Need advice! Conspiracy theorists taking over my YAL group...

you are already associated with a home-grown "terrorist" group, so what's the big deal? The NWO is real, just google news the term "New World Order" and you shall find thousands of publications hailing the wonderful implementation of this brilliant utopic idea. Try researching these things on your own. You might be surprised at what you find. The events of 911 triggered the fall of our civil liberties and set fourth an imperialistic foreign policy that would have made Alexander the Great blush. Don't you think this deserves to be questioned? Aren't we free to do as we wish? Isn't that what you are fighting for? Maybe you should join a more "soft ball" movement like Glenn Beck's 912.

How can you advance your cause when you won't address these other "conspiracy" issues, such as 9/11?

Don't you think 9/11, New World Order, North American Union, Bilderberg, et al., are related and causing the very problems you are trying to address within your group?

Stop picking at selective branches and strike the root. Otherwise, your cause is hopeless.

I'm a big supporter of YAL.. Tell these guys to knock off the theories & stick to what is FACT... NWO is a reality in plain view, (progressives) ..Nothing of the 9/11 theory has been found as fact to date ..Keep to your goals & objectives..These are the keys to YAL function..YAL does not have a capacity to prove or disprove , so keep out of those questionable theories until someone more capable proves something...Discussions within a group is different than placing it on YAL literature, for public consumption. Just be up front with any forum..Maybe use some form of disclosure statement.

Thou shalt not steal, gov't hates the competition

We have the same problem in the Libertarian Party. How do you explain what you're about when some of your members get singled out for ridicule by the press, even though they don't represent the group as a whole? This is especially a problem when some of your favorite "nuts" are running for office.

My advice is to make sure that your publications (online and in print) have some kind of statement of what you believe, similar to the LP's Statement of Principles or its pledge.

Make sure that you take credit for allowing people of all kinds to participate, even if not everyone agrees with them. That what you all have in common is (statement of purpose). Make sure to publish more than one side of an argument, if there are some, in the group.

Additionally, I would meet with these people one on one, decide what the group's objectives are, and agree on where the boundaries are. Do this in advance of any events and draw the line. What you don't want is to surprise someone by expelling them from the group. They should be able to predict the consequences of their actions, and know in advance what the group expects.

After all, unlike being a "subject" to our government (not!), membership in a group is voluntary, and the group has a right to make rules, and the members have a right to enforce them.

IMissLiberty

On the one hand, you value the rights and opinions of the individual, do you not?

Yet on the other hand, you are a marketing movement, trying to make the liberty/Constitution message as palatable as possible to a dull society, right?

So when you put on the marketing hat in an attempt to gain new members, you are tempted to violate the principles of free speech in an effort to be as attractive as possible to as many as possible, and when you violate the principles of free speech, you offend the members you have already acquired. They feel stifled and frustrated and betrayed.

Like it or not, you're going to have members who believe in all manner of things that certain segments of the society will find highly offensive. God/Atheism, This-religion/That-religion, fluoride/no-fluoride, drugs/no-drugs, conspiracy/no-conspiracy, vaccinations/no-vaccinations, Republican/Democrat, anarchy/minarchy/statism, corporations/no-corporations, and on and on.

The fact of the matter is that the AVERAGE human is quite dull. They do not come to a group having done their research on all these things. Yet they DO come to a group having formed opinions on a number of these things. And those opinions are generally formed based upon emotion and repeated exposure to certain arguments (whether valid or not), rather than upon rational and thorough investigation.

Facts are divisive things. This is the nature of the real world.

But politics isn't exactly real. In politics, you merely have to convince the largest group to support the particular compromise you have in mind. You pick a priority to run with, even if it means you're neglecting other important things. Perhaps it's health care reform, even if you can't have fiscal responsibility. Or perhaps it's a "strong defense", even if you can't maintain human rights. And so you play people's interests against each other, influencing them to pick YOUR favorite priority over the other guy's favorite.

And the result is that the party doesn't truly represent any person or persons; it represents some unreal position around which the adherents have been influenced to rally for the time being---to the neglect of other important matters.

Thus we see that the art of winning by such partisan strategies is counterproductive to real progress.

While the Ron Paul movement is the most likely to bring about meaningful political reform, it still has to market to the same dull nation---a nation that has been conditioned to such senseless and divisive marketing. And so it must choose whether to play like everybody else plays, or to be truly unique in its philosophy.

Suggestion: Wouldn't it be better to position yourselves in some fashion like the following?

Here at YAL, we recognize the obvious fact that Americans are deeply divided with respect to many issues. Whether it be religion, political parties, socialism, capitalism, size of government, relevance of the Constitution, governmental conspiracies, monetary policy, the environment, moral issues, or any of a number of other things, Americans are as apt to disagree as to agree. It is very likely that in some of these issues, some people are just plain wrong while others are right. And yet in other issues, there may be more than one plausible position. The only way to come to a meaningful level of unity on such things would be for the whole nation to engage in exhaustive study on every topic---and nobody thinks that is going to happen any time soon!

While the members of YAL have certainly not managed to come to an agreement on all these issues either, there is a central set of issues upon which we are in strong agreement and for which we have assembled a great deal of supporting information. While no one can say which positions might ultimately prevail on the remaining issues in the future, we think that the promotion of the following central issues make for a viable political movement if we exert ourselves primarily on the following positions:

Restore obedience to the U.S. Constitution.

Restore sound money to the U.S. Economy.

End the needless Federal Reserve, I.R.S. and the Income Tax.

Stop engaging in preventive wars and only fight when there is just cause.

(And whatever else should go on this list)

You may or may not already have a strong opinion one way or the other on these issues, but we urge you to study the excellent educational materials we have assembled. On these issues, our members are remarkably united. It is on account of these things that we have come together. We have put these issues front and center as the core of our movement.

As to all other issues, however, you may find that our members disagree wildly! But rather than clamping down on free speech and pretending that we have no philosophical differences on the peripheral issues in YAL, we
have set these issues apart on our website as being wholly worthy of consideration. It is our goal not to squelch anyone's views, but to facilitate the national debate in hope that some of these issues will eventually emerge with wide and well-informed public support---one way or the other.

In these non-core areas, you may well find opinions that agree with your own, as well as others that you find highly offensive. Some experience this and quickly declare that YAL is filled with "kooks"! The way we see it, however, is that YAL has succeeded in persuading many different kinds of people from many different philosophical positions to come together in support of a few core beliefs. And in our view, this is exactly what is needed in the nation right now.

Perhaps this is the kind of strategy that can best straddle the fence between your two competing interests. In fact, if you are willing to fully embrace this philosophy, it probably does away with the conflict of priorities I described at the beginning of this post. The goal is to embrace the differences while maintaining forward momentum on the commonalities. And the only way to do this is to separate the primary tenets from all the others.

If in time, you have an obvious majority of your movement who is calling for anarchy or 911 truth or the birth certificate or anything else, then honesty should compel you to move those things into your core set of values. If you do not, then you start putting on the tyrant hat yourselves, just like the political parties do.

Unlike YAL, the major political parties do not work for political reform, but to protect the status quo for the financial and political benefit of their owners. Another difference is that they willingly violate the Constitution to achieve their goals. And yet another difference is that the two parties (at the top level) are in collusion with each other to be sure that the greater goals of the controlling cartel are moving ever forward.

If you can avoid these pitfalls, you will do well.

Jack Pelham
Rule of Law Revolution
www.ruleoflawrevolution.com

Whoa, Guys! Our meeting ended gracefully with smiles and handshakes, and we were talking about bringing some beers next time we get together to relax and have fun! We ARE united. I just had a concern about this certain issue, and wanted to get the DP's opinion on it for advice because I don't want us divided.

As for my reputation, believe me, I think a lot of my friends who aren't in the know about Ron Paul and liberty already think I'm insane because whenever I can I try to push stuff about Ron Paul to them. Posting RP stuff on facebook, seeing me on campus all the time passing out literature, etc.. And it definitely wasn't easy 2 years ago telling everyone how much I supported Ron Paul since the mainstream made him out to be a crank. But my point is if there is something I don't believe in and am not a part of, why would I associate myself with that? That's not being worried about my reputation, that's doing what I want to do with my life. Why would I be a part of a club I just simply don't want to be a part of?

And as far as being accused of censoring, I not sure I understand. YAL is about freedom, liberty, and the Constitution. That's what we promote. Anything else we are certainly free to discuss among ourselves but it's not going to be one of our planks and we aren't going to be sending links out to hundreds of people. We HAVE had debates during meetings and in conversations about 9/11 before. No one is censoring anyone. We all understand the 1st amendment. I could only wish I commanded enough authority to shut everyone down I disagreed with (well not really actually). I am OPEN to becoming a truther in the future if I feel the evidence in my humble opinion points in that direction. So I have found it offensive by some who have resorted to personal attacks just because I disagree 1% from you, as if i'm some kind of close-minded, NWO tool. Not exactly how you win people to your side.
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A recent history of the US economy - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wzze9xCPuok