Its Happening!

The Convention on Founding Principles is starting soon, and I must say I am very excited. What an amazing opportunity! The possibility to contribute to the founding of a new direction in US politics? It comes along so rarely.

But with what are essentially Neo Know Nothings (NKNs) running things now, in all the different ways you can use that term, what choice do we have? Principled conservatives have to band together, remind ourselves what we mean when we use the term “conservative” and coalesce around that to form some political inertia that can balance out the NKNs.

They already have a Declaration of Principles that you can read HERE. I recommend you do. I get emotional every time I read them. Why? Because among other things, I am an Eagle Scout, a rank earned by few, and that means I have been taking an Oath to the Constitution, the Truth, Decency, my Faith, among other things, since I was 12, yet we have seen for decades that be attacked from all sides. But here we have hundreds of delegates and an expected huge number of participants gearing up to pledge themselves to those things, committing to them in ways we haven’t seen for some time.

I think they are amazingly well written. Specific enough to define the principles themselves, but broad enough that we aren’t talking about some 5% of the population getting an emotion high off of seeing something they wrote posted online. And they are all on target with what I consider to be conservatism.

Knowing some of what it has taken to get to this point, I am humbled and awed by it. This is a legitimately grassroots, visceral response to a party going off the rails and a significant portion of its membership having the courage of their convictions to stand up and say, “No!”

And THEN to work to make it be even more than that? To actually become something tangible, firm, with its own gravitas and inertia? Without succumbing to the financial pressures that come with gaining the kind of following that the various groups that feed into this Convention have developed? What an amazing story.

But that is all just setting the table. Now the real work begins, and there is SO much work to be done.

The main thing, though, that I love about what we see from people like Evan McMullin and Heath Mayo, and all of the people who have rallied to their causes, is that they have kept their focus on the future and how to be something to vote FOR rather than just voting against something horrible. It’s smart, because clearly just voting against the other side got us to where we are, but it still requires vision and courage, and the ability to connect with others and communicate that message effectively.

If I understand things right, there were various groups and people trying to push the Stand Up Republic and Principles First organizations into directions that would have made them money, or allowed them fame or even opportunities to end some careers of failed Republican leaders sooner.

All would have been myopic, short sighted and ultimately self-defeating because even if they would have been successful in the short run, they would have been at the expense of a true future of conservatism. Compare that with the self preservation we have seen from Republicans in Congress and the general “me first” attitude we see so much in our country right now, and maybe you have some idea of how important that courage, that vision, that commitment to the Constitution and its citizens is to the future of this country.

It reminds me of some of the more defining moments this country has faced, from its birth to the Civil War to the first half of the 20^th Century, and then into the Civil Rights Movements, where people of true greatness do things ordinary Americans dream of, but never try.

But here is our challenge. “To Be, or not to be. That is the question.”

Are we going to step up and join them? Are we going to prepare ourselves for the challenges ahead by anticipating them and developing the resources and strategies to overcome them?

Or will conscience make cowards of us? Will we let the Native Hue of Resolution be Sicklied O’er with the Pale Cast of Thought? Will we let Enterprises of Great Pitch and Moment … lose the name of Action?

I leave you with this. People like George Washington and Alexander Hamilton, Ghandi and Nelson Mandela, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Martin Luther King Jr. and Cesar Chavez, Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, Desmond Doss and William Henry Johnson, Representatives John Lewis and Elijah Cummings and many many others faced far worse than we face now in terms of physical danger, but they rose to the occasion not just because they led, but because many saw their greatness and followed, themselves prepared for the challenge.

It is our time to follow the advice of Lee Iacocca – Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way.

My question - Which will you be? Will you pick up a banner and lead? Will you actively follow one of those banners and make sure it has the support it needs to succeed?

My ask – please find the courage to do one of the first two. Your Country needs you to be more than someone who just got out of the way. Deep down, you know that is how we got here. The time for that has passed. Be an active part of this nation.

We The People is a right, a privilege and a definition. Time for us to do our part.