Category Archives: teaparty

Political Action – A “Necessary Fail”

After sending the text of my previous post to all seven Johnston County Commissioners, I got a response back from three of them. The first one just said “Thanks for the email” and that was that. Nice discourse.

The third one was actually from a clerk who simply sent me Allen Mims’ (the Chairman) memo explaining the delay of the hearing and formation of the working group, which I had already read.

But the second one was from Vice Chairman Commissioner Jeff Carver who said simply, “Thanks for the email, please call me to discuss.”

Well. That was more than I expected. So I took him up on the offer, got his cell phone number from him and called him later that night. We spoke for 20 minutes or so about a number of things I mentioned in my email (which he said he thought was the longest he’d ever received, even outside his role as Commissioner) as well as some other points. I’ll include some details from that conversation in another follow-up post.

But, at the end of the conversation he suggested I take a few days to digest what we talked about and that if I wanted to speak with him again, or even meet with him person, that he’d be happy to oblige. I’m happy to report that I took him up on the offer and Mr. Carver didn’t renege on the agreement to meet with me. Knitebane, another friend from Johnston County and I met with the Commissioner today for lunch and discussed several issues surrounding this proposed ordinance for about 45 minutes. I would like to publicly thank Vice Chairman Jeff Carver for meeting with three Johnston County citizens in person to discuss our concerns. I’ll include details of today’s conversation in my follow-up to be posted later tonight or sometime this weekend.

I don’t know whether or not, even with reinforcements, we’ve swayed the Commissioner much or at all. But what this post is mostly about is something I think Arctic Patriot said first not long ago. It’s the concept of a necessary fail. I can’t begin to describe my frustration with both family members and friends and acquaintances who assert that “it doesn’t matter what you do or say or who you vote for…the whole process is corrupt and there is no point in participating.” And yet those same people will complain to no end about one government action or another. Or even, if you can believe it, scream for the government to do something about some disaster or another (bank collapse, mass shooting). These same people who moan on and on about their government being corrupt, incompetent, or about them not having a voice, demand that that very government come to the rescue.

The necessary fail here is making your voice heard. Stand up and declare that your rights are not up for majority vote. They are not negotiable. Like I said once, Three Percenters (or the three percent credo) are consistently misrepresented. None of them I know are hoping for the shooting to start. But as Mike Vanderboegh keeps saying, there is little hope that this government will be able to restrain itself. They will overreach to the point of violence. Some say they already have, but I mean there will be a violent action by this government that even those who seriously believe that it can’t happen here will be calling for resistance.

Should that happen, and you find yourself needing to make the choice to defend yourself and your family against a government out of control with rage and making up trumped up charges to boot-stomp your face because of what you believe, in my opinion, you will be obliged to ask yourself a simple question or two: “Do I have the moral authority to pull that trigger? Have I done everything in my power to prevent it from getting to this point?”

If the answer is No to either of those questions, then what makes you think fighting for your freedom at the point of a gun is going to bring about a restored republic if you haven’t trained yourself through repetition and taught your offspring to keep on reminding those in political office who really is in charge?

Yes, I know it feels pointless. Yes, I know both major parties more and more seem to be two wings of the same party. Yes, I know that some of the tea partiers seem to have been compromised already. That’s no excuse. You must do your part.

This is the first time I have ever met face to face with a politician in my life. And my life flashed before my eyes. 😉 Seriously, though, it was probably the most important political action I’ve ever taken in my life. No armed rally, no campaign contribution, no letter writing, no voting could accomplish what I did today. We made our voices heard directly, three feet or less in front of his face. He knows we mean business. He knows we will be at the hearing when it is rescheduled. If he doesn’t listen…well, we’ve done our part. And I will feel justified in violating the ordinance every chance I get. And taken to a larger political scale with more egregious infringements, more serious acts of disobedience.

Stay tuned and later tonight or this weekend I’ll have some information on what we talked about with Commissioner Carver.

Teaparty March on DC

I may have more of a report later, but this is my favorite pair (out of the very few I took) of photos from the march in DC yesterday. I met up with some Three Percenters and Oath Keepers (with a surprising contingent from Massachusetts) around 9:00am in front of the White House. This woman had a sign in honor of Joe Wilson’s comment that was, though inappropriate for the forum, most definitely, true. Here’s the before:

And here is the after:

Her plan was to get as many signatures as possible and send it to Joe Wilson as a thank you. I never dreamed how many she would get. As you can see, the signatures completely cover the white space. People even started signing the back of it and filling that up!
Also, here’s another one where I’m trying to show the size of the crowd:

You can see the Washington monument in the background. I’m told the crowd went all the way back to it and more people were still flowing in. Estimates varied from 1.2 million to 1.6 million.
Will they listen? If they don’t, then it’s worth taking note of what one sign said at this rally: “Plan A: Peaceful restoration of the Constitution. Plan B: Restoration of the Constitution.” And that *wasn’t* from a Threeper or an Oath Keeper. More people are waking up to the seriousness of current political climate. We were handing out Oath Keeper push cards and had several in depth conversations with people from all walks of life and I don’t think we got a single negative reaction.
Please pray for Plan A to be successful. Plan B won’t be fun for anyone.

Headed to D.C.

I’ll be heading to Washington D.C. this weekend for the Tea Party March on Washington on September 12. That’s the generic reason, of course, as there are a number of liberty oriented groups that are congregating there on the 12th. Another notable group is the Oath Keepers which I hope to hook up with and, possibly, take the Oath for the first time, since I’ve never been in a position to take it before.

But my specific reasons are related, of course, to the Three Percenters that will be there. I have no big signs or any real clear plan, but I do hope to at least print out and laminate some makeshift Threeper Patches, so I can at least be recognized by other Threepers.

I do hope to have some good pictures and video of the event, however, so there may, possibly be something interesting to read about here. 🙂

The sad and ironic thing about this event is though we say we will not disarm, we must disarm before entering D.C. or we will likely be arrested, due the unconstitutional edicts that the masters of that domain have instituted.