My Speech at the Newport News Tea Party

April 15^th, 2009, Tea Party, Newport News, Virginia

The first tea party up in Boston was when good Yankees put the ideas of Virginians in action.  Today, we’re here copying the folks who took action.  Like them, the same ideas that flowed from the pens and lips of Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Mason stir our minds and make our hearts beat faster.  These ideas born in Virginia and nurtured by the American Nation since the Revolution are alive and well in Newport News Virginia in 2009.   The ideas will transcend generations and ascend to new heights as long as free men and women draw breath.  And there is one idea that will live as long as one person believes it.  It’s the spark that sets all the fires for liberty.

The individual citizen is the sovereign of the state.  You are the sovereign. 

You are not a subject, a peasant, a peon, a serf, a prole, a slave, a servant, or a number.  And, you’re not a group, a minority, a color, a race, a religion, an ethnicity, a language, a class, a gender – although you have a gender – or a label.  You are an individual.  You were born you and you will die you.  No one who has ever lived or will live is you.  And, if you are free man or woman in your mind with free will, then you are the sovereign of the state.  You are the sovereign of the Commonwealth of Virginia.  You are the sovereign of the United States of America. 

From the Virginia Declaration of Rights,

 I quote, “SECTION I. That all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.

SECTION. 2. That all power is vested in, and consequently derived from, the people; that magistrates are their trustees and servants and at all times amenable to them.”

If all power comes from the people, then it’s time to act like it.

Every authority and power for every legislator, executive and judge is given in explicit instructions by you in documents written in English.  Our constitutions say what the governments are supposed to do – and much that they aren’t allowed to do.  If you want to change the arrangement amend the documents.  Until then, all governments, all branches, all persons should abide by the spirit and the letter of our constitutions. 

But they don’t.  They do as they please, because they can.   They use power as they like because no one will stop them.  No one will stand up to them. 

Did you give the power to elected officials to try to spend our way to wealth and borrow our way out of debt?  No nation, business, family or person has ever spent and borrowed their way to financial security and prosperity.   Never.

If you didn’t give them that power but they insist on doing it, then use the power you have in your hand.  Vote them out of office. 

Did you give the President of the United States of America the authority to bail out businesses?  How about the power to hire and fire executives of corporations?   Tell companies how much they can or can’t pay their employees?  Where is this power written in the contract among us all? 

Grant amnesty to illegal aliens?  Create trillions of dollars of debt with bogus bailouts and sham stimulus?  Create a debt that will absolutely bankrupt our country – sooner or later.  When a majority of Virginians voted for Barrack Hussein Obama what did you do about it?  What will you do about it in the future?

There’s an election every year in Virginia.  Every year we go to the polls and make a difference – or not.

Did you tell our congressmen and senators that you want earmarks in the budget?   Did you ask for pork barrel projects to add to the theft of wealth of this generation taking from the next?  They all do it – except for Eric Cantor.   If you’re the sovereign, then what will you do about it?

In 2010 and beyond its your responsibility to find out if there is a candidate who promises to cut taxes, cut spending, and reform entitlements.  If you can’t find a candidate from any party who promises to do it – no earmarks, no whining, no sniveling, no patronizing, no excuses about cutting the rate of spending, blah, blah, blah, then find a new candidate.  There are 7 million Virginians.  Recruit a Constitutional candidate. 

If you are the sovereign of Virginia, did you instruct a bureaucrat to tell police chaplains that when they give comfort to wounded, dying victims or police officers they can pray, but they can’t pray, “In the name of  Jesus?”  If you are the sovereign, then get a better class of governor in 2009.   Find a candidate who won’t let bureaucrats edit our religious freedom.  Find a candidate who can tell you what taxes he will cut, what spending he’ll cut and what entitlements and tax codes he’ll reform. 

If you are the sovereign, the next time a judge makes up laws from the bench, what will you do?  Shrug your shoulders because it was a judge’s ruling?  What’s the point of being sovereign if you are always subservient to judges?

Elect legislators who will impeach judges.  Elect legislators who will appoint judges who abide by the Constitutions. 

I know its easier said than done.  But, you are Virginians.  What happened in 1998 when the politicians tried to change the Virginia Constitution to create regional governments?  You voted NO.  In 2002 politicians, special interests and the media mounted a $2.2 million dollar blitz for unelected, unaccountable, unseparated powers Regional Government for a transportation plan that didn’t even fix the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel – and, of course, didn’t work.  You beat them at the polls 2 to 1.  In 2007 the politicians went around you and passed HB 3202 with the same corrupt Regional Government and new taxes.  But, a handful of Virginians challenged it and the Virginia Supreme Court ruled 7 to 0 that HB 3202 was un-Constitutional.  You knew that all along.

In ten years we’ve defended our liberty – right here – three times.  But these times call for far more.  The old labels of Republican and Conservative don’t speak the truth to these times.  The standard for you, Mr and Ms Sovereign, is Constitutional.   What is Constitutional.  Who is Constitutional.

If you can’t find a politician who will recant, reform, forever more be a Constitutional Virginian, then recruit a new patriot.

It can be done.  I’ve helped do it twice. 

Here’s what it takes.  Recruit a Virginian who will serve you as the sovereign.  A Virginian who will be bold and use checks and balances to bring other branches of government back under the Constitutions.    Then, on the primary day get 100 people to vote.  50 couples you know.  Do it again on election day.

Give 20 dollars a month for 6 months to this candidate you trust.  Give more if you can.  You’ll get it back in lower taxes and a better economy with rising wages and more opportunity.  Get 50 couples to give 20 dollars each.

The time is now.  The place is here in Virginia.  The elections are every year.  You choose to be sovereign or not.  You chose to let others – legislators, executives, or judges – rule you or not.  Power corrupts.  Power creates tyranny.  Tyranny threatens every individual liberty – and your economic opportunity, your security from foreign enemies and domestic criminals, and the future for your children and their children.

Virginia knows lady liberty must defeat tyrants or there will be no liberty, no freedom, no opportunity, no security, no safety, no justice – no Virginia.  No America.  That’s why Virginia’s motto is Sic Semper Tyrannis.   Thus Always to Tyrants.

Thus always for you –  the true sovereign.  Its your Constitutions.  Use them or lose them.  Who is the sovereign of Virginia and America?  Then act like it.