Welcome to The Morristown Tea Party Tax Day Rally. Since you’re here I hope you are prepared to get involved. Attending this rally, while it shows support for the grassroots movement to restore America to founding principles, is not nearly enough. Please don’t go home today, pat yourselves on the back, and say that you have contributed or made a difference. The effort to restore fiscal responsibility to Washington and Trenton and the need to hold our elected representatives accountable for their actions and omissions will require far more work than spending a few hours here on this historic Green.
We are facing an opponent, which you can describe as liberal or progressive, take your pick, that has a far different vision of the America which our children and grandchildren will inherit than we conservatives, and they have been mobilizing for years, building a ground game to get out the vote, indoctrinate the electorate, and silence those of us on the right.
So, what can you do – how can you become engaged – how do you find like-minded citizens who will be at your side as join this battle?
About a year ago, I began an initiative for The Morristown Tea Party – an effort to make involvement by more people, in more local towns, a reality. I devoted over 1000 hours of my life last year. I personally spoke to over 1000 people, in small groups in their homes, educating them, supporting them, and helping them to find their voices. The results of that initiative can be seen here today as we have formed a number of local chapters of TMTP throughout Northern New Jersey.
I direct your attention to the tables at the far end of The Green, directly opposite this podium. There you will find representatives of local groups serving the following areas: The Greater Basking Ridge Area, Montville, Lake Hopatcong, Succasunna-Roxbury, Pompton Plains-Wanaque, Scotch Plains-Fanwood, West Essex and The Greater Summit Area. Some groups are newer; others are firmly entrenched in their areas. They are impacting local, county, state and national politics, they are monitoring their local towns’ fiscal spending, they are impacting their own taxes, and thus their own wallets. More importantly, they are forming the structure we need to influence candidate selection and win elections. They are the “Boots on the ground” in their towns. This is how you make a difference. Find the group closest to you, speak to the representatives, and join them. If you don’t find a group close enough to you, see me and we’ll form one – and you will be a part of its formation.
Understand that there is a price to pay for the God-given liberties we enjoy in America. That price is your involvement in the government of this nation and this state. You have a duty to educate yourselves as to what is going on in our nation, to be ever vigilant to the actions of our representative and to mobilize yourselves to safeguard our liberties by raising your voice, exercising your vote, and bringing pressure on those chosen to represent us.
I for one have grown tired of being told to be politically correct, to avoid the use of rhetoric that inflames, to be civil, to compromise, to just get along. I will not guard what I have to say, while our opposition hurls epitaph after epitaph at us. I will not pull any punches while fear mongers on the Left use class envy and race baiting against us, I will not restrain my passions while every call for fiscal responsibility is met with accusations that conservatives want to kill children and seniors.
We are talking about our freedoms, which have been eroded through the decades by progressive legislation, which is based on the redistribution of wealth and the growth of an all knowing, bureaucratic leviathan of a government, that will control every aspect of our lives. If you won’t fight for your freedom, what will you fight for?
Do you remember the movie Braveheart, the famous words of William Wallace to his troops before the Battle of Sterling?
“Yes. Fight and you may die. Run and you will live, at least awhile. And dying in your bed many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that, for one chance to come back here as young men, and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but will never take our freedom?”
Are those words too extreme for the battle we face today? Is the rhetoric too high? Remember the words of Barry Goldwater, “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
If you believe that we are merely engaged in a debate of ideas, that whatever the outcome, America will continue on as it has in the past, that our way of life will merely experience some slight inconvenience, then I suggest that you have not been paying attention the last two years.
We are at war, a so far bloodless war, for the very soul of America. The winner of this war of ideas will determine the America that future generations will inherit.
Will the idea of personal responsibility prevail over the idea of the nanny state, taking care of our every need in exchange for our freedoms?
Will the idea of free markets, complete with entrepreneurship, and unlimited potential prevail over government owned or subsidized businesses, selective bailouts with taxpayer money, and central planning by bureaucrats who have never risked their treasure or run a business.
Will the ideas of American sovereignty, secure borders, and respect for those who immigrate here legally and contribute to our society win out over the current politically correct pandering to those who violate our laws and cross our borders with impunity, resulting in their being rewarded with the fruits of our labor and given preferential treatment to legal, taxpaying American citizens.
Will the idea that the Constitution is a sacred document and the foundation upon which our nation was formed fall to the idea that the Constitution is just an outdated piece of paper, no longer relevant in today’s society, and therefore no longer binding on the people or the government.
Imagine if you will the future that you will leave to your children, the inheritance that you pass down to your grandchildren under each of these opposing ideologies. Will future generations be dependent on an all powerful government for their healthcare, their livelihood, their education, their housing, their every need, yet surrender more and more of their income, more of their responsibilities, more of their choices, and yes, more of their liberty in return, or will they be the makers of their own dreams, their own future, responsible for their own lot in life, faced with unlimited potential and opportunity if they are willing to make the sacrifices, and achieve the goals necessary to be whatever they aspire to be.
We are indeed at war. There can be no compromise. There can be no partial peace. How do we compromise on the loss of liberty and enslavement of our children to an unconscionable debt? We must defeat the liberal, progressive ideology that is neutering our country. We must oust from office any and all, regardless of party affiliation, who do not espouse the simple tenants of individual liberty, personal responsibility, free markets, and a limited government, exercising fiscal responsibility and compliance with its Constitutional authority.
The Left will stop at nothing to win this ideological war, and with the support of organized labor, has a formidable ground game in place. The media, the supposed watchdog for the citizens, has prostituted itself to the status of a propaganda machine. It will all come down to you and you and you and you. Do not be lulled into thinking this can wait.
America has survived external threats of all kinds. There is no outside force that can defeat this great nation. Our greatest threat comes from within and it is supported by an ever increasing number of citizens who believe in entitlements without contribution, from a people infected with class envy and enslaved by their political masters who pander to their every need in return for their vote. The current administration, as well as the progressives throughout national, state and local government, poses a greater threat to the survival of our republic than any foreign force we have faced. Whether due to total incompetence or malicious intent, they are the clear and present danger we face today.
Let me quote the words of Cicero in 42 BC: "A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly. But the traitor moves among those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the galleys, heard in the very hall of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor - he speaks in the accents familiar to his victims, and wears their face and their garment, and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation - he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city - he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared."
My fellow patriots, America has been infected with a cancer that is destroying us from within. Our government has been co-opted by a sleeper cell of radical socialists put in place decades ago. If we allow this group to remain unchanged, we will have forfeited the inheritance of our children and grandchildren, which has been safeguarded and nourished by the sacrifice, blood and commitment of generations of American citizens. If we fail to overturn the radical agenda of this corrupt regime, we will forever be branded as the generation that refused to fight, the generation that lost the Dream, the generation that forgot that this country was founded under a Divine Providence to forever be a beacon of hope and liberty to the entire world.
I cannot fathom telling my children and grandchildren that I allowed the destruction of this great nation to happen on my watch. What about You?
Nico Rago
