The Forgotten Truth About the Original Boston Tea Party - and Why We Desperately Need It Today

Written by Carla Howell and Michael Cloud

http://centerforsmallgovernment.com/

Carla Howell delivered this speech on April 15, 2009 at the TEA Party Event in Boston:

"I did NOT come here to Protest.
 
"I did NOT come here to try to change the minds of Democratic or Republican officeholders in Washington - or on Beacon Hill.
 
"I came here to change politics in America - just like the American Patriots who gave us the first Boston Tea Party.
 
"The Original Boston Tea Party was NOT a Protest.
 
"Let me say that again: the Original Boston Tea Party was NOT a Protest.
 
"The Patriots did NOT just hold up signs, give speeches, and complain.
 
"The Patriots stopped British ships from unloading Monopoly British Tea - their version of AIG.
 
"The American Patriots blocked the collection of taxes.
 
"That is why the Boston Tea Party mattered - and why we remember it today.
 
"Because it was direct political action, not just protest.
 
"And it was action that made government smaller.
 
"Those great American Patriots realized that
what they said and what they wrote - changed nothing.
 
"But action changes everything.
 
"Not just any action. Action that shrinks Big Government.
 
"They were right!
 
"Deeds, NOT just words.
 
"Direct political action, NOT just protest.
 
"Action that moves us forward, that moves us closer to small government - NOT the no-win strategy of  holding the line, or  just opposing more Big Government.
 
"This is the lesson of the first Boston Tea Party.
 
"Now it is our turn to live the lesson.
 
"Let me ask you a few questions.
 
"Do you believe that the Wall Street bailout is insane?
 
"Do you believe that the massive federal government borrowing is hurting your business and your family?
 
"Do you believe that government is too big?
 
"Do you believe government debt is too high?
 
"Do you believe government spending is too high?
 
"Do you believe taxes are too high?
 
"Now let me ask you the questions inspired by the Original Boston Tea Party:
 
"Are YOU willing to take political action?
 
"Are YOU willing to END the Big Government Insanity - and start voting to make government smaller than it is today?
 
"Are YOU willing to vote against every Big Government candidate - in every election?
 
"Now here's the really hard question: Are you willing to vote against them even when you hate the other Big Government candidate more?
 
"Are you willing to vote FOR small government candidates and FOR small government ballot initiatives?
 
"Most political candidates who tell you they're against Big Government, who tell you they are for 'smaller government' talk your way -- and vote the opposite. They vote for tax increases, debt increases, spending increases, and more Big Government programs. They vote for each year's higher government spending. Their votes raise your taxes.
 
"The only way we can protect ourselves against these phonies and fakers is to ASSUME THAT EVERY ELECTED OFFICIAL IN AMERICA IS GUILTY OF VOTING BIG GOVERNMENT - UNTIL OR UNLESS HE PROVES HIMSELF INNOCENT by showing you his voting record. By proving to you that he voted small government while in office.
 
"Are you willing to vote against every officeholder who refuses to show you their voting record?
 
"To reclaim the American Dream, we must vote out every Big Government officeholder in our federal, state, and local governments. Every one. Democrat AND Republican.
 
"But we must NOT stop there.
 
"We must vote FOR candidates who campaign for, promise, and vote to reduce and remove today's Big Government social and economic programs - and GIVE BACK EVERY DOLLAR SAVED TO THE TAXPAYERS.
 
"We must vote for candidates who campaign for, promise, and vote to reduce and END government borrowing, reduce and remove government overspending and waste. Starting now. Small government candidates who will give back every dollar saved to the taxpayers.
 
"We must vote for small government candidates.
 
"We must vote FOR ballot initiatives that shrink Big Government.
 
"Candidates and ballot initiatives that cut or end taxes.
 
"Candidates and ballot initiatives that drive down today's Big Government spending.
 
"Just protesting Big Government will never give us what we want. Voting against Big Government will. Voting FOR Small Government will.
 
"Every Election. Every time. No exceptions. No excuses.
 
"This is the ONLY way we can fulfill the promise of the Original Boston Tea Party.
 
"I'm Carla Howell. I head the Center For Small Government. We're on your side. Please join us.
 
"Because 'small government is possible'."

Source

2009 Copyright Carla Howell and Michael Cloud
Small government is possible, small government is beautiful, Small Government Pledge and Small Government News are Service Marks (SM) of Carla Howell and Michael Cloud.

16 Signs That You Live Under Tyranny

Published on March 7, 2009 by Jon_Roland

Tyranny is an important phenomenon that operates by principles by which it can be recognized in its early emerging stages, and, if the people are vigilant, prepared, and committed to liberty, countered before it becomes entrenched. The methods used to overthrow a constitutional order and establish a tyranny are well-known. However, despite this awareness, it is surprising how those who have no intention of perpetrating a tyranny can slip into these methods and bring about a tyranny despite their best intentions. Tyranny does not have to be deliberate. Tyrants can fool themselves as thoroughly as they fool everyone else. Here are the top 16 signs that you are living in a tyranny or heading that way. Many thanks to Jon Roland for submitting this list (the original of which is here).

Signs 1-5

 

 

1. Control of public information and opinion: It begins with withholding information, and leads to putting out false or misleading information. A government can develop ministries of propaganda under many guises. They typically call it “public information” or “marketing”.

2. Vote fraud used to prevent the election of reformers: It doesn’t matter which of the two major party candidates are elected if no real reformer can get nominated, and when news services start knowing the outcomes of elections before it is possible for them to know, then the votes are not being honestly counted.

3. Undue official influence on trials and juries: Nonrandom selection of jury panels, exclusion of those opposed to the law, exclusion of the jury from hearing argument on the law, exclusion of private prosecutors from access to the grand jury, and prevention of parties and their counsels from making effective arguments or challenging the government.

4. Usurpation of undelegated powers: This is usually done with popular support for solving some problem, or to redistribute wealth to the advantage of the supporters of the dominant faction, but it soon leads to the deprivation of rights of minorities and individuals.

5. Seeking a government monopoly on the capability and use of armed force: The first signs are efforts to register or restrict the possession and use of firearms, initially under the guise of “protecting” the public, which, when it actually results in increased crime, provides a basis for further disarmament efforts affecting more people and more weapons.

Signs 6 - 10

 

6. Militarization of law enforcement: Declaring a “war on crime” that becomes a war on civil liberties. Preparation of military forces for internal policing duties.

7. Infiltration and subversion of citizen groups that could be forces for reform: Internal spying and surveillance is the beginning. A sign is false prosecutions of their leaders.

8. Suppression of investigators and whistleblowers: When people who try to uncover high level wrongdoing are threatened, that is a sign the system is not only riddled with corruption, but that the corruption has passed the threshold into active tyranny.

9. Use of the law for competition suppression: It begins with the dominant faction winning support by paying off their supporters and suppressing their supporters’ competitors, but leads to public officials themselves engaging in illegal activities and using the law to suppress independent competitors. A good example of this is narcotics trafficking.

10. Subversion of internal checks and balances: This involves the appointment to key positions of persons who can be controlled by their sponsors, and who are then induced to do illegal things. The worst way in which this occurs is in the appointment of judges that will go along with unconstitutional acts by the other branches.

Signs 11 - 16

 

11. Creation of a class of officials who are above the law: This is indicated by dismissal of charges for wrongdoing against persons who are “following orders”.

12. Increasing dependency of the people on government: The classic approach to domination of the people is to first take everything they have away from them, then make them compliant with the demands of the rulers to get anything back again.

13. Increasing public ignorance of their civic duties and reluctance to perform them: When the people avoid doing things like voting and serving in militias and juries, tyranny is not far behind.

14. Use of staged events to produce popular support: Acts of terrorism, blamed on political opponents, followed immediately with well-prepared proposals for increased powers and budgets for suppressive agencies. Sometimes called a Reichstag plot.

15. Conversion of rights into privileges: Requiring licenses and permits for doing things that the government does not have the delegated power to restrict, except by due process in which the burden of proof is on the petitioner.

16. Political correctness: Many if not most people are susceptible to being recruited to engage in repressive actions against disfavored views or behaviors, and led to pave the way for the dominance of tyrannical government.

“Political Correctness is tyranny with a happy face.” ~ Charleton Heston

Contributor: Jon_Roland

http://listverse.com/politics/16-signs-that-you-live-in-a-tyranny/