I offered the following remarks on 15 April 2009 for the Starkville Tax Day Tea Party (photos below are from this same event) held in front of the Oktibbeha County Courthouse:
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Thank you for that (participation in the “Pledge of Allegiance” at the beginning of the program) public showing of respect for our flag and for our nation “for which it stands”. Respecting our flag like that reminds me of hearing about a recent candidate who wouldn’t even wear a flag button on his lapel in public.
This gathering here, and the many throughout our nation right now today, and throughout the day, are nonpartisan events narrowly focused upon the interrelated issues of:
No more taxes, including the hidden ones.
No more debt.
No more borrowing.
No more printing money out of thin air.
Speaking of debt, the interest alone on what we owe now is nearly half a trillion dollars. That is half a trillion dollars that buys nothing – no goods, no services – nothing. That is what we are passing on to our children and grandchildren. That is irresponsible. That is wrong. That is a SIN.
Our country is in jeopardy of being destroyed from within by elected and appointed officials who give evidence of being outright incompetents and/or outright traitors — internal intentional enemies of the state. We may very well wake up one day to find our country has been stolen from us by these people. If we do, we will surely look back and ask ourselves, “Why didn’t I DO something when I could have?” And we will have to answer this same question to our children and grandchildren who will ask it to us too.
We have always had troubles and problems as a nation, but the troubles and problems we are dealing with now are happening at a heightened pace and intensity that they ever have before.
I keep hearing things about the way government is operating recently that trouble — even scare — me very much…
For example:
I keep hearing about how it is unconstitutional for the Treasury Department to spend and redistribute public funds like it is doing now. That is the Constitutionally specified job of Congress…why is the Treasury Department doing this? And where did it get the authority to attach all the strings to this money it has attached to it? And speaking of the Treasury Department, when did we ever have so many known tax cheats in high positions of our government – and that we KNEW were cheats…and put them in office anyway?
I keep hearing how it is unconstitutional for government officials to fire private citizens from their private positions in private companies…
I keep reading in the Constitution that the President of the USA must be a natural born citizen – having been born in the USA or on a territory of the USA. But I keep hearing that our President has not produced his birth certificate to prove that he is a natural-born citizen – and that he has gone to court to prevent other people from discovering where he was born. But without seeing this birth certificate, no one knows if – or can show that – he truly meets the Constitutional requirement for holding the office he occupies.
I keep seeing one losing party from recent elections demand voting recounts of close elections and seeing each of those “”recounts”” involve the “finding” of “missing” ballots that somehow “mysteriously” appear — and that always seem to end up with the losing party being “certified” the winner.
I see one party in power changing the rules in midstream, and bypassing standard committee processes – that leave the other party totally out of the process, and rushing through to vote bills that nobody has even read….
I keep seeing tax dollars — that we don’t have — being pledged to bail out private people and private organizations that were financially irresponsible, while financially responsible private people and private organizations are being forced to pay for the bail-outs of these people and orgaanizations. This is not legal taxation – this is legal theft. I see these bail-outs and other wasteful expenditures doubling the National Debt in 5 years and tripling it in 10 years. I keep hearing that the Free Market System will bounce back — it always does — but I see it being dismantled by increasingly communist –er “socialist” — policies more and more.
I hear conservative financial advisors tells us that the current government is “doing all the wrong things” to deal with this economic downturn…That it is government officials ands policies themselves that brought these economic problems upon us. And I wonder…if the government officials in control of our finances were honest people just making honest mistakes…wouldn’t you expect that around half the actions they take would be working out for our good? If they made all their decisions by simply flipping a coin it would work out that well…How is it then, that they keep doing “all the wrong things?” Perhaps it is time to consider that perhaps they are deliberately doing all these wrong things… That this is not all just a bad comedy of errors, but that it is a carefully planned, deliberately implemented effort being brought against us to destroy America as the nation we know and love – but which they do not like and want at all…
I keep hearing even conservative pundits bemoan the fact that America is becoming “socialist”. I don’t hear them acting particularly alarmed about this. They say it like it is just a fact – a “done deal” – as inevitable as the Sun coming up tomorrow… That there is nothing we can do about it. Hog Wash! There is ALWAYS something that can be done. And we must find a way and DO it.
The Bible says, “Ye shall know them by their fruit”. We are ignoring this principle. I know politics is complicated but God says this simple fruit-inspection technique works in all areas and for all things. I believe God. So, according to God, if our so-called representatives make “bad” laws and policies, they are “bad” people. We need to identify them, oppose them, and ultimately remove them. And if our so-called “good” representatives sit back and allow bad laws and policies – regardless of their reasons for doing so – they are not “good enough”. We need to identify them, and – if they will not respond appropriately after a good “talking to” — oppose them, and ultimately remove them too. We need adults in our high places – not wimps.
I keep hearing and seeing things like this — and more — and I can’t help but wonder… Where are the good guys in all this? Yes, I know the good guys did good several times in that every single member of the minority party voted against a bad – even an unconstitutional – bill. But if these bad bills were passed over their opposition, and they KNEW they were unconstitutional, why did these good guys “drop the ball”, and just let them happen? If all these things are illegal, why are not these same good guys following through with their opposition and seeing that the proper authorities do their jobs and stop the illegal laws and policies from being implimented?”
And if so many things were done so incompetently in the first place, why are not the proper authorities doing their jobs and holding these incompetent people accountable for their incompetence? If all these things are done so ineptly, why are not these same good guys following through with their opposition and seeing that the proper authorities do their jobs and stop these badly designed programs from being implimented?” In the real world, incompetent people are fired for their sloppy harmful work… Why not in government too?
Many of these minority representatives ARE the proper authority! Why are they getting not court injunctions and taking other legal measures to stop these illegal laws and policies, and these incompetently designed programs from being implimented once they become legalized-illegal policy? Why are these bad things being rushed through with so little meaningful opposition?
Are even our good guys in government so weak that they cannot do something? Or are they really silent accomplices to these crimes? What is going on?! Are ALL of our leaders bad, or so weak that they are ineffective? I don’t think they are all bad…Surely not EVERYONE in office is bad. But surely, something is going on to make them “pull their punches”. I saw this “holding back” happening as I watched Sarah Palin campaigning last year.. Could you not read her body language in certain interviews and speeches and see how she was frustrated – and struggling – to follow what clearly had to be instructions or orders to not say certain things that she felt should be said and that she wanted to say, and that she would have said had she not been under the leadership of others? Well, in this great grassroots movement, we are not under the leadership of others. We can say – and we MUST say – what needs to be said.
In preparing for our Starkville Party today, I have been reading a lot on this event as people across the nation have been discussing the movement. In this reading, I have noticed a very disturbing and important omission. Maybe I just missed it but, I have not read – or even heard it is written somewhere in any of the coverage and disussion – a word about this being a “spiritual” battle. Perhaps it is just the conventional wisdom that such talk is best avoided…because it is not “politically correct” to mention such things. Well, I for one say it is time to grow up and talk like an adult and say things that are true and necessary. “Politically correct” is such a STUPID term. How did it ever get started? And how did it ever get accepted as a term, and as a guiding principle, in our speech and behavior? It is not “correct” in any way – especially in the “political” sense. This nonsense term has changed our whole vocabulary, transforming some words into totally different meanings and outright eliminating other words from the “socially approved” list of words we can use in public. I for one do not, and will not, yield the floor to it – and I recommend we all stop conceding to it – for it weakens the expression and defense of our positions and, in many cases, gets us to talk in a self-defeating way about our own position, before we have even begun to face the forces of our opposition. We don’t have to be crude and deliberately inflammatory to reasonable people, but we need to talk straight and say things that need to be said – or they will not be said at all… And if they are not said, they will not be part of the overall discussion… And if they are not part of the overall discussion, they cannot be part of the overall decision-making process. No wonder, then, that so many of our recent decisions are so badly made.
If we ignore the spiritual component of this battle, we are ignoring the largest part of the battle – and how can our strategy against it possibly be effective when it leaves out the biggest force against us? And the spiritual part of this battle involves a real evil being named Satan…who works in the shadows and in the background. And he has many self-centered, selfish, power-hungry people who listen to him and do his work of lying, destroying, and murder. (Where do you think “abortion” came from?). And this battle involves God – not the nonexistent make-believe PC god of “whoever you conceive him, or her, or it, to be”, but the real God, the Father…”Jehovah” of the Bible – the One to Whom we pray to in the name of Jesus Christ, and the One Whose identity we must get right if are to have a reasonable hope that He will hear our prayer, and help us in saving this nation.
Well, the situation suggests that, if we are going to do something, NOW is the time to be doing it. I know you know this, or you wouldn’t be here. If our country is to be saved, it will not be by these “officials”, but by no-longer-silent-majority-type grassroots folks like we here today. If America is saved, it will be because people like us, all over this nation, “lurched” it back from the brink.
Clearly, the situation in, and of, our nation is bad — but it is not hopeless. As long as God is involved, we have real hope. No nation has — or has ever had — God like this nation has. Our motto of “In God We Trust”, our pledge of “one nation under God”, our national anthem, our monuments, our engravings on and inside public and government buildings, our political documents, our holy days of Thanksgiving, Easter, and Christmas, our churches on nearly every corner, and many other expressions of historical and present-day love of, and dependence upon, God PROVE that this nation and this people is a REAL and sincere CHRISTIAN nation. These mottos, and other God-based expressions are not just politically expedient, high-sounding speech-fillers and cliche’s in this nation. Yes, of course they are mere cliche’s to many — but they are deeply heartfelt convictions to most of us. This Christian nation knows God — and God knows us. We must not abuse or take this unique-in the-world relationship with God for granted. But in this relationship — and BECAUSE of this relationship — we can confess and repent of the abominations we are guilty of as a nation and as a people, and appeal to God’s mercy and forgiveness. We can return to God — a “revival” they called it generations ago. He may hear our prayer and heal our land.
Because of this one strength and connection alone, not to mention many other strengths God has allowed us to have, we don’t have to go all the way down the same declining path former great nations and civilizations went down. We can obey His instruction to us to “occupy till” Christ returns, and to be “salt” and “light” to our nation and world, and to be “good stewards” of this nation and everything else He gave us. And, if we will do these things, we can bring this nation back to the Christian nation it began as, and operated as, for its first 150-180 years. It is up to us. So, it could be a wonderful future just ahead of us. All the bad that is happening now –and that depresses and angers us now — could be just the thing God is allowing to wake us up; to get us to get off our couches and shrug off this sleeping giant laziness and lack of attention and involvement we are guilty of; and get busy being the stewards, and responsible citizens, of our nation we need to be.
So, I am here to say that efforts like this encourage me. This Tax Day Tea Party movement is a new thing for conservatives — for America. With action like this and with God’s help, people like us – and including us – can turn this around. We have the freedom, we have the numbers, we still have time, we have other resources we need… And we have God — Who is merciful and wants to bless instead of curse. I know you all probably do not agree with all of this. Probably most of us here agree with this, but surely some of us do not. But, in a way, that does not matter…If you don’t agree with all — or even any — of this, we can work with that… we can work with you to kill a snake that threatens both of us. Can you work with us? Our motivations may be different, but our goal is the same: a free, safe, and strong America. Let’s get to work and do our part to save our nation; for ourselves, our children, and our grandchildren.
If we do right, God may work in our behalf. He has done it in the past. Perhaps He will do it again. It may be that He will move people and events in says that we can not even imagine and that provide for a way out of this mess – a way to stop and even reverse the bad that has occurred. As long as God is in the equation, there is hope. He is the biggest part of the equation.
In every meeting like this people always want to know, “What can I do to help?”
They don’t want to just complain and “curse the darkness”. They want to DO something. There is a lot we can do.
We that are Christians need to, like the old saying goes, “pray like it all depends on God, but work like it all depends on us.”
Get informed:
That means don’t rely only on the major media outlets of ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, PBS. They stopped being “news” providers long ago. They are now persuaders and indoctrinators of leftist positions. For example, I asked my Pastor — who does not have cable or satellite — just last Sunday if he had heard of the nationwide Tax Day Tea Party and he said he had not. Apparently he gets all his “news” and “information” from the liberal media that feed his local TV stations. Well, the liberal media is not covering this event – as they don’t cover many conservative activities and issues. And what they don’t black out, they misrepresent. AFA radio this week had a speaker quote a liberal media spokesman who said that the liberal media has made a business decision NOT to cover the Tea Partys because, in their opinion, the people putting these parties on and the people attending them, are not important enough to bother with. That is what the liberal media thinks of YOU and of us! I don’t know why — when we know this liberal media lies and distorts the truth like this – we keep buying their “news”papers and “news”magazines, and keep listening to and watching their TV productions. Why do we continue to encourage and enable people and organizations like this who lie to us, and about us, and are trying to destroy our Christian conservative institutions? I say, cut off the liberal media. They only lie to you. Subscribe to conservative news sources on the net. If you would like suggestions on what ones are out there, we at Starkville Tea Party will be happy to recommend many sources. E-mail us for suggestions.
We need each other. In every effort, the people are split into 3 groups. Roughly 1/3 are against the effort; 1/3 are apathetic, fence-straddling and won’t get involved; and 1/3 are for effort. So, as it applies to us, the numbers are working both for and against us. So, we have to work together. We need each other. We must find a way to work together to save this nation.
Get involved:
Good citizenship is not a spectator sport. And, “Freedom is not free.”
Join this group and other Christian conservative groups that will honestly represent you and provide you with the truth and with real information.
Stop supporting with your subscriptions, ticket purchases, alumni contributions, bad and wrong liberal media, entertainment, public and private universities and other bad influences that promote anti-American and anti-Christian speakers and programs, and other social events and behaviors that drag society down. Stop financing your own destruction.
Don’t buy their papers, but write “Letters to the Editor” to your local newspaper.
Get on radio talk shows. – If you aren’t sure of how to defend — or oppose — a position, call us for information.
E-mail and call your representatives — they know that for every letter or call they receive, 10 more people feel the same way.
Talk to your children, your grandchildren, your neighbors, your students in public school and university. Show them articles, pass them information they probably are not getting from the liberal media, public schools, universities and other places of MISinformation.
Vote. Vote for what is good for America – not for what freebies you can get out of the most liberal candidates.
Does it even matter?
The liberals will tell us we are wasting our time. They will laugh at us. Ignore them…They are afraid of us – but they won’t admit it, or show it. So, let’s all grow a little tougher hide that can take the lies and derision that these liberals dish out – as a mere tactic against us.
So, is all this talk, and all this getting together like this, going to work? Well, we won’t know till we try, will we? But what we are doing is right, and “it is never wrong to do right.” We have to get Washington’s attention first, don’t we? This will get their attention. So will other things that are planned and that we hope you will participate in. I think it will work. I think we have them scared and on the run already.
Don’t give up – don’t get discouraged. Success will not come easily, or quickly. We did not get in the bad condition we are in quickly and we will not get out of it quickly. But don’t just sit back and just let these liberals keep taking our country away from us. If they get their way, they will replace our freedoms with sudden enslavement in an overnight tyranny. Is that OK with you?! If we do not stop what is happening, we may soon live in, and under, a dictatorship – those of us who they will let live, that is. And if it does not happen in our day, it will in the day of our children and grandchildren. Love your family enough to fight for them. Are not they worth fighting for? Is our comfort so precious to us that we will not sacrifice a little time, money, and effort to save our nation? If we will not sacrifice what we must to save our nation, do we even deserve our nation?
The sleeping giant is awake. Let us rise up and shrug these liberals off and clean up our country. God bless — and save — America.