Biggest Upset in 100 Years
Matt Kibbe, of FreedomWorks, reported today that over 13,000 phone calls and 20,000 messages were received by the U.S. House encouraging House members to vote against Rep. Boehner for Speaker of the House.
In his correspondence Kibbe told supporters, “You more than doubled the number of Republicans standing up to Boehner when you got 25 Republicans to vote against the Speaker– the biggest number in 100 years.”
This is fantastic because these true representative heroes, (although, “defectors” from the elite Republican ruling class), stood on principle. They did not stand on personal gain, enhanced standing or promises for committee chair positions. They stood on principle!
This incident, with only twenty-five “defectors”, reminds me of a historical event – the Dissent of the Minority of the Pennsylvania Convention.
On December 18, 1787, twenty-three men wrote out their well documented and succinct reasons for opposition to the ratification debate regarding the proposed U.S. Constitution. They had numerous reasons, including taxes, standing armies, debt, and a well-founded fear that, “under the guidance of an arbitrary government, they may be made the unwilling instruments of tyranny.”
These twenty-three men, faced tremendous ridicule and harassment in their public lives. The start of the ridicule came in regards to some dire predictions (all of which have actually come true) and they were accused of voicing arguments whose, “harangue is long and insidious.”
The daily newspapers distributed rebuttals which also labeled them, “among the weak, the wicked and designing.” These twenty-three men were falsely accused of being of a, “disposition, beyond all conception, obstinate, base, and politically wicked.”
The anti-Federalists were actually right!
It is not the degree of political rancor that makes one decision right and another wrong. Neither is it determined by public sentiment or personal choice. It is not this particular vote or that one. Rather, right and wrong are stipulated by underlying principles. Right and wrong aren’t ever-changing, or indeterminate and they must be confirmed by historical experience.
For example, through the ages, murder and theft have been decidedly wrong. It does not matter how big your army is, or how ruthless your neighborhood gang might be – it is wrong to murder and steal.
The underlying principle concerns human rights and the unjustified killing of innocent human beings or the inherent self-evident rights of persons with regard to their property.
I think our experience today, confirms their good reasons for skepticism. Let’s see what these twenty-three patriots had to say:
“…the powers vested in Congress by this constitution, must necessarily annihilate and absorb the legislative, executive, and judicial powers of the several states, and produce from their ruins one consolidated government, which from the nature of things will be an iron handed despotism…”
AND…
“…the question then will be reduced to… whether… the people of America are now willing to resign every privilege of freemen, and submit to the dominion of an absolute government, that will embrace all America in one chain of despotism; or whether they will with virtuous indignation, spurn at the shackles prepared for them, and confirm their liberties by a conduct becoming freemen.”
Like these men, I too want to avoid becoming “the unwilling instruments of tyranny” and I want to thank you and these men for “conduct becoming freemen.”
Keep up the good work and don’t let your establishment Rep., whether Republican or Democrat, rivet any shackles around your ankles.
Establishment Republicans in the House have become too enamored with the Big Red “R” and the big money their offices control. They have lost sight of their founding principles. They have forgotten what limited government and free-enterprise look like.