Charlotte Teaparty. THIS WEDNESDAY.
Time: 2-4PM
Location: The lawn at City Hall (Old County Courthouse)
600 E. Trade St.
Charlotte, NC 28202
A few weeks ago I went on a little vacation. It was only for a week and the wife and I ran back to our family stomping grounds in Louisiana for a family event. I love traveling in America in the spring. The dogwoods blooming along I85 and I20 across the south are beautiful. As you travel tiny bursts of white dot the landscape of still dormant hardwoods. It reminds me that not everywhere in America is LA or New York City or Chicago and it reminds me that what we’re doing is important.
As we traveled we stopped about every two hours for either food or gas or… well, you know. Through quick conversations with gas station attendants, listening to the trucks on the CB and nighttime chats with the folks at the campgrounds that we stopped at with our travel trailer I happened on a piece of America that gets forgotten. The everyday, hardworking folks that are America. The “silent majority” who don’t have time to keep up with politics.
They’re not “entitled urbanites” or radical protestors. They’re just everyday people from all walks of life. They get up everyday and go to work so that people like me can get gas and food or find a place to sleep for the night. They’re the people that haul everything that you have from one place to another. They’re butchers, bakers and, I’m sure, candlestick makers. They’re the guy that owns a crawfish stand in central Louisiana and the lady that owns the donut stand in Alabama and the guy in Mississippi selling turnip greens on the side of the road. They’re lower class, middle class, upper class and they’re tired.
They’re out there every day, sweating to make the next mortgage payment, the next medical bill or the next semesters tuition for a kid that’s the first kid in the family to go to college. They haven’t “begged for help” and they haven’t been given any. In some places it’s been offered and turned down because it’s not the Governments place to help them and they know it. They don’t want help. They just want to be given the money that they’ve earned and be left alone.
In all of those places between Charlotte, North Carolina and Anacoco, Louisiana (just go ahead and Google it, you’ve never heard of it :0) everyone that I met had plenty to say about a lot of things. But in the end, all of the conversations turned to politics. I wasn’t looking for the conversations but in all of them the talk eventually turns to the state of the country. In all of them the economy comes up. In all of them the words, “but they’re all dirty and there’s nothing we can really do about it”, will eventually come up in one form or another.
We are, it would seem, a defeated people. When I heard this I tried to explain that there is still hope. That there are people out there that are just like them that are doing something about it. That there are, believe it or not, politicians in this world who are there for the right reasons and have the country’s best interest at heart. They are few and far between these days but they are there and they’re democrat, republican or independent so whatever your “political religion” you can vote for them but we have to find those people. Find them and vote for them and then find more like them and vote for them too. In the end though all of the conversations came back to a single question, “Yes, but what can we do… NOW.”
That’s, actually, a fair question. I had forgotten that, regardless of what the media would have you believe, we are a nation of “doers”. We didn’t get where we are through hand outs and government spending. We got where we are as a nation by doing. By getting up every morning between 5:30 and 7:00 in the morning and putting our backs into the work that was placed before us and making it go away. We want something that we can touch; something that we can get our hands dirty doing. We want to effect change now. Not in two years and not in four years. Now… today.
Here’s a little known secret. Politicians want to keep their jobs just like you and I want to keep ours. Other than the small few that want to do the right thing and hope for the best most of them will flip on an issue, any issue, if they believe that the right number of votes are in it for them. Knowing this gives us the leverage to make things change.
We all know that the way to “buy” a congressman is to donate money to his campaign fund. That works because the more money he has in that fund the more likely he is to get re-elected and keep his job. A congressman’s vote isn’t bought by that money. It’s bought by all of the votes that he can buy in the next campaign with the money that you give him. There’s another way though.
If enough of us stand up on April 15th and say, “THIS is what you are doing wrong. THIS is how you are losing our votes. THIS is what is going to happen to you if you don’t change the direction of this country and stop the spending” they’ll stop. They’ll have to. They are politicians and playing to the demands of the populous is what they do. Heck, it’s how we got in this mess in the first place. The “Silent Majority” sat on our hands for too long and let the noise makers influence our country into a socialist state and now we’re paying the price. If we stand up and say to them, “stop or you’ll lose our votes” then they’ll stop and they’ll stop today, simple as that. If they don’t, we’ll just stand up again on July 4th and again and again and again.
So, what can you do to change this country? What can you do to stop the spending and waste? You can stand up with us at the Old County Courthouse in Charlotte on April 15th from 2 until 4pm and tell them that you’re mad as hell. That’s all there is too it. You simply have to let the politicians know that there are millions of votes looking for the right person and if they become that person then they can have those votes. It’s like buying your own politician, only cheaper. Including travel time it’s a three hour investment in your future and in the country that we’re leaving to your Children. Heck, it won’t even be boring. There’ll be all sorts of fun things going on and you’ll be hanging out with people just like you. Call in sick, take the day off or take half a day off and leave early. Bring the family!
We’re not a bunch of radicals out to cause trouble. There are enough of those already and we don’t need more. We’re people just like you who are tired at the end of a days work and want more of the money that we earn to go into our pockets. Our backs ache, just like yours, from standing on our feet too long or swinging a hammer for too long. Our heads hurt, just like yours, from trying to sort out how we’re going to pay the electric bill, cover the school lunches and still have enough left over to take the kids to an occasional movie. You’ll find that you’re not alone in feeling betrayed. You’ll find that there is something that you can do. You’ll discover that there are indeed politicians out there that hear you and, with enough of us, you’ll find that even more politicians are willing to consider looking just a little more towards the goals and ideas that have made this country great. Best of all you’ll find that you’re not alone. You’ll be among friends regardless of your political orientation.
So, until Wednesday, enjoy the North Carolina weather and don’t forget to notice the dogwood trees.
Time: 2-4PM
Location: The lawn at City Hall (Old County Courthouse)
600 E. Trade St.
Charlotte, NC 28202
Jinksto