Why we MUST focus on the state and local level

(I just posted this on the local We Surround Them message board)

I received the minutes from the meeting last Friday in my email today. I read through it and saw one piece that bothered me enough to want to bring it up. Under the topics discussed, the point was made that:

"Though our future leaders will start locally, we really need to focus on national issues. Things are taking place so quickly in Washington and that's the ball we really need to concentrate on right now."

That really toubles me. First of all, I do not necessarily remember this being discussed at all. At least a discussion on whether Federal issues should take precedence over local issues. I think we have been listening to a statist lie for too long. They believe that all power should be centralized in the federal government, a belief not supported by our nations founding fathers. As result, the federal government is now making decisions dealing with our everyday lives... and as result of this, the focus of political action has moved from the local and state levels to almost 100% on the federal level.

It is worth noting that the 10th Amendment to the Constitution states that "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

I think this is often overlooked by people. Unless the Federal Government passes an amendment, they have no Constitutional authority to tell us what to do on the state and local levels. We have seen San Francisco recently pass ordinances in direct opposition to federal statues, and though that was just outright beligerence on their part, they still have the right to do so.

The federal government is trampling on state, local, and individual rights, and while the fight in Washington is desperately important, we must remember that we still have the power of the Constitution on our side! We need to put local and state officials into office who will say, "ENOUGH! YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO MAKE THAT DECISION FOR ME AND MY CONSTITUANTS!" Washington is too far gone right now to spend all of our time on it. We need to slowly chip away at it while (in my opinion) spending the majority of our time and energy watching and supporting local and especially state level politicians.

Life

Oh dear me, so much is happening right now. I will try and condense it into a short entry.

Garden:

We decided to start a garden. With the dollar poised to lose much of its value in the coming inflation, we all need to learn to live with far less than we currently do. One of our ways to prepare is planting a huge vegetable garden. We have basically turned our backyard into a giant garden. It is 22' by 22' which comes to 484 sq ft. Two weekends ago we broke ground and I dug up bushes and roto-tilled the whole patch. This last weekend I borrowed a friend's pickup and went and got two truckloads of compost from the local yard waste facility (free compost!) and spread it over the whole area. Then came the real work... mixing it in. I got the shovel and finished about 1/3 of the garden. I will just have to do the rest over the next few days. We have started our tomatoes, green peppers, eggplant and some other plants indoors so they will be ready to plant outside. On top of those, we will be planting colored peppers, zucchini, acorn squash, winter squash, sugar snap peas (we are starting those soon), cucumbers, pumpkins and herbs. I probably missed some, but it is a lot, and we are excited. Rather than call it a "crisis garden" like many are nowadays, we are calling ours a "Glory Garden" because we want to focus on God when we are working in it. I want our gardening to be a form of worship. I want the focus to be on glorifying Him, not trying to survive the current crisis.

We Surround Them:

On Friday we went to the local We Surround Them (9/12 Project) meeting. It was very neat. It is so nice to know that there are people who believe like we do. You would never know this from watching the news. I also made lots of connections with local conservative/libertarian politicians. I hope to become more involved with them and their organizations.

Why We Need to Arm Ourselves

I read an article today titled "Deadly Rampages Rack the Nation" and was not too surprised at what I found. I do not know about you, but it has seemed to me that there have been a lot more shooting around the country recently... and it is true. It is no surprise to me that as more people lose their jobs and disenfranchisement continues to grow, these shooting are spreading. We are bound to see more of it. So what should we do? These situations to could be averted or at least cut short by responsible citizens armed with guns. I love what Michael Badnarik (2004 Libertarian Pres. Candidate) said about capital punishment. He said when someone attacks him and he shoots them dead, that is capital punishment. Makes sense to me! Rather than restricting our gun rights, now is the time for the government to sit back and let the populace arm themselves in preparation for the extremely hard times coming.

I have armed myself and am probably going to start carrying everywhere I go. I feel it is nothing short of a moral obligation.