Time to Take Action

Now we know how to be informed about what is going on in the world around us, by using Internet resources. We even know who is financially supporting our government representatives. What are we going to do with this information? It's time to take action to do something to help change things.

Some readers are already involved with writing letters to elected officials. Unfortunately, not enough of us do this. Well, folks, this is supposed to be a representative government. How can our representatives do an effective job without hearing from those they represent? You can be sure that our representatives are regularly hearing from individuals and groups who want more government control of our lives, or more handouts from the public trough.

The failure to have enough states call for the Constitutional Convention is directly attributable to the fact that opposition to the idea has been loudly heard by the legislatures of the states where the latest attempts to push through calls for a convention have been made. Unfortunately, our representatives don't hear from their constituents often enough.

Comes now the Internet, and the means for patriots to easily make their opinions known to their elected officials. The site for doing this is: www.in-search-of.com.

At this site, you can find some of the founding documents, if you haven't already seen them. There is also the senatorial and congressional directory, and links to biographical and committee information on our senators and congressmen at the "Contacting the Congress" web page. Even if you don't know who your representatives are, if hou know your zip code, you can find it.

So, now you know who it is you should be contacting. In Search Of also gives you a convenient means for actually writing the electronic letter through the ISO e-mail page. The way this works is that you choose who to send the letter to (from a graphical menu of "Executive offices", "U.S. Senate," "Senate and Congress" or "Senate/Congress Committees"). Clicking on your choice leads you to other screens where you specify to whom the message is to be sent.

For example, clicking on "Senate/Congress" brings us to a screen where we choose the state the officials represent. We then have the actual form where we will write our e-mail. At the top is a list of the senators and congressmen from our state. We can choose one of more of these names. Other fields in the form cover the subject of the e-mail, and the body of the message, which have pre-filled salutations and endings. All that is left is to write the actual message we want to send, then to fill out the fields at the end of the form with our e-mail and snail mail addresses. It really doesn't get much easier than that.

Or, maybe it does. There is also a section of the site called "U.S. Government e-mail campaigns,' where you can help make your opinion known by sending pre-written letters (which you can customize in the form) on current topics and pending legislation. The letters that I've seen so far have advocated populist principles on topics such as the Partial Birth Abortion Bill, MFN status for Red China, and more. There is even a prewritten e-mail urging the House of Representatives to begin impeachment proceedings against William Jefferson Clinton. If you agree with the Committee to Impeach Bill Clinton, and have the guts, you should check this one out.

When writing to your representatives, it is important to do so in a proper manner. If you want tips for how to write your e-mail for the best effect, you can also check out this web page.

This is a page maintained by H. D. Marlowe & Company, a political consulting firm. It lists tips for getting your message through to your elected officials.

Now, no one has an excuse for not making their opinions and desires known t their public servants in Washington. We can do this easily, from the comfort of our homes, using the Internet. When our elected officials hear from us regularly, then they will know that we are serious about representative government.

As always, feedback is welcome at: patriot@logoplex.com & www.logoplex.com