It’s not about tax cuts, it’s about reducing federal government and restoring state and local.

I don’t mind Erick’s advice about Tea Party Activists attending Republican meetings. But I think they should do so as motivated citizens rather than as TEA Party activists. I think we should try to force our will on the Republican Party and try to accumulate power. But I’m not at all sure that the result would be a coup. I think it is equally likely that they will just be absorbed into the “borg”.

Afterall, we have been down this path before and we worked our asses off through the 90’s to accumulate power and look at the wothless batch of GOP politicians and the worthless policies that we got for our efforts. Its clear to me that once they gain power, our politicians no longer fear us. The primary process, which is really our only tool of discipline, is rigged so the incumbant, no matter how crappy, almost always wins.

I think what is needed is more of a STICK to BEAT our politicians into line with rather then being part of the Party than ENABLE them while they SHAFT us. I think the TEA Party movement has the potential to be this stick.

I think the Tea Party movement should be equally about activism at Democrat meetings. A lot of the people who have shown up at the Tea Party rallies are centrist Democrats and independents. The common value that all of us share is some attachment to the free enterprise system and a very strong belief in fiscal sanity which absolutely went out the window under President Bush and has spiraled far worse ever since. I think these people could play a role in wrenching the Democratic Party away from George Soros and back towards the center and some measure of sanity.

I think every politician regardless of Party should fear the Tea Party movement and I think the Tea Party movement should be largely about either forcing fiscal sanity on or taking down and the worst of the worst regardless of party.

At the last TEA Party I attended I carried a No Amnesty sign. For the next one I am thinking I’ll get a forked willow stick out of my yard and I’ll go to Walmart and buy a stuffed donkey and a stuffed elephant and hehead them and impate the heads on the prongs of my forked stick. With the sign below them being simply, “Heads on a Stick”.

Those people who make the most impact are the people who, forgive the phrase, “infiltrate from within.” Get involved. Be the one who will do the work — writing letters, making phone calls, helping with events. When they’ve shown to be the people to depend on, they get invited to the table and, oftentimes, take over. And, really, few people do so you can “shine” quite easily and soon.

I’ve seen several successful young candidates get involved in this way. Because they’ve worked side by side with other volunteers, they’ve only strengthened their ties to accomplishing real political success.

I was one of the organizers in my city - I’ve tried to move from DEMONSTRATION to ACTIVISM - sending out emails about what issues are before congress and the senate, and in our state legislature. Encouraging people to WRITE, FAX, EMAIL, or CALL their congress critter. But you bring up a very important point - it will do us no good to bemoan the horrible state of our local and regional GOP groups - it is up to us to roll up our sleeves and dive in and direct the change. To push, prod, mold, and direct our organization back to it’s principles, because there are ultimately two choices in this country - them, or us. And we’ve clearly rejected the Obamabats “them”. So we need to make the “us” work for us.

We have been able to make a very little tiny dent in our local GOP - earlier this month, the Knoxville GOP finally rolled out a new, improved website. They hadn’t updated their website since JULY 2008!!! I was appalled! It’s a little tiny step, but at least folks can find them now. It’s a heck of a lot easier to change something when you can locate it! Thanks again.

Individualism, if you are a conservative all of you had better start practicing what you preach. We are individuals as so given in our constitutional right. We are not lead by anyone but our selves and it is your free choice. You are responsible for your actions or from what I am seeing a lack of action. This is our constitutional right and the freedom that protects us from oppression. It seems “We the People” and “freedom is not free” has become more of a cliché than a call to arms. It can not be said enough, you know the term “use it or lose it”, well we had better start using it because we are coming real close to losing it all. All of us need make an individual commitment to put boots on the ground and stop thinking this is only a social event. This is a boots on the ground fight and a do or die reality, not a virtual reality. The real fight is out there and not in here.

At what point does it become “We the Government” and no longer “We the People”? The real threat comes from our own government and its own corporate greed. Higher taxes, regulations, fees, all have pushed out individual private capitalism and individual opportunity. These are individual freedoms as in you and me that are about to be lost. Manufacturing across the nation has dropped to its lowest levels and so has your jobs in response to this government monopolization. Government was never intended to be the largest employer and it must never be allowed to be the largest employer. We have separation of church and state for a reason, fear of oppression. The same applies to our government becoming a corporation, a self serving institution and oppressor.

Where is the tipping point in all this, will all the people finally start to revolt and participate because they found nothing remaining? That seems too late to be acceptable….

It is important to remember that our movement is only 9 weeks old. We are in a unique situation in that we had 850+ Tea Party Coordinators come together on April 15th to host Tea Parties around the country in less than 8 weeks time.

As information to the Redstate readers, the TeaPartyPatriots.org is where the Tea Party Coordinators and Tea Party Participants are joining online to build the movement. We want to make sure this is a movement and not simply a moment in time. Tea Party Patriots is looking to create and build future events and also to build an organizational structure to support a movement.

As Tea Party Patriots builds this organization, it is doing so in a way that honors and respects each of the 850+ Tea Party Coordinators and gives them a place on the National Leadership Council. Tea Party Patriots would not exist without the individual coordinators. The Tea Parties would never have happened without the individual coordinators. Contrary to what some in the media say, this has been a true grassroots, bottom-up movement. Tea Party Patriots is doing all it can to insure that the organizational structure continues to be bottom-up and not top-down.

If people have specific ideas about what they want to see happen within Tea Party Patriots, they can go to our idea board and submit an idea. At the same time, they can leave comments on other ideas so we can build on them and make the ideas better. Erick your ideas and the ideas of others like you are exactly what we need so that we can put our passion into action and carry the movement forward.

By ARTHUR C. BROOKS
There is a major cultural schism developing in America. But it’s not over abortion, same-sex marriage or home schooling, as important as these issues are. The new divide centers on free enterprise — the principle at the core of American culture.

full article at
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124104689179070747.html

I’ve yet to see a single nationally prominent GOP politician do a respectable job of putting their finger on that pulse. Most of these consultant-driven power grabbers want to exploit the movement for their same old tired cliches. That’s poison.

I am trying to make as many events as I can this year and hope it leads to even more in the years to follow.

Thanks for this great diary calling the soldiers to task!!

I would add county board meeting.

Though the position is non partisan ( in Wisconsin), county supervisors bring their conservative or liberal view and vote accordingly. Being awash in liberal and wishy-washy county supervisors it would help to have conservative taxpayer attendance at the meetings and/or calling and talking to local elected officials to stop the big government voting .

It sure would be nice to have backing, though I know I am in a very liberal county.

The group here hates Republicans with the same fervor they hate Democrats, but they don’t seem to understand that the people they regard as their absolute worst enemies - the Marxist/Fascist New Left moonbats who want to turn America into Venezuela without the oil - were in the exact same situation vis-a-vis the Democrat Party until George Soros and MoveOn.org took that party away from the Clintons and made it a dominant political force when the opportunity arose.

The GOP is every bit as ripe for such a takeover as the Democrat Party was in the early part of this decade - and the road map has already been laid out by the other side how to put it into effect. More, the intellectual bankruptcy of the Beltway GOP mob as evidenced by the Specter defection and the attendant recriminations against the Club For Growth and other conservatives not only makes a takeover necessary, but morally imperative as well.

I will do my part to make this message known. I encourage all other Redstate.com readers to do the same.