, but says on the party's website that Olga, the ostrich featured in the Orson Welles movie Southern Star, was the party's spiritual advisor. Wilson wrote, "Without her, we might take ourselves -- and featherless biped politics in general -- too damed seriously, following the usual "slippery slope" downward from Ideology to Idiocy."

Wilson coined the party name based on his insight that "dopers" and "gun nuts" if working together would form a formidable majority in California. Wilson wrote, "I'll tolerate your hobbies if you'll tolerate mine."

After the 2003 special election in California, Wilson turned the focus of the party towards a national political direction and advocated for a more critical electorate by introducing the slogan "Everybody for President." Wilson wrote, "Well, at least everybody who feels ready for the responsibility of self-government. Those who still need a Big Daddy or a Big Momma to discipline and dominate them should vote for whatever furhrer or saviour they like best."

When he heard that someone had stated on an internet blog "I'm having some difficulty distinguishing the Guns and Dope Party from the Libertarian Party." Wilson labeled that comment the "Koan of the week."

In 2004 some fans of the writer were granted permission to borrow the ideas and graphics of the Guns and Dope Party and host a theme camp at Nevada's yearly Burning Man festival.

Wilson wrote about the Guns and Dope Party in his last published book Email to the Universe

Graphics for the Guns and Dope Party were created by Wilson's friend, musician, writer and graphic designer Richard Rasa.

This information provided by Robert Anton Wilson, Richard Rasa and members of Wilson's private email group known as the GroupMind.

[edit] External Links

[edit] Image:ToleratingHobbies2.jpg listed for deletion

An image or media file that you uploaded or altered, Image:ToleratingHobbies2.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion. Please see the discussion to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. User:Gay Cdn (talk) (Contr) 22:02, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image:LikeWhatYouLike.jpg listed for deletion

An image or media file that you uploaded or altered, Image:LikeWhatYouLike.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion. Please see the discussion to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. User:Gay Cdn (talk) (Contr) 22:03, 8 June 2007 (UTC)