My name is Jeremy Blosser, and I am a Republican. I am a pro-life, pro-family Christian who homeschools his four children. I was raised to revere the words of Reagan, Washington, and Augustine, and in 1996 I had a Sheriff remove a Democrat protestor from a polling place near my univeristy in Indiana so that I could vote for Bob Dole. This year I am a delegate to the 2008 Texas State Republican Convention from Senate District 10 in Tarrant County; this will be my first time there.
I am also a supporter of US Congressman and Republican Presidential Candidate Ron Paul, and have been for around ten years. I support without reservation the need for a sound monetary policy, truly limited government, an immediate end to an interventionist foreign policy, and a return to strict Constitutional limits on the national government and the return of nearly every issue to the States. I believe that while the State is the proper authority for protection of individual life, liberty, and property -- including the life of the unborn -- voluntary activity by private institutions like the Church is the proper authority to promote matters of individual morality and societal virtue, including domestic and international charity and the protection of the family unit.
The combination of these two things has put me somewhere in the midst of one of the more contentious stories of this election cycle. From Alaska to Missouri to Washington to Nevada, Republicans new and old are raising a stir at their Party conventions. Tarrant County has not escaped this phenomenon, of course. All three of the Senate District Conventions held here on March 29th experienced some fireworks, though they ran the gamut from peaceful to contentious.
This local activity, combined with the news from across the country, has many wondering just what the "Ron Paul people" have planned for the Texas State Convention, and why. Do we aim to ignore the rules or break the law, as some have suggested? Do we intend to hide our true colors, whatever they are, in an effort to sneak through to the National Convention and join our brothers-in-arms in some grand party coup d'etat? Do we hope to gut the party platform in the name of some secret Libertarian or even Democrat agenda?
The truth is a good bit more boring than any of these; or at least, it should be. The reality is that most of us don't know exactly what our end goal is, but we know it starts with a conversation, and we have been amazed at how much hostility we've encountered just trying to get that far. Yes, most of us started out working toward the Republican Presidential Nomination of Ron Paul, and quite a lot of us haven't given up on that yet. We believe in miracles, and this country needs one. But along the way our eyes have been opened more and more to the problems and corruption within the current Republican Party, and the need for a restoration of real Republican principles among the Party in general and the Party leadership in particular. We have found that if we want to have a chance to even discuss wider goals and the direction of this country we must first struggle for an open forum.
Given the recent losses the Party has faced around the country and the repeated line from experienced Republican grassroots activists that the Party needs new blood, one might expect the Party leadership would welcome an opportunity to debate the current state of things with new, highly motivated volunteers. Instead, convention officials across the state have gone out of their way to quash any debate and close ranks against new people, with comments made in more than one location that action was being taken on the advice of the Republican Party of Texas headquarters in Austin. In Parker County, the County Chair was challenged at the County Convention for not providing access to precinct convention records as required by Party Rules, then refused to allow that challenge an independent hearing at the Convention and told the body if they rejected the combined report they would not have a Convention. In Nueces County, the Chair was also challenged for not providing access to precinct convention records. The Credentials Committee at that Convention ruled the challenge without merit, then proceeded to add delegates not elected by the people in the precinct conventions. This is a flagrant violation of both the Texas Election Code and Party Rules, and the recording from that Convention is frankly chilling. It can be heard here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=s-fARjv3tFk. Amazingly, the Nueces County Chairman is still insisting they did nothing wrong. These are two of the more extreme examples, but violations and abuses were reported statewide.
Here in Tarrant we also had difficulty initially gaining access to public convention information, although County Chair Stephanie Klick was quick to remedy this. When we were able to access this information we were disturbed to see that many of the precincts in SD 10 which passed platform resolutions in line with Ron Paul's campaign platform (and, for that matter, the platform of the Republican Party of Texas) had their paperwork flagged, for unknown reasons and with unknown consequences, though the SD 10 Nominations Committee Chairman gave a speech to his Committee making it quite clear at least his goal was to severely limit the number of Paul supporters elected to the State Convention. Worse, at least two packets were modified after they were turned in to add delegates, in complete violation of both the Texas Election Code and the Rules of the RPT. One of these led to a challenge at the SD Convention that resulted in a Colleyville City Councilman not being seated.
That was unfortunately only the beginning of our problems at the SD 10 Convention, where Chairman Stuart Lane repeatedly ruled against calls for the principles of debate and discussion and in favor of maintaining the status quo. This began before the Convention started, when he indicated on mulitple occasions his willingness and desire to shut out the group of new people. He sent an email via the county Party mailing list on the eve of the Convention warning that the Ron Paul people were coming and had to be stopped. (A response I wrote clarifying what we really were and were not hoping to achieve was not distributed by the Party.) The scare tactic apparently worked, as many of those that showed up to the Convention were more interested in making us go away than in what we might have to say. Despite accusations that we intended to disenfranchise voters, those opposed to us had no problem leaving our duly elected delegates behind and sending delegates to state that were not elected by the voters of their precincts, including the aforementioned Colleyville Councilman who added delegates in his precinct after the election. We nevertheless worked to assert our rights throughout the day, and while some clearly considered this a waste of time, we have been told by many that our efforts were both understood and appreciated. The Convention did enthusiastically vote through many of our proposals for the Platform, although on at least one occasion initial support for a resolution turned to opposition when it became clear the "Ron Paul people" supported it.
This is all in stark contrast to the SD 12 Convention, where Chairman Tom Quinones made an effort to open a dialogue with the new people and make sure their rights were respected. Some talk has been circulated regarding a deal between Quinones and the Ron Paul supporters; from our perspective the deal was essentially that he would continue to be fair and not give us a reason to contest him, and we would not contest him for no reason. The end result was that the Ron Paul people had an opportunity to work with the existing base toward the future good of the Party, and given that opportunity many friendships were made and the lines of communication were opened. This is exactly what the Republican Party desperately needs. And yet at a Tarrant County GOP Club last week, the other member of the SREC from SD 12 was still willing to state that the current Party Chair had plans to deal with the Ron Paul "undercurrent," whatever that means.
The issues at stake here go deeper than the presumptive nomination of John McCain, bizarre as that notion is to any conservative. They go deeper than the hostility and organized shutout attempts directed at Ron Paul's supporters, at a time when Party numbers are dwindling and new blood is needed more than ever. They go deeper than the economy, or the war. They go to the survival of the party system itself as the means by which We the People exercise our right "peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." They are the very core principles of a deliberative assembly, defined in Robert's Rules of Order as "a group of people, having or assuming freedom to act in concert, meeting to determine, in full and free discussion, courses of action to be taken in the name of the entire group." (RONR, 10th ed., pg 1) There is simply no way a Party can or should succeed without honest debate, equitable representation, and open participation. This is fundamental to the notion of a republican form of government.
Given the treatment we have received so far and John McCain's success at the polls, some would no doubt suggest we should give up. Those oppossed to us would no doubt prefer it. But one of the many, many lies told about Ron Paul supporters is that we are the kind that run away from a fight over what is right. The level of hostility we have encountered is certainly discouraging, but rather than giving up we have looked to the past for inspiration and wisdom. As George W. Davis, one of the settlers at Gonzales at the start of the Texas Revolution, said, "You are not interlopers or intruders on the rich inheritance of liberty; your share of these rights, were bought and nobly paid for by the blood and toils and suffering of more than one ancestor. Your Ancestors in the first place have been long on the soil contributing to them, subduing the wilderness and the early settlement of the country bearing all the toils and hardship natural to such enterprises. And when the great war for liberty was commenced sacrificing every comfort and convenience and cheerfully taking up arms for the great cause, never ceased nor quit until the great work was accomplished and this country saved." We believe that if a small group of settlers with one cannon stuffed with scrap metal could stand up to the Mexican Army and so begin the fight for Texas Independence, we can stand up to bullies who don't even have the law on their side.
We certainly prefer diplomacy and friendship first, and are not seeking a fight; the Declaration of Independence reminds us that, "all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed." Fortunately the Founders of this country and the past custodians of this Party have given us methods to address despotic leadership without needing to abolish anything, and our hope is that many in the Party will join us as we press forward and demand a fair State Convention. We hope they will do this regardless of our agreement or disagreement on the issues, and the Party leadership will hear us and grant these basic demands. Once we all establish that we will have a fair convention that respects the rights of all duly elected delegates, we will have a forum to discuss what the Party needs moving forward, and debate different methods of achieving this. And once the debate is heard, those with the majority will win the day, and those in the minority will work to grow their numbers and influence and try again later. That is politics, after all, and for now at least that's all we in Texas are seeking.
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