Search Results for: coppock

Behold the self-annihilation of the Republican Party.

Sibyl West:  ”The 83rd TxLege — What a waste of a near super-majority.” Teaparty maven Nancy Coppock shared a feeling that many on the Republican side have expressed. Texas needs more than a “conservative” bandaid to make every fiscal insanity promoted by the left acceptable. I suspect that the Great State is already unofficially purple since the behavior of the most of the reps and too many of the senators doesn’t jibe with the R behind their names.

Nancy writes:

“I wrote up a Statement for our tea party to explain why we must oppose this plan. The Republican Party must recognize how little “d” democracy is being used to get them to self-annihilate. The statement is a good lesson from Plato.This immigration plan is so dangerous. Where will those of us that adhere to little “r” republicanism and the rule of law go when there is no opposition party to The Administration/State?”

Here is her take.

The Conservative Immigration Reform Plan

by Nancy Coppock | January 30, 2013 | American Thinker

by Nancy Coppock | Nov 16, 2012 | Bryan/College Station Tea Party

The Founders feared the establishment of a State Church, and it’s finally happened. That we don’t call it a state church is irrelevant; we have satisfied all the requirements. I’m just taking the last step and formally naming it: The State Church of the Sacred Heart of No Redeemer.

For years, the replacing of everything sacred with the secular has descended into making the State support—through legislation, regulation, and programs—those very activities which God and the Church identify as sin. The benevolent effort of the State has been to normalize the concept of sin—everybody does it!—and to provide benefits for those that succumb to its many temptations. Because God and the Church taught that we are responsible for our deeds and for the results of those deeds, the State turns beneficence (deeds that bear good results to others) on its head by rewarding at every turn irresponsibility and feel-good benevolence—which is merely the desire to do good.

Human nature dictates that you get the behavior you reward, and when it comes to rewarding human depravity, the bottom of the barrel is deeper than we could imagine. Our Founders feared the tyranny of a State Church second only to the then current tyranny of a mere man believing himself to be King, by and with the authority, of God. Because all welfare/entitlement spending is funded through taxes, The State Church of the Sacred Heart of No Redeemer has now replaced God and the authority of the Church with the tyranny of absolute secularism. Only those who encourage or engage in self-destructive behavior will receive in this established religion.

Whatever laws of nature laid down by God at creation of the universe are to be refuted and overturned. The  subjection of those God-given liberties and rights will come as the IRS State Collection Plate collects tithes and sacraments to fund the enforcement of laws, regulations, programs sponsored by the State Church of the Sacred Heart Of No Redeemer. Common Sense, laws of nature, and enduring principles are considered simply archaic claptrap, easily overcome by the correct turn of a phrase of deconstructed nonsense.

This ability to supercede reality is evidenced by the fact that the State has maintained its authority despite not actually having a written or approved budget. Besides, if all spending is for charity, who then would dare cast the first stone? The State Church of the Sacred Heart of No Redeemer will be the first to issue strong public mortifications for those foolish enough to challenge its will. Just as we learned during the Reformation, a confused public that obeys the law of man above its Creator-endowed conscience has always enjoyed a good saint beheading, quartering, or burning at the stake.

This is the exact reason our Founders feared an established church funded in absolute authority by the tax code. The tyranny and oppression of a godless state is just as oppressively authoritarian as a mere man under the delusion he rules by the divine will of God Almighty, without actually acknowledging that line of authority.

If we are to return to constitutional government with a financial future, we must first address the unconstitutional nature of the State Church of the Sacred Heart of No Redeemer, and declare a division between state and church.

Image via Stormbringer.

Nancy Coppock | April 21, 2012 | Bryan/College Station Tea Party

We are a nation that prides itself for acknowledging the principle of equality, but as wisdom instructs:

• Pride is the first step to self-created destruction.
• The frailty of human willpower ensures that the ability to practice a virtue eventually devolves to vice.

The hellish world where the ends justify the means is the direct result of ends unhinged from the source of the principle. This is the dangerous world of radical or extreme equality that is devoid of self-interest and individual responsibility.

The movement of radical equality has been slowly gaining ground over the years via lawsuits which prompt “corrective” legislation and regulation. Even our tax code is no longer viewed as a means to raise revenue, but rather as a social construct to promote equality. Radical equality makes those individuals adhering to the principles of self-government (as a means to better pursue happiness) targets for those who choose to ignore the principles of self-government. A culture practicing extreme radical equality is set for self-destruction.

What is critical for us to appreciate today is that this understanding is not new. According to Mark Levin’s Ameritopia, the danger of radical equality was well known to our Founders. The subject was discussed in Tocqueville’s Democracy in America with the warning that by the time radical equality is recognized as the problem, it is too late for the nation in peril:

“The evils that extreme equality may produce are slowly disclosed; they creep gradually into the social frame; they are seen only at intervals; and at the moment at which they become most violent, habit already causes them to be no longer felt.”

The questions we must ask ourselves are:

• Why, as we are only now “discovering” the perils of radical equality, do we find the footprints of men far more enlightened than ourselves having already charted this “unknown” land?
• What did these great thinkers understand about Human Nature that enabled them to contemplate potential disaster in advance?

The answer is that these enlightened thinkers knew and feared God. Contemplation of this reality drove them in pursuit of the virtue of the good, justice, and truth in every aspect of intellectual study and action.

Comparatively, our pop culture aggressively acts and speaks upon the fallacy that God is a subject about which the LESS one knows, the more intelligent one is. These self-ascribed know-nothings then define the terms of discussion for the rest of the community. Radical equality is all about the silencing of those that do know by those that don’t want to know. If allowed to continue, this siren song of “no accountability or responsibility required, but share equally the results of those who are” will wreck our ship of state.

There is nothing noble, kind, or even tolerant about treating foolishness and ignorance as the equals of wisdom.

"God Lives in the Clouds" by silverskie

In his 1994 speech at Independence Hall, former Czech Republic President, Vaclav Havel reminded us of the need for transcendence if man is to actually appreciate the privilege of Creator endowed rights. It seems there is a paradox that only by acknowledging the Creator can man even imagine equality and then recognize the humanity within his fellow man. This is the process that creates the leveling force of equality, and with that fact comes the accountability of self-government. Every man will be held accountable for his deeds, as well as the results of those deeds (God is not impressed by “good intentions”).

So, in identifying the danger of radical equality, we now must appreciate and respond to the two fronts of this battle within our Human Nature:

• Acknowledging that there is a God to fear.
• Deeds, and results of those deeds, in keeping with that acknowledgment.

The future of our Creator-endowed rights within civil society are dependent upon our action.

bcsteaparty.com

by Nancy Coppock | March 2, 2012 | Bryan/College Station Tea Party

Opinion ~

Self-Interest is Rational because it is based in the reality of Human Nature.

Our Founders understood Human Nature. They wrote our Declaration of Independence so that it addresses both the highest esteem of our human nature by acknowledging  all men as equally endowed by their Creator with the same unalienable rights, while also acknowledging through the list of grievances the basest desire of human nature which is to ignore the endowed rights of others.

Our Founders appreciated that the same human nature that sought to deprive others of their God endowed unalienable rights, was also capable of acts requiring great honor, integrity, and altruistic love as defined in the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as  you would have them do unto you.”

Madison wrote in Federalist 51:

But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.

In Mark Levin’s Ameritopia, he writes:

Utopianism is irrational in theory and practice, for it ignores or attempts to control the planned and unplanned complexity of the individual, his nature, and mankind generally. It ignores, rejects, or perverts the teachings and knowledge that have come before –that is, man’s historical, cultural, and social experience, and development.

The current Democratic Party is obsessed with creating a “new” society that rights all the so-called wrongs of this current society. The only problem is that this “new” society is going to be populated with the same human beings whose natures have not changed since the beginning of recorded history.

While styles and technology may change at the speed of light, the nature of man remains constant.

Watch the video below as Judge Judy gets a lesson in Human Nature from Duane Brooks, Jr.

Uploaded by MrTimotheus85 on Oct 28, 2011

Duane’s (misguided!) Instruction on Human Nature

• The Elvis Axiom: Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free? Duane makes clear he is not to be held accountable because Ms. Reed misinterpreted “relationship” to also include half of the rent. Duane makes clear that he is not monetarily responsible for Ms. Reed’s misunderstanding of,
• The Ultimate Human Nature Principle – Looking Out for Number One. Which appreciates,
• Ownership. Duane appreciates that what is his, is well…HIS. That Duane was able to get HIS money by defrauding the taxpayer is merely a problem inherit in the law.

Human Nature is a rational observation of the state of man. To create Utopia, man must be forced to live against his natural state of individual liberty.

Concepts such as the individual and ownership must be “condemned as morally indefensible and empty”, writes Levin because our innate human nature must be subverted for the better good of the state.

Through persuasion, deceit, and coercion, the individual must be stripped of his identity and subordinatd to the state. He must abandoned his own ambitions for the ambitions of the state. He must become reliant on and fearful of the state. His first duty must be to the state – not family, community, and faith, all of which challenge the authority of the state. Once dispririted, the individual can be molded by the state with endless social experiments and lifestyle calibrations.

Ameritopia pg. 4-5.

Utopianism also attempts to shape and dominate the individual by doing two things at once: it strips the individual of his uniqueness, making him indistinguishable from the multitudes that form what is commonly referred to as “the massess,” but it simultaneously assigns him a group identity based on race, ethnicity, age, gender, income, etc., to highlight differences within the masses.

Ameritopia pg. 5-7.

Can Utopia ever exist if populated with Duane and his unchanged human nature? No wonder it would take the brutal fist of an autocratic tyrant to produce the utopian dream!

Yeah, but this is hard!

Human nature reveals our freedom of individual responsibility and it sucks to have to point that out. Want to learn why simply being a conservative, a caring and compassionate being, and a Republican voter just plain sucks in this current pop culture? Here you go.

For he that thinks absolute power purifies men’s blood, and corrects the baseness of human nature, need read but the history of this, or any other age, to be convinced to the contrary.”
~ John Locke (1632 – 1704)

by Nancy Coppock | February 19, 2012 | BCSTeaparty.com

Should government be in the business of taking care of you for free, or making sure you are free to take care of your business?

The Democratic Party is currently asserting that the Constitution of the United States of America is outdated and irrelevant. They claim that the necessities for survival are basic human rights, and a Constitution that doesn’t guarantee them doesn’t work.

She can't look to much when she's asleep. (Yes, this is a real artist's rendering from the courtroom.)

“I would not look to the U.S. Constitution if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012…I might look at the constitution of South Africa. That was a deliberate attempt to have a fundamental instrument of government that embraced basic human rights…”
~ U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Read more. Watch the video.

President Obama, as chief spokesman for the Democratic Party, has always agreed with this mischaracterization of the purpose of our Constitution:

“The [Warren] Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society…It didn’t break free from the essential restraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution, at least as it’s been interpreted. In the same way that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties, it says what the States can’t do to you, it says what the Federal Government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf.”
~ Then Senator Barack Obama in 2001, emphases added

Asleep again. Not the brightest bulb by a long shot.

The Federalist Papers repeatedly explain that the very purpose of the American form of government is to ensure and defend the liberty and private property of all her citizens at home and abroad, as citizens acted in according to commercial self-interests around the world. The United States of America was established according to Adam Smith’s principle that it was the activity of self-interest engaged in commerce that created national wealth rather than preservation of natural products.*

Be sure to read the rest.

The Issue That Just Won’t Go Away 

Odysseus hears the Sirens' song

Yes, the so-called Birther issue. It’s fascinating that something this important can be dismissed with a neutral term coated with derision. Anyone with a question about the current inhabitant of the White House’s place of birth or eligibility to run for office is dismissed as mentally deficient by the sirens of the lamestream media, whose job is to see to it that big government continues to metastasize by feeding upon the substance of free men. In other words, the media is not on our side.

From Publius Huldah via Nancy Coppock.

Great news!  Some dedicated heroes  in the Great State of Georgia filed a lawsuit challenging obama’s eligibility to be on the upcoming presidential primary in Georgia.  Orly Taitz is one of the lawyers representing plaintiffs.

obama filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit.  Apparently, his argument was that the Georgia statute didn’t apply to him [after all, he is the "one" we have been waiting for].

Just a few hours ago, the Georgia judge ruled, “oh, yes it does apply to obama” and DENIED obama’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit.

Of course, the law suit isn’t over.  This ruling just means that the law suit may continue.

So!  The next step for plaintiffs’ lawyers is DISCOVERY!  [The most beautiful word in the English language].  This means that plaintiffs’ lawyers can demand that obama produce all the documents and records which reflect on his eligibility to be president.

Article I, Sec. 2, clause 5!

HERE IS THE JUDGE’S ORDER!

 

by Nancy Coppock | October 2, 2011 | bcsteaparty.com

When it comes to casting a long shadow in man’s quest for liberty, Texas has both a heritage and a reputation.

The first Texans went to war with President/General Santa Anna because of his decision to nullify and then renegotiate their original land grant contracts. The Texans saw this act as a threat to the rule of law and private property – the foundations of appreciating liberty. They fought and captured him. Ultimately Santa Anna signed the peace treaty that dictated that the Mexican army leave the region, paving the way for the Republic of Texas to become an independent country.

Heritage collides with reality

While this is our Texas heritage, the reality is that Texas is currently not the vanguard in defense of liberty. According to a new HeritageActionforAmerica – Scorecard, the true defenders of liberty hail from the great state of South Carolina. (The Scorecard rates legislators by weighing the bills they sponsor as well as actual votes according to ensuring and defense of liberty for their constituents, as well as the rest of the nation, suffering under the yoke of Federal Imperialism.)

Unfortunately for Texans, as well as the rest of the nation, the entire Texas delegation serving in Washington, D.C. is more on par with South Carolina’s one RINO, Senator Lindsay Graham (63%). Texas has 25 Republican delegates serving in Washington, D.C. and only one – Rep. Louie Gohmert - scores 90%, with 20 scoring less than 80%!

Both Texas Senators score less than 80% in this Heritage Action Scorecard which grades according to liberty ensured and defended. Senator John Cornyn scores 74% and Senator Kay Hutchison scores an abysmal 65%.

Such an appalling overall state delegation scoring is proof that while TX District 17 has a problem with Rep. Bill Flores (75%), the rest of liberty loving Texans should have a problem with their representative, too. This is a problem that encompasses the entire Texas delegation to Washington, D.C. While we must admit that the Democratic Party most certainly has a problem with ensuring and defending Liberty, that this problem exists in the Republican Party means that the unifying principles of the Declaration of Independence, The Federalist Papers, and The Constitution are not the premier source of inspiration in our candidate vetting process, nor in our elected representatives’ appreciation of their sponsorship of resolutions or votes.

Necessary vigilance against breach of trust

James Madison, in his recommendation of The Constitution in Federalist 55, wrote these three specific observations regarding the genius of the American people to protect their liberty:

○      “. . . I am unable to conceive that the people of America, in their present temper, or under any circumstances which can speedily happen, will choose, and every second year repeat the choice of, sixty-five or a hundred men who would be disposed to form and pursue a scheme of tyranny or treachery.”

○      “I am unable to conceive that the State legislatures, which must feel so many motives to watch, and which possess so many means of counteracting, the federal legislature, would fail either to detect or to defeat a conspiracy of the latter against the liberties of their common constituents.”

○      “I am equally unable to conceive that there are at this time, or can be in any short time, in the United States, any sixty-five or a hundred men capable of recommending themselves to the choice of the people at large, who would either desire or dare, within the short space of two years, to betray the solemn trust committed to them.“

The Texas delegation in Washington, D.C. has forgotten that it is the priority of our American government, as well as their authority of elected position, to ensure and defend the liberty of their constituents. In that endeavor they appear to be miserable failures. Whether Texans who love liberty do anything about this depends upon our personal determination to ensure and defend liberty.

Nancy Coppock, Bryan/College Station Tea Party

When Nancy Coppock brought this worthy piece to my attention it reminded me of what I had read in the I Ching regarding T’ung Jen, Fellowship with Men:

True fellowship among men must be based upon a concern that is universal. It is not the private interests of the individual that create lasting fellowship among men, but rather the goals of humanity… But in order to bring about this sort of fellowship, a persevering and enlightened leader is needed — a man with clear, convincing and inspiring aims and the strength to carry them out.

Finding such a person and getting him or her elected is our quest. Further:

There is danger here of formation of a separate faction on the basis of personal and egotistic interests. Such factions, which are exclusive and, instead of welcoming all men, must condemn one group in order to unite the others, originate from low motives and therefore lead in the course of time to humiliation.

And with that I turn it over to Nancy and James Madison.

Vetting Candidates by the Constitution, Criterion One: Faction

The primary purpose of any elected official is to protect the liberty—the ability to choose—of the constituents.

The greatest threat to liberty is man’s own base nature operating in faction.  According to James Madison, the source of faction is man’s own nature, “The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man…” [Federalist #10] therefore all men are capable of faction.

The Ends of Faction Is Domination Over Others

Madison defines faction as:

“a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.” [Federalist 10]

Keep reading.

Not what you may think.

by Nancy Coppock |  April 8, 2011 | Bryan/College Station Tea Party

This is not about tips for garnering admiration and respect. The subject is ObamaCare and an historic definition of the word impress. This definition figures prominently in American history: “the act of compelling men into a navy by force and without notice.” The profession involved now is different but the resulting affront to liberty is the same.

Beginning in the mid 1700’s, as the pre-revolutionary colonies became established and thriving, sea trade was big business. Even trade between the colonies was cheaper if done by shipping rather than traveling overland. The number of seamen combined with readily available timber helped make the American colonies a ship-building dynamo. The large number of experienced seamen affected colonial sailors negatively when they became targets of British oppression. According to historian Daniel P. Murphy of Hanover College, due to “the British policy of forcibly impressing sailors into the British navy, American seamen were overwhelmingly Patriot in their sympathies.”

Colonial sailors were being impressed—i.e., forced to serve in the British navy. While these sailors did receive pay, it was not as profitable as working in the lucrative free market shipping trade. The northern colonies, those originally established for religious reasons, were also advocates of free market ideas. These New England sailors, solidly educated in the Bible, bristled at the idea of a man reaping the benefits of the labor of another through slavery. Therefore, in the northern colonies citizens particularly felt the yoke of oppression and tyranny of impression. Needless to say, this practice was seen as arbitrary abuse of power among colonials steeped in John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government (1690):

On Slavery:  Sec. 22. THE natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but to have only the law of nature for his rule. The liberty of man, in society, is to be under no other legislative power, but that established, by consent, in the commonwealth; nor under the dominion of any will, or restraint of any law, but what that legislative shall enact, according to the trust put in it. Freedom then is not what Sir Robert Filmer tells us, Observations, A. 55. a liberty for every one to do what he lists, to live as he pleases, and not to be tied by any laws: but freedom of men under government is, to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power erected in it; a liberty to follow my own will in all things, where the rule prescribes not; and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary will of another man: as freedom of nature is, to be under no other restraint but the law of nature. [emphasis added]

The practice of impressing colonial sailors is listed in the abuses section of the Declaration of Independence which was boldly signed by Boston resident John Hancock, a free market shipping entrepreneur:

“He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.”

So devoutly were the religious based northern colonies against slavery that unity of the colonies in their rebellion was under threat, prompting the famous Ben Franklin political cartoon of the divided snake with the caption Join, Or Die. The terms Liberty, Freedom, and Independence as well as natural rights and equality were gifts from God, and God was honored not only for being our Creator, but also because of His Word and His redemptive plan to restore Man into relationship with Himself. Those revolutionary colonials and the citizens of American today share the experience known as the joy of Christian Liberty. These Christians consider slavery anathema, although it is the nature of man to defend the most inhumane practices with out-of-context Scripture.

And so today we have Leftist theologians defending ObamaCare because it is perceived as the duty of government to impress its citizens to be charitable to one another. That these Leftists are advocating a State Church is undeniable, but their theological defense of ObamaCare is fatally flawed theologically. Their biblical defense reverses the message of the prophets and The Law: God doesn’t want your sacrifice; He wants our hearts to be changed toward worship of Him to one of joy rather than duty. God says it is only through spiritual restoration with Him that we can effect His blessings by doing good for others. These leftists/progressives/intellectuals like their Pharisee predecessors would have us believe that acquiescence to coercion can renew Man’s relationship with God. But unless Americans have actually opened those hard books documenting Man’s quest for Freedom and Liberty, or at least as our early colonials certainly could say, read the Bible cover to cover, we only know what the loudest voices tell us. Our national dereliction of study has resulted in creating a citizenship unwittingly standing alongside tyranny because of the banal acceptance of cultural and spiritual nihilism.

It was Christian evangelicals and free market entrepreneurs that established the United States of America. It was Christian evangelicals and free market entrepreneurs that pushed to end slavery in America. It was Christian evangelicals and free market entrepreneurs that joined with Martin Luther King, Jr. to defeat the legal bigotry enforced by Southern Democrats. Christian evangelicals have led the fight to preserve the sanctity of life, which is turning public opinion against the heinous act of abortion. While in Turkey in 2009, President Obama stated that America was not a Christian nation. But it is God’s command in the Bible that we love the Lord Your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength, and all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.

The evangelical church should do nothing if not denounce ObamaCare openly and loudly. Your voice is sorely needed in these times that try men’s souls.

by Nancy Coppock | March 10, 2011 | BCSTeaparty.com

Apostle Claver of RagingElephants.org is telling the truth about Liberalism—it destroys everything it touches. The philosophy of Liberalism is wrong for both individuals and families because Liberalism/ Leftists/Progressives/ Intellectuals value ideas over people. It values the concept of “openness” when history, and our own experience, has taught us that exposing our children to everything is not in their long term best interest. Liberalism says, “Yes!” when we know good parenting means telling our children, “No.” Liberalism says, “OK” to misspelling, incorrect grammar, or incorrect math problems because Liberals value “a good self image” over a correct answer. Liberalism has made it practically illegal to teach the values of good citizenship because the non existent Constitutional separation of church and state has made it impossible to teach our children there is: a value system, a concept of right and wrong, or a way that fosters self-respect through ability and achievement that is superior to self-esteem without merit—no matter how good one may feel about himself.

Schools show the decline

Look at our schools and see what Liberalism has done. When federal funding in our schools is focused around remedial classes, an honest and trustworthy teacher must contemplate that by improving her students attitude toward the joy and satisfaction of real learning, she actually risks working herself out of a job, or the district out of real financial support. The presence of large sums of money for remedial classes actually ensures remedial students. See what Liberalism has done to your children and families. Our schools are free to expose our children to everything perverse in the world, but try to teach honesty, integrity, and character and the threat of lawsuit makes the better teacher a target of derision and vitriol. Our local schools have become a den of thieves rather than a campus of honor and safety. Our children have to put on the tough facade of the smartaleck rather than the smile of happiness that accompanies successful learning because discipline is so haphazard.

School Board Elections

In May, we will be electing new members of our local school board. Think about what’s best for our children for the long-term and ponder within your heart if Liberalism could really be the source of our problems, not the solution. It takes just as long to teach a child correctly as it does to teach a child poorly; it’s just harder to demand the best from each student. Liberalism is easy because “everything” is acceptable. Conservatism takes effort just as parenting takes effort, but the end product is such a joy to us in our old age.

We must revive what we know to be the better choice for the long term benefit for individuals, families, and communities. Liberalism champions the idea over the individual, encouraging each of us to become slaves to our vices by paying us all the way to our own destruction. Liberals have literally bankrupted the entire nation by paying us all the way to our own destruction, the destruction of our families, and the destruction of our communities. We have no more money to pay. We can no longer say, “We’ll just kick the can down the road” and make future generations pay for our Liberal/ Progressive foolishness. We face a $14,000,000,000,000 national debt, as well as State debt, and local debt. Paying people as they self-destruct is a luxury we can no longer afford.

Listen to the words of Apostle Claver as he explains that we only must support what is good for the individual and the family in order to stop what is destroying us as individuals, families, and communities. We know what those things are: honesty, character, integrity because these are the basic requirements to live independent lives.

Note: This article cites British Historian and Philosopher Paul Johnson’s article: The Heartless Lovers of Humankind, originally published in the Wall Street Journal. I encourage everyone to read this article and spread it among friends and families.

ncoppock@gmail.com

by Nancy Coppock | January 6, 2011 | Opinion

There is a historical precedent for the Tea Party Movement and this is the subject of a short book, Capitalism And A New Social Order: The Republican Vision of the 1790’s.

The first political party of the newly created United States of America was the Federalist Party. When its members fell into the ruling class ways of their previous colonial English overlords, Thomas Jefferson led a grassroots campaign in opposition. His vision coalesced around classical republican principles that included the appreciation that civil society was a fragile commodity and that men lusted after power. Classical republicanism also taught that cultural stability was best served by men who sought to rise above self-interest and govern according to the merit of their ideas. These rediscovered beliefs were quickly accepted, in part because the concept of a flawed human nature mirrored what Christianity already knew to be true about fallen nature of man.

These new republican political clubs grew, and their popularity inspired the creation of partisan newspapers and pamphlets sponsored by subscriptions and/or patrons. William Safire’s novel, Scandalmonger, also covers this period of early American history and is the story of one of these partisan opinion writers, James Callender, and Jefferson’s use of his writings in an attempt to destroy the character of Alexander Hamilton, the author of the Federal Bank and a member of Washington’s Presidential cabinet.

Jefferson’s republican revolution centered on the premise that regular men could see the needs and understand the remedies for their local communities better than an elected bureaucracy operating in a distant capital. The classical republican belief that participation in the activity of the state was the highest virtue of man was enhanced by the new form of liberty offered to mankind because of the success of the Revolutionary War. A radical new definition of liberty was available to the American citizen — the ability, and responsibility, to participate in the process of the State.

This new class of citizens were valued by their communities for their personal integrity and character, as well as their entrepreneurial skills to produce goods and services for others. Service to the community was the highest ideal or aspiration to fulfill the new definition of Liberty. Therefore, when the Federalist Party began passing legislation that the common citizens disagreed with, these new republicans believed it was their duty to offer their own ideas to the ruling class, much to the dismay of those in charge. By the end of the 1790’s, the Federalist Party was dead and the revolutionary vision of the new age of republicanism became what we know today as the American Spirit.

Since that 1790’s epiphany into the reality of human nature, radicals have tried to rewrite the definition of American liberty to be the freedom to be as nasty as you want to be without consequences. However, the threat to the preservation of our free civil society is the same as the failure of the 1790’s which was: faith in an unchecked flawed nature to pursue righteousness coupled with the ruling class mentality of deferential politics and hierarchical values. American liberty was never meant to become a passive citizenry and an oppressive ruling class.

Today’s’ Tea Party Movement is a giant tent revival of the Spirit of American Liberty with a small remnant* of believers calling us back to those classical republican principles that established what it means to be an American. The Tea Party Movement is comprised of local citizens who have formed political clubs, in order to preserve the cause of liberty by being actively involved in the making and executing of political decisions of the State. The mission of each of these local tea party groups is:

1. Teach - To provide a venue for citizens to learn constitutional solutions to current political issues.
2. Empower – To assist Members to become influential members of the community; regarded as learned citizens and defenders of liberty and freedom.
3. Act - To create a fully engaged citizenry well-schooled in the Founding Documents of The United States of America, empowered to act in the governing of the Nation and State by exercising their power as the sovereign of these United States.

When my father read the 1994 Contract With America, he believed it was the responsibility of the grass roots to spread the information to those not paying attention to politics. He organized a rally in his area with the goal to get people personally involved in supporting the Contract. He asked people to come out from behind their locked front doors to make a statement in their neighborhood, even in the form a political sign in their yard. He had faith that the infectious nature of increasingly involved neighbors would spread, to bring about a precinct victory and possibly ignite neighboring precincts.**

The source of American liberty is spiritual in nature. The Tea Party movement is about reacquainting ourselves with the philosophy of classical republicanism, which appreciates that civil society is a fragile commodity, that all men lust for power, and that we must choose to rise above our flawed human nature if we are to pursue what is truly good for the long term success of our free civil society. And finally, that we must renew ourselves in the unique aspects of our national heritage by practicing and defending the American ideal of Liberty – the steady and continuous participation as individuals in the decision-making policies of the State. This is the Mission Possible: of the Tea Party Movement.

Nancy Coppock is the President of the Bryan/College Station, Texas Tea Party. ncoppock@gmail.com

References

Appleby, Joyce, Capitalism and a New Social Order: The Republican Vision of the 1790’s. New York University Press, 1984.

Safire, William, Scandalmonger. Simon & Schuster, 2000.

*Remnant – according to scripture God always saves a remnant of believers from the brink of cultural destruction so that they may be a guide to the people in national repentance and return to the commandments and worship of Him.

**My Dad actually had a heart attack and died while in the process of conducting that rally. In our last conversation, I broke into tears as I told him how proud I was of what he was doing. So, the spiritual and the political are forever linked in my mind and I can say that I knew what my father was about. Although we are physically separated, we are united in passion and purpose in our love of God and this nation.