The Next Step

To all those political consultants who urged the Tea Partiers to take the “next step”, to all those tea partiers who felt the public rallies weren’t enough and were eager to take that “next step,” and to all those RINO Republicans who believe appeasement rather than standing up for American values is “the next step”: Congratulations. I hope you’re all very happy.

By the act of merciful God, this woman, Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords wasn’t killed today when a gunman shot her through the head from four feet away. Not only is it a miracle for this woman and her family, but a miracle for a republic that’s supposed to be civilized and the Tea Party movement that’s trying to keep it that way. It’s also a hopeful sign for all those who suffer such gunshot wounds. Great strides have been made in microsurgery so that where, once upon a time, such a wound meant instant death, now doctors can save the victims’ lives. When the first news accounts reported her death (I have no doubt she did die), I thought maybe they should wait until she gets to the hospital; with these new microsurgery procedures, she might just make it – and she did.

Thank the Lord. Not so lucky were five other people, including a 9 year-old girl and Federal Judge Michael Roll, who judged in favor of a group of illegal immigrants suing an Arizona rancher trying to protect his property and our rights, where the federal government has reneged its duty.

A 9 year-old kid, for crying out loud. I don’t care whether she was illegal or not; it’s not right to murder anyone, but particularly a kid. Passions are running high over the illegal immigrant issue, but surely we can do better than this. Our republic should be stronger than this; that if the American people feel that strongly about the issue, than the will of the people should be honored; illegal immigrants should be sent back, not given a free pass into our country. Someone let their frustrations with our bureaucratic government overthrow their better nature and result to a desperate and horrible act, one that will only stymie the cause of securing our borders.

Conservatives let the success of the 2009 Town Hall meetings against federal health care overthrow their common sense. They appeared in sufficient numbers and wouldn’t back down. They had the microphone and let their angry voices be heard, as they had every right to do. But the Liberals learned their lesson and gamed the system.

They learned how to control the meetings, filling the halls with their own hacks. Limiting citizens who opposed to one minute, while allowing more favored speakers to monopolize the microphone and violate the time limit. Meanwhile, the Tea Partiers urged their members to fax, call, or even meet in person with their representatives, a futile effort more likely to lead to frustration than to favorable results.

New Mexico Sen. Linda Lopez deplored the “vitriol” against Gibbons during various town hall debates, as well as vandalism against the Gibbons’ Arizona office. The Democrats are no one to level charges of vitriol against anyone. Their attacks on candidates like Sarah Palin have been unconscionable. The Liberals are vicious, unprincipled, deceitful, and arrogant. I’ve been to enough Liberal town hall meetings and even debates where they deliberately filled the audience with their own hacks. They plan the game cunningly, waiting until the end to fill up the line for the microphone to insure that they have the last word, and then run the clock out.

These town halls are billed as a chance for the representative to listen to the public, but in truth, they do very little listening and an awful lot of talking, while the audience is forced to listen. The only way the audience can be heard is to be rude through catcalls and boos. The meeting is simply a forum for the representative to present their views. Especially if audience members are in the minority, there’s very little likelihood that the representatives will concern themselves with those view; they’ll simply tout the fact that they won the election, even if it was only by 4,000 votes, as in Gibbons’ case.

All this does is send Tea Partiers away even more frustrated than when they came. Frustration leads to anger, and anger, as the character Yoda pointed out in the film Star Wars, leads to the “Dark Side” – to violence. Now, on the Sunday morning talk shows, Moderates will have their opportunity to appease the Liberals, like our new Republican House Majority Leader, John Boehner, who promised the give the Liberals “more of a voice”. As though they needed one. With help like that, we don’t need enemies.

But we’ve known that the battle is far from other. There are still too many Moderate Republicans more interested in getting along than standing up for America (which they redefine anyway). They’re on the alert, and they’ve probably been hoping someone like this gunman would be frustrated out of the woodwork, guns ablazing (Gibbons herself is a gun owner). And voila! He arrived right on cue at that Safeway supermarket parking lot.

Some of the blame belongs to the Tea Parties, for not being aware of Liberal disingenuous in such public invitations to come hear the representative “listen” to their “constituents,” (i.e., the people who voted them in, not necessarily the minority – and a not very small minority in this case – who didn’t vote for them).

Hoping to win in a one-on-one debate with these elected politicians is like betting against the house; the chances of your winning are very slim. They’re not going to listen to you – they don’t have to. Such invitations are a set-up. They’re very well-entrenched, trained in their message points, and totally devoted to their party. They don’t care what the opposition things. They like to be seen as giving the other side a chance, but only a very small one, and only to demonstrate their superiority in fending off opponents.

I don’t know how many times I’ve had to tell my local Tea Partiers that their best chance is in the rallies. Preferably the outdoor rallies, although here in this area in the Northeast because of the weather, indoor rallies are necessary until better weather arrives.

The reason we must depend upon the outdoor rallies is they’re more accessible to the public. They also give Conservative people a chance to make their voices heard or at least hear their point of view aired. The open forum also allows undecided people to attend without feeling trapped. I don’t know why our Tea Parties understand this. But let me tell you the story of Annie, the stray cat.

“Annie” was a gray tabby who had been stalking the birds my mother regularly feeds. To “appease” Annie, my mother set food out for the cat so she’d have a full belly and leave the birds alone.

One winter, we had a blizzard. My mother was able to lure Annie close enough to the door so my younger brother could grab her. Annie put up quite a fight and even though my brother’s quite strong, she gave him quite a tussle. Still, he subdued her and they got her into the lower hallway and shut the door.

Annie, used to being outdoors, was panicked by the four walls, the closed door, and the ceiling. She didn’t know what to make of the ceiling; she was used to seeing the sky. Annie thought she was trapped in a very big box.

The cat commenced a terrible howling and yowling, and started throwing herself against the door. Finally, mother spoke to her firmly and told her that she was not going to be released back out into the wild where she would almost certainly succumb to the storm and the cold. She was going to have to get used to being indoors for the night and that was that.

Mom said that she finally calmed down and crawled under my brother’s bed for the night (he sleeps in a downstairs bedroom). The first thing in the morning, my brother shoveled the snow away from the back door, my mother opened it. Annie shot out the door like a bullet out of a gun.

That, in short, is the essence of the typical “independent” voter. They tend to think of political meetings as revival meetings, or sales pitches, where someone’s trying to talk them into buying a house in the Poconos (in Pennsylvania). You have a better chance of getting them to listen under an open (and hopefully clear and sunny sky). If they become unnerved, they can make a run for their minivan.

An open rally also allows for tents where the children can be entertained with games, puzzles, and coloring books about America’s many positive virtues. They’ve got a lot of peer pressure against them in school about attending such meetings. But if you can make it fun and cool for them, they might be more amenable to the lessons you’re trying to teach them. Some of the Tea Parties did away with the music. That made the seniors happy but drove away the younger people. We have to reach some sort of generational compromise here.

The rallies are the most positive way for Americans who feel disenfranchised to “vent” in a productive manner and not feel as though their only alternative is violence. That’s why the signs were so popular. Average Americans aren’t really keen on giving speeches, but they’ll be quite willing to listen to them if they’re brief and to the point of view, and if they can respond positively to them (cheering and some good-natured booing of those they oppose, who aren’t on-hand anyway). The opposition will just have to lump it.

Education, not violence, is the way. Our targets (of education, not violence) are those other people out there. Debating with opposition politicians is useless, futile, and even dangerous as we see by today’s events. There’s no “convincing” them; it’s voters who must be convinced, voters who are undecided, voters who feel disenfranchised, voters who are ignorant of what’s going on.

We must also do something about the GOP. Again, it’s a matter of educating the voters, but also letting the party machine know how we feel about the direction they’re taking us. Faxing them is okay. Writing letters to the editor. Calling them – good luck with that. You must remember that these people are skilled debaters. Chances are they will talk you down, or tell you what you want to hear, and then turn around and do what they want to do, under the auspicies of being authorities of the constituents.

The Tea Parties haven’t made people angry or angrier; it’s our growing, iron-clad bureaucratic government that’s done that job, made some people feel desperate to literally start shooting from the hip.

The Liberals are looking for trouble and we’re giving it to them, unfortunately. I hope, for God’s sake, that the Tea Parties will listen, this time. They have gotten back to the local level. Now they have to give the Tea Partiers back their own forum and forget about trying to take on the entrenched beast and encourage their friends and neighbors to open their eyes and ears to what’s going on.

The Liberals have no business blaming the Tea Parties for creating panic. The Liberals have done that themselves. Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, Shawn Hannity and Michelle Malkin have simply been telling the public the truth. They’ve exposed a socialist movement intend on creating a completely bureaucratic, tyrannical government that will rule every aspect of our lives and rob us of our freedom.

This is dilemma best solved through voices and votes, ballots not bullets, agglomeration not aggression, and patience, patience, patience, not panic. Urgency, but not panic. And above all, listening to someone who helped organize one of the first (and most successful tea parties). I warned you to stay away from Washington; that it’s radioactive, like a nuclear reactor, and the closer you get to it, the more contaminated you will be.

In this case, an irradiated representative came to the people. Although she’s a critic of the Obama administration, and is in favor of banning illegal immigration, she also voted in favor of Obamacare. She deserted the Republican Party (no great shakes, but still better than the Democrats). I’m glad she survived the attack, but she’s still got that radioactive mark – you know that radioactive symbol. Stay away from her, and people like her from now on and focus on the people.

As for the Federal Judge who was murdered, he was nominated by Republican Pres. George H.W. Bush, a moderate. Although he was in favor of disbanding the drug cartels, he received death threats for that lawsuit, apparently someone succeeded in carrying it out. Whoever it is will almost certainly receive the death penalty for murdering these five people and if so sentenced, will deserve what he gets.

I just fear that some will regard him as a martyr for a cause. Crikeys. That’s all we need. Murdering judges is what they do in Third World countries. Perhaps this murder shouldn’t be surprising, as Obama is reducing us to Third World country status. What was he said today? Something about such violence being intolerable in a free society? The trouble is, we’re not all that free and some people have become unhinged over it, sort of like Annie, the cat.

Although the rest of us, on the whole, are not murderers, we don’t intend to go quietly into that good night of socialism or communism. In spite of this tragic setback and even because of it, we must (forgive the expression) “stick to our guns,” or at least our meetings, our faxes, our signs, our blogs, our rallies, and our values.