Obviously, their positions on immigration go directly against Gov. Rick Perry’s stated positions on Arizona style legislation and ending in-state tuition, as well as Dannie’s stated position regarding Arizona style legislation. It will be interesting to see what Dannie does with these recommendations.
I had to laugh at the Second Amendment plea for Texas to “uphold the U.S. 2nd amendment” because as I type this, I can look over to my left and see what some anti-2nd amendment activists would consider an arsenal. Trust me, our 2nd amendment rights aren’t going away. And I’d be that Open Carry doesn’t pass either – that would be an expansion of current law and I don’t see it happening. And quite frankly, I don’t want 18 year olds to be able to carry guns – that’ll get people to calling me liberal!
As long as we assert our 10th Amendment rights properly, through the courts, I have no problem with anything they say. But I will note that those Interstate Compacts have to be approved by Congress and there is no chance of that happening until after the 2012 elections, so most of that is simply hot air.
I wish them well, and as I noted here, there are some very good, solid, conservative leaders on the Advisory Committee. One thing that continues to bother me about this ‘select group’ that was ‘invited’ to participate by Dannie is that it puts a barrier between ordinary citizens and their representatives. Think not? Here is a quote from the eblast:
Our intent is to bring the views of grassroots conservatives across Texas to the attention of the Tea Party Caucus. We do not claim that we speak for any tea party, 9-12 or other conservative group. We hope, however, that we can provide a sounding board for the Tea Party Caucus on issues that fall squarely within our tea party principles.
Sounds good, they just want to be a “sounding board”. Let me relate an exchange I witnessed at a recent meeting between an attendee and an Advisory Committee member.
Attendee: How do I contact my representative?
AC member: Through me.
Attendee: No, I want to talk to him direct.
AC member: Well, that isn’t the best idea. We have their ear. If you want to get your message across, it is better to go through me.
Attendee: No, I want to talk to him directly. How can I contact him?
AC member: I guess you could look his number up on the web but seriously, you need to go through me.
At that point, the attendee gave up. I guarantee you that someone in the audience had the phone number for that attendee’s office on their cell phone but no one offered it.
That exchange may not be a big deal to you and I understand that it is human nature to want to display your influence in any process. But our country and in fact Tea Party principles call for direct voter to representative access. We’ve complained for years about lobbyists having access and now we, as Tea Party members, are setting up our own barriers. I don’t think this is right and good for Texas.
But all in all, it looks like the Tea Party Caucus Board and Advisory Committee have gotten off to a good start. If you want to participate, an easy way is to click here and take a short survey that will be used for their next meeting.
And I’ll leave you with a quote from Greg Holloway of the Austin Tea Party Patriots, one of the few original groups still active that haven’t been overrun by Republicans. I’ve talked to Greg several times about the social impact of our proposed legislation and the need to mitigate suffering in the short term, until we return to depending upon charity instead of government. Here is what he said to Mr. Embry:
Tea-partiers want to reduce spending and shrink government, Holloway said. But he said they realize that there does need to be some government, and they voiced concerns about cutting services that nobody but the government provides. For example, he said, lawmakers should be slow to cut services for a child with Down syndrome if the child has nowhere else to turn in his or her region for those services.
“We’re a little more concerned about the human side of things than I think people would attribute to us,” Holloway said.