Grow local leadership, not the federal bureaucracy
Defend our freedom to choose
against the liberal insurgency in Congress.
After the Tax Day Tea Party - Memorial Day Celebration
See
our thoughts below about the importance of standing
up with our veterans on Memorial Day to remember those who have
sacrificed so much for our liberty and that of many others. We
separately share other thoughts about political issues related to
veterans.
Thank you to the many Americans who proudly joined
our veterans in solemn Memorial Day observances across the country.
These simple individual acts of respect for those who have fought and
died for our freedoms, and of sincere thanks to the veterans who served
with honor in times of both war and peace, means far more than the big
media productions which honor celebrities in Washington DC.
www.Legacy.com collects recent
newspaper obituaries (and keeps copies available online for a small
fee). There's a special In
Remembrance section for honoring thousands of American service
members. There are also "Moving
Tributes" created and posted on the site by friends and family.
The National
Purple Heart Hall of Honor is another interesting site which
gathers the legacy stories of wounded veterans. It is located
north of West Point in New Windsor, NY (Hudson River valley).
"They
Have Names" - Unlike the raw casualty numbers of interest to the
news media, this interesting site collects individual legacy stories
about fallen troops, particularly from the war in Iraq.
Barrington, IL - May 25 - Memorial Day Celebration - A very
large crowd stood up
with our veterans for one of the best parades and ceremonies in many
years.
Thanks for support of the
Barrington VFW Post 7706 as well as American Legion Post #158 and other veterans groups
in northern Illinois, and their many acts of community service
over the years.
Tipton
County, TN Tea Party on Memorial Day - May 25 5-7pm Shelton
Park, Covington, TN
Pensacola Patriots Memorial Day Tea Party - May 25, noon - 2pm - see
Tea Party Patriots
This
Memorial Day music video from one of the Tea Party supporters in
Connecticut, Chris
Cassone, is reminiscent of the ceremonies which take place in small
towns across America.
The
Evergreen Freedom Foundation produced this 2008 Memorial Day tribute
video. There are many other Memorial Day videos worth reviewing -
as Americans take the time to say thanks.
This is not about following the master political plan
of some national leader or group. It's not about seeking media
coverage or the illusion of political power. It's about standing
up with your friends and neighbors for our unique American legacy and
our future prosperity and freedom as responsible individuals.
Defend it proudly, instead of apologizing to the world for it.
This is the world's best refuge from tyranny. Stand up for it.
Our Constitution was carefully designed to protect us from tyranny - but
only if we the people remain vigilant. The liberal bias in the
media or education is no excuse. It's up to us to inform
ourselves, and fix the mess which politicians in both parties have
created over many years. It's time to get back to basics.
Meanwhile, check the news highlights after April 15
- about what Congress is planning to do next. They aren't just
insulting the Tea Party participants. They still want to push
through as much of their social agenda and spending plans as possible
before Memorial Day. We can't stay silent about this.
The
Tea Party movement is not about one national organization, or what a few
individuals want. It's about what the hundreds of thousands of
individuals involved decide to do next. This isn't a top-down
hierarchical organization with people doing the bidding of those who
seek more power over us. This is a networked organization - a
complex matrix of hundreds of thousands of very capable people who are free
to choose and learn how to work together in innovative ways to
accomplish whatever
they decide to do next.
In
that context of American freedom to choose and do great things together
as volunteers, our next step should not be a protest at all.
Instead of an anti-tax, anti-spending, anti-debt, or anti-anything-else
message, let's get back to basics and honor those individuals who
already defended our American freedom to choose and create our own futures in this
very
competitive and sometimes very hostile world.
Make this the biggest and best
Memorial Day celebration your community has ever seen.
This Memorial Day, stand up with the people in your community to honor our
veterans and those who are still serving our country, and the fallen. Unlike
the Department of Homeland Security, show the pirates and looters inside
the Beltway in Washington who have hijacked our government that we the
people don't regard our
veterans as radical right-wing security threats! We regard them as
patriots! We support them, and proudly honor their service and sacrifices
for our country.
Think
about it. Across this country, there are countless parades and
solemn ceremonies to remember those who gave their lives for the freedom
we enjoy today. Memorial Day is not about us getting a day off
from work. It's about honoring those who served, and sometimes
were wounded or died, in defense of both the United States of America as
well as the liberty of hundreds of millions of other people worldwide.
We
have much to be proud about. Despite that, how many people take
the time to even show up at their local parades, or to join their local
veterans at the cemeteries where they gather to remember our fallen
patriots whose sacrifices have done so much for the people of this
country and the world?
When
the parade goes by, is the applause for our veterans loud enough?
Do we know the words and sing the various service songs? Do we
visibly respect the flag, and show respect by joining in the singing of
our national anthem?
Indeed, do our schools - or parents - still teach the
words of these patriotic songs to our children? Do they learn to
be very proud of our country, and respect our most fundamental American
principles and values, or do they just have to pass American history
tests? Do they understand that we defend the right to dissent, but
are also very proud to defend our country? Do they learn about all
the good things which Americans have done, or just focus on liberal
academic and news media criticism? Are they learning that you get
ahead by keeping quiet and going along with whatever the liberals want?
Background: the observance of Memorial
Day
Some
people may know little about the observation of Memorial Day, other than
the fact that it provides a three day weekend near the end of the school
year and the start of summer vacations, or that it is a day with various
parades and other events, including races such as the Indianapolis 500.
Schools do not necessarily teach students about the origins or
significance of the holiday as free Americans. In that context,
this
Wikipedia entry about Memorial Day may be helpful background.
Keep it respectful. This is not
a day to protest. It's a celebration of American patriots.
Memorial Day is a solemn national holiday. It's not about "Tea
Party" protest issues of the moment, such as personal gripes about
whatever harm politicians may be doing to us at the time.
As such, it's not a day to "protest", but it is a good
day for a "celebration" of the basic American principles and values
which so many heroes have defended with that
last full measure of devotion.
We are not trying to launch a revolution. We are trying to
defend our Constitution against one.
Join
the veterans and other people in your community to make this the largest
and most respectful Memorial Day commemoration which anybody has ever
seen. Volunteer to help organize it. Get all your friends to
show up. Applaud and sincerely thank the veterans for their
service. Learn and sing the songs of all the armed services.
If your local school marching bands don't know those songs, or would
rather perform some more popular tune, make sure they understand what
Memorial Day is all about. They can play their favorite songs
elsewhere, at other times. This is a day for patriots to stand up
and be heard as Americans, and to honor those who already stood up and
defended our freedoms.
As
Memorial Day approaches, and after it is over, share your plans,
comments and photos online just as you have done for the Tea Parties.
Use online tools such as Facebook event pages, MeetUp event pages,
websites, blogs, and other online tools to network those who want to
join our veterans and the national Tea Party movement in celebrating
this Memorial Day. Be creative about taking advantage of other
local activities and organizations in your community to help spread the
word in preparation for an Independence Day Tea Party, but don't compete
for attention with the real purpose of Memorial Day. Instead, get
ready for Independence Day by being supportive of Memorial Day
activities in your area.
Share hundreds of
thousands or millions of comments, photos, and videos about Americans
standing up voluntarily to thank and honor our veterans on Memorial Day,
as well as the fallen and our firefighters and policemen too.
Thank the police and firemen and other emergency service workers too, as
many of us did already for their work during the Tea Party protests.
Show them that you are proud of them, and respect them, as you get ready
for an even larger celebration on July 4.
Suggested Theme: "Silent No More" with
an invitation to a July 4 Tea Party Celebration
For
those who choose to visibly participate in local parades or Memorial Day
events, please be very respectful since this is not a protest day, but
rather a solemn day to remember those who have defended our freedoms.
This is not a day for political protest signs in a parade, as at the Tea
Parties.
On
the other hand, it would be a good day for a simple, patriotic message
such as "Silent No More" or "Defend the Constitution" to reaffirm that we
the people, as free individuals, will
also stand up again on July 4 this year to encourage all Americans to
"Learn the Constitution" and defend it, as the veterans and others have
already done.
One
suggestion was to organize at the conclusion of whatever local Memorial
Day parade and commemoration ceremonies may be taking place in your
community. Don't compete with the existing plans. Reach out
to the veterans as volunteers before Memorial Day to help them to make
their own Memorial Day plans an even larger success than ever before.
It's their day to shine. Don't intrude on it.
Then, when it is over, get together and work on plans for
an Independence Day Tea Party. Find out who is interested in
getting involved, who can do what to make it happen, and follow up.
Keep building up the local network of people who are supportive of the
Tea Party movement - regardless of political party affiliation or
whatever special interests may sometimes divide them. Make it
clear that this is about standing up for basic American principles and
values - not partisan politics or venting anger.
Another suggestion is for Memorial Day event attendees, including
Indianapolis 500 attendees this year, to just wear a lot of red, white, and
blue as well as anything which shows their support of the Tea Party
movement - shirts, hats, buttons, flags, etc. Make it really easy
to recognize each other, and don't be afraid to introduce yourselves.
Invite the people around you to stand up with you again at an
Independence Day Tea Party celebration, and then work together to make
it happen.
We had hundreds of thousands of
people get together in 800+ cities on April 15. Let's try to make
it millions of people in even more cities for the
Fourth of July Tea Party celebration.
Action Suggestion: Everybody can do
this - in any city or town in America - at any time
With
the exception of Fox News and conservative talk radio stations, the
national news media (TV, radio, and print) largely ignored,
misrepresented, or scorned the Tax Day Tea Party protests. That
was somewhat disappointing, but certainly not unexpected. It's not
a problem. We have the power to talk to each other. If they
choose not to listen to us, or to insult us, then they shouldn't expect
us to keep listening to them. That's their problem, not ours.
By contrast, local
newspapers and local TV and radio stations are generally not in the
business of insulting the intelligence of their audience, so in general
their local coverage was more objective. They covered these protests as
news, and kept their editorial opinions separate for the most part, as
serious local journalists who didn't let their own opinions or egos
overshadow their reports of what the protesters were saying.
In
that context, everyone who is supportive of the Tea Party movement can
be helpful by doing four simple things to show their support:
Write to your local newspaper or call the relevant
local radio and TV stations to indicate your interest in the Tea Party
movement, and to alert them to any local plans for upcoming events.
If they have provided good coverage so far, acknowledge and thank them
for it.
Spread the word among your friends, neighbors,
colleagues at work, and any organizations in which you participate.
Help get the word out about upcoming plans in your area. Invite
them to join you.
Take the initiative to organize an event, or to
assist those who are already doing so. There are probably lots
of tasks for local volunteers. Get together and figure out what
you can do, and do it.
Tell your members of Congress, your Governor, and
your local party leaders what you think. Our Surge by State
pages make it easy to look up the Republicans, and there are also
custom search tools to find out what
Republicans in the House and in the Senate as well as Governors have been saying
and doing on any issue. Our
Conservative Search tool may also be helpful.
Think about it. On February 27, there were
15,000+ people in 40 cities. By April 15, there were
600,000-800,000 in 800+ cities in every
state - organized by volunteers in just 8 weeks. That's 20x more locations and 40x more people. Tell your
friends. Make it millions by July 4 and 9/12/09.
For now, make all the veterans proud on Memorial Day
by standing up respectfully with them. Then, do it again by
standing up for America and our unique Constitution on Independence Day.
News of these protests already reached millions of
people who may be supportive of this movement. If many of them
talk about it, and spread the word to their friends, then by July 4 this
movement should grow exponentially again. Each of you has the
power to make that happen. This isn't about standing up for a
particular politician, party, or political issue. It's about
standing up as an individual for what you believe.
Be
respectful. This shouldn't be anti-Obama, or anti-Congress, or
anti-anything else. It should be about standing up for what you
believe, rather than to denigrate others. America was built
through respect for individuals, and their ability to find innovative
and efficient ways to work together to overcome even the greatest
challenges. It wasn't built by those in federal government who we
trust to defend our Constitution and thereby protect our interests,
rather than to expand their own power and influence by finding ways to
work around the limitations which the Constitution carefully imposed
upon them. Stand up for what you believe - and to thank those who
already stood up for your rights - rather than just to attack others.
A personal statement about the way
forward for the Tea Party movement
As a
decentralized movement with no single national leader or organization
behind it, the Tea Party movement is unique. That has also made it
hard for observers and participants alike to answer one very simple and
obvious question - "What next? What will we do now?"
That's aside from any larger questions, such as "What do we expect to
achieve? How will we make it happen?" There's an
intuitive sense that "we the people" are still in control and can make a
difference during the 2010 national election, but there's no simple
answer about the way forward. In short, if you asked the hundreds
of thousands of people who participated on April 15 what they think
should be done next, you might well get hundreds of thousands of
different ideas as suggestions. Pollsters might find some common
concerns among them, but no clear political agenda to push.
That may seem chaotic or pointless to those in the media who just
want concise answers, or to politicians or others who may want to either
criticize this movement as a threat to their power, or to jump in front
of the parade and pretend to be leading it for their personal or
political advantage.
On
the other hand, that's the beauty of this grassroots movement.
It's about hundreds of thousands of Americans finding their own voice
again, and standing up to express their concerns and what they believe -
rather than just showing up or voting for or against what somebody else
is telling them to believe.
This isn't about
pushing the political career of anybody, or vilifying anybody else.
It's about standing up for basic American principles and values, and
reasserting our individual responsibility for our future.
We expect our government leaders to focus on their
assigned tasks, and to do them well and cost-efficiently, because we
all pay for those government services. We have outsourced certain
tasks to our federal government leaders, and to others to our state
governments, while keeping local control of other matters which are very
important to us, such as our personal health, education, career, home,
and business or financial decisions, as well as our voluntary community
and charitable interests. We do not expect politicians to mandate
or manipulate and try to control how we should live our lives. We
reject the statist tyranny agenda to rule
over us and redistribute wealth to some groups over others.
We have not agreed to empower politicians or
government employees to simply do whatever they please, or to impose
whatever they believe to be a good idea at the time. Winning an
election does not provide carte blanche to do anything. Our
Constitution limits our leaders, and we expect them to uphold their
oaths to respect rather than keep stretching those limits.
We are defending our precious American freedom to
choose how we will live our own lives as responsible individuals.
We do not elect federal politicians to plunder the national treasury to
get as much as they can for our states. We elect them to do what
we believe to be in the best interests of America as a whole, and we
defend our right to vigorously and vocally disagree, and to hold all
politicians accountable for their actions.
In
that context, as the Tea Party movement has grown from thousands to
hundreds of thousands and perhaps millions of participants soon, we will
sort out the complex questions of what we all expect of our government
officials at all levels, including who we will choose to trust to lead
us in the future. For now, we just want our national, state, and
local leaders to know that "we the people" are getting very frustrated
by their recent performance. We're rejecting their product as
defective from our perspective.
Just as any
business would quickly reconsider the choice of vendors who do not
perform as expected, and such vendors would be well-advised to take
those concerns seriously and respond to them soon rather than wait for
their contracts to be cancelled, we expect the same of our elected
officials.
They work for us. We don't simply take orders
from them. We're very dissatisfied buyers. We are putting
them on notice that we are looking for alternative suppliers already.
We are not happy with their services. It is not up to them to
pander to us, nor to try to silence our objections. We expect them
to listen, and focus again on what we agreed for them to do in the first
place - as in the Constitution.
Background: The Tax Day Tea Parties
The
Tax Day Tea Party protests on April 15 were
remarkable because they became an independent celebration by
hundreds of thousands of Americans
about basic principles and values, rather than political partisanship.
They were venting their frustration - not anger or hatred. They
were standing up for what they firmly believe. They weren't simply
blaming others or asking for special favors.
They were basically pushing back against the rapid, sweeping, and costly
changes in our federal government, as well as abuses of power and
spending by politicians and bureaucrats at every level of government.
It was more of a "let's get back to our basic American values" movement.
They were not led by any single national organization
to push a political party or a specific agenda. Instead, they were
organized by hundreds of volunteers at the local level, each taking the
initiative and reaching out to the people in their communities to work
together to make it happen.
The
news media were largely confused by the diversity of home-made signs at
these rallies, on a wide variety of topics, according to the individual
concerns of the person who had chosen freely to be there.
These
weren't the mass produced marketing images of a political campaign's
brand strategy to focus on a simple message. These signs ranged
from complex and thoughtful messages to the venting of political
frustrations. Some of them were extraordinarily clever and
entertaining. Individuals shared thousands of photos online to
feature their favorites. They were talking to each other.
They weren't there to listen to politicians. They were there to
meet each other, and to share their own concerns.
For
the most part, although many signs were very pointed and critical, they
were not ad hominem or hateful attacks. They weren't simply
anti-Obama, or anti anybody else. These were individuals freely
expressing their own views. Rather than just being against higher
taxes, spending, and debt, many were clearly expressing concern about
defending the fundamental principled and values on which this country
was founded, including the limited role delegated to the federal
government in the Constitution.
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