Don’t get me wrong, I’m not criticizing those organizations that have affiliated themselves with the Republican Party. Those groups are doing yeoman’s work in preparation for ridding the country of the abomination known as Reid/Pelosi. I’m just saying that sometimes, you need a pep rally to remind you of why you are working so hard to push the country back towards the middle. And as election 2010 grows closer, I think every one of the “tea party movement” groups should have one of these type of meetings because the passion must return if the yeoman’s work is to be fruitful.
As with most meetings of conservative minded folks, the meeting started with a prayer and pledges of allegiance to both the U.S. and Texas flags. In case you didn’t know, the phrase “one state under God” was added in 2007 and I still get a kick out of the confusion that people have trying to recite it and last night was no different. After the formalities of announcements and such Mary Huls, former candidate for Texas House District 129, kicked off the meeting by playing this video:
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After the video, there were three speakers: Dale Huls, husband of Mary, Jonathon Sandys, great-grandson of Sir Winston Churchill, and Natalie Arceneaux, host of The Civil Right radio show. Later, there as to be a question and answer panel but sound problems and a late start meant that I missed that portion. I think I left around 9 pm.
First up was Dale Huls. Dale took the microphone and immediately announced that he was not going to use notes, that this speech would be “off the cuff”. Oh, no, I thought. Nothing worse than someone speaking “off the cuff”, which is usually a euphemism for “I didn’t have time to prepare”. But Dale rather quickly put that notion away, it was quite obvious that he had thought long and hard about these remarks.
And they were perfect. Just perfect. Dale might not have gotten the standing ovation that the other two speakers did but his remarks could not have been more timely or better said. He talked about traveling around the world and the way people treated him “special” because he was an American. He concluded that this was because people around the world believe in America. They believe in that shining city on a hill that Ronald Reagan spoke of. They believe in American exceptionalism. They believe that
if we lose it here, we’ve lost it everywhere.
So true, that. So very, very true. Dale went on to say that he wants that to happen again, that when he travels around the world, they once again respect us and believe in us. He wants them to look at us and say, “they stuck it out and turned it around”.
Off the cuff. Well done, Dale, well done.
Next up was Jonathon Sandys. Not my “cup of tea” so to speak but he received a standing ovation, so I suppose he was someone’s cup. Click here to read about him.
Last up was Natalie Arceneaux and I’ll just say it now: she’s improved as a speaker one heck of a lot over the course of the last two years and did a fantastic job last night of sharing her beliefs and letting people know that they need to fight and fight hard if they truly want to change the course of this country. She corrected Mr. Sandys straightaway by telling him that America is not a Democracy, it is a Republic.
She used a very recent example of the loss of freedom of speech in this country. In case you haven’t heard, when President Obama visited Austin earlier this week, a young man by the name of John Bush was arrested for speaking outside of a “free speech zone”.
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Before you go ballistic against BHO, these same “free speech zones” were in place under President G.W. Bush. I don’t know exactly when they came about but as Natalie noted, they are complete violations of the First Amendment, at least as we used to know it. I’d guess that court battles have determined that they are lawful in some distorted reading of the clear words of the constitution but that doesn’t make them right. her point was that our liberties are quickly slipping away and we need to do something about that now, today. Not tomorrow, not next year, today.
Want to know why we are in the pickle we are in today?, she asked? Because of the lack of free thinking people. Our populace is full of people that take directives instead of thinking for themselves. Then she used a passage out of 1st Samuel, Chapter 8. I’ll quote verses 10-20:
So Samuel told them, delivered God’s warning to the people who were asking him to give them a king. He said, “This is the way the kind of king you’re talking about operates. He’ll take your sons and make soldiers of them—chariotry, cavalry, infantry, regimented in battalions and squadrons. He’ll put some to forced labor on his farms, plowing and harvesting, and others to making either weapons of war or chariots in which he can ride in luxury. He’ll put your daughters to work as beauticians and waitresses and cooks. He’ll conscript your best fields, vineyards, and orchards and hand them over to his special friends. He’ll tax your harvests and vintage to support his extensive bureaucracy. Your prize workers and best animals he’ll take for his own use. He’ll lay a tax on your flocks and you’ll end up no better than slaves. The day will come when you will cry in desperation because of this king you so much want for yourselves. But don’t expect God to answer.”
But the people wouldn’t listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We will have a king to rule us! Then we’ll be just like all the other nations. Our king will rule us and lead us and fight our battles.”
Isn’t that exactly what we see today? People willingly making themselves servants to our government in trade for the government taking care of them? Natalie pointed out that our founders were willing to stand up and revolt because the King was taking 3{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} in taxes – today we are in the 30-40{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} range. Are we really that weak to allow this to stand?
And then she hit a home run, at least with me. She stated that she started her radio show in 2008 when Barack Obama was nominated by the Democratic Party and her friends told her she had to vote for him because he was black. But she couldn’t because not only does she not accept the beliefs of the liberals, she couldn’t understand how the country could vote for someone that was pure evil. She didn’t need to know about his monetary policy, his tax plan, his healthcare plan – nothing mattered once she learned about his vote to allow babies that had been born in botched abortion attempts to be killed by putting them in a plastic bag and smothering them.
Pure, unadulterated evil. There is no escaping that. Regardless of your nuanced position on abortion, any human being that cares so little about human life that they would vote in favor of suffocating 2 second old babies is evil. Period.
She ended her speech with another thought near and dear to my heart. Stop looking for heroes. Stop waiting for someone else to do the work. Get off your butt and do it yourself. Because the only way we are going to turn this ship around is for all hands to be on deck.
Fantastic speech last night. I noticed that someone was filming it, I do hope they post it online so that you can see both her growth as a speaker and get motivated to get off the couch. Until then, perhaps this rant from Michael Berry will help you:
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Pictures from the evening:
