Good thing we have Obama’s “Intelligence Czar,” Dennis Blair, to bring clarity to the debate of who the enemy actually is. The phrase “global war on terror” (GWOT), which probably makes the top ten phrases over-used by President George Bush, has been buried next to the soldiers who died in the name of the global war on terror. Now we are “countering violent extremism.”
Could the unelected Mr. Intelligence Czar please define “violent extremism”? Nancy Pelosi made it pretty clear that she thinks violent extremism could be when someone’s “language” might create a “climate in which “violence [takes] place.” She also suggests that they should be held accountable when any violence follows their speech, no matter how indirectly related the source of the violence is to the person who dared to exercise their first amendment rights. In other words, when you speak out about an administration’s policies and some quack who is hulled up in his basement all day sharpening knives and building bombs comes after the president, in Pelosi Land, you are responsible for that man’s actions. Would you then be labeled a “violent extremist” who needs to be “countered”?
The other question that remains is, why the change in terminology? The phrase “global war on terror” suggests the threat is on the outside. Somehow this new terminology brings it right into our own backyard. Considering the ambiguous language used in defining a “homegrown terrorist” in the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 (H.R. 1955), it is disturbing to think just who might fall under this category, and for what purpose.
This could be a war on dissension, or it could just be an innocuous change in terminology; but I doubt the Founding Fathers would want us to wait around and take the chance that it might be the former.
Thank you fellow Tea Party Patriots who in 2009 demonstrated your commitment to the United States Constitution, the Founding Fathers, and to those principles that made us the freest and wealthiest land on the earth: limited government, fiscal responsibility and the free market. We assembled to protest the abandonment of that sacred document and these inspired principles it protects.
The Tea Party movement expressed itself most fully last April 15, when nearly 800 cities throughout the land demanded that both political parties stop the insane spending that was taking our children and grandchildren into massive debt before they were even born. Over a million gathered in the capitol alone. In Bakersfield the number exceeded 3,500. At no time in U.S. History was there a greater, more universal, and more grass roots outpouring of populous sentiment and anger toward both parties than on that single day. Millions gathered with the same message: slow down! The sky is not falling. What is right in America is still accessible.
Millions gathered again July 4th in a similar number of cities, and again on Sept 12 when at least 200 cities (23 in California) expressed contempt for lawmakers so willing to abandon our core values. These were smaller and fewer groups because so many joined the Tea Party Express assembling in Sacramento and eventually making her way through 33 cities becoming stronger as she went, landing 1.6 million angry patriots on the steps of the capitol on that same day. The message was crystal clear: return to the Constitution, limited government fiscal responsibility and free market solutions or resign. Let us not overlook the countless phone calls, emails and faxes we sent to legislators and others demanding a return to our core values.
In the meantime, last May our members successfully expressed themselves opposing irresponsible propositions in California. Nationally we comprised the majority in over 200 Town Hall meetings in August, voicing opposition to members of Congress on National Health Care. Not one of these 200 Town Hall meetings favored government takeover of healthcare. We were the strength and numbers behind the Town Hall Movement.
Moreover, it was Tea Party Patriots who rushed to help eliminate the Democratic supermajority in Congress by taking on Massachusetts, the mother state of National Health Care and of Ted Kennedy, the Father of socialized medicine. This victory sapped the strength of those who had so blatantly disregarded the will of the people.
We have become a source to be reckoned with as we return to our basics. The sleeping giant has awakened. America desperately needs what we have to say before it is too late. It’s about liberty. Together Tea Party Patriots and 9/12 Project participants will return this nation to its core values.
Let us not be divided by political bickering. We will need all our strength in 2010 as we stop yet another stimulus bill (a.k.a. “Jobs Bill”), Cap and Trade, and Law of the Sea, each of which violates core values. In California we must get water to our farmers and ranchers in the Central Valley. Turn on the pumps and do so now! We must also join with the 35 other states placing an amendment in their state constitutions asserting that the federal government has no authority to tell states and their citizens to buy health insurance. Finally, we must rescind the ERAF legislation enabling Sacramento to rob money from counties, cities and special districts to balance their budget. There is much to do! Let’s make 2010 another great year for getting back to our basics.
The Tea Party concept with respect to freedom is not new. Imagine, once again, having to begin the process of resistance because this government, like the British government, no longer listens to its citizens. The Colonists argued, “No taxation Without Representation,” to which their British cousins retorted that they did have “virtual” representation. That meant that a member of parliament in England thought about them when they voted; to which the colonists said that such was not the same as “actual” representation. Or, in other words, they did not feel represented unless the representative actually lived among them most of the time.
Today your congressional representative and your two senators actually live in Washington DC and only occasionally travel to their states or district thus we have returned to “virtual” representation. Once again we do not feel represented and are “throwing tea into the harbor” in every major city in the land demanding that the “parliament” of the land listen to us. The simple answer is for them to live in their district most of the time so they can actually understand our concerns, otherwise, they mostly just listen to each other before voting.
Actually this concept was built into the Constitution. Article I, Section 4, Clause 2, required Congress to begin their annual meeting the first Monday of December; the idea being so that the federal government indeed would stay to the list provided them in Art. I, Sec. 8, and would not have need to assemble for long periods of time. They should be home for Christmas. There was comparatively little federal intrusion prior to 1933, when the 20th Amendment changed that meeting time to begin January 3. From that date on Congress met throughout the year. The cost of government escalated as did their subsequent meddling in virtually every phase of our lives-totally ignoring the list.
Now they wish to manage us from cradle to the grave because they believe us incapable of managing ourselves. In order to finance our management, they have chosen to take from those who produce and give it to those who do not (share the wealth). Ironically, the same solution the British had, and so, once again, we are back to the Tea Party concept. Our ancestors saw such government control over them as loss of liberty and decided to fight-will we?
