by Paul Jacob

My car just died. It needs a new motor. Unfortunately, that costs more than the car is worth. But I don't really even care.

You see, as bad news goes, that's nothing. I'm much more focused on my felony indictment in Oklahoma -- threatened with a ten-year prison term for that oh-so-violent crime of helping others petition their government.

Two years ago, I helped advise Rick Carpenter of Tulsa on a petition drive to cap state government spending. The petition company was experienced in the state. Moreover, the company checked with state officials on the rules for who could circulate a petition, and followed those rules.

But after the fact, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled differently: that even people living in the state for months were not considered residents unless they planned to live in Oklahoma permanently.

Now even longer after the fact, the state’s controversial Attorney General Drew Edmondson has moved to prosecute those of us working on the effort for criminal conspiracy. But we didn’t conspire to break the law, just to understand and follow it.

The goal of this prosecution seems to be to scare, to intimidate, to silence those who seek to use the voter initiative process to pass needed reforms on government. Well, it is scary. But we'll not allow our rights to be bullied away.

Maybe it's time for all Americans -- conservative, liberal, populist, libertarian -- to "conspire" together to take back our political system from the gutter. Before it's too late.

Paul Jacob's "Common Sense" is published by the Sam Adams Alliance. Their website can be visited at www.samadamsalliance.org.