The Power of the Network, Tenaciousness, and of Dedication to Personal Sacrifice, Part 1

Also posted at MADASHECC.

In the last couple of days I have had the importance of  some very valuable life lessons reinforced and they must be shared with all who desire to see our nation returned back to our founding principles.

I have a few stories to share and I hope these stories are as powerful to you as they have been to me.

I will start with my experiences from this past Thursday, the day I attended CPAC in Denver, Co.  I started off being very underwhelmed by CPACCO.  It was just another gathering of politicians looking to rise in popularity by saying the things we want to hear, but there was no real call to action or expression of not only that Conservatives need to get more active, but how we can go about it.  I mean, after all, this is the Conservative Political Action Conference, why are we just sitting around listening to speakers (mostly politicians) and not working on action?  In fact, I almost left when Romney made a surprise appearance (I admit, I was looking for a reason to leave) and the doors were closed due to the appearance, meaning anyone who left to use the restroom after Marco Rubio’s speech were locked out and not able to go back inside until after Romney spoke.  All in the name of “security”.  Maybe it really was because of security reasons, but one would think the organizers of an event of this magnitude would have enough foresight to warn attendees to not leave their seats, even if they weren’t at liberty to say why.

Well I didn’t leave and I’m glad I didn’t.

Now let me express to you how difficult these sort of events are for me.  While I’m an activist at heart and, unlike most people, I love public speaking, my biggest personal weakness is networking via face to face.  I have always avoided situations where I have to approach people because I’m terrible with “ice breakers” and small talk.  But more so I do not like to be rejected.  However, I attend events anyway when I can and I have found that the more I attend events, the more comfortable I become with interacting with strangers.  And because of this tenaciousness in my endeavors, I was thrilled and honored to have been able to attend the presentation by James O’Keefe.  I would have missed it had I left after the Romney incident. True to my grassroots activist nature, I found this presentation far more valuable than any of the ones put on by the politicians.  Let me just say, in case you don’t already know, that it is my opinion that Mr. O’Keefe is one of the most brilliant Conservatives in the movement today.  Since we lost Breitbart, really no one else but O’Keefe has taken up the torch quite as well as he has.  Who else is able to achieve so much by doing so “little”.  (Do not infer that I believe he does little, quite the contrary.  But he is able to get the biggest bang for his buck than anyone else.)  But never mind his brilliance, something he said really resonated with me.

He told the cold, hard truth.

A lady during the presentation asked O’Keefe what Conservatives who work in Union industries (namely, the nursing industry) are supposed to do when they speak out and fear that their speaking out could cause them to lose their jobs.  She went on and complained about how she’s been told to not talk so much about her objections to the union and she related that she has to back into parking places to hide her bumper stickers at her workplace.  She finally lamented how she cannot lose her job so she must stop speaking out and she was asking O’Keefe about what she could do about it.  I wondered what he’d say to her because I knew what I would have said to her and was interested in his response.  His response was an exact mirror to my own.  His paraphrased words were, “Ma’am, I’m sorry to have to say this to you, but you’re just going to have to be willing to lose your job.  You can’t be an activist and expect results if you’re not willing to go through some pain.  There will always be pain in what we do, you will be hated, you will be confronted, and your comforts will be threatened.”

BRAVO!

We as Americans have become too comfortable in our conveniences and and have too long allowed fear of the results of our actions to keep us from acting.  Remember when Eric Holder said that we have become a nation of cowards?  Well, why are we allowing his statements to become truth?  Why do we complain nothing is changing if we’re not willing to stand up and take action?  Where did our courage go?

Our founding fathers took up arms (and I’m not suggesting we take up arms…yet) and went into battle against the mightiest military force in the world at the time, do you think they complained about possibly losing their jobs?  And if they had, where on earth do you think our nation would be right now?  What language would we be speaking, what freedoms would we have?  The reason why we are losing our freedoms and our nation is because even though we speak about the spirit of 1776 and call out for a return to our founding principles, too many people are talking and too few people are acting.  Even at the Conservative Political Action Conference, it is all talk and no action.  We go to praise our politicians and to be able to say “I saw so and so speak at the Denver CPAC this year” but we don’t go to say, “I learned how to become more effective in my activism at CPACCO.”

Getting back to the James O’Keefe presentation, I can at least say that the organization that sponsored that event, The Franklin Center for Government & Public Integrity, did at least hand out a guide via their project Citizen Watchdog, called “Who Let the Watchdogs Out? A Citizen’s Guide to Taking Back America”.  A-HA!  Here is something I can really use!  If only we had more of this and less of the talk!

Finally, something else James O’Keefe expressed to the audience is that we as Conservatives must stop using the morality issue when debating with Liberals.  And the reason for this is because Liberals do not live by the same morals we do, so they will reject that argument every time.  We must be aware of their own rules and make them live by them.  We must frame our arguments in terms of their rules because they don’t mind breaking our rules; however, they cannot break their own.  In other words, we must fight fire with fire.  What I’d give for that message to resonate.  It’s exactly the message I’ve understood but have not been very effective at advancing.  Understandably, it’s a hard nut to crack because it would require us to start thinking more like Liberals and less like Conservatives.  Who wants to do that?  Nonetheless, we must make the effort if we hope to be as successful as James O’Keefe has been.

But getting back to the issue of action, it is because I see too many organizations and individuals seeking to be cheerleaders and not seeking to take responsibility for activating citizens that I have started theConservative Call to Action.  My organization will truly be about activating citizens and not just talking about the need to do so.  If you want to become involved with the CCTA, please contact me and I will find something for you to do.  If you have events, rallies, or very important information that needs to be acted upon, email it to me at [email protected] and I will work to try to help you build your attendance and awareness.  The CCTA takes no interest in complaining about things, we are only interested in taking action.  So if you have something to share, be prepared to share them along with your ideas of what actions we can take to make a difference with that issue.

We must become more active right now and we must stop waiting for someone else to do the things that need to be done.

Please stay tuned for the rest of this story.  I have more to tell.