Gateway to November: Tea Party in St. Louis

The bizarre and unlikely rebellion known as the Tea Party began with only a few thousand people in a few dozen places on February 27, 2009. Those of us who were there in St. Louis or Atlanta, Chicago, or Los Angeles, feel a bit of trepidation as we approach the November 2 Mid-Term. Will we live up to our promise? Or will we live under the growing tyranny of debt, taxes, regulation, and corruption.

With so much at stake, let us pause one last time. Like a football team before the championship game, we need a moment to reflect on what we’ve done, to lend strength to our companions, to reinvigorate our determination, and to ask God’s favor. On September 12, the American conservative movement will clear its throat and prepare to sing to the world.

In Washington, DC, Sacramento, CA, and St. Louis, MO, tens of thousands of Americans will gather one final time before the most important election in a century. We will do what we always do at Tea Parties: pray, speak, listen, sing, and celebrate. While we may be angry, we are also joyful that our words find so many welcoming ears, and that our voices blend with so many others.

We will gather together as a family, full of the drama and petty disagreements that seemed so important–so life or death–a few weeks ago. They weren’t important, of course. They were frivolous. But human nature makes mountains out of mole hills. Until fate places a real mountain in the path to our destiny.

That mountain is debt, government, corruption, and depression. Its malignant foliage is stolen power, plundered treasures, and trampled rights. And while that mountain looks mighty and strong, we know that Jericho’s walls fell to trumpets and prayers. We know that faith can move a mountain.

In 1787, while leaving the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin posed a challenge to the nation. When asked what the convention wrought, Franklin answerd, “A republic – if you can keep it.”

On November 19, 1863, Abraham Lincoln, in the most celebrated speech in American history, defined the challenge facing America: whether or not a nation “conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal . . . can long endure.”

Our challenge is simple: will we go down as the generation that let America fall? Or will history note that we righted the nation on its precarious high-wire act spanning the twin chasms of anarchy and tyranny?

The Founders–the signers of the Declaration–swore a powerful public oath to each other. “[W]ith a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”

When they spoke of “protection of divine Providence,” they didn’t necessarily have physical safety in mind. They were talking about their immortal souls.

When they pledged their Lives, they were not talking about their free time, but about their mortal existence.

When they pledged their fortunes, they meant every last penny. Hamilton, Jefferson, Morris, Penn, and many others died penniless or deeply in debt.

And when they wrote of their “sacred Honor,” well, seventeen fought in the Revolutionary War, five were captured by the British, eleven had their homes burned. None recanted.

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In St. Louis, we will gather under the Gateway Arch–the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. We will have more than a dozen entertainers and speakers, including BigGovernment.com Editor in Chief, Mike Flynn. We will gather that one last time before November, to draw strength from each other. Our sacrifices in 2010 pale to puny insignificance when compared to the sacrifices of the Founders. So does so much about us.

I saw Ronald Reagan and Bob Hope under the Arch just before Reagan’s re-election in 1984. I was four days from leaving for the U. S. Navy, and Reagan was two days from his last election–a certain landslide. Reagan asked, point blank, “Will you vote for me this coming Tuesday?”

The crowd roared, of course. We’d still be voting for him if we could.

He asked for the vote because not asking means you don’t care. So I will ask you this: Will you meet me in St. Louis on September 12? Will you sing and cry and clap with me? Will you bring your children and, on the way, tell them they are about to witness a pep rally for liberty? Will you bring a veteran and thank him or her for the privilege of standing shoulder to shoulder? Will you make September 12, 2010, the gateway to victory in November?

And when you leave those fairgrounds in St. Louis, Washington, or Sacramento, will do one more thing? Will you, on your way home, stop and tell two people–friends or strangers–where you were and why you went?

The date is September 12. The time is high noon. The place is the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. The reason? Well, the reason is simple. This is our next rendezvous with destiny.