Saw this email I thought I’d share from the Scott Brown campaign:

Smart strategy to get as many funds as he can while the momentum is behind him. That said, based on the adverse sentiment coming from so many of his Tea Party and independent supporters after his vote last week, he may be needing to take advantage of that jobs bill after 2012. Still, smart strategy – don’t think that one vote is going to haunt him.

Helen White is a dear friend who served as a US Senate page with me and is now a student at UGA. Yesterday, she participated in the 9/12 “March on Washington” and kindly offered to share her thoughts about the historic event as a guest post.

The so-called “silent majority” broke the still morning air of Pennsylvania Avenue on the morning of September 12th, 2009.  Approximately one million Americans congregated in our nation’s Capitol to make their frustrations known.

Grassroots efforts in opposition to the continued growth of government have recently been ignored or labeled as hordes of ignorant radicals.  People who have come to voice their concerns at town hall meetings have been disparaged by the leftist media (“tea baggers”) and degenerately denigrated as foolish due to their fervid efforts to raise logical and Constitutional concerns while desiring to engage in dialogue with their elected representatives – commendable actions if anything.  When the grassroots of T.E.A. parties began to spread around the country, I really started to take note of how much resistance they were coming up against; it was disheartening to see how the media was painting these patriotic citizens.  What was even more disturbing was the reaction of our leaders.

President Obama chose largely to ignore and belittle the earnest efforts of T.E.A. party participants.  Somehow, I have a hard time believing that he will be able to ignore the message we sent yesterday. The media also tried to stamp a negative label of  “angry mob” on the protesters; this tactic truly backfired.  I am very proud to have been a part of that patriotic mob, and I heard similar sentiments echoed by fellow protesters.

There was not an air of anger but rather of frustrated pride and heartfelt hope through our faith in liberty. This mob was composed of people from all walks of life and socio-economic backgrounds. Our uniting factor: we love this country and are concerned that we are going to lose everything our Founders fought for – that a government (regardless of party) ridden with special interests and Constitutional disregard continues to grow in power. Most importantly, we are concerned we are going to lose our voice – that we are going to forcibly become a part of a complacent flock that is controlled by the government.

As we marchers arrived in the Federal Triangle, it became apparent that the original plan of separating everyone by state was not going to work.  There were simply too many people there.  Moreover, because of the surplus of unexpected participants, the march had to begin early as people were spilling out into the side streets.  Once the march reached the Capitol, there was a multitude of speakers from various organizations including former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, founder of parcbench.com Kellen Giuda, and Reverend CL Bryant – just to name a few of my favorites; Senator Jim DeMint and Representative Tom Price were two of the few current legislators who spoke at the event.

At first I was confused as to why more political figures – especially from the media – didn’t show up, and then it hit me.  If a big name like Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin had attended, the media would have written this off as mere Republican rhetoric…as mere decriers of “oligarhy”.  Yet, the organizers and speakers (including Republicans, Libertarians, independents, and even some Democrats) at the march were frustrated Americans not looking to spread their name, but rather, to share their frustrations…not to speak to us but rather to stand with us.

Since the rise of so-called “progressivism” in the early 20th century with leaders like Wilson, who decried checks-and-balances and committed numerous Constitutional abuses, and FDR, who continued the special-interest ways of Hoover with programs like the NRA and the AAA, the government has grown tremendously in size.  According to Robert Higgs and other students of American Political Development, government has grown every single year except for one in the 20th century often under the guise of necessary government intervention in times of peril (the real “Shock Doctrine”). Remember how Rahm Emanuel declared the economic crisis as “an opportunity for us” aka the government? Well, it is time for we people to say enough is enough!

Legislation such as Cap and Trade and socialized medicine (…I mean national health care “reform”…) were what really woke this sleeping mob of patriots up.  As David Hume said, “it is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once.”  This injustice has been creeping up on us for far too long, and we can remain silent no longer.  Good government is small government that interferes in the private sphere as little as possible and does not jeopardize individual liberty.  Even if the media and our leaders choose not to recognize the historic march on September 12, 2009, they will surely recognize our demand for change on November 2, 2010 when the midterm elections occur.

In the words of the 9/12 mob, “can you hear us now?!”  Congress, can you hear us now?  Mr. Obama, can you hear us now?

The silent majority has awoken and will not be suppressed any longer…

(Written December 29th, 2008)

Tabitha Hale just wrote a piece – “Anarchy is Bad” – for her blog where she picks out her problems with libertarianism. Though absolute (and slightly mistaken) in her divide between libertarians and conservatives, for comparison purposes it is understandable why such a position would be taken (kind of the same reason why we bemoan using models in understanding antiquity but still do anyways for analysis). I read the piece and quickly wrote a response as seen below:

But libertarians do believe in “enough” government that “protect(s) us from one another” – particularly in respect to Mill’s “harm principle”. Many libertarians do stand by the 14th amendment in regards to abortion; as technology gets better each day, it is undeniable that “life” (even in a “snobby” scientific sense) is capable of being sustained earlier and earlier in the pregnancy if birthed. You don’t need need an understanding of conception to immediate life from religion or any other social institution to have such a pro-life stance.

In respect to immigration, there are apparant disagreements between libertarians today. Do you not recall the hard-line stance Ron Paul (and all his RP Republicans) took on immigration? These are Libertarians and libertarian Republicans joining him at his rallies supporting a candidate who declared “No Amnesty! No welfare! No birthright citizenship! Secure our borders now!”.

Our little libertarian-conservative coalition must endure for the Republican party to be successful. The majority of Americans are socially conservative but often weigh economic issues (and others) in greater importance to them (ex. African Americans usually supporting Democrats though they outright clash on issues like abortion and gay marriage).

Our focus right now in this country should not be on socially moral divides within ideology; our focus right now in this country should be on reframing the debate for fiscal policy. As we see billions of dollars in undesignated, undefined, and unaccountable bailouts being thrown out the windows of Congress and the White House and as a president claims he has “abandoned free market principles to save the free market”, it is imperative that we do NOT allow ourselves to fall into another age of “New Deals” and faith in populist rhetoric with no return on results.

It worries me that many social conservatives in this country would promptly surrender fiscal responsibility just to have their ”savior of the social conscious” who ignores all fiscal and moral consequences in vacating economic freedom.

(Written on November 5th, 2008)

Well, it’s going to be close (cough) but Obama might pull through…

What I’m focusing on now is the Senate. I love checks and balances — especially when they cause the ever loved “political gridlock”. You see, whenever the governmental bureaucrats smoothly are able to implement their policies for the betterment of the general welfare, you can bet that most likely special interests will reap their rewards, inefficiency will ensure the attempted policy’s failure, and taxpayers will take care of the bill.

I don’t have a double standard. I was happy that the Republicans barely controlled the Senate a few years back ensuring that the Democrats could always threaten using their filibuster power. And now, we have the prospect that the legislative, the executive, and (in a little over two years or more probably) the judicial will have leftist ideologues at their helm. It is imperative that the Republicans hold on to 41 seats in the Senate to bear through these next couple years.

Such an electoral sweep places Obama in a politically awkward situation. Here we have a candidate that has promised an agenda centered on unity and political healing. Numerous times, Obama surrogates have emphasized this point. When Obama voted in favor of FISA legislation, for example, Harold Ford told ABC news that Obama’s “not running to be the left’s president” or “MoveOn.Org’s president”. However, with such an impressive, electoral mandate, Obama tomorrow has a heavy burden to sort through. His base expects so much from him; he has made his promises of change and has promised to accomplish them with his hope-filled audacity. He is entering office with the exigency to address our delicate foreign affairs situation in the Middle East and an economy that might suffer more in its cyclical recession. The Democrat-controlled House (as less Blue-Dog Democrats were elected this time compared to 2006) and Senate will hold Obama to expectations.

So…Obama must now decide whether he will radicalize Washington and implement an encompassing leftist agenda, or will he walk a safe, moderate, Clintonian line. The worst things for the Democratic Party, in my opinion, would be for Obama to follow a very leftist agenda; there will be backlash in 2010. The Republicans lost in 2006 and 2008 not because the country has decided on a referendum of Republican principals but because the country has decided on a referendum of politics as usual. Over the last few years, when I’ve looked at the debates and votes in Congress and the policies of George Bush, I often couldn’t differentiate between party and ideology. The Republicans became complacent; the power became corrupting; the principals became forgotten.

Trust me. Come 2010, if the Obama administration thinks he has just became the left’s Reagan and they now have the citizen’s backing to implement a far-reaching leftist agenda, then the Republicans will definitely be back in the House and Senate in two years. Being out in the cold might just make the Republicans retake the principals they so lackadaisically abandoned and organize themselves into a well-oiled, political machine.

Come 2010…