All Things Testify of Him

We can refer to this entire week as Holy Week, from Palm Sunday to Resurrection Sunday, or Easter. There are some specific things that happen on each of the days—at least as far as we know or can derive from scripture, some significant memorable events. But there are better places than here to get all the details. (I really enjoyed this video, and this one also. There are also a number of videos of the life of Jesus produced by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; some are used within the first video, and I have used screenshots from several of those as well.) I’ll just cover a few things that stand out to me.

There’s a practice surrounding Passover, where the unblemished sacrificial lamb is chosen, and kept with the family for several days, to make sure it is indeed unblemished.

the family selects a sacrificial lamb, and cares for it for four days,
before making the sacrifice for Passover, screenshot from here

This is symbolic of the Savior, the Lamb of God, who was sacrificed for us. It was always about Him, even when it was a practice to honor the time when the Destroying Angel passed over (thus Passover) the children of Israel. A lamb’s blood was brushed on the door posts to identify the homes of the Lord’s people. And this last plague, the loss of the Firstborn, was the one that finally got the children of Israel out of Egypt.

To those of us with eyes to see, so much of the Old Testament testifies of the Savior. And I believe the people then knew that these things testified of their coming Messiah.

 

sacrificial lamb painting, screenshot from here

The lamb was chosen and then kept by the family for about four days. This would have coincided with Jesus’s entrance into the city on Palm Sunday. The gospels differ on the timeline, but if John’s version is accurate, Jesus would have been examined by the high priest at the same time the sacrificial lambs were being examined for their purity. And, again, on that timeline, Jesus would have died on the cross at the very hour the sacrificial lambs were being killed. It was required that they be killed without breaking any bones; Jesus, unlike the other two prisoners crucified that day, had no bones broken.

houses were cleared out of leaven ahead of the Passover celebration,
screenshot from here

Also as part of the Passover celebration, houses were cleaned out, and all leavening was removed, which was considered corrupting; the unleavened bread also indicated the haste with which the children of Israel had to leave. But, about that household cleansing: what happens after Jesus’s entrance into the city? He goes to the temple, His Father’s house, and cleans it from the corruption of those doing business there. 

Jesus drives the moneychangers from the temple,
screenshot from here

During this Holy Week, the Lord holds a supper in an upper room (a Passover meal according to all the gospels except John), with his chosen twelve. He uses the meal to create with them a covenant—they eat and drink in remembrance of Him, and they will always have His Spirit to be with them.

Later that night, in the Garden of Gethsemane, the sacrifice begins. And then He is apprehended, and examined—as the sacrificial lamb is. The next day He is killed, on the cross, in the most cruel of execution methods.

What we call Good Friday is the day He was killed and taken down from the cross—before sundown, which marked the beginning of the Sabbath.

He was laid in a borrowed tomb. Guards were set there, to make sure no one could take His body and claim He had risen—although even His close disciples, whom He had told about the coming death and resurrection, failed to understand what was about to happen.

Early that Sunday morning, the women went to the tomb, bringing spices, as preservatives for the body. This would have been their first opportunity, since He was laid there just prior to the Sabbath, and it was dark again by the time the Sabbath ended. They found the stone rolled away and the guards missing. And two angels are there, telling them the Savior is risen (Matthew 28:1-10).

angels tell the women that Jesus is not in the tomb,
screenshot from here

They ran to tell the apostles (nice short video here), some of whom thought this must be the idle tales of women. But Peter and John both ran straightaway. They found the tomb empty, and angels told them He had risen (John 20: 1-10). We don’t know how they thought through this news. But we know Mary waited outside the tomb, and when she saw a person she thought was the gardener, she asked where he might have taken her Lord.

Mary waits outside the empty tomb,
screenshot from here

And He said, “Mary,” calling her by name. And she realized it was her beloved Lord and Savior (Mark 16:9; John 20:10-18).

This is the first of many encounters His disciples had with Him. He meets with the remaining apostles in their room later (Mark 16:14; John 20:14)—all the remaining except Thomas, who then says he’ll need to see Him with his own eyes. Which happens later (John 20:24-29). He eats with them. He has them verify the wounds in His hands and feet, and in His side, where the spear pierced Him to verify His death.

He meets with a couple of the disciples on the road to Emmaus, talking with them for some time without revealing His identity until they are about to part (Mark 16:12; Luke 24:13-35).

two travelers on the road to Emmaus meet Jesus, and talk with
him, not recognizing him until He leaves them,
screenshot from here

He meets His disciples on the sea shore, again telling them to cast their nets on the other side of the boat—as He had done in the miracle of the fish when He first called them to follow Him (John 21:2-14). Peter then recognizes Him and jumps in to swim to Him. Jesus has prepared a fire and a meal for them. And He goes through the questioning of Peter, three times, “Do you love me,” to which Peter declares that he does. And the Savior tells Him, “Feed my lambs,” and "Feed my sheep." Peter is to continue the ministry. 

Peter and several of the apostles return to fishing,
screenshot from here

Jesus asks Peter to "Feed my lambs,"
screenshot from here

There is a period of time when He meets with a rather large congregation of followers, 500, and teaches them for some time. And when He leaves, two angels are there, asking why they are staring up into heaven, and foretelling that, when He returns, for His triumphal reign, He will descend in a similar manner to how they saw Him ascend into heaven.

He was more than a Spirit. He had a body (Luke 24:39). He asked Mary not to hold Him, because He was yet to ascend to His Father (John 20:14-17); but He had a body to hold. And He had people touch Him (Luke 24:39-40; John 20:25-29).

He ate fish and honey with the disciples (Luke 24:42-43).

Trying to figure the numbers of witnesses from that time, there was Mary Magdalene, Peter, the ten plus others with them (not Thomas), the eleven plus others when Thomas was there, Cleopas and another on the road to Emmaus, seven who were fishing, apostles on a mountain in Galilee, apostles on the Mount of Olives, 500 believers (I Corinthians 15:6), Stephen at the time of being stoned to death, Saul/Paul on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:1-6).

That’s a lot of witnesses. (There’s a good collection of these witnesses’ accounts, and their scripture references, here.) 

It seems impossible that so many separate witnesses could be deceived. It seems extremely unlikely that so many followers of Jesus would lie. No explanation other than His resurrection explains all those witnesses. 

And we can pray and ask, and the Holy Spirit will testify the truth to us directly.

He lives. He is the firstfruits of them that slept (1 Corinthians 15:20). As with so many things related to His life, death, and resurrection, He was raised on the day that was celebrated as the firstfruits offering of the barley. All things testify of Him.

the firstfruits offering of barley was threshed and ground,
and mixed with oil and frankincense,
screenshot from here

We celebrate His resurrection again this year, as His followers have done since around 33 AD. Even the way we count years denotes His reality.

If this most important of all stories is true, then our lives have meaning: we are here for a purpose, and we will continue to live with purpose after we die.

And we are in the foretold times, the last days, when we prepare for His coming again, this time to rule and reign as King of Kings. A being powerful enough to conquer death—yet loving enough to sacrifice Himself for our sakes—this being is worthy of our love and devotion. And it is by choosing to be on His side in the battle against evil that makes His imminent return a Great rather than Dreadful Day for us.

Hallelujah! And Hosanna! He is risen!

Nihilism Is Not a Life Plan

Spengler’s Universal Law #16: Small civilizations perish for any number of reasons,

 but great civilizations die only when they no longer want to live—David P. Goldman (How Civilizations Die, p. 122)

 

Back in college, a number of terms came up, from literary and philosophical movements that I didn’t have the background to understand. I remember struggling with them, and just generally having a distaste for some of these ideas—particularly for the literature related to them. Among the terms were existentialism and nihilism.

Using my dictionary from that time period isn’t that helpful. More commonly today, something existential, such as an existential threat, is related to the existence of a person, culture, or nation. That thing’s very existence is on the line. It’s a matter of life or death.

And nihilism tends toward believing in destruction first and foremost. Nihilism is basically a death wish—suicidal tendencies on a personal, cultural, or national level, or even larger.

By that definition, I would say today’s culture in nihilistic. Quite literally. It requires sex combined with sterility. A species that does not reproduce goes extinct. You could say this nihilistic cult is an existential threat to humanity.

According to David P. Goldman in How Civilizations Die, “The separation of sexuality from procreation in Greek culture helps explain the terrible demographic decay that Greece would suffer during the fifth and fourth centuries BCE” (p. 123). In short, the pattern of failure to want the culture to continue has been bringing down civilizations for millennia.

In that book, written in 2011, Goldman was hopeful that America was and would remain different from the other cultures in the world that were self-sabotaging, which he details in that book. He says,

Among the large industrial countries, there is one great exception to the declinist story: the United States. If a single characteristic makes America exceptional, it is the fact that American fertility has stabilized at replacement. In other words, as Europe and Japan reach the point of no return on the road to senility and depopulation, America will maintain its population, along with a healthy balance among age cohorts. In the second half of this century most of the great powers of the past—Germany, Spain, Italy, Russia, and Japan, among others—will cease to function. A century later they will have ceased to exist. What makes America utterly and completely exceptional among the industrial countries, in short, is that it will still be here in a hundred years.

It is not that Americans in general are having children, but that Americans of faith are having children, and there are more Americans of faith than citizens of any other industrial country (p. 191-192).

A decade later, it may be that he might not be so optimistic for America. The culture of death is winning converts even among the religious.

In my religion, the culture of marriage and family remains strong. But even there, there has been an onslaught of well-meaning (?) reformers, who insist that a loving God must accept their version of morality, which would include homosexuality and transgenderism. There are several ways they’re missing the proverbial ark.

They forget that doctrine isn’t a matter of cultural pressure; it is a matter of revelation from God. Then the only question is, are we getting God’s word and understanding it?

President Dallin H. Oaks, Sunday, April 3, 2022
screenshot from here

This past weekend was our semiannual worldwide General Conference. On Sunday afternoon, President Dallin H. Oaks spoke. He is one of the three First Presidency members, who, along with the Twelve Apostles, lead and guide the Church. His talk was entitled, “Divine Love in the Father’s Plan.” In it, he said,

Fundamental to us is God’s revelation that exaltation can be attained only through faithfulness to the covenants of an eternal marriage between a man and a woman. That divine doctrine is why we teach that “gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.”

That is also why the Lord has required His restored Church to oppose social and legal pressures to retreat from His doctrine of marriage between a man and a woman, to oppose changes that homogenize the differences between men and women or confuse or alter gender.

In other words, doctrine is not going to change on this. He explains, or reminds us, that we believe family relationships are eternal. We don’t marry “till death do us part”; we marry “for time and all eternity.” The family—including posterity—is intended to continue in heaven. You can’t continue a relationship with posterity if you don’t have a relationship that produces posterity.

This is not to say that those who are infertile, or who miss the opportunity to marry and have offspring in this life are doomed. In fact, we believe that every blessing will be given to us in the next life, if we keep the commandments in this life.

But those in the current cultural death spiral are not infertile—except by choice.

The Institute for Family Studies had a piece earlier this week lamenting the current choice to remain childless, and how this is a symptom of hopelessness. Another piece on anti-natalism in the Deseret News shows examples of a couple of tweets about what a good life choice it is to have children, which were bombarded by hateful dissent.

Liz Wheeler tweeted: “Truly the saddest thing in the world is when people deliberately choose not to have children. The most wonderful, fulfilling, sanctifying thing is having a baby with your spouse. Have lots of babies.”

Liz Wheeler tweet, image found here

Meghan McCain tweeted: “The biggest and worst lie my generation was ever sold is that motherhood is a burden and something you could take or leave. But nothing in my life compares to being Liberty's mom—the sheer joy, fulfillment, privilege it is.”

Meghan McCain tweet, image found here

Neither of these statements ought to be controversial. They are simply a personal expression of joy over having and raising children. Why the refusal to allow such an expression?

Because the cult of nihilism is a religion, and these expressions are heretical. They feel threatened by our disagreement with them.

gif found here

Ryan T. Anderson, in an essay used as the forward to the book Strange New World: How Thinkers and Activists Redefined Identity and Sparked the Sexual Revolution, by Carl R. Trueman, describes the adoption of a non-reality-based sexuality. He says,

Whereas for most of human history our sexual embodiment was a sheer given, allowing us to unite conjugally and form families, the modern therapeutic turn inward counsels people to be true to their inner sexual desires. What was once simply self-evident, that a boy should grow up to be a man, become a husband, and assume the responsibilities of a father, now entails a search to discover an inner truth about “gender identity” and “sexual orientation” based on emotions and will, rather than nature and reason.

This turn away from evidence and the world around us to some other, inner source of information has led to an inevitable politicization:

If our sexuality is our deepest and most important inner truth, and politics is about the promotion of the truth, then it was inevitable that sex would become politicized.

He’s not describing what should be here, or even what is actually truth; he’s describing what he sees happening in this sexualizing culture. He adds,

Whereas cultures used to cultivate the virtues that made family and religion flourish, in modernity the law would be used to suppress these institutions. They stood in the way of sexual “authenticity,” and politics sought to create a world where it was safe—and free from criticism—to follow one’s sexual desires. Hence, the push to redefine marriage legally was never really about joint tax returns and hospital visitation, but about forcing churches to update their doctrines and bakers to affirm same-sex relationships.

We are indeed in a religious war.

This new religion insists on decoupling sex from procreation. It has a preference for perversity and sterility, rather than natural familial love and procreation. And it plans on enforcing its tenets on the unwilling with greater skill and intensity than any previous inquisition.

However, it is a religion without hope for a future.

As light always overtakes darkness, a religion that values life—and bringing up life in a family—will overtake a religion against life. Because, to survive requires producing a next generation to pass along a culture to. A cult that despises reproduction cannot outlast its adherents. Nor does this cult want to survive. It is nihilistic. It is by definition suicidal. So we must resist it—and outlast it—by doing what civilizations do to thrive: honor God and protect the family.

Take the Money and Run—Or Just Run

In a post linking to an article on the overwhelming problems we have with public schools (“Public Schools Are Cesspools of Debauchery. Get Your Kids Out Now, Before It's Too Late.” By Paula Bolyard), PJ Media asks, “At what point should it be considered parental malpractice to keep your kids in public school?” That’s actually a good question.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis promises parents that pressure
from media and woke corporations will not stop him from 
protecting students in schools. screenshot from here

For me, the answer came in 2000, when we talked it over as a family and pulled our children out of public schools—and never looked back. We weren’t looking at the debauchery, or even more than a rather subtle bias against religion; we pulled our kids out because the schools were doing a lousy job of meeting their particular educational needs. We could much better meet those needs outside of public schools.

That seemed like a good enough reason. Maybe it isn’t a reason every family has; maybe what their schools offer is a good fit for their children.

But now, a couple of decades later, there is no doubt that many schools offer even greater harm than merely failing to educate to a child’s potential. If you think your children’s school isn’t one of those bad ones, maybe you just haven’t looked carefully enough.

This story was linked in the PJ Media
article. There's more detail in the story. 
Some educator assumed 12-year-olds
were not only sexually active, but had
multiple sexual partners and would
 benefit from a pizza analogy.

That article gives a pretty hefty list of stories of school wrongdoing. I’ve written on this a number of times. Here, here, here, and here, for example.   

I shouldn’t have to spell this out, but I will. This is not to indict all teachers as bad, or even most. Many would thrive and do a much better job of educating, if the powers above them would set them free to do so.

The two main categories of evil indoctrination by schools are Critical Race Theory and the LGBT agenda, both of which are more closely related—through intersectionality—than a surface glance would make them appear.

The awakening of parents to what is being taught dawned during the COVID-19 shutdown. Classes were done online, often in the presence of parents, who had not been privy to actual classroom instruction in the past. They turned their heads and said, “What did I just hear?” And then, “No! No way! Not teaching that to my child.” Private schools, by the way, fought to open schools back up; public schools—because of teachers union—fought to keep them closed. So that online learning overheard by parents was their own doing, ironically.

In the spring and summer of 2021, the parental outcry in various school districts got the national attention.  Parents began showing up at school board meetings, where they’d been docile and quietly absent up until then. They began changing out their local school boards. And they began keeping a better watch.

So, right now we’re at a state of heightened awareness, but we have not yet seen the turn to believing that keeping children in failing public schools is “parental malpractice.” We don’t have a concrete definition for such a term, as we might for actual neglect or abuse. But maybe we should get one.

If you go to PragerU, you can find a long list of videos related to CRT and LGBT stuff being taught in schools, raising awareness, and sometimes adding what to do about it—often including pulling kids out of those environments.

Corey DeAngelis, screenshot from here

Today I saw a new PragerU video, “Fund the Children, Not the Schools,” talking about why it makes sense to attach the education dollars to the student. Corey DeAngelis, head of research at the American Federation for Children, points out multiple areas in which government money does not specify where the receiver spends the money:

·        Pell grant recipients choose their college.

·        GI Bill recipients choose their college.

·        Head Start recipients choose which preschool to send their children to.

·        Food stamp recipients choose which grocery store to shop at.

So why not allow that choice for parents of K-12 children?

There is this misconception—we might call it a lie—that allowing choice takes money away from the public schools. But we don’t say that allowing a food stamp recipient to choose a non-governmental grocery store takes money away from some other grocery store. We don’t say allowing a GI Bill recipient to choose their college takes money away from some government institutional college.

DeAngelis blames teachers unions for many of the misconceptions, like the money belonging to the schools. He says,

The truth is the opposite: public schools “steal” money from families. School choice initiatives just return the money to the hands of the intended beneficiaries of the funding—students and their parents.

What actually happens when public schools are faced with competition? The same thing you’d expect to happen with competition in other parts of life: better quality at lower costs.

When faced with competition, public schools do, in fact, up their game. DeAngelis says,

Twenty-five of 27 studies—and the latest peer-reviewed meta-analysis on the topic—find that private school choice competition leads to better outcomes in public schools.

For example, a study published in May 2021 reveals that increased competition from expanding private school choice in Florida improved academic and behavioral outcomes in nearby public schools.

That makes sense. Because, whenever the free market is allowed to flourish, we get better products and services at lower prices. Innovation happens. Demand is met.

So, if we demand better schools—by putting the money in the hands of the parents—we can have the outcomes we want.

DeAngelis also points out that current per student costs in public school is an average of $16,000 annually, while private school tuition is around $12,000. We could save $4,000 a year per student simply by turning over the responsibility to private schools.

During the COVID-19 lockdown year, support for
school choice went up 10%.
screenshot from here

Not realistic? Maybe not overnight. But consider the long waiting lists for charter schools—still a public school option, but with some innovation. The number of available seats in private schools almost meets that need. How many parents would be willing to take the private school option—rather than wait out the years of their child’s education hoping for a win in the charter school lottery? Not all, but many.

What about the question of government strings attached to the money? You think that’s not a problem now? How could giving accountability to parents increase the stranglehold government schools have now?

Maybe working for putting the money in the hands of the parents goes hand in hand with keeping government’s glommy[i] hands off our curriculum choices.

Do we risk damaging the public school system? Maybe that’s a risk we ought to be willing to take. If a collapse of that government institutional monopoly happened simultaneously with a free-market response, the only real losers are the teachers unions. And that includes the indoctrinators who think they have a right to control our children.

Whatever we do right now, it had better be bold and big. We can’t afford to lose a generation of kids. And if they’re your kids in school right now, can you afford for them to suffer any more indoctrination?

As Paula Bolyard says in that PJ Media article, “What’s it worth to you to protect your kids from what’s going on in public schools?”

Maybe the answer has been to turn over the school board and then watch closely. You might give that a year, two tops. If that doesn’t eliminate the problems, you need to cut and run.

If you’re not simultaneously lobbying the legislature to put the school money in the hands of parents, don’t be surprised if, when you need to pull your kids out, it’s going to be at your own expense—even though it shouldn’t be, and even though that solves nothing for all the other kids stuck in that strange indoctrination institution.

School choice—with plenty of free-market involvement—will mean better outcomes for all school children. In that case, take the money and run to better options. But if you can't wait for that huge win over the powerful teacher unions and their sycophants, just run. Whatever the cost, your kids are worth it.

 

---

[i] Online dictionary is telling me this is not a word, even though it was common in my household growing up, as in, “Keep your glommy hands off my candy; you’ve got your own.” Think “glom onto,” which does show up in the dictionary and means to cling to, the way a leech might glom onto a person. 

The Biggest Local Race

We have a very important race here in Harris County, in the Primary runoff election coming up May 24^th. This is for Harris County Judge.

I went to hear the two runoff candidates Tuesday night—along with about 200 close friends and allies who also have a stake in this decision. It was hosted by Towne Lake Republicans, and held at the Weekley Community Center. I’m hoping to see video soon, but for today I’m relying on my audio recording and notes.

Why is this race so important? What does a county judge do? Good question. At a candidate forum, moderator Rep. Mike Schofield spelled out the job description. He said,

We don't call it County Judge intentionally to deceive you. Originally—and in the small counties to this day—the County Judge actually hears cases. The last vestige of that in Harris County went away about ten years ago, when we got rid of the County Judge's jurisdiction over hearing liquor license cases. So now our County Judge is basically the county executive. The Commissioners Court, over which the judge presides, is responsible for the following: adopting a budget for the county, setting tax rates, calling for bond elections, building and maintaining county infrastructure such as roads and bridges, and overseeing county courthouse jails, libraries, parks, and the Harris County flood control district.

Then he asked the two candidates to tell us what makes them qualified to preside over Commissioners Court.

Alexandra del Moral Mealer (left) and Vidal Martinez, getting ready for opening remarks,
at Harris County Judge Republican candidate forum March 29, 2022

We have two very qualified people. Compared to Lina Hidalgo, who holds the position now, almost anyone off the street would have more experience. So it’s a blessing to have choices so far above the low bar she has set.

I made my decision well ahead of the March 1^st Primary, and this forum only solidified my choice.  But I believe I’m choosing the better candidate; I’m not choosing between a good and bad option here.

So the short version is, in the Primary I voted for Alexandra del Moral Mealer (I’ll call her Alex Mealer from here on for brevity), and I will do so again in the runoff. The other runoff candidate is Vidal Martinez, and he’ll get good coverage here as well.

I first heard them both speak in November, at a forum we held at Cypress Texas Tea Party (sorry, videos no longer available). We heard from Alex Mealer again, as our main speaker, in March (video here). And we have scheduled to hear from Vidal Martinez on April 23^rd.

Back in November we had five of the seven County Judge candidates that day. Vidal Martinez went first. I was taking notes and thinking, Wow! He has a lot of really relevant experience. He’s older, but he does seem ready to run a large organization—and Harris County is one of the largest jurisdictions in the country, bigger than many states.

Rep. Mike Schofield moderated at the
candidate forum, March 29, 2022

On Tuesday night, Martinez quantified it this way:

Harris County is a big town. 1700 square miles. 4.7 million people in here. If we were a state, we would be larger—number 22—larger than Louisiana. We're larger than the state of Rhode Island.

I think he may mean our population is larger than Louisiana, and our size is bigger than Rhode Island. Actually, I think we’re comparable to New Jersey in size. He added,

It's two real centers of the population. We have 2.1 million inside the donut with the city, which is predominantly liberal. And we have 2.5 outside of that that is predominantly conservative.

He noted that we had 44 years of conservative governance, with County Judges John Lindsay, Robert Eckels, and Ed Emmett. Until 2018, when Lina Hidalgo came in and tried to wipe out good governance entirely. More on her later, if there’s time.

As I was saying, Martinez seemed qualified.

But…  There’s a problem that struck me in November, and was the issue that brought the most sparks at Tuesday night’s forum as well. But I’d like to cover the qualifications of both of the candidates first.

Vidal Martinez

He has been working here for 47 years—since 1975. (I’m estimating that makes him 72.)

·        He has been a federal prosecutor in Houston.

·        He has been Chairman of the State Bar of Texas.

·        He has been on the Methodist Hospital board—the number 1 hospital in the state for many years.

·        He has been the Houston Port Commissioner.

·        He chaired the Transportation Committee of the Greater Houston Partnership, working for funding of the I-45 expansion (Hidalgo rejected the funding and sued instead; we need to reverse that).

·        He has served on the University of Houston Board.

·        There’s a more complete list of experience on his website. 

He summed up what the county is in charge of as three things: “public safety, public health, and transportation, which is really emergency management.” So he showed how his resume fills all of those categories. Really, his resume is stellar.

 

Alex Mealer

Alex Mealer is much younger. She’s 37, married, and has a couple of small children. Her Facebook page still looks like a regular mom enjoying her family. But packed in her relative youth she has a lot of good experience. As she says, “Not all experience is good experience.” But what she’s done is relevant for this job.

·        She graduated from West Point and began her military career right after 9/11.

·        She joined the Army bomb squad, which is full-time emergency management.

·        In her 20s, she was tasked with getting a bomb squad unit ready to deploy to Afghanistan; Army standard is one year, but she did it in four months.

·        She not only diffused bombs herself (proving calm under pressure); she worked with senior leadership to allocate scarce resources in real time with imperfect information.

·        She was promoted to lead a unit in Iraq: 600 people, 40 locations, to restore a broken unit. This required convincing people to follow her—waiving their home time after a deployment to redeploy with her.

·        After military, she and husband settled in Houston, and she began work in oil & gas—which is where she got her financial expertise and understanding of working with the oil & gas feast-or-famine cycle. This expertise includes knowing:

o   What is the appropriate leverage?

o   How do you raise capital?

o   How do you use your resources efficiently?

She summarizes the County Judge job as having two key functions: “Can you lead a large bureaucracy, and manage a large budget?” She has done both—and both under challenging conditions. With what is maybe the best soundbite for her campaign, she says,

“If I can diffuse a bomb, I can handle the pressures of this job.”

Both candidates have the relevant education, which neither mentioned on Tuesday. Martinez has a law degree, obviously. Mealer has a JD/MBA from Harvard. Mealer's website is here.

 

Improvement Plans

Both of them would probably do similar things for the County—all a 180-degree turn from the current direction. Both of them seem to have a good grasp on the situation. Martinez has long experience. Mealer has done her homework. She’s been gathering the data—and noting that Hidalgo keeps taking down data that might make her look bad, so things are likely worse than they appear. So transparency will be a high priority in the next county administration.

Here are a couple of examples of discussions to come in the general election.

We got funding related to flood control in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. It was to be distributed according to need—where floods happen. Hidalgo has decided to distribute—illegally—according to oppression status. That means, if you’re in an area she can call oppressed because of your skin color, or maybe your economic status, she prioritizes the funds there—and leaves the people who have actually suffered the flooding unserved. Considering how many people all over the county suffered from flooding, some woke nonsense is not going to go over well in November.

And there’s that other thing she’s done—making a bad-faith deal concerning bail bonds. As a result, even the pro-criminal District Attorney Kim Ogg is saying enough is enough; we’ve got to stop letting violent offenders—who are already out on bond when they commit new crimes—back onto the streets. Hidalgo has scuttled funding for law enforcement and sent those funds to whatever are her pet social projects. Note: social projects are not on the list of responsibilities for the County Judge. As a result, it’s hard to hire law enforcement. And we’ve suddenly got the distinction of being the murder capital of the nation—taking that dubious honor away from Chicago.

Martinez mentions some close-to-home examples in his opening remarks:

We now have a little girl getting shot and killed at FM 529 and Fry Road by a stray bullet in a carjacking. Then another carjacking two days later in the same area. Then a vicious attack on a lady at HEB parking lot at Tuckerton and Fry Road. This crime wave has to be taken seriously. I know how to stop it. I know how to stop this nonsense. Keep criminals in jail. Stop the decarceration. Restore funding to law enforcement, and make this community safe for all of you again.

Those are steps Mealer will take as well. And she has ten law enforcement groups endorsing her.

I believe them both on many of the things on our to-do list for the County Judge. Their strength on these things is going to show up well against Hidalgo’s feckless cronyism in a general election. The disastrous results of this County Judge are not in some faraway place; they show up in our faces every day. Even Democrats want safe streets and controlled floods in their own neighborhoods.

 

The Sticking Point

Now for what has been a sticking point for me. Back in November, during the Q&A, someone asked Vidal Martinez about his donations to Lina Hidalgo. This was during her first year, early in her administration, not during a campaign. He explained that he was trying to be supportive, and had been hopeful she would be better. It turned out she was a disappointment.

Really? Because some of us knew from day one that she was a 27-year-old twit, just out of school, with no work experience, and a whole lot of tyrannist philosophy that she was determined to foist on us. Some of us don’t give money to our paid elected officials at all; our taxes do the paying. And we certainly don’t give it for them to use in future campaigns when they are that undeserving.

On Tuesday when he tried to defend those donations, Martinez said,

With Lina Hidalgo—Yes. Every businessman downtown, and every business leader—we had a 27-year-old without a driver's license driving the family car. We were worried about that. We wanted to have access to her. We didn't know until after a donation—and, by the way, any donation to her [Hidalgo] by these businessmen, including her [Mealer’s] supporters that are replete with business, with donations to Lina Hidalgo—we didn't know until about six months later. This is donations that came in after Ed Emmett lost; it wasn’t during the election. She’s a sitting officer. There’s a whale of difference in leadership. You haven’t held any of those folks [previous county leadership] here. But anyway, there’s a whale of a difference in leadership in this county, when you have to deal with Democrats that are in positions of power. And she disappointed us. She disappointed everyone in that 2019 year…. She turned out to be the wrong person.

For someone as high powered as Martinez is, a $1000 donation here and there is like a cost of doing business. It’s like my assuming paying for toll roads is a cost of driving around Houston. Nevertheless, I’m still bothered by it.

I have more questions I would like to ask him: If it’s a cost of doing business, and the way things are done, will you expect donations from people who want access to you in that position? Did you give donations to the Republican predecessors, to have access to them? Or was giving money to “the 27-year-old without a drivers license driving the family car” your first attempt at buying access? And how do we know that you would be completely different?

Alex Mealer summed it up as, “if you can’t understand the difference between donating and pay-to-play,” and asked do “business leaders, to talk to our elected officials, need to pay?”

Martinez is clearly defensive about the accusation. It hurts. Because it loses votes from people like me. And he did it in the interests of business, because he thought he had to. He didn’t think he was doing anything wrong.

The problem is, he accepted it. He didn’t call out the practice. We’re in a day of such corruption, we need to know our elected officials stand against that in every way.

I know a number of respectable people who have known Vidal Martinez a long time, and feel some loyalty toward him. I accept that. They may not be wrong. But I haven’t known him long or well, so this thing really bothers me.

And I see in Alex Mealer a spine of steel. She’s a serious woman. She’s not warm and fuzzy. I can see that gladhanding is not her favorite thing to do; solving problems is her thing.

Me and Alex Mealer
at Cypress Texas Tea Party,
March 19, 2022

I told her at our March meeting that I had endorsed her, and we took a photo. When I arrived on Tuesday, I had timed my arrival just a minute before start time (Houston traffic). She was with a couple of staffers, about to enter the big room where the event was being held. She stopped and turned to come over and shake my hand and call me by name. Not a big deal if you expect that kind of thing—but I do not. A nod would have been sufficient at that moment when she was focused and ready to enter the room. But she took the extra moment. Her whole campaign has been grassroots. Meeting people and remembering them—and inspiring them to have confidence in her—has been what has put her in the lead against such a qualified opponent.

Let me address one more thing between the two candidates. Vidal Martinez has a Latino heritage, and he does speak Spanish. He does not look Hispanic. He claims that Mealer can’t get the Latino vote. She is, however, second generation American; her grandfather fought against the Franco regime in Spain, if I'm remembering right. It was over the issue of speaking Spanish that led to the discussion about the donations to Hidalgo. Mealer said,

What I would say to all that is, when you start donating to Democrats such as Lina Hidalgo and Sheila Jackson Lee, you’re speaking in their language. And what is that language? Divisive identity politics. You do not grow this party and win by saying, “You do not speak fluent Spanish.” I do not speak Spanish. But you don’t get to define how I define myself. I’m a second generation, 50%. And if you look at whose backing me, OSSO, Organization of Spanish Speaking Officers—they didn’t do that because of my ethnicity. They did it because they trusted me to enforce law and order. If you need to talk about identity politics, and want a quota on what you look like, you’re in the wrong party.

All that military background—I think she’s definitely a fighter.

 

Calling Out Corruption

We were speaking of calling out corruption, so I’ll mention, Lina Hidalgo is much worse than simply incompetent. And much worse than simply favoring all the wrong policies. She’s also all about crony corruption. This month we’ve had to deal with her personally appointed Election Administrator—a position she rammed through the Commissioners Court, taking election duties away from the elected County Clerk’s office, where there was accountability to the people. She hired a crony, Isabel Longoria, who had zero election experience and failed abysmally, to the embarrassment of the whole country. The Primary was not her first try; she started with the December 2020 runoff and has been getting worse. Longoria is under a lawsuit from the Harris County Republican Party for failing to meet contractual agreements to run the Primary Election. And Longoria has resigned—as of July 1^st. The problem there is, we have a special districts election on May 7^th and this runoff election on May 24^th. That’s two more elections for her to screw up before she stops taking our money while ruining our democratic right to vote. She says it’s so there will be less disruption, and they can take the needed time to get a replacement—who at that point will not have the practice of those two smaller elections before facing the very challenging midterm election in November.

But that’s not the worst. The same week as the bungled election, Texas Rangers and the DA’s office served a warrant and searched Hidalgo’s offices in the investigation into her crony deal last  year—a contract that she was forced to cancel because it stunk so badly, and she got called out by Commissioner Cagle for it. She chose a political ally, one-person company run out of a room, to receive an $11 million contract for COVID response. That wasn’t just a bad decision—less experience at higher cost than the other bids, including the higher scoring UT Health. Hidalgo and her staff—not her staff only as the media are claiming—were involved in crafting the language of the bid contract. That’s illegal. And very corrupt. And now they have the evidence in hand.

State Senator Paul Bettencourt put out a video giving some of the details. And Alex Mealer's campaign did another one.  Both are brief and worth watching. What I said about Mealer being willing to fight—yeah, she’s not afraid to draw blood.

Lina Hidalgo, screenshot from here

These things move at a glacially slow pace, unfortunately. Hidalgo should be under indictment. Will that happen by the November election? We can only hope.

Better than just wishing is to get out there and vote in the runoff, and then campaign from May to November, to—as Alex Mealer says—"get people excited about good governance,” which she has spent the last half year doing. When it’s something we’re sorely missing, it is something to get excited about.

Ideas Rising

I haven’t written here for a couple of weeks. I’ve been busy, working on the platform. At our precinct conventions on March 5, a few days after the March 1 Primary Election, one of the things we did was put forth resolutions for the platform. As I explained recently, the wording can have some “whereas” statements, explaining the background reasoning, and then end with a “therefore” statement. The whole thing gets sent in. Sometimes the only thing we get is the statement of an idea, as best as someone could figure out how to spit it out, maybe even just handwritten.

In my senatorial district, over 600 resolutions were submitted. These included a number of duplicates—exactly the same sent in by different precincts. And there were also a number of duplicate ideas—sent in with their own wording, but essentially saying the same thing. And then there were ideas sent in singularly.

Some resolutions contained multiple ideas—ideas that seemed related, to those who sent them in, but that actually identified multiple separate ideas, usually related to the same section of the platform, but not always.

So, we scanned all the resolutions the day of the Precinct Conventions (I helped do that). Then they got categorized and placed in a huge spreadsheet. And that got divided up among the various subcommittees of the Resolutions Committee in my senatorial district. And then the subcommittees placed them near similar ideas in existing platform planks, so we could begin working on wording.

I was on Education and Health & Human Services subcommittees; I led the Education subcommittee. I didn’t realize ahead of time what that was going to entail. It turns out, Education is where there is a whole lot of interest this biennium. Of those 600+ resolutions we received, around 230 of them, so more than 30%, were for Education. I also have been handling the platform document that our resolutions turn into. So, for the past couple of weeks I’ve been working long hours just about every day. Our Senatorial District Conventions in Harris County were held this past Saturday, so my intention is to catch up on sleep now. And then grocery shopping. And maybe then some house cleaning.

The SD7 2022 Resolutions (Platform) Committee;
at the SD7 Convention March 26, 2022. That's me on the right.

There were fifteen on the committee, according to rules, plus a few extras who also worked hard but didn’t get to vote on issues. My Education subcommittee attracted all the women on the Committee. We worked well together. I love them all as friends now. We began each meeting with prayer, and I often felt God’s Spirit confirming to me His approval and help in the work we were doing. I mean that quite literally. That sense that we were working together for God's glory was present in all the committee meetings I was in. What a joy to work with such good people, who also happen to be bright and well-informed, and dedicated to preserving our freedom, prosperity, and civilization.

Today, then, I’ll share some of what we—and the people who submitted all those resolutions—came up with. What I’m showing here is what we suggest as changes to the 2020 Republican Party of Texas Platform. We’re not actually causing these changes yet; we’re passing them on up to the state committee. (A little more on that below, near the end.)

If there is a theme, it is that we want our freedoms back. We’re not willing to take tyranny any longer, and we’re trying to find solutions.

In Education, many of the ideas were specific. And oddly they weren’t as strong as what was in the existing platform. They were clearly not asking for a weaker platform; they just were thinking, “What can we do?” and coming up with ideas. So, be assured we didn’t weaken things.

In short, what parents want is to take back their power. The schools have had too much power over our kids, and they have proved untrustworthy.

As you’ve been seeing around the country, people are upset about Critical Race Theory being taught in schools—and, yes, it is being taught, even here in Texas, no matter how many times they say, “No, that’s some theory taught in graduate schools; we don’t teach that.” They are teaching that America is flawed, and our founders were evil; they are not teaching the Constitution, and how the founders identified principles of freedom, overcoming millennia of other traditions. They divide children by race—to compensate for what they’re calling “systemic racism,” even though our children don’t treat each other differently by race—until they’re taught to. Parents don’t want their children to be told, “You’re either an oppressor or a victim, and no matter what you do, that’s what you are because of the skin you’re born with.” This “anti-racism” concept, which is part of CRT, is very racist.

Connected to racism is intersectionality—gaining power according to your various grievance claims. These can be race, sex, sexual orientation, transgenderism. So a black transgender would have more intersectional power than a black woman. A black woman would have more than a Hispanic or Asian woman. A white woman would have more than a white male—who is at the bottom. It’s a power scoring system based on happenstance rather than accomplishment or character—exactly the opposite of MLK’s dream.

And because of the power generated by being homosexual or transgender, that LGBTQ agenda is promoted—even to the very young. And to that, parents are saying, “No! Now you’ve gone too far.”

So that’s what we are seeing. Other issues related to wanting more transparency, and of course more choice. People want the money to follow the child—without government strings attached.

We can go into this another day, about how education isn’t actually a proper role of government. That’s why the federal Department of Education is about nothing but control. It does not help educate, period. But in the states, including here in Texas, the government sees education as its responsibility, in fact it’s main responsibility. That’s unfortunate, because you can’t even bring up choice without major outcry reaching the ears of legislators, accusing them of hating kids, and failing them by threatening to take money away.

That’s a mindset we need to get out of. People “believe” in public schools as if it is a religion. They actually say, “I believe in public schools.” Well, I believe they exist. But I don’t believe they are “the way” to educate the next generation to be productive good citizens. Public schools tend to do that more poorly than every other option. But they suck up all the taxpayer dollars, and hold onto those dollars with clenched fists.

So what did we come up with?

We addressed the CRT issue, probably in multiple places. We kept the existing Basic Standards plank (added Texas history to the list). And then we pointed out that schools are there to provide academic education, not to mold students in some way. Schools are not families; they have no business dealing with things like Social Emotional Learning (SEL is a way of indoctrinating wokeness), mental health evaluations, sex ed, anything related to gender identity, and of course CRT and any other socialist/Marxist ideology. Schools don’t have a say in the care and upbringing of children; that right is retained by the parents. (Red means we added that.) 

134.Basic Standards: The educational system should focus on basic standards, which include, but are not limited to, a curriculum of reading (with an emphasis on phonics); spelling; writing; civics (must pass the US Citizenship and Immigration Services test); the arts; music; literature; mathematics (including personal finance); science; geography; economics; and Texas, United States, and world history. We encourage teaching critical thinking skills, including logic, rhetoric, and analytical sciences within these subjects. We advocate the value of vocational training programs.

134A.  Schools Are Not Families: Schools are hired to provide academic education, while parents retain every right to the child’s care and upbringing. Therefore, we insist on the elimination in school of any Social Emotional Learning (SEL), mental health evaluations, sexuality education, gender-identity ideology, Critical Race Theory (CRT), socialism, Marxism, and other social indoctrination. Schools must be limited to teaching the Basic Standards as listed in the Basic Standards plank. All school districts, individual schools, or charter schools are prohibited from contracting with or making any payment to any third party for material concerning any of the above prohibited topics.

 

We already had a plank saying we want no sex ed taught in schools—at any level—because schools have failed in that assignment abysmally. So the multiple requests to teach abstinence 75% of the time weren’t ignored; they just weren’t added. 100% > 75%. But we strengthened the existing Sexual Education plank an added this new one related to the Obscenity Exemption plank:

145A. No Sexualization of Children: Because the fraudulent research by Dr. Alfred Kinsey has been used to allow children access to harmful, explicit pornographic materials and to be induced into sexual performance, we support repeal of the obscenity exemption [Texas Penal Code 43.24(c)], which allows children access to harmful, explicit, or pornographic materials under the guise of education [see Obscenity Exemption plank above]. We require criminal penalties from a misdemeanor to a felony charge for each count of breaking the law by showing obscene materials to a student. An educator—including teachers, administrators, board members, or personnel, as well as guest speakers—so charged must be immediately suspended, and upon conviction must be dismissed for immoral and unprofessional conduct.

 

We have a disagreement among those who want school choice—because of some fears and some misunderstandings. The typical understanding is that families can choose from four types of schools: public, private, charter, or homeschool. But that limits the possibilities. If we had, say, an education savings account sort of plan, those four options would be available, but so would a mix-and-match version of any or all, plus online programs, plus private lessons and tutoring, plus therapies (for example, equine therapy or speech therapy). If the parents could choose the options, they would be limited only by the amount in the account plus whatever additional they might want to pay. It would work similar to a health savings account: you can use the money in an HSA for any qualifying medical service or product. In an ESA, that would be true of any qualifying educational service or product.

But the fear is in the “qualifying.” In general, it would be up to the parents to decide. But it would have to be something related to their child’s education. For example, a museum pass might qualify, but a new skateboard would not. The money simply can’t be used for a nonqualifying purchase.

The fear crowd tends to be homeschoolers or private schoolers worried about intrusion by government into what they’re doing. But they do not have to take any taxpayer money. I believe their fears should not be preventing choices from happening for all the other parents—including homeschooling parents who prefer to be vigilant against government intrusion while exploring multiple options.

Anyway, we rewrote the previous School Options plank to be two planks: Education Mission Includes All Children, which explains why the money should follow the child, rather than be held in the public school monopoly; and Free Market Is Solution to Education, which reminds us that the free market is the way to higher quality at lower costs. Imagine the innovation that would be spurred in the market if parents held the purse strings and intentionally chose the customized combination of materials and approaches that would work best for their child.

141. School Options: Texas families should be empowered to choose from public, private, charter, or homeschool options for their children’s education, using tax credits or exemptions without government restraints or intrusion.

141.Education Mission Includes All Children: The state of Texas has a mission to educate the next generation to become productive good citizens, and it collects taxes for this purpose. Public school is only one tool parents can choose for accomplishing this mission, but public school is not the mission itself. The state must never create roadblocks for families for whom that tool does not meet their goals for their children. Taxing families on top of what they pay out of pocket for another choice does not further the mission. Monies allotted to education must follow the child without government restraints or intrusion.

141A. Free Market Is Solution to Education: We know that the free market leads to higher quality and lower costs. If Texans want higher quality education and would enjoy getting that for lower cost, Texas must incorporate the free market into every aspect of pre-K-12 education. This would lead to greater satisfaction for parents and teachers, could eliminate indoctrination problems, and would lead to generally improved outcomes at lower costs than what we have seen with government monopoly.

 

Beyond education, the big outcry from the public was for freedom from government overreach, and a reassertion of our God-given rights. Two years ago we were writing the 2020 Platform near the beginning of the pandemic. So we had a plank last time about Healthcare Decisions. We extended that with a new Medical Freedom plank, to get rid of those mandates of all kinds that we’ve suffered.

250A. Medical Freedom: We call for an addition to the Texas Bill of Rights that explicitly states that Texans have the natural right to refuse vaccination or other medical treatment. Therefore, the following are expressly forbidden even in an emergency or a pandemic:

a.     Any attempt to mandate, force, or coerce any medical test, procedure, or product, including vaccines or masks.

b.     Any attempt to use a citizen's health, infection recovery, or vaccination status as a condition to maintain or obtain housing or employment or employee benefits, attend school or childcare, or access state services.

c.      Any mandates by public, private, government, or medical entities for treatment, vaccination, vaccine passports, mask requirements, health insurance surcharges, or use of controlled substances of any kind.

d.     Any involuntary isolation or quarantine of anyone not experiencing an active contagious infection.

e.     Any prevention of visitation to the ill when risks are acknowledged and mitigated according to patient and visitor choice.

f.     Any Nuremberg Code violations—including but not limited to the requirement that use of experimental use medications must provide full knowledgeable consent and be free from any form of coercion or inducement.

 

That was in Health & Human Services. In addition, we altered and added a couple of specific planks up in Business, Commerce & Transportation:

58.    Mask Mandates: Government should not be able permitted to force businesses or governmental workers (including election workers and school personnel) to require face coverings.

58A.  Vaccine Mandates: The Republican Party opposes vaccine mandates, opposes any effort to impose such mandates through emergency declaration, legislation, or regulatory action, and supports legislative efforts to allow consumers and patrons to freely conduct business without regard to vaccination status.

 

There are other intrusions into our freedoms as well. I like this addition:

234A. One World: The United States is a sovereign nation founded on the principles of freedom.  We call on the dissolution of the World Economic Forum, the United Nations, New World Order, One World Government, The Great Reset, and other groups who have taken on the role of a government entity and act as such to control freedom of thought, speech, religion, and trade.

We find that these things coming at us from multiple directions, so people are trying to list every iteration and prevent any new ones.

Speaking of which, concerns of mine, which I put forth as resolutions that were accepted, were to stop ESG scoring and DEI programs—both by governments and by businesses, which are being recruited to take away our freedoms at the behest of governments when the governments know they can’t get away with that sort of tyranny outright:

21A. Values Scoring: The Republican Party opposes the use by financial institutions, social media companies, businesses, or any level of government, of any social credit system (such as used by the Chinese Communist Party), ESG (Environmental, Social & corporate Governance) scoring system, or similar system or method designed to discriminate against a person’s beliefs, values, medical decisions or lawful behaviors. The use of such systems prevents citizens from exercising their constitutional rights, including the rights of free speech, assembly, and religion, and further prevents citizens from the full enjoyment of the unalienable rights of our Republic. The Republican Party calls for federal and state legislation banning governmental use of such systems and protecting the rights and liberties of citizens from the use of such systems by businesses.

21C. No Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Policies: When Diversity means no diversity of thought; when Equity means equal outcomes rather than equal opportunities; and when Inclusion means exclusion of anyone not fitting the DEI orthodoxy; then DEI is an abominable forced bigotry and must be made illegal in public and private businesses, government at all levels, schools and universities, and financial institutions.

 

We had a fairly strong Abolish Abortion plank last time. But we’re strengthening that.

325. Abolish Abortion: Since life begins at conception, we urge the Texas Legislature to enact legislation to abolish abortion by immediately securing through enacting legislation that would immediately secure the rights to life and equal protection of the laws to all preborn children from the moment of fertilization and by ignoring and refusing and would ignore or refuse to enforce any and all federal statutes, regulations, orders, and court rulings that would deny these rights, and to oppose legislation that discriminates against any preborn children and violates the US Constitution by denying such persons the equal protection of the laws.

 

Of course we’re asking for some additional safeguards for the election system. We added to the existing Fair Election Procedures plank, and added a new plank detailing what would trigger a full forensic audit:

210. Fair Election Procedures: We support the right of eligible voters to cast a ballot in each election once but oppose illegal voting, illegal assistance, or ineligible persons registering. We support:

a.     Vigorous enforcement of all our election laws as written and oppose any laws, lawsuits, and judicial decisions that make voter fraud very difficult to deter, detect, or prosecute.

b.     Voter Photo ID.

c.      Prohibition of Internet voting for public office and any ballot measure.

d.     Sequentially numbered and signed paper ballots to deter counterfeiting.

e.     No private funding of the election process.

210A. Forensic Audit: For races contested by the candidates, Certification must be postponed, and a full forensic audit of preserved paper ballots and voter records must be performed, including a hand recount of paper ballots, if any of the following is detected:

a.   Statistical anomalies and/or impossibilities.

b.   Voter turnout is more than voter registrations.

c.   Missing audit logs.

d.   Dropping signature verifications for mail-in ballots.

e.   Astronomical numbers of error events in vote tabulators.

f.         Extremely low rejection rates for mail in ballots.

g.   Suspiciously high adjudication or participation rates.

h.   Accepting votes that "scanned" faster than the scanner could physically scan.

i.        Any tabulation error, such as "votes exceeds ballots cast", which must be investigated, allowing no override.

j.        Counting ballots after the Election Night Deadline if the resulting numbers significantly change the outcome.

 

We don’t do a lot of asking for programs—more often we ask to get rid of them. But a resolution came in asking for the restoration of an education program for families. Those of you familiar with “The Family: AProclamation to the World” might recognize the call for citizens and governments “to promote those measures designed to maintain and strengthen the family as the fundamental unit of society.” So we were able to echo some of that proclamation in this plank:

240A. Healthy Family Formation: We call upon the Texas Legislature, in conjunction with responsible citizens, to promote measures designed to maintain and strengthen the family as the fundamental unit of society. Toward this end we recommend reintroducing a Healthy Family Formation program, providing messages on risk avoidance and abstinence outside of marriage, complete fidelity within marriage, and equipping parents to share in the responsibilities of rearing children in a nurturing atmosphere of love and mutual respect and providing the necessities of life and protection for the family.

 

In all, we’re suggesting an additional 41 planks, with changes to many existing planks. The process from here is for us to submit these to the Republican State Platform Committee. So ours get assessed along with suggestions from around the state’s 31 senatorial districts. And the state committee will be comprised of a representative from each of them.

It’s more formal at that level. In subcommittees there is a fairly open exchange of ideas, but when the Committee of the Whole meets, members address the Chairman, not each other, and parliamentary rules are strictly followed.

It looks like I will be editing for the State Platform Committee again this year (3^rd time). It’s an interesting thing to do, and I feel like I’m contributing, using my skills. But at that level I get very little say in how things are worded, and no input on what should be said. So my opportunity to do that was at the senatorial district level. I forget how many times I’ve done this level, but I think I started in 2014; if that is so, then this is my fifth time. As contributions to the party go, this is my wheelhouse.

What new people on our committee commented on was how much respect we show to every resolution that comes in. We’ve always paid attention to each one, but this time we tracked on a spreadsheet what we did related to each resolution, so those who submitted could actually see whether and where their ideas were included.

The system is designed to grow the platform, which explains why it’s so long. I wish that weren’t so. And yet, most of what was in there from last time was worth keeping, at least in some form. We added far more ideas than we took out.

Each of those ideas started out in someone’s head, and they got written down and submitted at the precinct level. We have now handled them at the district level. And they will make their way up to the state level, where they will direct our grassroots work—and the work of our elected officials—for the next two years.

This system is designed to hear what the grassroots are saying. Those are the ideas that are rising up. People are figuratively shouting, “We want our freedoms back!” We want to run our own lives, including our own medical decisions. And we don’t want governments or anyone else telling us how to raise our children, or what we are supposed to believe.

The question now is, will our voices be heard? People with power—the ones who have usurped that power from the people—don’t willingly give it up. But in the end they can only rule by the consent of the governed. And that’s those of us who are speaking up.