"The Official Portrait of Miss InDiana"

"The Official Portrait of Miss InDiana"
aka "Miss Victory"

Sunday, March 22, 2009

April 15th Indiana Tea Party Activists...please read this message

The host of Revolt At The State House and editor of LibertyFile.com, Sean Shepard, wrote to us about his concern that the national tea party movement is a deceptive arm within the Republican Party purposely activated to herd well meaning newbie activists straight into a web of deception in order to use these individuals to further consolidate power within the Republican party.

The Republican Party is not accountable to the fact that it is equally responsible for bringing forth the financial crisis in America. Don't believe me? Then consider who signed the first bailout bill. Hint: It wasn't President Obama. We hope the tea party activists don't fall for the glitz of the mainstream media they are using to entrap you, and instead contact and join arms with any of the below mentioned groups who know the issues, can help you grow, and will welcome you into their ranks and our widely growing coalition of liberty activists.

--Melyssa for HFFT


Sean Shepard writes:
Where were all of these "conservatives" when it came time to oppose the massive spending of the Bush Administration, the failure to address social security, the invasion of a weak foreign country, the stunning increase in Medicaid/Medicare benefits, failure to pass the FairTax, or even (less helpful to the economy), the Flat Tax? Was there even one year when the Federal Budget stayed the same or was less than the previous year? There were six years there to do all kinds of good things, but all we got was bigger government and more debt.

Republicans get religion when they aren't in power then, once in, they are just as big government and big spending as anyone else. Does anyone REALLY believe that Bush (or McCain) would not be employing Keynesian influenced economic solutions also? As has been often noted the past few years, at least with the Democrats you get "truth in advertising."

It is exciting to see all of these tea party protests and to see a new group spring up to support the effort. I think the argument is that we didn't need another new group fragmenting people and competing for resources, there were already existing groups.

The Republican Liberty Caucus exists for libertarian Republicans who still hope to someday restore the party to something it maybe once was when Goldwater was around.

The Libertarian Party is there for people who finally realize that voting for what you believe in is more important than supporting the 'club' that continues to let them down.

The Campaign For Liberty exists to promote smaller government, lower taxes, sound financial systems and Constitutional government ideals.

The Democratic Freedom Caucus is the Dems variant of the RLC.

We have all kinds of great organizations like The Mises Institute, Downsize D.C., Americans for Fair Taxation, The Peter G. Peterson Foundation and others.

I'm a bit offended by the note above suggesting that all of these great activists, including great people like Andy Horning who have warned about this stuff for years, should be reaching out to the new "tea party" folks. Should they not be contacting all of these others and saying, "Hey, we're finally on board."

Most of the reports I hear is that the tea party organization seems to be a bit insular and closed off, BUT, I have no first hand knowledge of this. Again, why doesn't anyone in any of these other organizations know who these people are?

Like I've said before, we need all the help we can get but we do need to be guarded against factions with common cause competing against each other. Everyone needs to lay aside their ego and their partisanship and realize that only by uniting efforts can effective change be brought about.

At the same time, there are people in Indiana that have put A LOT of time and effort into promoting the right things, often at great personal expense and detriment. People like Andy Horning (popular former LP candidate and pro-liberty activist), Ron Heilman (past State Director of Americans for Fair Taxation), Mark Rutherford (past long-time Chair of the Libertarian Party of Indiana), Melyssa Donaghy (Hoosiers for Fair Taxation, Indiana Voters League), Melissa Lineberry (Campaign for Liberty) and more recently Charlie Kochenash (current Indiana RLC head) should not be suddenly shoved aside or stepped over just because others all of the sudden woke up, many of them likely to go back to sleep once they get "their (party) guy" in the White House again.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

This conservative was mad about Bush's tilt to the left and we made our opinions known to representatives and senators and the President. The conservative talkers also spent the last 6 years complaining abouy what was going on but in case you haven't noticed the government doesn't give a damn what we think any longer. That is why we have this mess- they ignore our opinions on borders, immigration, taxation, socialism programs etc. That is why this is important for everyone to show up to the tea parties regardless of beliefs and stop the snipping- I see the pictures of the protestors -they look like ordinary families not anarchists as was suggested. On Michele Malkin they were showing huge protest crowds which are not being reported. Look it up. So stop the bickering and concentrate on getting people to show up to protest the Marxist government steam rolling along. A lot of this also was organized by Glen Beck.

daltonsbriefs said...

Each conservative talking head has their own strengths, and yes I agree with anonymous that we should all be learning to work together.

Read on another post below Sean's thoughts that anyone disagreeing with the Ron Paul (liberty now) philosophies isn't truly on board ... that's foolish talk. This will take hundreds of small wins, in elections and education.

M Theory said...

Anonymous, if you are indeed a Republican, then why would you stay in the Republican Party?

It sounds like it left the conservatives and you sound like a battered spouse.

Why would Michelle Malkin stick around for that kind of abuse?

I'm not sure why you keep going back for more abuse!

We're here for your intervention!

M Theory said...

Yes, briefs...you are right.

And these people are hard working coalitions that the national tea party leadership ignores. WHY is that do you suppose?

You think it is because the real activists are a threat to the status quo in the republican party?

I sure do!

And why is a NON partisan billed movement led by Republican Party insiders? Smelly, fishy business, huh?

And why hasn't the Republican party REPENTED for its many sins against America?

I don't trust one bit the intentions behind this bogus grass roots tea party business.

Michael Patrick Leahy....PLEASE!

Sean Shepard said...

briefs - your characterization of what I said relative to Representative Ron Paul is not accurate. I merely pointed out what lots of others have figured out over the past year, "oh yeah, crap, he was right." OR there is something they still need education on.

The only real disagreement I hear anymore is from people who really do think we should bully the world with our military presence on every street corner of the world. Arguably, the cause of much of the aggression against our nation. The Republicans need to decide if principled folks like Sanford, Paul and Flake are the future of their party or if business as usual in Jindal, Romney and Huckabee are.

I agree very much with what you said about lots of small wins. We're not quite to the point where people either pick up weapons or call for secession and go for "one big win" but a lot fewer people seem opposed to those ideas than ever.

Regardless, all of these newly awakened folks need to make sure they quit endorsing the status quo, pick an organization like the LP, RLC, C4L or whatever. If the motivation is just opposing the out of control Democrat regime in government right now, that is intellectually dishonest since most mainstream Republicans have continued to endorse the kinds of policies and interventions that have gotten us to where we are at.

Somebody mentioned they had never heard of some of this past decades pro-liberty organizational leaders in Indiana, including Andy Horning. Nobody has paid any attention to elections in Indiana and not become familiar with, and a fan of, Andrew Horning (2-time gubernatorial candidate, 2-time congressional candidate, including once as a Republican, and pro-constitution and tax reform activist - heck, he had more name ID in 2008 than the Democrat candidate for Governor did)

Let's make sure we get some names out there:

Melissa Lineberry - acting State Director for Campaign for Liberty
Charlie Kochenash - head of the Indiana RLC chapter (I think he's a northern Indiana guy)
Chris Spangle - Exec. Director, Libertarian Party of Indiana
Todd Singer - State Chair, Libertarian Party of Indiana
Mark Rutherford - Immediate past (and long-time) Chair
Dan Drexler - Vice Chair, LPIN (Northern Indiana guy)
Rebecca Sink-Burris, Regional Representative to the LNC
Dan Higgins - State Director, Americans for Fair Taxation (based in Peru)
Ron Heilman - Immediate past State Director of AFFT (based in Ft. Wayne)
Melyssa Donaghy - Hoosiers for Fair Taxation
Tim Maguire - LPMC Chairman
Sean Shepard - AFFT and LPMC Comm Director / MeetUp organizer. Operator of Libertyfile.com
Gregg Puls - Long time RLC/Republican Assembly guy
Ed Coleman - Libertarian Indianapolis City Councilman
Greg Walker - Republican State Senator (authored honest money and sovereignty resolutions)
Mike Delph - Republican State Senator (co-authored sovereignty resolution [SCR 37])

With few exceptions, most of the people listed above all know, know of each other or are 1 degree of seperation away).

JBS has a presence but I don't think I know Lynette's last name.
Constitution Party has a guy somewhere.

There are numerous district directors, county chairs and representatives for many of these groups as well. Fees to join are typically $25 (LPIN, RLCIN and AFFT I think), $35 (C4L)

Sending donations to Advance Indiana, HFFT or LibertyFile are always good too. ;-)

M Theory said...

Don't forget guys like Senator Waltz who is an advocate for property tax repeal.

And also Senators Kruse and Stutzman too!

M Theory said...

Oh...and also Senator Weatherwax!

Anonymous said...

You people are smart not to trust republican insiders or the mainstream media.

Sean Shepard said...

HFFT - I mentioned Walker based on the kinds of legislation he has helped introduce and Delph from my personal experience and interactions with him (he's my State Senator).

It did occur to me though that it is probably worth mentioning Dave Bond from STOP Indiana and Josh Gillespie from Hoosier Access. Both good really excellent people who have put a lot of work into the tax effort in Dave's case and reporting on Hoosier Politics in Josh's case. Diane Vice is another one (and an upcoming speaker on Wednesday!!)


I know there are tons of others. But these are all folks that didn't just wake up one day because the wrong party held the presidency and suddenly all the money being spent must be wrong (it is, but...)

These partnerships and friendships and the resulting work in areas where there is common agreement have been built and forged over the past decade (or longer in some cases I'm sure).

And these people aren't ones that got involved so they can feel important on some stage somewhere pretending to be all pro-liberty and patriotic. These people were fighting the fight and doing work when it was not cool, not appreciated and not just some political fad.

Let's hope the new interest in things sticks! The Orlando event looks like it was wonderful (but where in the world did they get the money for that? that wasn't a 'grass roots' stage and sound system)... LOL

daltonsbriefs said...

Didn't hear any of you on the tea party conference call tonite, and I actually went on so that I could hear you tell them your thoughts on the food drive. As a report, they appear to feel they'll have 250 such tea parties on April 15th.

Good for them, a lot of work, I hope it gets some attention and helps all the movements get an influx of volunteers and money too.

Sean Shepard said...

What tea party conference call?

This is kind of what I was trying to get at. The people that have been at this sort of thing for a while have all kinds of e-mail lists, Facebook groups, Meetup.com groups and, when necessary, each other's cell phone numbers. Lots of stuff gets shared between the leaders of these various groups who then make their own judgments on what to pass on based on appropriateness to the cause.

It just seems to make sense to be sure and leverage those channels to distribute information. Heck, for the right cause, lots of these people will pony up their own money (I don't even want to know how much Melyssa has spent in the past two years).

And understand too that a lot of my comments and concern are directed along the lines of trying to figure out if people are serious and have finally awoken or if it's just a partisan movement and they will still just blindly support the next pro-FED, pro-big government, tax code expanding and tinkering, free speech violating, gun control supporting candidate just because he has an "R" (or any other letter) after his or her name.

Ideology and principles should always trump membership and misplaced loyalty in what is basically a "club".

I will freely admit to being very angry at the missed opportunities and statist expansions of the Bush administration and Republican Congress earlier this decade. And even though he is gone, there was still a complicit Congress and loyal party following.

McCain was not going to be any better and mostly, regardless of Obama or McCain, it really comes down to nuance on everything but maybe a few issues and some of those not even anything government should even have a say in.

BUT, absolutely, the more people getting out there and making sure politicians have to pay attention or risk getting booted out of office, the better.

Just don't shoot people who have lived long enough to no longer be fooled by broken promises of the usual stable of politicians.

"Change" - we now bomb Pakistan instead of Iraq
"Hope" - hope for the dollar to retain ANY value when this is over

"Hope for Change" - 2012.

Andrew Horning said...

Thank you very sincerely for the positive mention. I've been feeling pretty down lately, and it was nice to get a pat on the back ...before I get the jackboot in my back.