Dave Hinz, who died in an auto accident on his way to work early Friday morning, will be missed.  Steve Foley broke the tragic news at TMR, and the local paper gives us more details on Dave’s life and death.  Below, Gamecock remembers him.   The Directors and Contributors share the grief of our readers at Dave’s loss.  - Dan McLaughlin.

The first time I moved to Atlanta was in 2001 after losing my father, best friend and pastor in South Carolina. Now, three months after moving back, this time from North Carolina after a 30 month absence, I lose one the best friends I never saw.

Dave Hinz and several other close friends I made on-line over the years, beginning at Redstate.com, helped to fill part of the void even though we never met face-to-face. I don’t like to leave the house, you see, unless I just have to.

After yesterday’s tragic loss of my good friend, I never will see Dave in the flesh, but am thankful that I got to know him so well and learned so much from him via telephone, email and the web. God surely sent Hinz my way to help guide the DeVine dinosaur (He always forded me to make technological leaps, as he said, beyond communication via smoke signals through Tweets!) in his new Atlanta, 21st Century life.

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Note: A year or so ago I published a diary of “Frequently Asked Questions” about RedState.  Erick’s recent “Dear RedState Reader” post reminded me that I needed to publish this.  This is a total re-write and expansion on that original.  Numerous new members have asked for an “instruction guide” on how to use RedState.  So - here’s a go at it.  If you have suggestions, please comment and I’ll try to update.

So, you want to be a part of the RedState community?

Here’s how.

Getting Started:

You have probably already been browsing the site, or “lurking”.  You’ll note that Redstate.com is a “community blogging” site, which means that community members can write their own blog entries and interact/comment on the “diaries” created by both front-page contributors and by site members.  Now you would like to participate.

Register and join RedState.com

1. Click the “Sign Up” link on the home page and you’ll be presented with a page where you can enter your new username and an email address where we can send you your site password.  Also you will be given the option to sign up for the various mailing lists that we at RedState use to pass along information about the site and about various key issues that arise periodically.  Note:  when chosing a user name, don’t use a name of a famous person - we don’t allow impersonations…
2. Once you click the “Next” link on the first page of the registration process, you’ll get a message verifying your new user name and will be sent a “verification” email that contains a web link for activating your ID.
3. Open your email, click the link, and your new RedState account will be activated.  You’ll also be given a new password.  Make a note of this password!
4. Click the “Log In” link and log in using your new username and password.
5. Once you’ve logged in, click the “My Profile” link, and then “Edit” to update your profile information.  On the Profile page, you can update your password to one that’s more to your liking (unless, of course, you like the one we assigned to you!
6. Also, under “My Profile”, you can enter information about yourself, such as your email address, personal web site, general info (”Biographical info”), and a “Signature” that will appear at the end of your comments.

You’re now a member of the community!

(Important note: You will not be able to enter any comments or diaries for 24 hours after signing up.  This is to discourage “trolling” by those who sign up merely to cause trouble.)

Participate in RedState.com

Of course you’ve already been able to read the content on the RedState site.  But how do you get involved in conversations and post your own contributions?

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Over the last few months as our traffic has kept going up, I get more and more people emailing me, twittering me, and commenting on my Facebook page about writing at RedState.

I am kind of tired of individually responding, so I thought I would put this here on the front page and just start sending around this link.

RedState is a community of readers and activists from across the fifty states and a bunch of other countries too (we’ve got a lot of fans in Australia and Britain). The cool thing about RedState is that unlike most other right-of-center blogs, anyone can write at RedState.

All you need to do is create an account and then wait twenty-four hours, after which you can comment and write till your heart is content.

The RedState community will either recommend or not recommend your posts. If enough people recommend your posts, they’ll move up into the recommended diaries section. Typically, though we’ve honestly dropped the ball in the last month, every day a different front page contributor will front reader diaries that really stand out, though those then lose the ability to be recommended by the community.

Over time, once a person has built up a strong engagement with and attachment to the site through regularly engaging in the community through comments and posting quality diaries, we just might name the person a front page contributor.

But for starters, you need to create an account and post. Unless you are a member of Congress or someone of note, I am probably not going to put your posts directly on the front page — the community will do it through recommendations, etc.

We are glad to have you as part of the community (left-wing trolls, mobies, birthers, Alex Jones listeners, and nuts excluded). Just create an account and be prepared to be a good neighbor in the RedState community.

Oh, and I highly recommend, as with any community, getting a feel for the norms of the community. It’ll help.

The one Republican committee that functioned well this year and last was the Republican Governors Association.

Haley Barbour and his Executive Director, Nick Ayers, are political scalp collectors and quite successful at it.

Tonight they are going to have a special phone call at 6:30 to talk about the GOP Comeback. Only the first 1000 people will be able to get on the call. They’ve set aside some space for RedState readers.

Go here if you want to be on the call and talk to Governor Barbour tonight.

In case I forgot to mention, we’ve set up a stand alone website where you can sign up to get our Morning Briefing for free.

We send it out every morning before sun rise. It’s show prep for your day. It is totally free.

If you are interested in getting it, go to www.redstatemb.com. Just enter your email address and you’re good to go.

It really is what conservatives read first every weekday morning.

The problem with this essay on race by Texas Railroad Commissioner and Senatorial candidate Michael Williams is that you really need to read the whole thing: there are too many good bits to cram into just one snippet.  But a taste:

What grieves me most, however, is not that false cries of racism shortcircuit our debate, but that it makes legitimate concern about pockets of racism impossible to hear among the majority of Americans where it truly exists. Racism does still exist in America today – on both sides of the political spectrum. Now it will be that much harder to expose because the real cry will be impossible to distinguish from the false one, much like the boy who cried, “wolf.” Racism exists, but so does opportunity, and I can personally attest to the fact that there is far more opportunity than racism.

We have rid our institutions of government of the practice of discrimination; if only we could rid our political discourse of the ugliness that ensues when we ascribe discriminatory motive to statements with no obvious discriminatory aspect. New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd couldn’t help hearing a missing word in Congressman Joe Wilson’s outburst during President Obama’s speech to Congress. The Congressman yelled, “You lie.” Ms. Dowd couldn’t help hearing, “you lie, boy.”

While Congressman Wilson started a fire, Ms. Dowd poured fuel on it. The greater ugliness is not the inappropriate outburst, but Ms. Dowd intentionally injecting a word loaded with a history of racial condescension to label a whole movement of opposition.

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As you can tell, ever since we had our Gathering in Atlanta something dynamic and exciting has been happening around here.

Traffic is growing, press hits are coming — RedState is really on fire lately.

But . . . our server has been struggling to keep up with all of you.

So in a couple of hours we’re going to migrate to better equipment.

We’re not going to take the site down. We’re going to switch it over to read-only mode. You’ll be able to read, but not write. Sorry for the inconvenience, but it’ll solve the 500 errors we’ve been having, etc.

We’re operational until about 9 p.m. ET tonight. I’ll see you at 5 o’clock in the morning with the Morning Briefing.

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday night.

— Erick

Michael Williams is an amazing, dynamic speaker. He is the current Railroad Commissioner for Texas, and the odds on favorite to replace Kay Bailey Hutchinson when she leaves the Senate in the next few months. At times the room felt like an old time revival, with Michael drawing in the crowd with his eloquence combined with a genuinely friendly demeanor. Words really can’t describe it, just watch.

Michael Williams from David Thompson on Vimeo.

The RedState Gathering heard from many existing and rising Conservative stars, but the speaker who truly rocked the house, biggest crowd-pleaser, was Liz Cheney.  Her “America Needs Commander in Chief, Not a Global Community Organizer” speech was made of awesome.

Unfortunately, the available video clip does not convey the electricity that Cheney brought to the Gathering. It is a great clip from a fabulous speech, but the clip covers only four paragraphs, there was much, more to the speech, and many other quotable sound bites which resonated with the audience:

• It has become somewhat fashionable today to talk about conservatives and conservatism as a movement in peril. In some quarters, we’re said to be near death. I am here today to tell you that nothing could be further from the truth.

• We have learned that President Obama will not govern from the center, that he does not believe in American exceptionalism, that he thinks there is a moral equivalence between America and our adversaries, that he wants to expand the federal government until it permeates every corner of this land, and every aspect of your life, that he will raise everyone’s taxes, and that he thinks bureaucrats should choose our doctors, prescribe our medical care, and ration it if need be.

• Mr. President, in a ticking time bomb scenario, with American lives at stake, are you really unwilling to subject a terrorist to enhanced interrogation to get information to prevent the attack? Is it really your position that you would sacrifice American lives rather than use legal methods that we know work to get information that could save those lives?

• Wise men do not capitulate to terrorists simply because the terrorists file suit. Wise men do not welcome terrorists who have vowed to slaughter Americans onto the American homeland. Wise men don’t fret over whether a terrorist was read his Miranda rights. And wise men don’t deliver valuable information about how we gather intelligence into the hands of our enemies.

• Avoiding causing offense to our enemies has become a central tenet of President Obama’s foreign policy. It was this attempt to placate, to appease, not to cause offense that prevented President Obama from defending the rights of the Iranian people to free and fair elections.

• The purpose of diplomacy is not to be liked. The purpose of foreign policy is not to get applause in foreign capitals. The purpose of having a Commander-in-Chief and pursuing a national security strategy is to defend America’s interests, aggressively, effectively and unapologetically.

• Iran will not be disarmed because we talk them out of their weapons, or because we offer “apologies” for America, or because we look the other way as they continue to support terrorism around the world, or because we pretend we have mutual interests. Iran will be disarmed diplomatically only if they know we are serious about using military force if the diplomacy fails.

• America is fundamentally a conservative nation. We know that our greatness has been founded on a strong national defense, limited government, low taxes, the genius and ingenuity of the private sector, and a strong belief in individual freedoms. We know that government is more often the problem than the solution. We know that freedom isn’t free, that America’s armed forces are the best fighting force the world has ever known. And finally, we know that America is the best nation on earth, the best that has ever existed. We believe in her goodness, her strength, her hope and her example – for all who seek freedom in every corner of the world. Those are conservative values. Those are American values.

You can, and should, read the entire speech. The full transcript of her remarks to the RedState Gathering, as prepared for delivery, is available here.

When we are able to watch a video of the entire speech, hopefully, you will see the rock star moment the Gathering experienced listening to Liz Cheney speak. What you will not experience is the inspiring feeling of chatting with a confident Conservative leader. Cheney not only gave a terrific speech, she also had lunch with RedState Contributing Editors, was available to chat and pose for pictures with attendees, and even sat in the audience and listened to other speakers.

Note from Erick: Thanks to Liz for sending this on. This is the full transcript of her remarks to the Redstate Gathering, as prepared for delivery.

It is such a pleasure to be here in Atlanta to join you at the first Redstate annual gathering. I wanted to come to thank you personally for everything you do. First, to Erick Erickson, a true trailblazer, who has been making this all possible for many years. And to all of you who make the conservative blogosphere such a vital tool in 21st century politics and policy, it’s an honor to be with you. You all do hugely important work educating the American people, and holding our elected leaders and the mainstream media accountable. We are living at a critical moment in the history of the nation. We need you now more than ever, so I am here to say thank you and to urge you on.

It has become somewhat fashionable today to talk about conservatives and conservatism as a movement in peril. In some quarters, we’re said to be near death. I am here today to tell you that nothing could be further from the truth. All across the country, Americans are standing up to be heard at meetings like this, at tea parties, on blogs, at town hall meetings, and we see it in the polls — the message to the Obama Administration is clear — we have grave concerns about the path they’ve put us on.

As we meet today, six months into President Obama’s Administration, we have learned much. We have learned that President Obama will not govern from the center, that he does not believe in American exceptionalism, that he thinks there is a moral equivalence between America and our adversaries, that he wants to expand the federal government until it permeates every corner of this land, and every aspect of your life, that he will raise everyone’s taxes, and that he thinks bureaucrats should choose our doctors, prescribe our medical care, and ration it if need be. At his last press conference, we also learned that he doesn’t have much faith in policemen or pediatricians. This is not change we can believe in. It’s not the change the American people voted for.

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The subject: This administration’s lack of transparency!

The spokesperson for the Left: Jane Hamsher, of FireDogLake!

The battle:

…called on account of mutual agreement, more or less.

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Teh Twitter.

Once felt dumb to email about phone calls. Then came blogging email. Then tweeting blogs. And now, I’ve CALLED about tweets. Circle of dumb.
9:59 PM May 2nd from TweetDeck

… and now I’m blogging about calling about tweeting about blogging about emailing about calling … sigh.

Twitter had a lot to do with the successful pushback on the Playboy article and the Letterman “jokes”. It has helped drive a number of big stories the last two weeks. Like it or not folks, it’s here to stay. Well, for a while at least. It’s also a great way to keep up with what Redstate is doing and to annoy the snot out of @markosm. If you’re in the Redstate Army, it’s also a great way to track alerts. Resistance, in other words, is futile. You will be assimilated.

This is an OPEN THREAD. Feel free to use it to pimp your Twitter feed. See below the fold for my own recommendations.

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Moe’s already discussed this, but I think it bears more scrutiny.

My four year registration anniversary is coming up next month, so I remember when RedState was a tiny site. It felt like there were only a handful of us commenters, and we all knew each other. Of course this was long before I was an editor.

There were so few of us that the war against Daily Kos trolls felt like a war of survival. There was a reason for that: If the communities from similar sites on the left piled on over here, they’d overwhelm us. Their traffic was so far out of our league that the sites barely seemed comparable.

Not so today.

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This is a fun week. We had technical difficulties. So I left the podcast in Derek’s capable hands. It’s a great show this week taking on, yet again, the Amazing Adventures of Captain Cow Patty as he spreads his manure across Washington and fly over country.

Here’s a hard link to the podcast.

or listen here:

RedState is going in to maintenance mode tonight at 9pm to correction some issues. We’ll be down over night and back up in the morning.

Folks, we’ve added CapWiz to RedState effective immediately.

GO HERE.

You’ll be able to take direct action on RedState Alerts. The site will be jointly used by RedState and Human Events.

Go plug in your zipcode and it’ll give you the local office phone number for your member of Congress since the switch board is full in Washington.