By Adrian Murray
One year ago on February 27 2009 a few 1000 people gathered outside the Cowtown Grill in Fort Worth. Some carried signs reading Taxed Enough Already". No one there knew each other but all were there for a common purpose even if we could not easily articulate it at the time. We knew it was something much deeper than taxes & spending.
Other signs read Honk if Im paying your mortgage." Some decried the Porkulous" bill federal spending states rights.
Something innate within us told us there was something much greater at stake.
Over the course of the past year we have come to know each other well. We met again over and over on street corners and sidewalks met outside the offices of Congressmen and Senators met at rallies and tea parties in hotel conference rooms and private homes.
The strangers who gathered at the Cowtown Grill that day have become fast friends united in the struggle to save America from the nightmare of collectivism that is the Obamanation.
Most had never protested their government before but all were united in the knowledge of what had to be done. We bore the responsibility because we shouldered the blame.
For decades too many Americans sat on the sidelines as the two opposing teams on the field slowly chipped away at the foundations of the nation. It didnt concern us or if it did wed complain and move on.
Both major political parties had been using the Constitution as a doormat for decades yet we would seldom raise an objection unless it involved guns or free speech or religion or self-incrimination. In those cases we might fire off a testy email or if particularly outraged pick up the phone. But leave the house stand on sidewalks waving signs march in the rain protest? Surely not.
So we sat idly by passively looking on as the federal leviathan spread like the other-worldly substance from The Blob consuming everything in its path.
We bought new CD players and marveled at the sound. We bought new computers and marveled at the speed. We bought new high-def televisions and
marveled at the crispness of the picture.
But keep an eye on the government? Feh. Weve got politicians for that. And Tim Russert. And that little guy with the Greek name on the other channel.
For decades Washington simply had its way growing the bureaucracy and the agencies that would effectively replace the Constitutional branches of government with an Executive colossus.
So what happened then in 2009 that middle-America suddenly exploded in every hamlet in every state in the nation? Why did a historically docile segment of the populace erupt in protest? Was it simply because Barack Obama is a black man?
The mainstream media would have you think so because its in the mainstream medias best interests to have us continue our roles as docile consumers robotically watching imbecilic comedies on network television.
So their narrative is that these Jesus-loving gun-toting mentally-challenged red-necked racists were watching TV one night noticed for the first time that the new guy was the wrong color ran outside and began ranting incoherently on the nearest street corner.
(That these perverts knew the alternate definition of teabagging" before we even knew there was an alternate definition speaks volumes more about why it is not safe to let them babysit your children than it will ever say about those in the movement.)
Let the record show that the Tea Party & 912 movements would have exploded with equal fervor if the new presidents name had been Barbara Obama or Larry OHagan or Bill Smith. The presumption has been quite simply that the American people are idiots who couldnt find the sky with a flashlight.
But for every American who forks over $5 to PT Barnum for the opportunity to see the egress millions more have very fine-tuned antennae and know a huckster when they hear one know a charlatan when they see one know a con artist when they encounter one.
We all watched the media-fed carnival of the 2008 election complete with its swooning and fainting dolts and instinctively knew we were witnessing one very
long and not too convincing Sham-Wow commercial.
While we have had hucksters in the White House before Bill Clinton comes immediately to mind we havent in the past been confronted with a huckster who fundamentally dislikes America.
It was clear very early on that this angry and bitter man along with his angry and bitter wife intended to unleash some very angry and bitter medicine upon a people he viewed essentially as gentrified oppressors long overdue for their come-to-Jesus moment.
The American people grateful inheritors of a long legacy of liberty and personal freedom never anticipated a government that viewed its citizens as subjects and its population as fodder for social experimentation. But that is precisely what we have today. We know it and they know we know it.
So one year on the Tea Party movement has coalesced into a national political force which although disparate in its strategies and leaderless by design has breathed new life into a 223 year old document known as the United States Constitution. To our own discredit we have let this divinely-inspired text be diluted to the point of irrelevance fully cognizant of the fact that our politicians for years have been merely paying lip service to the words of our Founders but that it didnt matter as long as we were comfortable in our lives.
Now we have awoken to the simple truth that it does matter that there are consequences when disrespect for our national heritage becomes accepted political dogma and agents of change are unleashed on the American people. We now know that liberty is never to be taken for granted that we have duties as citizens to protect that liberty and to pass those protections on to our children.
One year ago without even knowing it the American people began the task of restoring the U.S. Constitution and returning the nation to its founding principles.
We have much to do in the years ahead.
While we slept government grew and took over our lives. It will only be with great effort and resolve that we take the federal leviathan apart piece by piece and restore America to a Constitutional republic. But we have no choice no excuse for passing on to the next generation the same tyrannical government our forefathers came to America to escape.
Yes it would be much easier to ignore the looming threat to pull the covers over our eyes once more and find comfort in the shelter of sleep. We will encounter many obstacles and much opposition in the days ahead. But so be it.
When the final day comes and eternal sleep beckons let us go to our rest content in knowing we have played our part and done all that we could do to secure for our children the blessings of liberty.
Adrian Murray is President of the Fort Worth 9-12 Project.
