At our Tea Party meeting on Saturday, we were, as always, stirred up to action. The people who take a couple of hours out of a Saturday to learn about issues and find ways to take action are a particular breed to begin with. But we were also chastised for not doing enough. There was a Harris County election fraud issue we were presented with a couple of weeks ago (it's example 2 in this post), to pressure the Attorney General’s office to act on. Six hundred or more were given the information and the how-to for making that contact. Only 12 acted. (I was one, I believe, although mine so far was to contact only by email; I haven’t yet followed up by phone.) If we all see voter fraud as an important issue, then why don’t more of us take a simple action when it’s placed before us?
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| Texas State Capitol, 2018 |
What to
Take Action On
One man said he accepted the chastisement, but then pointed
out how, even at these meetings, there are so many things to take action on, we
feel overwhelmed. Even in getting an answer to that comment, he got a list of
six or seven important things to do. And he said, that’s his point. Life is full of
these injustices and issues. How do we know where to spend our limited time?
The simple answer is, wherever you feel a passion, enough to
learn the issue to speak intelligently on it, so you can share that with your
circle of influence, and with your representatives.
I’ve been doing that for quite a number of years now.
Decades. There’s not a lot of payoff. There are places I can see my work has
been useful. But there are many more where I don’t feel I have the energy to
do one more thing, and I hope others step up.
Here are some of the issues I’ve worked on over the years:
Defense of Marriage. I
lobbied the state legislature in 2003, which worked, but was almost immediately
overturned by the US Supreme Court. Continual work was eventually done in by the Supreme Court in Obergefell, and even the most effective advocates have gone silent.
(See my Defense of Marriage collection.)
School Choice and Parental
Rights. School failures consist of failure to teach what is needed and also
teaching what is subversive to civilization. It is a basic God-given right for
parents to see to the care and upbringing of their children. That’s why these
two issues are closely related. We’re losing ground, because of teachers’
unions and international anti-family pressures. School choice is only a tiny
effort to whittle away at the problem. I’m on a committee working on this issue
for the current legislative session. We have yet to get a good school choice
bill, despite promises from some of our best elected officials. This is in a
state where the vast majority of parents would like school choice and probably
90% would say parents need to have the final say. I don’t know that public education
is solvable. We need market solutions, with parents taking on the main decision-making
for their own children. For a good overview of the parental rights problem, I
recommend this video: “Overruled: Government Invasion of Your Parental Rights.” (H/T to Janice for passing this along to me.)
Abortion. There are always
those who have been more activist than I am on this. I trusted them to do this
important work while I work on other issues. But I have written on it, and
lobbied for it, and worked for appropriate wording in the state platform. There
is greater willingness from the public for abolishing abortion (with exception
for life of the mother and, among some, in cases of rape). Meanwhile the minority
opposition is more starkly contrasting—favoring abortion up until the moment of
birth, or maybe beyond. We have passed a no dismemberment abortion bill, and a
20-week bill. Some states have passed heartbeat bills. But these all accept the
assumption that we get to decide when it’s OK to kill a developing human baby.
Even as we gain traction in the society on this issue, we make very little
legal progress.
The Electric Grid. It became more than apparent a couple of weeks ago that we don’t do well without electricity. A freeze in Texas is going to be brief. But even from that 2-3 days without power, there were dozens of lives lost, and people are going to spend months dealing with the mess caused by frozen pipes. And everyone is casting blame. I’m more concerned about a longer and more extensive loss of power such as would come from a solar flare or an EMP strike. Loss of life, from starvation or disease mainly, could be beyond something we’ve seen since medieval plague times. We did finally this past week get a bill in the legislature that we think might address it. It’s relatively inexpensive and doable. But for reasons I don’t fully understand, there has been huge resistance (no pun intended) by the electric providers to get it done, even when the cost is not placed on them.
For the sake of brevity, but not for lack of importance, I’ll just add Religious Freedom and Healthcare Choice, without comment.
The
Frustration
I do what I can on these issues, fitting my little bits of
activism into and around a pretty full schedule of just living my life. I don’t
know how to tell when an issue becomes so urgent that it requires setting everything
else aside for a time until it is resolved—because some of these things don’t
get resolved in a normal human lifetime.
Let’s add to this, we’re living in times when the odds are
stacked against the side of freedom, prosperity, and civilization.
I was listening to the Viva & Barnes Sunday Night Livestream,
and
they were discussing particularly the Pennsylvania case dismissed by the
Supreme Court last week. Robert Barnes was skeptical of Justice Amy Coney Barrett
from the outset, and now is saying something like, “I told you so,” since her
vote would have been sufficient for cert (only 4 of 9 are needed to take on a
case). But the Court is saying there isn’t a time they will take up a case on
this issue. Justice Thomas, in his dissent, called them out on this.
Robert Barnes offers them these seasonal excuses when they're determined not to take a case [around 28 minutes—the fuller discussion starting around 18 minutes]:
It’s not ripe in spring,
It’s no standing in summer,
It’s laches by fall,
And it’s moot by winter.
There’s a rule that should apply to whether a case can be
considered moot. If it’s capable of repetition, —in order to set down rules for future similar situations—and if it’s likely to evade Supreme
Court review—because it will be beyond remedy by the time it reaches the
Supreme Court. If those two things are present, then the case is not moot.
For that reason, election disputes should never be considered moot, and
historically for decades have not been. Justice Thomas was right in his
dissent. The Democrat appointees and three of the Republican appointees,
including two appointed by President Trump, were simply wrong and have done
harm to our Constitutional Republic.
So, we have an expectation of justice. We have laws. We have
rules. We have precedent. But we do not get justice.
We elect officials to represent our views and defend the
Constitution of the United States, yet so often they fail to do so.
We pressure them—taking time from our lives to force them to
do their job—and only sluggishly, and only on occasion do they even listen to us.
Frustration builds up.
That is why, when you get a chance to hear from the former President who was elected four years ago because he would stand up to this
frustration, you listen.
President Trump spoke at CPAC yesterday, which was more highly anticipated that anything Biden has said since inauguration. The crowd was ready and willing to support him in whatever he said. It wasn’t, certifiably, his best speech. It wasn’t polished. It probably wasn’t cleaned up and shortened enough. But he did say we would carry on. He was still in the fight (politically speaking).
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| President Trump giving speech at CPAC 2021, February 28, 2021 screenshot from here |
He would have nothing to do with starting any new party; why
do that and divide the Republican Party, which he owns from the grassroots up
at this point? He told us we’ll work on election reform at the local and state
levels. We’ll win things back in 2022. And he hinted that he might run again in
2024. “Maybe I’ll beat them a third time,” is how he put it, since this crowd
knows he won the vote in November. He did suggest going to his website and
contributing. There’s speculation this is part of a move to build up a new and
separate—and uncensored—communications alternative, which will be necessary to reach people.
I don’t see how we can last up to and through another
election cycle with the totalitarian dictators making the moves they’re making
now. It’s not like past eras of even a decade ago. We
can’t stand for this.
But how do we stand against it?
Supporting a champion for our side has been useful the past
several years. It has helped clarify things. But I think we can see that no
single champion is going to be enough. We have to keep soldiering on, in the
face of apparent overwhelming odds. I think, instead of assuming continuing to do that is insanity, we must assume that, as we do all we can, God
will fight our battles for us.
All We
Can Do
It’s that question of “all we can do” that occupies my thoughts.
I don’t know how to tell when my contribution is enough. But I do believe that,
if I trust God to guide me, I must act when prompted. And that will be enough.
If all of us act when we’re prompted to act, we will collectively be the champions
we need. We won’t each cover all the causes that are worthy. But enough of us
will cover each one that we’ll represent the pressure out here from a
freedom-loving people.
Become a Heritage Action Sentinel
If you need some guidance on where to get info, I suggest—well,
several things. But let’s start with this one: become a Heritage Action Sentinel. When you’re in this national group, you’re tied in to what’s
happening each week in Washington. There’s a weekly half-hour call. You can
listen on your phone, or live on Facebook. Or the recording. Or get the call
notes in your email inbox. When it’s time to act, they let you know and help
you with what to say to your elected officials. They also encourage state and
local work on similar issues. You can of course contribute money, but none is
required to be a Sentinel.
Become a Precinct Chair or Party Volunteer
Another way is to be a precinct chair or volunteer for the
Republican Party. I’m not all about party loyalty; I’m about loyalty to our
Constitution. Right now there’s none of that to be found in the Democrat Party (although you may find it among individual Democrats).
Whatever part of it you could get in the Libertarian Party, you can get among
Republicans, so that’s just a better place for your efforts, I think.
Right now, in my general vicinity (the area covering my church congregation, for example) there are five precinct chair vacancies. That means no one in the 2-3,000 people living in that precinct has stepped up to do the basics of running elections and attending a quarterly meeting to do party business. I’d say, if you become aware of this need in your area, and you’ve been looking for a way to take action, this assignment is for you. Look up your county party website and find out how to sign up. (Harris County info is here.)
New precinct chairs being sworn in at our meeting January 25, 2021
If you have an active precinct chair, let them know you’re
available to help. That might mean doing some block walking to identify like-minded
people in your precinct, and helping get them connected to good information
ahead of any future elections. Maybe it will be working on a committee, like
outreach, or vetting candidates for local elections.
Join Clubs and Groups
There are clubs to help get people informed and activated. My
local Cypress Texas Tea Party is one. We meet the fourth Saturday of the month at a barbecue place. I’ve been attending since 2010, very shortly after it
began. Last month we had standing room only. This month was a more normal full
room. There are groups for women, for college students, for Hispanics. Find a
group of like-minded people meeting in your area. This will get you informed
and connected—so the promptings to act will show up as you’re needed.
Become an Election Worker
You could step up to work elections. Presiding judge,
alternate judge, and clerk are all paid positions. Poll watchers are unpaid but
also essential. If you do the numbers, we need either a presiding or alternate
judge plus one clerk and one poll watcher per polling place; in our county, that’s
around 800 workers and 1200 poll watchers on election day. Plus there are the
people who do the ballot counting—and the observing of the ballot counting. It
takes a brigade to run a free and fair election.
Alan Vera, who has been our soldier in command in the election
integrity fight, told us at a recent meeting, his sons have served deployments,
a year at a time in Afghanistan and Iraq, to preserve our freedoms. Alan is a retired
Army Ranger (and, really, they never retire). And I believe he said his father
and grandfather had also served. So look at your life, he said, and see if
maybe you can deploy for just a day.
These are not peace times. There is a war ongoing against our Constitution—and with it our freedoms of life, liberty, property—and our culture. We are all enlisted[ii].
[i] In the Book of Mormon, in 2 Nephi 25:23, we read, “for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.”
[ii] This is the title of a hymn, text anonymous, music by William B. Bradbury.
