Continental Congress: The Voting Begins

CONTINENTAL CONGRESS 2009:
TO BE CONVENED TO ESTABLISH A CLEAR AND STRONG RECORD BY THE FREE PEOPLE OF AMERICA IN SUPPORT AND DEFENSE OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, THE
CONSTITUTION AND THE BILL OF RIGHTS, AS GIVEN BY THE FOUNDING FATHERS AND AS THE ONLY ACCEPTABLE GOVERNING AND RULING LAW OF OUR LAND:

On October 10, 2009, The People of America, in each of the fifty states and the
District of Columbia, will be invited to choose representative delegates in the first true
Constitutionally-correct election held in America since machines began to count votes
in secret. The purpose of this election is to secure three upstanding citizens from
each state with a proven passion for the Constitution, in order to convene a national
assembly of The People on November 9, 2009 -- a modern-day Continental Congress.

On what basis can such an undertaking be necessary or even effective?

Since readers of this article may be inclined to jump to conclusions based on uncanny
parallels that exist between the events of our day and those that inspired our Founding
Fathers to convene in 1774, let us first say what Continental Congress 2009 is not:

CC2009 is convened on the directives clearly stated in our governing documents.
This is no attempt to take over our government, but rather a gigantic effort to present
the collective deliberations and voices of The People among us who know their Rights
and Desire Freedom for generations to come, who can speak loudly enough to awaken
and change the course of events which threaten to destroy our Nation now.

CC2009 is not about changing our Constitution. To the contrary, it will be an
impassioned plea for our citizens to awaken from our nightmarish detour, that we
might return to course, that the existing Constitution might no longer be ignored or
abused, but truly fulfilled. The facts put before viewers will show we are in dire straits
without It and we will suffer greatly until we return our obedience to It.

CC2009 has no underlying agenda, no secret or devious plan to take over a
government or spawn a revolution that breeds violence or further decay. In many
ways, this Congress will provide a constructive channel through which increasingly
angry and frustrated energies of our citizens can be focused towards a True Solution.

The energy back of CC2009 is simply the absolute knowing that things cannot
continue as they are without a determined, effective, meaningful, peaceful attempt to
reverse them. We are, after all, descendents of those for whom complacency or
hopelessness was not an option.

The combined energies of those who attend, coming from every state in brotherhood
and good will, will showcase the facts of the hour and make earnest appeals for
America to remain True to its Founding Principles via worldwide broadcast . . . [to read the rest, click through to Why Continental Congress 2009

In each state, there is walk-in and/or mail-in voting for delegates. The mail-in voting has already started. Walk-in voting will occur on October 10, 2009 between 10 AM and 4 PM local time. For information on voting, go to Continental Congress 2009 and click through to your state. Links for delegate nominee information and voting instructions can be found on each page. If your state has a mail-in option, be aware that the envelope must be post-marked on or before October 10, 2009.

The Constitution is the highest law of the land and it restricts and regulates the power of the federal government. Our system of goverment has been under attack for over 100 years, and the Constitution is mainly honored in the breech inside the Beltway of Washington, D.C. All of our public servants have taken an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. This includes our political leaders, our judges and attorneys at the bar, our military personnel, our sheriffs and peace officers. In the United States, we do not pledge fealty to any president, judge, or Congress. As citizens, we do not pledge our allegiance to a flag or a party or a place. We pledge our oath to the Constitution.

I am running for a delegate position from New Mexico. I am able to attend the whole Congress, and I am in a position to take care of myself and help fellow New Mexico delegates go to St. Charles for the event. I am a second generation libertarian, and have experience with a number of political causes and campaigns in New Mexico. I am also a scholar, and one who has brought my philosophy of liberty and individual rights to my work, which can make for a lonely stand on today's university campus. I am able to consider ideas thoughtfully, and although I am passionate about the cause of Liberty, I am able to temper that passion with considered logic and thought. I have asserted my liberty and exercised my rights in by making difficult decisions, including that of homeschooling of my son. I have a particular interest in working in my state to assert the tenth amendment, thus requiring to federal government to restrict itself to those powers enumerated in the Constitution.

If you are a resident of New Mexico, I humbly ask you to vote for me, along with two others, to represent you at the Continental Congress. If you have questions or concerns to discuss with me, please feel free to contact me through this blog or through the contact information given at our New Mexico state page.

If you live in another state, please go to your state's page at http://www.cc2009.com/ , read about your delegate nominees, contact them with your questions and concerns. There you will also find voting instructions for all options offered in your state.

Please vote. The mail-in ballots must be postmarked by Oct. 10, 2009. Please do not wait until the last minute! To vote you must be able to declare that you are an adult resident of your state. You do not have to be registered to vote with your county clerk. CC 2009 is not an election for any political public office. WTP has its own registration process.

This weekend, at the NMPA Fall Leadership retreat that I have been working so hard to arrange, I was asked to read the Declaration of Independence. In light of the times our country is facing today, I read these words with particular emphasis and emotion:

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government.

Prudence indeed does dictate that it is NOT the purpose of the Continental Congress to alter our present form of government.

It is rather, the purpose of those who gather there and those who send them, to submit the facts that demonstrate that the Constitution has been ignored and trampled upon by those who wish to reduce the people of the United States to absolute despotism, and that this has been progressing for a great deal of time.

It is the purpose of the Continental Congress to submit to a candid world the documented appeals for Redress of Grievances, from 1994 until now, that have been brought to all three branches of our federal government. Petitions that all three branches of government have met with further injury to the People.

It is the purpose of the Continental Congress to consider the proper next step for a Free People in light of the repeated injury; next step(s) that will restore the Constitutional Republic and protect the Liberty and the individual rights that have been handed down to us and that we wish to bequeath to our children.

At the retreat, I also heard a defintion of the word "patriot" read. A Patriot, the speaker said, is someone who loves, supports and defends his/her country with devotion. Loves. supports and defends her country. Not her political party. Not a particular president. Not a particular policy.

Our founders loved their country--a country not even born yet--enough to pledge their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. And these were not just empty words. Consider what they gave up because nothing was worth more to them than their Liberty. They were Patriots. As were these men who died on the Green at Lexington, on April 19, 1775.

Are you a Patriot? Prove it.

Choose and support delegates who will represent you at CC 2009.

Feeling the Chill?

For the record: I am not planning to vote for either major party candidate. In fact, I have voted in every presidential election since 1980, and I have yet to vote for a major party candidate. There have been a few elections during which I was mighty tempted to do so, but some messenger from on high kept me on the straight-and-narrow, and I have always voted for third party or independent candidates. In fact, I vote third party whenever I have the option. This year, I am planning to vote for Libertarian Bob Barr.
Yes, I know he will not win. I vote my conscience. Call it a protest vote.

Now to the post . . .
Today, with my DSL working like a charm, I read several blog posts about the smearing of Joe the Plumber. A Chill Wind Blowing over at the Common Room discusses the chill effect that such smear campaigns have on free expression. When I finally had the opportunity to check my overflowing in-box for the home e-mail, I found a message that left me wondering about the chill effect of using the race card in this campaign. The message implied that the reason that John McCain is doing as well as he is this late in the campaign is that, despite his far superior education, Barack Obama is black. Although I think the sender is actually an educational snob (state universities are not good enough), the implication is that if Obama loses, it is because Americans are racist.


Now the smearing of Joe the Plumber has had real world implications for the guy, precisely because Joe the Plumber is not the red-necked schlub the smears make him out to be. If he were, the smears would not matter to anyone.
But since this is a man who wants to be successful, who wants to build a business and get ahead in life, the smears serve as a warning to other Joe's out there: Do not ask the difficult questions whose answers require Obama to tip his hand. If you do, the press will dig up every bad thing you've ever done. They will make sure that your job security is threatened and that the IRS is on your tail. So you'd better make sure you are squeaky clean before you ask an intelligent question. Don't best the press.

If the smearing of Joe the Plumber has implications for him, and for free speech, imagine the chill effect the implications of the e-mail I received today has. Essentially, we are being set up. If Obama loses the election, this reasoning goes, it is not because his policies are irresponsible (although raising taxes and deficit spending during a recession are irresponsible), it is because Americans are racist. The question then becomes, how many people will vote for Obama, not because they believe he is the best man for the job, but because they are afraid of being called racist? By playing the race card as Obama has--he even implied that Bill Clinton was a racist during the primaries--he has set us up. If he loses, it is because America is racist. Here are the Reverend Jeremiah Wright's black liberation theology chickens coming home to roost.

But consider the implications if Obama wins the election. If so, there will be an unspoken question about whether he won because he was indeed the best man for the job in the minds of a majority of the electorate, or whether he won in some crazy reductio ad absurdum of affirmative action.

Either way, this country will be divided and the election will be in question.
Playing the race card in a presidential election is dangerous for the citizens of this country.
These kinds of smears on the American electorate have demonstrated to me more than anything else that has been said and done, that Obama is not ready for the presidency.
He is not a uniter of citizens. He is an intentional divider.
He is not a leader of all the people. He is as partisan as they come.
This is not about the American people, no matter how much he insists that it is.
It is about him winning at all costs.

A further implication of this dangerous use of race to win the election is this.
If Obama's supporters feel that they must smear Joe the Plumber for asking a pointed question, and if they feel that they must smear the American electorate by playing the race card, what will they do when their candidate, as president, faces opposition to his policies?

Such political opposition has been the fate of every President of the United States.
And that is proper.
Will those who oppose the Obama administration's policies also be dragged through the mud personally or smeared as racist?

This playbook is not about uniting people around a cause.
It is about conformity.
It is the boomer's culture-war chickens coming home to roost.
In the culture wars, politcal opposition is not about reason or evidence, it is about a vision of differential rectitude in which the opposition is not only wrong, but evil:

" . . .those who disagree with the prevailing vision are seen as being not merely in error, but in sin. For those who hold this vision of the world, the anointed and the benighted do not argue on the same moral plane or play by the same cold rules of logic and evidence. The benighted are to made "aware," to have their "consciousness rasied," and the wistful hope is held out that they will "grow." Should the benighted prove recalcitrant, however, then their "mean-spiritedness" must be fought and the "real reasons" behind their arguments and actions exposed." Thomas Sowell, The Vision of the Annointed

I find myself simultaneously wishing that this election was over with and a the same time, worrying about what will happen to us when it is.

I am definitely feeling the chill.