While much of the focus these last few weeks was on XPAC and CPAC conventions,
County Republican Party leaders nation wide have been holding their annual Lincoln Day Dinners.
Here in Ohio attendance is up. Rod Portman, Ohio GOP replacement for the retiring Senator George Voinovich, reported upticks at every event he spoke at. He reported this at the Medina County Dinner where the attendance was 50% higher that any dinner in it’s long history.
The big difference was the inclusion of grass roots groups at the event. As the Marketing Chair for Summit912.org, who hosted one of the Ohio’s largest TEA Parties last summer, I was asked to speak at the VIP Pre Banquet. Here is the transcript from that speech:
Lincoln Day Dinner in Medina County Ohio
Good evening. My name is Brian Miller. I’m rather new at this whole “Grass Roots Ambassador” thing. In fact I was never involved in politics before the summer of 2008. I’ve been fortunate to have met with many fellow conservatives these last few months, including Mayors, City Council Members, State Senators and Representatives, Board of Elections Officials, Republican County Chairs, even current and past members of the US House of Representatives. With each of these one on one meetings, I have learned two truths; I have amazing respect for each one of them & there is amazing hope for this country should more people like them step forward.
Contrary to how the media spins things, most of the people within our movement are not zombies that have been hypnotized by talk radio, and a quick look at our bank accounts would rule out the charge by Speaker Pelosi that we are “astroturf.” Lord knows it would have been a lot easier to pay the bills these last few months if there were any truth to that statement. We do all share a common bond of experience, in that we were raised with a far different view of this great land, than the one being falsely passed as reality today.
I was raised with by three Grandfathers:
Grandpa Baker: A former Marine, who served in WWII, life long union guy, who put in his time on the floor of the old Vaughns factory.
Grandpa Miller: Also a former Marine who after his service in WWII got a GI bill and worked his way up corporate ladder at BF Goodrich.
The values of faith, patriotism, honesty, integrity and a strong work ethic were taught to me by both of them. I would not be the man I am today with out both of them. As a child, the only thing I noticed where they disagreed was their choices of politicians. That was until Grandpa Reagan came along. He was there to explain the world to me, and provide comfort and inspiration. He didn’t have to give 400+ speeches a year, but some how once every week or so he would visit me through the TV. Three years before he became President, he gave a speech at Hillsdale Collage. In that speech he was telling us even then of the troubles on the horizon:
“Beginning with the traumatic experience of the Great Depression, we the people have turned more and more to government for answers that government has neither the right nor the capacity to provide. But government, as an institution, always tends to increase in size and power, not just this government — any government. It’s built-in. And so government attempted to provide the answers.
The result is a fourth branch added to the traditional three of executive, legislative, and judicial: a vast federal bureaucracy that’s now being imitated in too many states and too many cities, a bureaucracy of enormous power which determines policy to a greater extent than any of us realize, very possibly to a greater extent than our own elected representatives. And it can’t be removed from office by our votes.
To give you an illustration using another country, England, in 1803 created a new civil service position. It called for a man to stand on the cliffs of Dover with a spy glass and ring a bell if he saw Napoleon coming. They didn’t eliminate that job until 1945. In our own country, there are only two government programs that we have totally wiped out and abolished: the government stopped making rum on the Virgin Islands, and we’ve stopped breeding horses for the cavalry.
We bear a greater tax burden to support that permanent structure than any of us would have believed possible just a few decades ago. When I was where you are, in college, governments federal, state and local, were taking a dime out of every dollar earned and less than a third of that paid for the federal establishment. Today, governments, federal, state, and local, are taking 44 cents out of every dollar earned, and two-thirds of that supports Washington. It is the fastest growing item in the average family budget, and yet it is not one of the factors used in computing the cost of living index. It is the biggest single cost item in the family budget; it is bigger than food, shelter, and clothing all put together.”
Grandpa Reagan after all was “The Great Communicator”. His amazing ability to boil everything down to the obvious facts is what brought my other two grandfathers together in support if him. While the defining core difference between these two; a traditional Democrat and a traditional Republican was the size of Government. However, they both agreed the cost had become too much. Despite their different lives, they both knew that the profits for their work and the property that each owned were directly tied to the freedom each had risked their lives to defend, and neither would accept it being squandered away. It galvanized them, and brought them together as fellow members of the Reagan Revolution. History is repeating, this time on a far larger scale. This summer many of us awoke to find that not just our freedom, but the very existence of our republic as we know it was now at stake. It was this moment of clarity that drove over 7,000 people across party lines to the Cuyahoga Falls river front and to hundreds of other events nation wide.
Everyone refers to this as a “Movement”, this would imply something started it, and in the end something will stop it. The reality is it is more of an awakening, or a rebirth of what has always been there, and has evolved into something new. This thing is portrayed in many ways, and everyone including the Republican Party is struggling to understand it. Trying to tap into this new energy, that is so scary, and holds so much promise all at the same time. It’s much like the discovery we all went through during the early days of the Internet.
Like the World Wide Web, the TEA Party movement requires new ways of thinking and you can count on a lot of bumps and busies along the way. You can not own it all, you can not claim it as your own invention…just ask Al Gore. But together, this new conservative force creates a Google, a Youtube or a Facebook…something the vast majority of American can universally believe in, and then, together we can begin the amazing task of changing back this country for the better! Putting it back on it’s rightful course of greatness!
This movement has looked back to the Founders, and yearns for their approach to governance, with its sense of logic, not emotion above all else. This practical form of government took its cues from the great philosophers of Greece and Rome. Sadly, today’s modern government looks more like the other major contributions of these societies, the Olympics. Both have forsaken their original purpose, replaced only by the desires for money, media attention and bragging rights. It is a fitting piece of irony that we as a country choose to hold our Presidential elections to coincide with the summer Olympics.
We need to return to this more logical approach, after all many of the most beloved founders where men of science. Science you see is not about a final ruling, only a logical answer based on the available data. When more data is available, or more knowledge is discovered and proven, the ruling often changes. Ask anyone in the Global Warming movement about this fact. Or go further back and look at Galileo and Copernicus who know the Earth revolved around the sun, or Columbus who was convinced that the Earth was not flat. Or better yet, the writings of William Bradford documenting the pilgrims at Plymouth Rock, who cast aside socialism after it had failed them completely. Only after accepting the error in their current system could they move towards capitalism. This event was marked by a great feast giving thanks to God, a feast we still commemorate to this day. They had a lot to be thankful for, most of all was God given wisdom to see what was wrong, and the strength of character to admit to the problem, then fix it.
In a matter of days Republican members of congress will meet with the President to discuss national healthcare. If you put your emotions aside for a moment, every single person in this room, knows the answer Republican leaders must give. A resounding “No” to the current plan in its entirety, then set forth the logical solutions worth considering doing. Let’s face it, we all know that the President and his party have rigged this event to paint us as the party of “No.” Let him. In the end it will only drive down his poll numbers even faster. For when he does, we will agree that we are the party of “No” alright. The party of “No…Legislation based on emotions.” The party of “No…back room deals.” The party of “No…4000 page bills that require two attorneys just to read.” It’s time to no longer do what feels right, its time to get back to doing what IS right.
