The Sam Adams Alliance–a national organization that networks with local freedom fighters and promotes their efforts–has a bunch of videos over at YouTube. Several feature their senior fellow, Paul Jacob, talking about the criminalization of politics and how our constitutional right to petition the government is being jeopardized. Here’s a snippet of Paul discussing the Oklahoma indictment in the first of two videos on the criminalization of politics:

[Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson's] motivation was to send a pretty strong signal that they don’t want there to be voter initiatives. They don’t want people to ever consider a cap on state government spending or reforming eminent domain or doing anything that the powers that be don’t tell ‘em is okay. So I think it’s the age-old attempt to stop ideas you don’t like by force, by threats, by intimidation. And frankly it’s not going to work.

What happened in this case is very simple. Some people worked to put a petition on the ballot. They not only followed the rules, they went out of their way to determine what those rules were and to follow them very closely. Now some very powerful people have changed those rules mid-stream. And they’re trying to criminally hold myself and other people involved in this effort liable, threatening us with ten years in prison.

You know, it’s not even that we made a mistake. We worked to do this in a way that state officials told us was A-OK to do. And now we’re being threatened. And I think the reason is clear. They want to shut us up, and they want to scare anyone else who might want to reform their goverment from doing it. But it’s not going to work. We’re not going to simply sit back and let them steal our freedoms.

Visit the Alliance’s YouTube account to check out this and other instructive videos. They include Eric O’Keefe on the history of political parties; John Tsarpalas on political networking; and the Alliance’s Action Toolkit Theatre clips with “tips for communicating your message and winning” by pitching your blog, writing an op-ed, communicating visually, etc.

You can sign up for new installments of the Action Toolkit, and for the email version of Paul Jacob’s “Common Sense,” over at the mySam page at the Sam Adams site. By my stopwatch it takes just a minute and 17 seconds to sign up; and once you’ve done that, you can manage subscriptions, search the membership directory for likely alliances, consult state resource guides, and much more.

You definitely want to subscribe to Paul’s “Common Sense” emailing, which originates as a two-minute radio show heard at radio stations around the country. Each episode is brief, crisp, and common-sensical. It’s a great way to keep up to date with how folks are fighting for freedom all across the country. You can bet that “Common Sense” will be discussing the assault on the Oklahoma Three every once in a while too.