Principles of Political War - Part 3 (Issue #461)

Here are six principles of political war the left understands much better than most conservatives:

1. Politics is war conducted by other means;
2. Politics is a war of position;
3. In political wars the aggressor usually prevails;
4. Position is defined by fear and hope;
5. The weapons of politics are symbols evoking fear and hope;
6. Victory lies on the side of the people.

Now let’s explain them further, one at a time.

Politics is war conducted by other means: In modern political warfare one doesn’t only fight to prevail in argument but to destroy the opponent’s ability to argue at all. Conservatives often regard their political combat as a debate before the Oxford Union Society. Theoretically one’s winning should depend upon rational and well-articulated arguments. Unfortunately the democratic audience in American politics today is not made up of many Oxford dons, and the modern media environment gives one about 30 seconds to make his point! Even if one were afforded time to develop arguments sufficiently, the undecided voter and millions not paying close attention still won’t get it. Careful analysis or policy prescriptions are quickly forgotten in the hurly-burly of everyday life. A certain advantage is afforded to the left, which sidesteps argument altogether, in order to paint conservative debaters as mean-spirited-racist-religious-zealots-in-bed-with-the-filthy-rich. Now quite simply, anyone who sees another this way will not try to listen to his argument. Liberals don’t play an attrition game in politics, they shoot to kill. The result is to make conservatives dead politically, a.k.a., Endgame.

Politics is a war of position: There are essentially two sides to every political contest, namely friends and enemies. One can also identify two sides as winners and losers. A political combatant strives to define oneself as “friend” to the largest possible constituencies compatible with his principles. Friends that way become winners. “Others” (i.e., not friends) are simply enemies, and these become the losers. Caution is in order, however, in that American politics takes place in a pluralistic framework. Constituencies are diverse, overlap and are often in conflict. Coalitions are always shifting. Over the course of several election cycles, one’s friends might become enemies and vice versa. Two unwritten formal rules in democratic engagement are therefore fairness and tolerance. According to David Horowitz, “If you appear mean-spirited, nasty, or too judgmental, it will make the task easier for your opponent to define you as a threat, and therefore as the enemy.” Only nice conservatives win, in other words.

In political warfare, the aggressor usually prevails: Aggression is advantageous precisely because politics is a war of position. Position is defined by the images that stick moreover. By striking first, one defines issues and the adversary. Defining the opposition is indeed the most decisive move in a political war. Other things being equal, whoever is put on the defensive generally winds up on the losing side. Going negative, as it were, increases the risk of being defined as an enemy, but ruling that out is a huge risk. The trick is to be aggressive and selectively negative towards an opponent without being ugly about it.

Position is defined by fear and hope: The twin emotions of politics are fear and hope. Those who provide people with hope become friends; those who inspire fear become enemies.

The weapons of politics are symbols evoking fear and hope: Conservatives lose a lot of political battles, because they come across as too hard-edged. David Horowitz says a good rule of thumb is to be just the opposite. “You have to convince people you care about them before they’ll care about what you have to say. When you do get to speak, don’t forget that a sound-bite is all you have. Whatever you have to say, make sure to say it loud and clear. Keep it simple and keep it short…. Repeat it often. Get it on television. Radio is good, but with few exceptions, only television reaches a public that is electorally significant. In politics, television is reality.”

Leftists always spout the party line. That’s because it is short and simple and one message is a sound-bite, whereas many messages become an indecipherable noise. Horowitz again: “The result of many messages is that there is no message. Symbols and sound-bites determine the vote. These are what hit people in the gut before they have time to think. And these are what people remember. Symbols are the impressions that last, and what ultimately defines you. Carefully chosen words and phrases are more important than paragraphs, speeches, party platforms and manifestos. What you project through images is what you are” in effect.

Victory lies on the side of the people: This is our faith, but if conservatives are to win the political war they have to turn their negative images around. They have to turn campaigns into causes also. In the Cold War conservatives had a cause and were elected time and again to defend the nation. The cause of anti-Communism resonated well at every level of American society, and even the poorest citizen understood that freedom was at stake. In a democracy, the cause that fires passions up becomes the cause of the people. As the left has shown before, the idea of justice is a powerful cause and energizes its troops in the political war. Horowitz reminds us that, “Conservatives believe in economic opportunity and individual freedom. The core of [conservative] ideas is freedom and justice for all. If we can make this intelligible to the American electorate, we will become the majority again and stop the socialist juggernaut that [now] threatens our American future.”

Principles of Political War - Part 2 (Issue #460

Progressives connect emotionally with people at the level of their fears and anxiety. The metaphysical reason for this is that liberals don’t really want men and women to stand very tall on their own. They want mankind always dependent on something, most usually on the state or fellow human beings. They themselves fear a self-confident, self-reliant freeman or freewoman. They fear a venturesome spirit and would much rather return to the hole or crawl up under a rock, and have everybody else do the same. Now one may put a better face on government coercion and just say that the liberal and progressive appeal is based on helping underdogs and defending bona fide victims. This resonates well with Americans, who are basically a fair-minded people.

Regardless of the motive or psychology you ascribe to a fantastic error, conservatives are nonetheless usually busy defending the real America—its record of success now and in history. The real America is as a land of opportunity and freedom. Almost nobody is properly called oppressed or “an oppressed class.” No group has ever flocked as it were to get out of America except arguably chattel slaves and the Old South, but all sorts of people still clamor to get in.

The truth is that no one alive, nor indeed their parents, grandparents or great-grandparents either, were alive during slave times! It has been 47 years since Rev. Martin Luther King, Junior’s great “I Have a Dream” speech. We have a black president for crying out loud. The institutions are dead that gave us slavery and Jim Crow. The Constitution and laws changed long ago, and the social norms and mores of a majority that once sustained socio-economic prejudice against minorities are overwhelmingly different. One is hard-pressed anymore to find a majority. White means nothing in modern day America. The vestige of slavery is reduced to prejudice in its mildest form; and racism is no longer properly attributable to an inheritance per se, but rather to subjective individual experience in present day context.

Received memory is received media, hardly a matter of real history. At this juncture in history, misguided efforts to whip up the issues of race in order to kill the last spectral existence of racism are far more likely to intensify aural projections and lead to something else reactive, unintended and substantial. If that happens, it will be the product of modern and gross political folly on the left and not the product of historical inertia, vast right-wing conspiracy, or of majority opinions extant today.

Indeed further attempts to kill the specter can only result in the strangulation death of freedom itself. That is because free people may and should be able to agree or disagree, to associate or disassociate, and even to seek or not seek their own. They may politically congregate and rally too or choose not to, because freedom requires the existence of choice and the ability to choose in every respect. If I don’t like blue jeans, then I don’t have to wear them. Or maybe I like them, say, in one context or liked them just fine yesterday, but now I prefer something else at church or going to the opera. Quite frankly I’ve got no idea whatsoever what I’ll put on tomorrow. People aren’t blue jeans or horses, but the point is valid in terms of selection and the dynamism and free flow of opinions.

Freed of historical legacy, we are all individuals again. Therefore we really ought to be appealing to people now on the basis of individuality, their character and the ideas they hold, not on the basis of their racial groupings. The divisive and racially charged rhetoric from the national NAACP of late is unhelpful in this regard. The unsubstantiated attack by liberal politicians and community leaders, and bold innuendo from the left-leaning press against Tea Parties labeling them as racist, is also unhelpful and could backfire in November.

But politics isn’t just about reality. If it were, according to David Horowitz, “good principles and good policies would win every time.” Rather, in terms of political war, the contest is “about images and symbols and the emotions they evoke, [and] this is a battle that conservatives generally lose. In the romance of the victim as progressives stage it, Republicans and conservatives are always on the side of the bad guys—the powerful, the male, the white and the wealthy…. Defending America is readily misrepresented…. The left relishes the opportunity to smear patriots as members of the selfish party instead of as defenders of individual freedom.” Ann Coulter describes the motto of the left as “Speak loudly and carry a small victim.”

For Democrats, the romance of the victim stirs supporters and energizes their base. Conservatives are the targeted victimizers. Leftists become champions of the so-called oppressed. Sure hate to say it, but news from the front so far is that the Battle of the Bulge is going to the Nazis! Learning how to confront the left’s strategy, however, will turn the political war around. It requires that Americans become a little more clear-headed and informed, and less crybaby when leftists sing their predictable tearjerkers and blues. Fortunately, as Horowitz explains, “conservatives can use the left-wing attack against them. Contrary to the left’s view, America is not a land of victims. It is a highly mobile society, with a citizenry that aspires upwards through the system, not against it.… [The] most powerful forces obstructing opportunity for poor and minority Americans, the most powerful forces oppressing them, are progressives, the Democratic Party, and their political creation—the welfare state.”

Welfare state programs are demonstrably obstacles to the production of wealth and barriers to private opportunity. What is necessary is for conservatives to connect the dots so to speak, to connect their analysis to a political strategy that gives them a decisive edge in battle against the left’s propaganda—or if you prefer, the left’s purely innocent though misguided interpretation of events. In this way, Horowitz believes we can “neutralize the class, race and gender warfare attacks of the political left” and hopefully rise above such petty, counterproductive and polarizing politics

Principles of Political War - Part 1 (Issue #459)

The people are rising up. Americans are waking up at last to the threat: a leftist elite, bent on fundamentally changing America and making every citizen entirely dependent on the state. The Obama machine driven by a socialist agenda is spending trillions of tax-payer dollars to finance takeover of the American workplace and to stifle personal initiative and community awareness and self-determination. America is built of better stuff, however, namely the principles of private property and individual freedom, and the Resistance has begun.

In May 2009 Californians launched a tax revolt, indeed at a time when their state government’s deficit was larger than the budgets of most other states and many countries. State law according to its “Initiative” process required legislators to win a two-thirds referendum of the people before they could raise taxes. Forced to hold special election with multiple ballot Initiatives to raise taxes, California citizens shocked legislators by sending an unmistakable message by margins of 60 percent even in San Francisco: Taxed Enough Already! No more taxes!

The “TEA” Party movement quickly spread, gaining steam across the entire nation. David Horowitz calls it “the most innovative, exciting and powerful grassroots force in the history of American conservatism.” Today and through the election cycles of 2010 and 2012 it is not only vital to the health of the country, but essential to the survival of America. Consider that on the eve of the 2008 presidential election, Barack Obama proclaimed, “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming America!” Tea Partiers threw themselves into the political breach, so to speak, saying unequivocally “No” to Obama’s plans to fundamentally alter the federal constitutional Republic and turn it into a socialist state.

The breach is one thing, but politics is really more about sustained effort and long-term commitment to ideas. A particular movement without an effective plan or strategy will not succeed. Therefore it is critical to reacquaint ourselves with some principles of political war. Many political philosophers have characterized politics as warfare by other, presumably peaceful means. Nixon described politics as being part and parcel of an overall spectrum of conflict. Most Americans are naïve politically and unfamiliar with what philosophers and political operatives know about the electoral game played every two to four years. Americans think about politics as some kind of spectator sport or movie show, a passive distraction that doesn’t require any of their personal involvement. They mistake the huge personal consequences while sitting in the bleachers or back row of a dark auditorium. They might bemoan results of an election at tax time, but then they turn again to something else entertaining or pressing.

Liberals are morally bankrupt and clueless about policy, but they still win elections because they understand American politics is driven by a dime novel Hollywood romance, with Americans sitting idly by as, you guessed it, spectators. According to Horowitz, the story they love to watch is about an underdog—you know, the little guy who goes up against the system and triumphs in the end. It is a story about opportunity and fairness too, and to win the flitting hearts and minds of American voters, you have to tap into emotions evoked by the underdog. America’s heroes are cut to a common mold: George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Davy Crockett, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Amelia Earhart, Jackie Robinson, Ronald Reagan or Colin Powell, etc., etc. Always it is about the common man who rises against the odds. Yep, Mr. Smith goes to Washington and make things right! Luke Skywalker saves the planet! Horowitz isn’t as cynical perhaps about the narrative. Truth is, practically everyone in America thinks of him or herself as the underdog and aspires to be a hero. The romance in fact resonates with our deepest convictions, as well as faith in freedom and the ability to overcome adversity or to challenge and win against unjust power arrayed against you. It is the American Dream and largely her story—rising to the top through hard work in spite of humble origin.

Until the Tea Parties showed up, the political left wielded this romantic narrative as a political weapon virtually unopposed at election time. In positioning themselves as champions of the underrepresented, neglected and oppressed, leftists manufactured a version of the American story and spread it far and wide through the media and academe. According to Horowitz, the left successfully transformed America’s story from “an epic of freedom into a tale of racism, exploitation and domination. In their telling, American history is no longer a narrative of expanding opportunity, of men and women succeeding against the odds. Instead, it is a Marxist Morality Play about the powerful and their victims.” Elections have become staged political dramas too, as progressives invariably speak in the name of America’s alleged victims—women, children, minorities and the poor.

Conservatives play into the trap, approaching politics like management on every issue, as a mere practical problem that needs to be solved—emphasizing, say, utility of the tax cut, efficiency of a certain program, the optimal method to approach this or that. They talk like businessmen in other words, and while there is nothing wrong with instituting good policies and running things efficiently or turning profit, progressives label them as servants of the rich, oppressors of the weak, defenders of the strong and privileged. Conservatives become the enemies of the people, in the liberal parlance of political warfare. Witness Mario Cuomo at the Democrats’ 1996 National Convention: “We need to work as we have never done before between now and November…to take the Congress back from Newt Gingrich and the Republicans, because ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, the Republicans are the real threat. They are the real threat to our women. They are the real threat to our children. They are the real threat to clean water, clean air and the rich landscape of America.” Ooh, such good spectator sport. Only now it won’t wash.

On Political Debate and Political Action (Issue #458)

Sometimes it just isn’t worth the effort. Oh one can try to convince the other side, assuming they haven’t clam-shut their minds entirely. At best it will be a lot of work, but increasingly two sides in American politics seem to be from different cultures entirely—if not from different planets. They mostly talk past each other, not really to one another. No one strives for consensus, because consensus no longer involves statesmanlike compromise over details or method, but rather fundamental matters of conviction and principle. Glenn Beck tried to reach out (sort of) through his book, Arguing with Idiots (2009). Mark Olsen and Thomas Rexroth do perhaps the best job possible trying to convert nincompoops out there with a new fiction book called Animal Colony (2010), a modern rendition of George Orwell’s classic. Reading it, grade school students certainly and quite possibly a few indoctrinated adults, may come to understand why socialism is a terrible idea. And while outreach programs and community education initiatives are fine, all that has to wait until after the election November 2nd. If Republicans are handing out Abe Lincoln pamphlets now to the African-American community, well, they’re idiots and need more than just a couple good reads.

The political class has failed the American people—both parties. Many Christians are indeed hypocrites, or apathetic, or both these days. Those who do get theirs, so to speak, forget the struggle of their own climb, as well as whom actually enabled their ascent. Main Street supports Wall Street; and people raised the government in Washington, D.C., albeit the American people are always searching for a mechanistic device to replace the eternal vigilance required. Every election is theoretically a “term limit” after all, and some of the same people at rallies won’t even bother to vote, much less get involved in politics this campaign season—now just over three months left, with the U.S. Congress and the Texas House at stake, and indeed our country.

Although progressives refuse to believe it, many conservatives were highly critical of George W. Bush and did not save their caustic ammo just for Obama Days. The establishment GOP, however, was hijacked by the so-called neoconservative faction. So while vocal critics of President Obama were arguably more passive when Bush was in office, their voices are not now as silenced by a Republican machine or incumbent Republican administration. Unfortunately the battle for the GOP is not quite over, and neoconservatives still hold sway—which is why so much (though not all) of the Tea Party movement is fueled by disaffected conservative Republicans.

Things are not inevitable. No History is. It depends on what you do. In politics action counts for more than debate at election time (and if you hadn’t taken notice yet, election time is upon us). The rationalist deterministic mantra that defines modernity in only a certain way is a total crock. The complexity of our society does not justify violation of the Bill of Rights, or violation of States rights and federalism, or indeed the general loss of freedom we are experiencing. Moreover, ours is not the mental calculus of most Europeans—i.e., what do I get for my tax money? In some instances, Europeans see trade-offs in terms of money for services and they conclude it isn’t that bad. It might not be so far removed from crony capitalism either. Of course, Americans aren’t supposed to trade their taxes and hence their freedom, for a bunch of cradle-to-grave social services, at least not according to Original Intent or the enumerated powers in the Constitution. Americans are not supposed to be “socialist” in other words; albeit, they have been trending that way ever since the Progressive Era and New Deal.

The modern and somewhat resurgent progressive impulse has placed Obama in power, but only after a perceived failed, neoconservative administration. We do need problem solvers and competent people in government to tackle the hard problems. Only they ought to be restricted to constitutional activities! One of the reasons the government is so inept at crisis management, is that it is doing everything else but. The world is not a rosy picture, never was and probably never will be. Someone’s particular problem or special need does not place a government coerced responsibility or legal obligation on a freeman or freewoman to go fix and solve it. One shouldn't have to pay for someone else’s stupidity, mistakes or bad luck either. We can talk moral suasion, and I’m all for family, church and charitable assistance. I also believe in the power of free enterprise and of mutually beneficial exchanges to make things better over time for most people. My acknowledgment of the real world we live in, in other words, does not lead me to the conclusion that freedom is ever a wrongheaded idea or that it should take a back seat to many things.

In a recent speech, the Chairman of the Texas Workforce Commission, Tom Pauken addressed a 2010 high school graduating class: “Our nation is desperately in need of good leaders. America faces a more serious set of challenges than any time in my life, including our most serious national recession since the Great Depression…. This is a time of high levels of unemployment and the hollowing out of our U.S. manufacturing base. (Even here in Texas, where we have lower unemployment than any other large labor market state in the nation, we too have been hard hit by this nasty national recession). Your generation will be the most adversely affected if we don’t put in place policies to get our economy moving again. It is not inevitable that unemployment remains persistently high, or that our U.S. manufacturing base continues to deteriorate. Americans – and Texans, in particular – have always risen to the occasion whenever our nation faced serious challenges before; and we can do so again if we have the political will and civic courage to make bold decisions for the long term good of the country.”

Now here’s what I think too: that ours could be—I said could be, the next ‘greatest generation.’ But don’t underestimate the degree of effort required. The good Lord rarely sets up His victory along a primrose path. Freedom has never been free—no, not for Israelites and certainly not for us Americans. The road ahead the next few years is arduous, even risky, but we have every talent we’ll need to win, survive and prosper and to pull this country through, on Election Day and beyond.

Calling Young Patriots (Issue #457)

When I speak to young people about leadership, I like to draw from my own experiences three points with credibility. First, leadership roles and experiences early on, i.e., in your youth—stick with you and make it easier to pick up similar and even greater roles throughout your entire life. Second, although certainly not identical, some leadership skills are transferable from political to military to business and back to political pursuit. My experience today as Chairperson of the Central Texas Tea Party is reminiscent of my Teen-Age Republican (TAR) and Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) participation during the Reagan Revolution thirty years ago. Lastly, and borrowing a lesson from history, the big political waves don’t come around all that often—when they do, individuals who catch the wave are better off by far and smarter, for having taken part in something historical.

The fact is that everything builds on everything else and there is no “freebie” in life. The process involves an accumulation of study, work, experience and achievements that move or convey you, over time to higher positions and quite possibly, by the grace of God, to your dreams! Everything counts: reading, playing and behaving; studying in high school to make good grades; making good grades in high school in order to get into college; doing well in college or quite possibly at your first job, in order to get to that employment level that starts a ladder of upward mobility; and then taking one position at a time to get to the other; and finally, from one career to another—so that eventually, retirement really does resemble those mythological “Golden Years.” Everything you do becomes a vantage point to the next step, and to all else that follows.

Of course what I’m implying is that time and effort spent in youth leadership activities (say, organizing a Young Patriots group) begets other, higher positions of leadership and the skills needed for such positions. As I have stated and written before, there is definitely something going on in the country, including Texas in a reaction to President Obama’s relentless progressive agenda. More than at any time since the late 1970s, people have awoken to a sense of danger and a strong desire to do something political. Now I’m going to refrain from saying more about our president or the military’s Commander-In-Chief, other than to point out that he is indeed a civilian president elected every four years. He has command of the people’s military, but Americans have no Commander-In-Chief. The military is subordinate to civilian political leadership and civilians also do not salute their president. Sometimes political leaders forget that Americans are not supposed to take orders from Washington. Rather, Americans are supposed to be left as a free people, at liberty to do things for themselves and families in the ways they personally see fit, with money they have earned.

Historically states created the federal government, not the other way around; and the people of the several states delegated to the federal government enumerated powers but kept everything else to themselves. This past Saturday (26 June) there was a Tenth Amendment Town Hall Meeting held in Temple at which six conservative Texas State legislators, including Ralph Sheffield were present and fielded questions. It was indicative of what you already know if you follow the news carefully, and that is that many states’ Attorneys General have filed suit against the Obama health reform bill on the basis of the Tenth Amendment.

You need to read the Constitution. If words mean anything, then it is impossible to figure where the federal government discerns a power to make private individuals buy something, much less private health insurance; and then tries to enforce legislation using a taxing agency like the IRS. Every citizen of these United States needs to read and study the Constitution and refuse to let the Constitution be trampled by anyone or by any single branch of the federal government. Before it’s all over with, the politics of the tea parties and of conservative groups around the country may even involve civil disobedience—because the principles involved today are as fundamental as what Jim Crow and segregation involved in the 1960s during the civil rights movement. Remember there are different kinds of enslavement and vestiges of the same, as well as tyranny in many guises. The government is not necessarily a benevolent master, and even if it were the American people will not suffer a yoke from any man or institution save Jesus Christ himself.

This July 4th Resolve to Save the Republic! (Issue #456)

The Republican Party of Texas state convention was held 11-12 June, at the Dallas Convention Center. Speakers were all quick to include Tea Party activists as part of their “conservative” Republican coalition. The mood was generally upbeat and encouraging. There was tremendous unity displayed too, in terms of rededicated effort aimed at getting out the vote and influencing the elections in November. Most of the ire was directed against “Obamacare”; for less government spending and more fiscal discipline; and for security along the U.S. and Texas borders with Mexico. The 2010 convention was nothing like the depressed atmosphere at the previous convention two years ago, when Republicans knew they were about to be trounced and held their noses to vote for McCain anyway. Republicans smell blood this time with Obama’s approval ratings so low, with so much oil in the Gulf and the government’s crisis management as incompetent as what went on during Hurricane Katrina, with the economy still in a slump Republicans think 2010 could be a banner year, and yet there is also great angst and high anxiety. The overwhelming feeling among Republicans is that this could be the last hurrah for the U.S. Constitution or for anything resembling the old Republic. If we don’t get it right this time, there may not be a next time.

Barack Hussein Obama is the first president after all who doesn’t even like the Founders and who fervently believes that there were critical mistakes made at the very beginning of the Republic, and at the Source of Original Intent. He faults George Washington, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson for the institution of slavery and its legacy, and quite frankly bears a grudge. Good for him but I don’t have to. Nobody alive does, in fact (unless perhaps they are over 150 years old). Post-racial prejudice doesn’t have to be post-political partisan, as if that meant it were a good thing. If the president’s view of his country is at all entwined with his governing philosophy and his policies (which they have to be), you can put me down as being highly partisan against them. Indeed my view is that from the president’s perspective on America, it really doesn’t matter much if he was born in Hawaii or Kenya as some allege—he isn’t American.

It has often been said that America is an idea or a complex of ideas. One indeed may come from anywhere on planet earth and some have apparently come from outer space, but to be an American one has to subscribe to the central idea of Freedom. Based on this standard, there have always been and probably always will be “foreigners” in and among us, even fellow citizens who simply do not accept the central idea of Freedom or the complex of ideas that are built up around it. Nonetheless, we should avoid electing one as president the way we have unfortunately done. President Obama is working to impose his own set of ideas and urging on the final transformation of our Republic. He is serving an explicitly progressive agenda and trying to complete transformation to a positive liberal state; whereas, the Founders emphatically chose to create and give us a negative liberal state and federal republic.

The difference is that a positive liberal state involves government mandates and coercion, in order to guarantee the people’s equal rights, opportunities and final outcome. The negative liberal model mostly removes the government and gets it out of the way, in order to leave people and their voluntary associations, i.e., individuals and society, free to compete and jockey for outcome. Results emerge over time through a process, but they are never predetermined. At the level of the individual and to large degree the community and state, one can make a mistake, even a big one, but then go back or turn in a different direction. Freedom never guarantees anything, at least no more than itself. Some people get a raw deal, while others get lucky or seem favored or blessed. Freedom, however, is the most important value involved in the schema of a negative liberal state. The positive liberal state values need above freedom. The positive liberal state is socialist or communist.

Obama believes that someone else’s healthcare need (one among many other needs) imposes the obligation on you to pay for it. Likewise, he believes that as long as one atheist objects, then no public prayer can or should be uttered. The negative liberal perspective on the other hand, is one that leaves values to local majorities and self-determination to the level at which the people live and work and determine their local environment. No one’s particular need imposes mandatory obligation on anyone else to pay for it. Churches and families used to come to the rescue practically speaking, or people did the best they could, but we’ve largely replaced these functionaries with the government already. We are probably now more like a positive liberal state than the negative liberal one the Founders gave us, albeit that final transformation to pay for it all is yet to be accomplished, i.e., the transformation from free market capitalist economy to socialist economy—exactly what Obama and the Democrat majority in Congress plan to complete by 2012, or 2016 on the outside.

Churches have their precious tax exempt status, but they are stultified from doing anything infringing on the government’s claim of social prerogative or its latest regulatory edict, or anything that bumps presumptively against domestic legislative parameters. Churches have moved their charity overseas and they do miraculous things abroad, when charity begins at home. Many mission trips carry the mistaken belief that charity at home was solely for the material benefits delivered, when it was mostly about teaching and example, and about helping American families. Families are absolved now of their responsibility, precisely because they are absolved of the necessity to care for their elderly or children. But everyone pays, and everyone is the poorer. And everyone works, so no one cares—physically or emotionally, no not for the children or the grandchildren, for grandparents, or for each other. The social worker and healthcare professional do care I know it, at a certain level and to a certain degree. But it is not so personal and never so attached as family or the extended family of the Church. We have built a health care equivalent to the way we farm our beef: arguably more efficient though not less expensive, and quite a bit more sanitized if not as sanitary.

We have watched the disintegration of the greatest Western culture that ever existed—it was right here in America. We have bridled the so-called evil white man and denigrated the breadbasket he created for all free men and women of good will to enjoy. The president invites locusts now to devour whatever remains. If you do not understand the metaphor or feel the rhetoric you just read, then it is lost. I had a particularly stupid reader once ask, ‘why do people still speak this way?’—as if we had to wipe away the ugly old reminders of the King James Bible and Shakespeare, not to mention the English used in the Declaration of Independence or the U.S. Constitution. Why not “Text it” instead? LOL. At least LOL can mean anything you want it to mean. Why get stuck on what’s right or even what’s best. It is indeed a new mode of thinking required in this postmodern post-Republic. The government will care for you from cradle to grave whether you want it to or not. Friends, it is past time for discussion or debate, and you are either so thoroughly afflicted by the palsy of political correctness and what passes for knowledge in the public schools, which of course you paid for too—or you are ready to swear allegiance to the central idea of Freedom and take your stand, even if it is your last, resolving now to save the Republic!

Central Texas Tea Party Launched (Issue #455)

The Tea Party phenomenon is interesting. It is a political movement that emerged in 2009 largely in response to bailouts of failed big business, expensive government stimulus spending on top of that, and Democrat-sponsored health care reform bills. The term Tea Party conveniently refers to an oft-used acronym “TEA” or Taxed Enough Already. Notwithstanding, the name “Tea Party” is an explicit reference to the historic Boston Tea Party of 1773, a protest against taxation of American Colonists by the British Parliament when the Colonists had no actual representation in that governing body.

The Boston Tea Party pre-dated but also contributed much of the political momentum that led directly to the American Revolution. Contemporary Tea Party protests have sought to evoke similar themes, images and slogans used during pre-Revolutionary and Revolutionary periods in American history. Indeed, it speaks well of the particular mass protest movement to have shown so much restraint and discipline. Confederate symbols are virtually never seen at tea party meetings or rallies; whereas, symbols of the American Revolution are quite prominent. This was true for Bell County in 2009 when possibly 2,000 attended the Tax Day Rally at Confederate Park in Belton and also true in 2010 when hundreds attended the rally at Wildfire Ranch Arena in Salado.

Since 2009 the Tea Party movement has figured prominently in local and statewide elections around the country, producing high profile upsets against liberal Democrat candidates and also pushing Republican primary candidates well to the right of where they were in 2008. Something is definitely going on in the country, including Texas, in reaction to President Obama’s relentless progressive agenda. More than at any time since the late 1970s, the people have awoken to a sense of danger and a strong desire to do something political. They know that if we don’t turn out the majority in Congress this November and end Obama’s reign two years after that, there will be no Republic left. The national debt as well as accumulated budget deficits as far as the eye can see, will bankrupt this country in less than ten years.

Obama’s solution unfortunately is to spend, spend, spend; swallow a tax hike pill; and accept second place and third world status. He has us giving up going to the moon, or anything else that would lead the world by example. The president simply is not about a Restoration of the Republic. He is abouttransformation and redistribution of wealth. He is about making us more like Europe and reaching for that elusive utopian dream Lenin and the old Soviet Union tried—the same communist dream that has never worked, can’t work, and indeed shouldn’t work based on any faith-based morality under Heaven—but then President Obama wants the same degree of power Franklin Roosevelt enjoyed and then some to keep trying.

That’s where the Central Texas Tea Party comes in. They refuse to let it happen, and they have drawn a line in the sand on behalf of the Great State of Texas. The group reorganized and set up significant infrastructure in Belton this past May, inheriting and building on groundwork done by Bell County activists Judy and John Brady, as well as others. The new group expanded its footprint and now essentially encompasses tea party activists in a multi-county area regionally identified as Central Texas, albeit organized groups also exist in Waco and Williamson County. The Central Texas Tea Party is affiliated with the National Tea Party Federation and the Texas Republican Freedom Coalition. The grassroots group promotes fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government, free enterprise, and secure U.S. borders. It plans to organize Young Patriot groups in the area and to assist more populist conservatives running for public office with their campaigns, and with getting voters out to the polls on 2 November.

The Central Texas Tea Party has a website (www.CentralTexasTeaParty.com), a professional staff, and an office inconspicuously located behind (but enter inside) Aida’s “Outlet” store at 110 E. Central Avenue, Belton across the street from the flagpole at Bell County Courthouse. Aida’s “Outlet” specializes in patriotic and inspirational items, including Texas and Cross purses and other apparel. If you would like to join the Central Texas Tea Party or help further its critical aims, visit on-line or call their office at 254-939-5597. Central Texas Tea Party plans to have a float in this year’s 86^th Annual parade in Belton, 3 July 2010 and has a full schedule of speakers and events planned after that.