Went and Saw the Houston Tea Party ...

As indicated before, this was a neocon event with some libertarian/Ron Paul trappings. I heard a Houston lawyer talk. Gave a rousing, well-rehearsed speech that hit all the hot-buttons of his target audience. (He will probably be a rising star in the Texas GOP, soon). He talked about "sending those in Washington an unmistakable message" - and then flopped by saying "... so, go ahead, write your Congressman." Oh no! Not the "w" word!! It's too strong!!! Right. If that worked, we wouldn't be where we are because that's what has been done all along, forever, since the days of the Founders.

The problem is that the Founders gave us the ballot box - but without a sufficiently explicit owners manual. In other words, by itself, writing to our Congressmen, etc., it's not effective. It must be followed up by the only thing that matters to them: the deprivation of their office.

A guy who studied Economics a the Mises Institute gave a speech after the lawyer and mentioned that one of his main heroes is Ron Paul. That got him a reaction out of only ten percent of the audience there. The rest were completely silent.

The location was the same as that of a Bush rally I attended in 2003. Downtown Houston, Jones Pavillon. There was about the same size crowd there as well, about three thousand or so, maybe one or two hundred more. All in all, a successful event one must say, but there was a palpable feeling the whole thing was put on by the same brand of Republican folks who lost their power in Congress and in the white house and who want to use this opportunity to get it back.

The news was there, of course and covered the event plenty. Better than the Bush rally back in 2003 when only Channel 39 (Warner) showed up bu never aired it.

It's funny how everybody goes right up to the point where the next logical progression would come in to make sure the incumbents in Congress who have been there for decades and who have by and large authorized everything that is happening to this country now must be fired, from now on until perpetuity unless they follow the Constitution. Yet - not a word. Not that explicit. Just hidden innuendos, but hey, what can you expect, right? Rome wasn't conquered in a day, either - and this country certainly has become Rome.

In other news, Governor wannabe-(again) Rick Perry told reporters privately after the Austin TeaParty that "Texans are fed up" and that if the federal government doesn't shape up, they might actually want to secede. Channel 13 KTRK (ABC affiliate) actually reported that. Makes you wonder Rick will keep that tune when the administration goes back into Republican hands next term. Probably not. It wasn't a statement about the Constitution although he tried mightily to couch it in those terms. It was about which party controls Congress and the white house. Nothing more. You could tell from his body language that he didn't mean a word he said over there in Austin. Who knows? He might be trying to follow GW and aim for a run at the white house. Hope his aim is better than Dick Cheney's - or maybe not.

So, the question remains: is this the beginning of the victory, the emergence of the Ron Paul Revolution into mainstream consciousness, or is the Revolution in the process of being subsumed into the GOP's efforts at regaining control? (Not that they ever do anything with that control once they have it, except push us further down the road of constitutional mayhem.) Are we strong enough to show the neocons that real Freedom and real Prosperity under the actual Rule of Law are the way to go, or will we let them use our slogans and our voices and faces, etc. just to get a chance to re-occupy the white house and capitol hill?

Only you can answer that question - and you can only answer it by your actions, from here on out - not by verbal or written protestations.

Time will tell ...