Thanks, Calcowgirl! Here is the letter (...with a lot of help from Schlafly) I faxed to Feinstein and Frist yesterday, then Boxer this AM (Boxer's fax machine was 'in-op' last night, apparently...)
Go Get'em, Folks!!!
Text version follows(in case you want to copy/paste some or all of it for your own letter):
February 22, 2005
The Honorable Senator Barbara Boxer VIA FACSIMILE: (415) 956-6701
112 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510-0505
Fax: (415) 956-6701
RE: Please OPPOSE the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST)
Dear Senator Boxer:
The Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) seeks to create a supranational agency to govern the world's oceans at the expense of U.S. sovereignty. [LOST] was drafted more than 20 years ago at the behest of Soviet Bloc and 'nonaligned' nations as the centerpiece of their so-called 'New International Economic Order,' a scheme to transfer wealth from the industrialized nations to the developing world. Now, lobbyists representing multi-national corporations are busy trying to convince U.S. senators to vote in favor of LOST, and well-funded think tanks are holding briefings to marshal support for its ratification.
LOST is grounded in such un-American and concepts as global socialism and world government. There is precious little American constituency today for giving more power and wealth to the United Nations, an organization whose officials just committed the biggest corruption in history (the oil-for-food scandal) and continually use the United Nations as a platform for anti-American diatribes.
LOST is so bad for Americans that it is a puzzlement how anyone whose job it is to protect American interests could even CONSIDER supporting it with a straight face. LOST would give its own creation, the International Seabed Authority, the power to regulate 70 percent of the world's surface area, a territory greater than the Soviet Union ruled at its zenith. LOST would give the authority power to levy international taxes, one of the essential indicia of sovereignty. This authority power is artfully concealed behind direct U.S. assessments and fees paid by corporations, but the proper word is taxes.
LOST would give the authority power to regulate ocean research and exploration. LOST would give the authority power to impose production quotas for deep-sea mining and oil production. LOST would give the authority the power to create a multinational court system and to enforce its judgments. The authority's courts would have even wider jurisdiction than the International Criminal Court - to which, fortunately, we do not belong - or the World Trade Organization, which has ruled against the United States a dozen times and forced us to change our tax laws and import duties. There is no guarantee that the United States would even be represented on the authority's tribunals.
The whole concept of putting the United States in the noose of another one-nation-one-vote global organization, which reduces America to the same vote as Cuba, is offensive to most Americans.
Since ratification of LOST is 1) NOT in the best interests of Americans, 2) NOT in the best interests of our country's sovereignty, and 3) NOT in the best interests of maintaining the health of the United States economy, I urge you to STRONGLY OPPOSE this Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST).
Very truly yours,
(Please FReepmail if you want on, or off, this list. I certainly have no desire to increase anyone’s stress-level. Thanks!!!)