FFVA and courageous state officials. they are all up for election in '11.
We are out there fighting for freedom every day. Here are a couple of key updates, plus a quick rant.
The Roanoke Tea Party endorsed Tripp Godsey last night at the grand opening of his campaign headquarters. We had about 40 people in attendance. It was a unanimous vote by the members in attendance and from proxy votes. We aren’t surprised as Tripp has worked hard on his campaign and has shown that he understands our core principles and is willing to fight for them in the General Assembly. Please contact Tripp’s campaign if you would like to help in anyway. He can use all of your support to ensure that John Edwards is replaced by the best possible candidate. And we are convinced that that man is Tripp Godsey
We also are asking our members to attend the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors meeting on July 26 to continue to demand that the county sever ties with ICLEI and rewrite it’s comprehensive plan rife with UN inspired influences that will destroy basic private property rights in the County. If you are a county resident, please email me at chip.tarbutton@gmail.com and I will add you to our mailing list for additional information. For more information on this issue click here.
Here’s the rant…
People have called us extremists. Nut jobs. Overly strident and demanding. We have been called an ignorant mob. A tool of the GOP.
For those that think that way, I would like to ask a couple of simple questions.
- When did it become extreme to expect elected officials, who are our servants to follow the United States and Virginia Constitutions?
- Would you consider someone a “nut job” for demanding that said elected officials uphold their oath of office to “support and defend” these Constitutions?
- When politicians violate their oath, that they swear to God, and are leading our nation to the gallows with their unconstitutional behavior, we should just accept that passively like sheep?
- If our group is that ignorant, how come we seem to know more about the Constitution and the issues of the day than the politicians we are holding accountable? Not to mention the critics. I would gladly publicly debate an issue of the day with any progressive any time anywhere. I am not particularly brilliant, but when you are grounded in the basic principles of our founders, arguments become a lot easier to win.
- When did mobs start demanding the rule of law? Mobs, by definition place their own selfish demands above the rule of law. There is a significant difference between the French Revolution (which was a mob led event) and the American Revolution (which was based on our natural rights and an attempt to build a republic that could ensure those rights.) You never see us quoting Robespierre. Or Mao like some in the current administration have.
- Some Tea Party groups may be tools of the GOP, but that cannot be said about the Roanoke Tea Party. We have a well documented history of challenging powerful Republicans, including McDonnell and Goodlatte when we feel they aren’t fulfilling their oath of office. It is true that the GOP, based on their own Virginia Creed, should be our natural allies. But often political expediency trumps principles in upholding our natural rights. Can we be silent when that occurs?
One of those natural rights that we have is described eloquently in the Declaration of Independence:
“That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”
Our founders, in their wisdom, created a political process to effect that change. We are warriors within that system. There is no need to abolish a system that has led to the greatest and freest nation in the history of the world. We need only return to the basic principles of our forefathers. Much like the Old Testament, where Israel turned away from the laws and the God that continually saved them, we are casting a blind eye towards the Constitutional principles that has led us to success. Whenever this nation violates the core principles of our founding, it ends in disaster.
One should look at the compromises made during the founding of this nation on slavery, and its clear violation of the concept that all men are created equal, as the key that led to the Civil War and the destructive effects of that conflict on this nation, it’s people and the make up of the Constitution.
Today, the government’s disregard for the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 9th and 10th Amendments are destroying our basic natural rights. The Federal Government is systematically destroying the checks and balances in our system and giving nearly dictatorial power to the Executive Branch.
We squabble over the symptoms of the disease, (excessive Federal spending, over-reaching regulations, oppressive tax policies) when the root of the problem is consistent and sytematic abuse of the Constitutional boundaries placed on government by the Constitution.
Until the people come to grips with this issue, we will never fix the symptoms we keep seeing.
So if you are ready to actually address the root cause of our national issues. Please join us in our fight.
Chip Tarbutton
President Roanoke Tea Party
