TEA Party / Liberty Rally

photos courtesy of Daniel Foucachon

April 15, 2010 - Friendship Square, Moscow
What a great day for a rally! Over 400 liberty-loving people turned out to celebrate the principles of freedom, liberty and limited government.

Gresham stepped onto the stage after a heartfelt endorsement by Ethan Wright (board member of Palouse Liberty Project) with a crowd-rousing greeting.  "We need to be peaceful, but we don't need to be quiet. Let's hear it for Liberty! "

And over 400 voices responded with heart and spirit, letting loose a huge cheer, the first of several to erupt as Gresham shared how he embarked on the journey for elected office and the importance of getting involved on a local and state level.

Speaking of which, if you haven't yet clicked on the 'be a part of it, Volunteer'  button in the right sidebar, will you do so today?  Latah County needs liberty-minded people to step up and join the battle.  Gresham is willing to serve in Boise, but he needs the good people of District 6 to stand with him.  That button will take you to a form, where you can indicate the different ways you can help.

And if you haven't yet donated to his campaign, would you please give it serious thought?  Unseating an entrenched incumbent is a difficult task requiring resources and a groundswell of grassroots support.  Even small donations add up, and Gresham is grateful for every single dollar invested in the effort to send a strong, conservative voice to Boise.

Thank you for your support, Latah County voters!

On May 25th, vote Gresham Bouma,  For Liberty.  For the People.

Below are Gresham's Rally remarks:

I don’t know about you, but I’ve noticed a few problems with our government lately. Here is a little list: our country is being bankrupted by the political class, industry is being driven overseas, our freedoms are being turned into slavery, the burden of government is growing even as the private sector is shrinking, government reporting is full of fraud, transparency a broken promise, big government bailing out corrupt big business with taxpayer money, rural Idaho itself being attacked through the introduction of the wolf, and the list goes on.

In the face of all that, I felt helpless. I had no ability to impact DC. All the phone calls, e-mails were falling on deaf ears.

I decided that trying to change DC directly was a waste of time. By myself I was one meaningless voice with no leverage, and DC was a stronghold. I concluded two things: 1) that it is time for all of us who love our country to become much more engaged, and 2) we needed to use the state to impact the federal government.

I looked for someone to support to send to our state legislature, someone who understood that almost every problem I was seeing was solved if we simply followed the Constitution. I was not seeing what I hoped for, so engaging for me meant running for office to join with others to assert Idaho’s interest in the Constitution.

We need to demand this of our state representatives: that they make Idaho a line of defense for “we the people”.

Those responsible for putting us where we are need to go. We need to replace them with those who will protect the unalienable rights to life, liberty and property. We need to hold our state and local governments to these old standards that define the purpose of government. It is time for phone calls, letters and e-mails to our state officials. Let's let them know that the people of Idaho want some protection. If the states will do their job we can win this battle. But it won’t happen if we all don’t engage. 

I am excited. We can do this! All across this great land people are waking up to the importance of state sovereignty.  They need our help, and we need theirs. Let's change Latah County for freedom. If we change Latah, we change Idaho. If we change Idaho, we are changing the United States.

May God Almighty and His Son, my Lord, grant us success.

Gresham Bouma,
4/15/2010 Tea Party Rally
Moscow, Idaho

posted by P. Bauer
Campaign Manager

Unalienable Rights and Rule of Law

Unalienable rights are fundamental to our system of government. They were the justification for our Declaration of Independence. It was in defense of these rights that our founding fathers risked and gave their lives. The same principle that made these rights unalienable gave us what we call the “rule of law”. Both unalienable rights and the rule of law are the result of believing that there is a set of moral laws that exists above all men and all governments. Our founding fathers understood the Ten Commandments to be a summary of this moral law. Therefore, the Commandments, and Christianity itself, provided the foundation of our system of government, and our system of justice. Individual rights are a product of Christianity because first of all God made man in His own image—giving dignity to the individual; God also says that He is the defender of the powerless, the weak, and the vulnerable—ultimately He will see that justice is done; and God's moral law applies to all of the human race from the most powerful to the least. The attack on this philosophical basis for our govt. has come from the humanist philosophy and its Theory of Evolution. The Theory of Evolution gives you no basis for individual rights or a rule of law. The individual does not matter, only the species. Compassion, care for the weak , helpless, aged, handicapped and/or powerless are not encouraged since they contribute only to the weakening of the species or wasting of resources. There are no moral absolutes, no ultimate accountability to a higher authority. It should be no surprise at all that we witness the “rule of law” being violated and our system of government being dismantled before our very eyes. We have destroyed its foundation and are left with the racist Darwin and his admirer Marx to guide us.

No More Water in the Beer

I have been sounding the alarm on our debt/spending/money supply problem since I started writing letters to the editor.  I believe Ron Paul said it best: that if we could really continue what we are doing with our money indefinitely, Americans would never have to work again.  We would just supply the world with currency, and they would support us for it.  But we are like a brewing company which is continually watering down its product, eventually the patrons will notice.  No matter how drunk they are.  Even if they want to defer the hangover as long as possible.  You get too liberal with the hose and their demand for what you are selling will dry up.  All it takes are a few loud, belligerent complainers and the party is over.

The implications of no longer being able to move tomorrow’s spending into today are serious.  We would lose the subsidy to our lifestyle that we have come to rely on over the course of decades.  To go beyond that and actually begin to pay down our debt would be even more of a challenge.  But to ignore it all and continue to print more dollars to lend to ourselves is a cheap trick that will eventually be exposed.  I have read that financial prudence is not a winning platform and therefore America will continue its degenerate path; but I believe that there is a common-sense sector in our society that recognizes that governments are incapable of miracles.  They know that Madoffs eventually get punished and Enrons are exposed, but not without a lot of innocent people getting hurt along with them. 

It is time to get rid of all the bums that have perpetuated the fraud and theft that this amounts to, and vote people into office that have some foresight and integrity.  It is time for leaders who won’t spend us into poverty, regulate us into immobility, all while making themselves rich.  Let’s change the leadership in this country starting at the state and local level and work all the way up.  It is time to opt for the hangover instead of the blood poisoning.

Vote Bouma for Idaho Senate.

Dark Days

We as a nation are facing some of the darkest days in our short history. At question is whether we will survive as a free people. Threatening our existence are mountains of debt, of a size never before seen in all of world history. When I was still in college more than 25 years ago, I was assured that government spending could grow indefinitely, as long as it grew at a slower pace than the economy. Now decades later we can look back and observe the results. Our federal government uses off-budget spending, government sponsored entities, and other “Enron type” tricks to mask its true spending. Economic growth has averaged around 3% for the past 25 years. During the same period total federal government debt including government sponsored entities, off budget spending and the un-funded portion of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid has grown an average of 9.8%.

When examined more closely, in the ‘60s each dollar of new debt added almost a dollar of economic growth. However, as the debt load mounted each dollar of added debt resulted in less and less growth to the point where in the third quarter of ’09 the relationship turned negative. This rapid growth in total debt accompanied by a shrinking response in economic growth necessarily proves that the Keynesian theory of economics, on which much of our government action is based, is invalid. Deficit spending is harmful, not helpful like the government and press would have us believe. Recent history proves it. What will happen if the economy continues to stagnate, tax revenue declines, and government spending continues to grow unchecked?

Hey all you Liberals out There, Innoculate Yourself with a Little Freedom

One reason most of us are concerned about Healthcare Reform is because it represents a tremendous loss of our liberties, our personal control over health decisions.  To illustrate this we have only to review the recent swine flu hype.  It was apparent even in the initial breaking news on the “pandemic” that it was being presented as a far greater threat than it was.  As it developed, I heard rumors of mandatory vaccinations being promoted.   The rumors were a definite reality in the liberal state of New York, which attempted to require that all health care workers receive an inoculation.  At the national level the scare of H1N1 was fraudulently promoted, with the Obama Administration linking up with big pharma to push a multi application set of vaccinations.

Now, we can debate the merits of vaccinations, but in a free country it is a decision that is made by the individual, not the state or its bureaucracies.  In a free country you would not see a pharmaceutical industry protected from all liability related to a potentially dangerous product.  As you see power being consolidated at the top, be aware that big government responds to money and lobbying.  It necessarily has to rely on lobbyists to do what it does.   It does not even have time to read the regulations it approves, so how could it be authoring them?  The bottom line is, if you are in favor of ideas like mandatory vaccinations being once again employed on a national level, then empower the bureaucracies and monopoly-sized businesses with your vote.  If you think that it should be your own choice I would cast a vote for freedom.