A potpourri of political events

In times past I used to do a weekly election calendar. This won’t rise to that level but there are some upcoming items I think the local peeps ought to know about, with many courtesy of the Worcester County TEA Party. I love the smell of activism in the morning…or any time of day for that matter.

That same TEA Party group meets this coming Friday, March 9 at 6:15 p.m. at the Ocean Pines Community Hall. Their speaker will be Worcester County Commissioner Virgil Shockley, who will talk about the possible impact this bill will have on our county and on school funding in general.

The Ocean Pines venue will be used for Election Integrity Maryland’s poll watcher training on Tuesday, March 20 from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. The same class will be held once again in Salisbury on Saturday, March 24 from 10 a.m. to noon. In both cases, the cost is $25 and you can register at the EIM website. Questions? Contact Cathy Keim at 443-880-5912 or e-mail her: cathy.keim (at) electionintegritymaryland.com – she’ll certainly steer you in the right direction.

Another interesting event held by the Worcester TEA Party will be on Friday, March 23 when they hold a mock GOP Presidential debate. Of course, we won’t have Mitt, Rick, Newt, or Ron there but their proxies will certainly give a good accounting for the candidates just in time for the April 3 Maryland primary (as well as Delaware’s on April 24.) This will be at the Ocean Pines Community Church beginning at 6 p.m.

And of course they’re going to have a bus departing for the Hands Off My Health Care Rally in Washington D.C. on Tuesday, March 27.

Why do I bring all these local events up?

Well, for too long most people have been passive about the role of government. Yes, you have the absolute political junkies like me who have actually dipped their toe into the process over the years but prior to the Obama regime we were a very select group – maybe one of 100 who had varying levels of involvement in the political arena. Once the TEA Party fired up, though, our ranks seemed to swell up overnight.

However, it’s very hard to maintain a level of passion as a citizen activist for a long time, which probably explains why the norm is perhaps 1 of 100 people. The people who came in early on, well, a few have stayed around and entered the fray but many more have either become disillusioned by the lack of progress or found that real life interfered with those things they wanted to accomplish in the political world. Certainly I can’t blame them – one disadvantage our side has is that it’s mainly populated by the producers and most of them are more concerned with keeping their businesses afloat, their families fed, and their everyday tasks than they are with making it to every TEA Party rally. The Occupy movement could camp out day after day because they lived off handouts – well, no one is giving our side a free lunch.

So one thing we have to do as a movement is recruit, recruit, recruit. I’ve used this Eisenhower quote before because it rings true:

“Politics ought to be the part-time profession of every citizen who would protect the rights and privileges of free people and who would preserve what is good and fruitful in our national heritage.”

Too often we lose our political clout because the burden is placed on those precious few people who are willing to work to see things through over the long-term. Certainly it’s discouraging to be on our side at times because we always seem to have the deck stacked against us: a hostile media, an apathetic public which is seduced by government promises and goodies, and so forth. No one likes to have their brains beat in constantly like Rocky Balboa, yet sometimes that is the fate of those who desire freedom rather than the tyranny of an overarching state. One can say that Andrew Breitbart, who reportedly had health issues over the last year of his life, was a recent casualty of the intensity needed to maintain this fight over the long haul.

But the more people we can draw to our cause, the easier the job becomes for the rest of us. That’s why we all need to become activists at the local level.

I’ve written on many occasions for the national audience, but this website maintains the local focus it has because this is my adopted hometown and I’m looking to improve it. Others may get into the personalities, but I want to get tangible improvements and reasoned expenditures of our tax dollars. The solutions I proffer may not be the most popular choices, but I contend they are the correct ones. That’s why I keep doing what I do, even if it doesn’t always succeed in the short term.

As I said to a friend of mine today, “I never give up and I never give in.” Compromise may sometimes be the prudent course, but I see retreating even an inch as a defeat and, in the end, I’m in it to win it.

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer.