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TEA Party 10th Anniversary

To Kick it off here is a short video of reflection:

The full program video further down.

Introduction:

This weekend and on Monday many are celebrating the TEA Party 10^th Anniversary. I am one of the people that was there at the beginning. Well, actually, I was there in 1985 when Citizen groups were disparaged and called radical militia. Hmmm, what about the Sons of Liberty, which I have been since the mid-60’s.

What is important to note for this TEA Party 10^th Anniversary is that the philosophy and Foundational ideology of Taxed Enough Already are rooted in Patriotic truth that Sam Adams wrote about in 1748. So the Viability of ‘Citizens taxing’ responses is an issues that has great historical significance. Yet, we saw a lull of the rising star of TEA Party almost immediately after a couple years of national prominence. What are the 2019 Opportunities for the remnant organizations?

TEA Party Viability:

After this program I am most likely not going to have many TEA Party friends left – except for those that really know me and understand the battles that I have fought with them in and out of the trenches. I very much see the TEA Party as being very viable. They core groups across the country that I have remained close with have been fully engaged yet sadly, I have seen many – way to many – dry up in the winds of: challenges, apathy, complacency, compromise, loss of focus, loss of intent, or most frustrating – but mostly – lack of Citizen involvement.

The reality is that many groups across the nation have done well because of strong personalities that are willing to put in time, treasure and offer their blood. Sadly, the host of early rah rah rah-ing crowds thought victory shallow by not understanding of the need of ‘constant vigilance’.

I will followup on this next week since we have great leader in the movement doing great things or attempting to but…..

TEA Party Opportunity:

There are many opportunities and have been great opportunities for the TEA Party over these last 10 years. Some will be claiming significant big picture, nationwide wins. Well, some of that is true. But the missed opportunities are in the fighting arena that Samuel Adams always first engaged with: “All politics IS Local”. I will talk about the missed opportunities and what I have always believed that Citizens Groups should be doing to have been impacting local governance as much as in many cases they touched national governance.

The TEA Parties/Citizens organizations never saw the role they should have had in local governance, candidate development or Vetting candidates. Now, there have been many organizations that has cropped up over the last ten years and to that many of the leaders in these organizations emerged from the early Citizens Groups.

The opportunities for TEA Parties/Citizens Groups to support the likes of Forge Institute and other training organizations is paramount. Additionally, there must be an increased effort in the ‘populist movement’ that elected President Trump!

What’s next for the TEA Party movement? We shall see….

Our action Item

is For this weekend and Monday: FIND at TEA Party or Patriot Citizen Event and Get to IT!!

Thousands should be coming out to Celebrate the inhibiting of tyranny, subversion and sedition for the Foundational Truth of Liberty!

Lastly remember that as this Sunday is ecclesiastically Palm Sunday, that the Author of true Liberty to which The Father of the American Revolution, Sam Adams revered – is in fact the Only Son of the Living God, Jesus the Christ. We can have a sense of ‘liberty’ in the natural but we will never understand the root of Liberty until we understand a ‘Relationship’ with Jesus.

Sam Adams wrote in 1748:

“There is no one thing which mankind are more passionately fond of, which they fight with more zeal for, which they possess with more anxious jealousy and fear of losing, than liberty. But it has fared with this, as with many other things, that the true notion and just definition of it has been but little understood, at the same time that zeal for it and disputes about it have produced endless altercations.

There is, there certainly is such a thing as liberty, which distinguishes man from the beasts, and a society of wise and reasonable creatures from the brutal herd, where the strongest horns are the strongest laws. And though the notions of men were ten times more confused and unsettled, and their opinions more various about this matter than they are, there yet remains an internal and essential distinction between this same liberty and slavery.”

And because you keep asking!

References:

1. Sam Adams: Loyalty and Sedition, 1748

2. Quote by: Johnathan Mayhew, D.D., of Boston; from the Preface to his sermon, “Unlimited Submission and nonresistance to the Higher Powers.” 1750.
“ Those nations which are now groaning under the iron scepter of tyranny were once free; so they might probably have remained, by a seasonable precaution against despotic measures. Civil tyranny is usually small in its beginning, like “the drop of a bucket,” till at length like a mighty torrent or the raging waves of the sea, it bears down all before it, and dleuges whole countries and empires. Thus it is as to ecclesiastical tyranny also – the most cruel, intolerable, and impious of any. From small beginnings “it exalts itself above all that is called God and that is worshipped.” People have no security against being unmercifully priest-ridden, but by keeping all imperious bishops and other clergymen who love to “lord it over God’s heritage.”from getting their foot into the stirrup at all. Let them once be fairly mounted, and their “beasts, the laity” may prance and flounce about to no purpose; and they will at length be so jaded and hacked by these reverend jockeys, that they will not even have spirits enough to complain that their backs are galle, or, like Balaam’s ass, to “rebuke the madness of the prophet.”

3. Quote by: Noah Welles, A.M., of Stanford; Conn. Election Sermon. 1764
The Mask of Patriotism
‘Tis not every pretended regard for our country, or zeal for the public welfare, that deserves the name of public-spirit. There are hypocrites and impostors, wild enthusiasts and frantic zealots in patriotism and politics, as well as in religion. Too often the restless spirit of disaffection and discontent, – the wild zeal of ambition and faction, or the ungovernable fury of sedition, treason, and rebellion, assume the mask of patriotism, artfully mimic the air of public spirit, and endeavor to obtrude themselves upon the world for a disinterested regard for the common happiness. But ’tis not hard for the discerning eye to detect the imposture, and unmask the cheat.