Silent No More
Carmen y Jackie explican cómo el Islam es contraria a la primera enmienda de la Constitución de los Estados Unidos. Parte dos de los dos.
Listen to “Mujeres Sabias de Worcester” on Spreaker.
Carmen y Jackie explican cómo el Islam es contraria a la primera enmienda de la Constitución de los Estados Unidos. Parte uno de los dos
Listen to “Mujeres Sabias de Worcester” on Spreaker.
The Worcester Tea Party and The M&P Conservative Media Network have teamed up again to welcome the controversial Dr. Punya Kishore. He spoke about his work on treating addiction and his incarceration for performing the work he loved so much. This was an educational and highly charged evening!
 Eight years ago, the Tea Party movement began, supposedly sparked by a ranting CNBC reporter. Unlike the protests that occurred this month around the inauguration of Donald Trump, those rallies began more than a month into President Obama’s term. It took until September before the first large rally occupied Washington, D.C.
Times have changed though, and power has shifted. For many, hopes are flying high. For others, fear grips them. I have a hard time understanding those who are frozen by fear of the Trump Presidency, but I do not doubt that their fear is real. The marches against Trump were planned well before he held any power, yet organizers were able to mobilize millions of protesters across the country. As a veteran of the Tea Party movement, I say “kudos” to them. They are doing what Americans should do when they peaceably to assemble, and petition the Government for a redress of grievances. I think that one thing that has created fear on the left is the decimation that they have suffered at the polls over the past eight years. They thought that they would be the rightful masters of Congress and the courts indefinitely. They are not. The incredible shift from an electorate that elected the most leftist President in our history, to one who promises to undo that President’s legacy, is something for the history books. The left does have reason to fear a Trump Presidency, not because he is an evil man, but because after 8 years of perverting the Constitution, things are going to change. I have my doubts about President Trump’s concern for the Constitution. He never mentions it. Some of his ideas seem contrary to the limits of the Constitution. Until the power of the Presidency is rightfully diminished, we’ll have to cling to the hope that he is serious about shrinking the power of Washington, D.C. He’s gone outside the box in his cabinet appointments. The coastal elites are apoplectic about some of these appointments, but their fossilized idea of government has been rejected by the American voters. This is the biggest hope for the Trump Presidency, that it is a transformational era, where new ideas are allowed to flourish, while the stagnant failed model of the New Deal, Progressivism, and “wars” on everything are once and for all declared dead. We will forever have leaders who seek to pervert the Constitution. Regardless of who is living in the White House, vigilance is a virtue always required of the patriot. The task of the Tea Party is no lighter than when Barack Obama was President. When we started this movement, I said that this is a decades long task. Our problem is not with the leaders who pervert the Constitution, but with the voters who elect them. These are the minds that we must win over. This is your task. Instead of badmouthing the left, we should talk about the power of the model that our founders gifted to us. By creating more lovers of the Constitution, we can ensure that the road to real liberty is always open. In Liberty, Ken Mandile Senior Fellow Worcester Tea Party |
After the election, I spoke with a person from the other side of the aisle who asked what I would be doing now that the Tea Party’s mission was over. He was under the impression, probably gathered from fake news stories, that the Tea Party’s mission was just to oppose Barack Obama. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The Tea Party Movement is a grass roots response to the corruption, and incompetence, we have seen at every level of government. The Worcester Tea Party is an incorporated non-profit dedicated to education focusing on economics and politics. As an educational organization, those that accepted a leadership roles are given the title of Deans. The treasurer of our organization is our Bursar. Previous leaders of our organization that have retired from most active duties are Senior Fellows. The guidance and counsel of our Senior Fellows is very important to our organization. I have the honor of being the President of the Worcester Tea Party. The President is the spokes person and evangelist for the group and I help out in any other way I can.
Wow! No matter how you feel about the 2016 Presidential campaign, there’s no doubt that it was historically one of the most interesting. Donald Trump broke all of the “rules” that the pundits and consultants established. He exposed the coastal elites as condescending frauds. He delegitimized professional pollsters and the media that hyped their lies. He created a campaign like no other. Love him or hate him, he’s nothing if not interesting.
Where to next though? Conservatives are all about small, incremental or evolutionary changes. We’re about established etiquette, precedent, manners, honoring our forefathers, limiting change to very small steps. Donald Trump doesn’t fit this conservative model. No one knows where he’ll take us next. We’re in unchartered territory. Regardless, we know that the path that we were on was leading us to more trouble.
The liberal elites are completely blind to what just happened to them. They blame their defeat on racism, sexism, homophobia, misogyny, and islamophobia. This blindness dooms them to continued irrelevance. There are a few voices from the left who seem to get it, but the ad hominem attacks on Trump supporters from most is evidence that they have not learned their lesson.
I didn’t support Donald Trump. I still have a lot of doubts about his ability and about his plans. As a manufacturer, I am particularly concerned about his anti-trade rhetoric. I’m nervous about his ability to bring all parts of America together. He has much to prove about his commitment to minorities and to religious freedom. Yet, I understand why people voted for him. They are good people who did what they needed to do for their families. They are not the people that the left claims they are.
Walt Disney said, “We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths”. Hillary Clinton’s path would have been a well-worn path to nowhere (or much worse), the path that we’ve been on for decades. Donald Trump’s path? Perhaps he’ll take us off the path altogether and through the poison ivy or the thorny blackberry or perhaps it will be an easy and pleasant path. We just don’t know. What we do know is that it will be through something new, something to be curious about.
We’ll keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things.
That’s what Americans do
There is a Chinese curse that says, “May you live in an interesting age”. Well, we certainly do live in an interesting age, but it is no curse! We live a wondrous time. We’ve been detoured off the path that we seemed to be stuck on for decades. Not only will we survive, but we’ll have an adventure and our hearts will be “all of a patter and a pitter”.
Whether Donald Trump was your candidate or not, now is not the time to sit and wait though. There is important work to do. Join us, as we help forge the path forward.
In Liberty,
Ken Mandile
Senior Fellow
Worcester Tea Party
Probably not. Thoreau called for civil disobedience, advocating that people must do what they feel is morally correct, even if it violates the law. He went to jail because he would not pay taxes that supported the Mexican War. Do any of us have the courage to go to jail for our beliefs? There are a few who do, but most of us struggle to find other ways to be good citizens. The point of his essay was that voting must not lead to complacency. We need to act.
I have to admit, as much as I dislike Senator Elizabeth Warren’s politics, I enjoyed her grilling of Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf. It appears that the bank put extreme pressure on employees to use questionable policies to meet sales goals. First, over 5,000 lower level employees were fired, as if the buck stopped with them. Then, one of the major players got booted, but was given $100 million on the way out the door. All John Stumpf got was a grilling by Senator Warren.
There was something distasteful about the Senator’s berating of Mr. Stumpf though. She is just one of a long line of lawmakers who have used their committee seats as sanctimonious soapboxes. It wasn’t until I read a commentary from FEE (Foundation for Economic Education) that I realized how hypocritical Senator Warren’s moral outrage was. (Note, Senator Warren was a TARP administrator when Mr. Stumpf was given a $25 million bonus after the 2008 financial meltdown.)
“Though Warren may “speak truth to power” to Wall Street, she often turns mute on some of the worst abuses of government. Like most statists, she sees the speck in her brother’s private eye while failing to see the beam in her own public eye. A whole manner of sins, it seems, are forgiven once one is “serving the public” in government.”
Senator Warren has no monopoly on hypocrisy in Washington though. From far right to far left, those who have the inclination toward power are, for the most part, always willing to sacrifice consistency, logic, ethics, and fairness to kick an opponent or to protect their power. It is inherent in the nature of politics.
Supporters of Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz have expressed their dismay at the apparent compromise of their candidates’ principles. Congressmen regularly trade favors with their adversaries in hopes of claiming a political win. Campaign promises are quickly forgotten on the second Wednesday of November. Can you name a single national level politician that hasn’t lied to us?
Are these people somehow less principled than the average citizen? Have they lost their ethical compass? Are they the evil power mongers that we (myself included) make them out to be? Some (many!) are, but most are just ordinary people with extraordinary egos. Let’s not lose sight of that fact by putting them on undeserved pedestals.
At the same time, realize that someone needs to do the dirty work of politics. Our friends and family who join campaigns of imperfect politicians are doing important work. Some of us may find it distasteful, but without allies working on the inside, there is little hope of winning important ideological battles later.
Edmund Burke said “When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.” more than 200 years ago, yet the nature of bad men and the need for the good to work together remains unchanged.
Fight for liberty in whatever way moves you, and have respect for those allies who choose different weapons and tactics. We’ll never agree on what tactics are best, but we must learn to work together for common goals. Let us always remember who the real enemies of liberty are.
In Liberty,
Ken Mandile
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