In 1992, I called my mother to let her know that we had pulled our daughter out of her private school and planned to start home-schooling her.
“No!” was her reply. I wasn’t smart enough. I should let the experts educate her.
My high school diploma and one year of college didn’t qualify me to teach an eight year old – even my own little eight year old, who I knew better than any one else. So what good was the education I’d received from the “experts”?
But this thing was more than my opinion verses my mom’s. This was the first big assignment God had for my husband and me after we’d realized that He is real and that He actually wants to be involved in our lives. God already had everything in place for us – a group of home-school friends, a solid Bible teaching church, and a desperate conviction of our need to do this for our daughter, and eventually for our son, also.
My mom became a home-school advocate and my biggest fan after a year of receiving weekly hand-written letters from the kids. She could see the steady improvement of their penmanship and use of the English language. She read about the things we were doing and the adventures we had. When she came to visit, she got involved by teaching art classes to our group of home-school kids.
I apologized to my children. We had what may have been our one final chance to peacefully elect a president who might have slowed the rush to Socialism, and we blew it.
I’ve had some time now to converse with people I know and to have casual conversations with strangers, and it seems the one thing familiar to all of the conversations is a statement like “What the Republicans need to do is…”
The problem, as I see it, is not with “The Republicans”, but with the people of the Republic.1 Samuel 17:3 is a Bible verse that has changed the way I think about this. “The Philistines occupied one hill and the Israelites another, with the valley between them.”
This Memorial Day found me in the home that my Dad and his lovely wife share. Dad and Mom lived here together for many years before Mom’s death from cancer in 2008. Many things in the home are just the way Mom left them, thanks to the respect of Dad’s new wife for him and us kids.
One of those things is the rag drawer. I’ve misplaced the case for the lenses that magnetically attach to make my regular glasses into sun glasses, and I knew just where to look for a scrap of material in which to wrap them.
Mom liked soft clothes, so the drawer is full of flannels, knits, and cottons. She hated binding clothes – she’d cut tee shirt necks and remove their sleeves. There were several pairs of shirtless sleeves of various colors and lengths, all neatly folded. Plaids she wore in the garden, a paisley, a flowered print – mostly light colored, some worn and thin, some new cast-offs from a garment she’d made; all soft.
A video taken in January of 2012 at the Longmont Republican Women’s “New Year, New GOP” event has recently become a topic of discussion on some of Colorado’s KLZ 560 AM talk shows. This, of course, is flattering to me, because I was instrumental in organizing the panel and I was the one asking them the question “Why should I vote for the GOP?” I am not writing this to excuse Mr. Call, whose job it is to lead the effort to elect Republicans and who should have been able to explain our party’s superiority in a few seconds. (Hint: “I want to live free, and there is no better vehicle right now to stop the Progressive’s Socialist agenda than the GOP winning the majority of elections in November.”) View video. (link no longer available
index.php/videos-by-cat/all-videos?slg=new-year-new-gop)
The purpose of taking the video was not to provide fodder for one side of our Party to use against the other, but for posterity to look back at that one step in the GOP and Liberty’s comeback. The name of the event was “New Year, New GOP” & the purpose was to bring people together from different walks of life and encourage us all to create a new, more Liberty-minded GOP. We sought to begin that important election year by unifying the “old guard Republicans,” the Tea Party/Liberty Movement, and different ethnic groups under the GOP banner.
Consider the panel members and what they were doing at the time - Ryan Call, the Chairman of the State Republican Party. Tom Tancredo, a former Congressman who boldly forced national attention on our illegal immigration problem as a one-issue candidate for the Republican Presidential Nomination. Solomon Martinez, the Chairman of the Hispanic Republicans, and Derrick Wilburn, the Founder of the Rocky Mountain Black Tea Party. The meeting was organized and advertised in only ten days, and drew over 130 people – confirming the urgent need for unity and direction in our fight to save our country from the Democrat’s Socialist takeover.
Obviously, both the meeting and the video failed. The Liberty Movement did not turn out the votes needed to elect their candidate and failed to stop Ryan Call from being reelected as the Chairman. And in the Presidential election, the old guard GOP produced candidate Mitt Romney, who had experienced but failed to promote the wonder of the American Dream. Once again, the majority of Americans favored Obama’s message that demonizes wealth creators and glorifies himself as the great black redistributor, and the GOP failed to stop him from being reelected.
The panel members are all still hard-working leaders in the fight for Liberty. So, if you’re looking to blame someone for the GOP’s failure in 2012 and for the apathy leading into the 2014 elections, I suggest you do what I do, and go look in the mirror. If you are an American citizen, the individual reflected there is an integral part of “We The People,” equally endowed with the God-given rights that the American Constitution was written to protect. That person has the responsibility to participate in creating a group of people – a government – that will work to protect each citizen’s rights and defend the nation as a whole.
While you’re there, ask yourself what it is worth to live free, and if there is any better vehicle right now to stop the Progressive’s agenda than the GOP winning the majority of elections in November. In 15 seconds or less, tell yourself why you should vote for the GOP. And now look yourself in the eye and decide what you’re going to do in the next few short weeks before the ballots drop to make sure most people vote for Liberty.
Failure, this time, is not an option. And this time, winning is merely a step in the right direction. The real work starts on November 5th. We The People must unify in the fight to restore our Liberty.
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