Congrats to Winners of First Annual Defenders of Liberty Grassroots Activism Awards

First Annual Defenders of Liberty: Grassroots Activism Awards

original post via Doug landers here >>>

Saturday August 24, 2013 Tulsa Area

On Saturday, August 24, a group of over 60 liberty-minded individuals gathered on the back lawn of a local church in Tulsa, Oklahoma to celebrate the dedication of some of their local activists at the first annual Defenders of Liberty: Grassroots Activism Awards.

Award Winners with Event Organizers (Left to Right): Karen Cuellar, Peggy Burgess, Joanna Francisco,

Martha Vermillion (for Matthew), TC Ryan, Ronda Vuillemont-Smith, Ryan Underwood,

Amanda Teegarden, Samantha Jones, Maria Barnes, David Oldham

While this weekend we gave special recognition to but a few individuals, the efforts of all do not go unseen. Every sign planted, door knocked, cold call made, letter written to your representative, voter educated, idea communicated, and voice outspoken matters. This is a movement whose lifeblood is the individual, because it is one that finally recognizes that single entity’s power. This power is most feared by international bankers, power hungry politicians, corrupt lobbyists, and all their extensions of force. This power is called human energy; it cannot be controlled by those who seek control, but solely by the individual. This power can be temporarily stifled with taxes, regulations, oppression, starvation, torture, endless war, or even murder; but it cannot be stopped. The power to affect change is inherent in each and every one of us, each of you reading these words on the screen in front of you. You are a free and sovereign individual, whose duty is to claim the liberty that is rightfully his.

Today, we adorned our activists and community leaders with awards by the names of Lysander Spooner, Patrick Henry, and Samuel Adams; but one day, our descendants will be adorning their own heroes with awards named after the likes of Ryan Underwood, David Oldham, Amanda Teegarden and company. The ranks of the honored are but waiting for you, and as King Henry V so eloquently spoke in his Saint Crispin’s Day Speech:

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

Believe me when I say that it has been an honor to strive so valiantly alongside these noble souls for the cause of Liberty, and I look forward to the many battles we have yet to fight, the new friendships that have yet to be formed, and the brushfires to be lit in hearts and minds. Continue to fight the good fight, never back down from your principles, and keep sharing your ideas; you just may be a future recipient of an award at the next Defenders of Liberty: Grassroots Activism Awards.

 

Defenders of Liberty: Grassroots Activism Awards Winners, in Order Awarded

Thomas Jefferson Writers Award, awarded to Peggy Burgess

Peggy’s acceptance speech was short and sweet: “I wasn’t rebellious as a teenager so it’s only fitting I am as a 60-something year old lady.”

Patrick Henry Activist Award, bestowed upon David Oldham

David Oldham is known for fearlessly speaking his mind at town hall meetings, even to the Mayor himself.

Thomas Paine New Activist Award, given to Karen Cuellar

Paul Revere Messenger Award, awarded to Matthew Vermillion (accepted by his wife, Martha)

Frederick Douglas Award, bestowed upon Maria Barnes

Lysander Spooner Award, given to Ryan Underwood

Samuel Adams Statesman of the Year Award, awarded to Amanda Teegarden

Award Winners (Left to Right): Martha Vermillion (for Matthew), Peggy Burgess, Ryan Underwood,

Amanda Teegarden, Maria Barnes, David Oldham, Karen Cuellar

 

Special thanks to Doug Landers for this post for Finding Gem & Sharing Them

and the OKGrassroots Network.

Congrats to all the winners and all those who helped!

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The Floor Fight that Should Have Occurred in Tampa; Now the Curtain has been Peeled Back

The stupid just doesn’t get any louder.  The person running for President really doesn’t need to be breaking rules, running roughshod over his own people and unseating whole delegations.  Nor should he even think about keeping minority reports from coming to the floor by disappearing chairmen and delaying convention buses arrival at the convention.  I cannot wait to see Morton Blackwell’s minority report and all about that bus ride to prevent us from hearing same.

Meanwhile Jeremy Blosser and the Grassroots team on the floor was doing everything possible to have a real convention and get a roll call vote, but the chair would hear none of that and ran roughshod over them and even booted the Maine Delegation.  If there is no such thing as rules and anyone can re-write them anytime, then we can all just ignore the party structure and get on with building the movement of ideas and limited government and finding ways to shut off the funding that allows some people to continue to try to milk the system.

It must be all in a paid political consultants’ days work when trying to make it look like all is well in Disneyworld.  Trouble is I wasn’t the only one who noticed this time.  It was glaring that there were cute blonde bouncy girls planted around the auditorium in little red dresses trying to get the crowd to look excited about the event.  There were signs passed out made to look like handmade signs that were so clearly NOT.  What hypocrisy.  Today, it is the talk of the town.  I wonder how one alienates the grassroots people and goes on to win the presidency?  If you want an event to be a coronation, then you at least have to make the serfs feel welcomed in the police state.

Did I mention stupidity overarching the doorway of the Republican Nation Convention?  Why would anyone except a lobbyist or someone looking for a consulting job even bother with the venue if we will be ignored at the mikes unless pre appointed for prime time viewing.  The real work of the Real Republicans is back home educating people about limited government and electing them to school boards and city councils and state houses and congressional offices where they can actually work to decrease government overhead and decline federal dollars with strings attached.  No Grassroots money should go to the RNC from henceforth and until grassroots principles are back in place and rules apply equally to all.

If we simply ignore the man behind the curtain, he will get bored with trying to act like he is in control of our lives when clearly he only makes matters worse and should be laughed out of town.

I hope we will discover the formula before we spend ourselves into third world status.

After this week, I remain skeptical that the RNC hierarchy of the Republican party will embrace the people or the philosophy and core principles of limited constitutional government when they have actually funded, utilized and endorsed the police state for their very own convention.  I do remain hopeful that the real grassroots people who believe in life and liberty and truly constitutional government are on the ground fighting in all fifty states and the territories too.  I know because I have met with many of them this week and shared information and promised to keep in touch.  To those I gave my card, I hope you read this and know that I salute your efforts and will continue mine!

May God be pleased to bless our efforts for Life and for Liberty in our Land in our Time!

Posted by Sandra Crosnoe for Finding Gems & Sharing Them

OKGrassroots

Looking Forward to Liberty – Ryan Underwood at Broken Arrow TeaParty July 4th

By request, here are my notes from today. Thanks to the
rain, the ink was disappearing as I was speaking!/ru

———————————————————–

I am not here today to talk about politics.

Let me tell you why.

For example, I’m not really interested in discussions about
this tax or that tax, because it amounts to debating whether
we should prefer a ball and chain around our ankles to a
yoke upon our necks.

In any case, as long as you are forced to pay tax to keep
your own homestead, you are a serf; the amount of such a
tax only defines the depth of your serfdom. Why do we not
hear impassioned calls for a “fair property tax” — which
would be none whatsoever?

The income tax forces you to share your profits with your
masters to further their own purposes. But even if you
object to the arrangement forced upon you, the property tax
says “you must work within whatever state profit-sharing
arrangement exists, or you will be homeless.”

Some people would like to tell you that one political party
or another, one political organization or another, or one
mass media demagogue or another is the answer. We have been
told this for as long as I can remember, for my entire life.

They tell you this because the last thing they want you to
realize is that the answer is actually within each one of
us. What we have been failing to do is to ask the right
questions.

I think I would receive much agreement here if I were to say
that stealing is wrong, regardless of whether or not it has
been legalized.

But is it wrong for the State, in the name of “law and
order”, to kill a man who resists stealing of his
possessions and furthermore refuses to be carted off to the
dungeon for mere defense of his property, with knowledge
that he would then both be in the dungeon and his property
would be taken to boot?

What about when the State lies about the value of a man’s
property, so that its self-interested taking of the property
can be spun as having come at less cost to the taxpayers?

Let’s go back a few generations with the “Ghost of Liberty
Past.” The economic historian Murray Rothbard wrote
extensively about colonial America, revealing scores of
events that have fallen down the public-school memory hole.

One such event is the Crown making a gift to William Penn of
what would later become Pennsylvania. The part of the story
that is not told is that it took Penn almost two decades to
successfully establish a government in Pennsylvania, because
the Quakers were not only not interested in political
government, but refused to consent to it, refused to
cooperate, and were otherwise incorrigible in their love for
liberty.

Another event that has been largely forgotten, when it has
not been misrepresented, is Shays’ Rebellion. The usual
story that is told is that farmers got themselves into debt,
declared war on the bankers, and were put down by state
troops with merely a dispassionate interest in “law and
order”. Well, the usual story omits a very important
detail: the “debt” that the farmers accrued was in the form
of unpaid taxes to the state of Massachusetts to cover debts
the state itself had run up. The mercantile interests
behind the state government, who would have profited from
the taxes, raised the army that put down the rebellion, and
thereby kept the poor in servitude to the state-connected
rich.

These stories hint at the reasons why Thomas Jefferson said
a little rebellion now and then is a good thing. He didn’t
mean post angry messages on Internet message boards. He
didn’t mean go door to door and try to convince people of
the correctness of your political views. Nor did he mean to
provoke violent confrontation, as anger and frustration
tends to lead to. He meant intelligent, calculated
resistance to political power, together with your families,
neighbors, and friends.

Do you really want independence on this Independence Day?
Resolve to do like the Quakers did. Buy some fertile land
somewhere you wish to live, and as time goes by, buy even
more land from the surrounding areas. Sell plots within
your land to family and friends who share your beliefs.
When someone comes in from some faraway government
pretending to have the authority to order you around,
politely tell them to leave and not to return.

They are likely to return anyway — given that government
will have no other gods before it — but by owning a large
area of land settled with people who refuse their demands,
their attempts at controlling you will be like trying to
ride a bicycle through a bog. Your little enclave will be
successful at practical resistance where the single family
hiding out in a remote Idaho homestead would not be. A
thousand such enclaves would send Washington D.C. into
bankruptcy proceedings.

If you can’t afford land, then find economic independence as
soon as you can. During the bailout votes, there was a lot
of talk about “Going Galt”, which is to essentially stop
working in order to stop paying taxes. But, if you are
broke, the power elite will have their way with you, because
he who has the money makes the rules. You will not be able
to buy the land, tools, and other capital you need in order
to live an independent life.

My suggestion instead is to work hard AND pay no taxes.
There is a bustling community on Craigslist of people
buying, selling, and trading everything under the sun, with
no government regulations or taxes involved. Spend your
time when you are away from your corporate job in the
official economy learning to do something that is valuable
in the underground, unofficial economy. And if you have not
yet redeemed your Federal Reserve notes for gold and silver
coin, for heaven’s sake, do so while you still can.

Maybe one day, we the people will have the power not only to
vote for a new crop of legislators, but to do as the kings
did when they would dissolve Parliament and send the whole
lot of scoundrels home for a year. Maybe we will one day
have the power to live our lives in our own style, following
our own moral code even when it is in opposition to the
moral code of government.

But until that day comes, declare independence in your head,
and get busy living the way you want to live. Nobody is
going to do it for you. Declare your independence!

—
Ryan C. Underwood
runderwo(at)mail.win.org
[Editor’s note: Video will post when available]

R3publicans announce new website!

This website is being released in draft format. I am inviting all my friends and twitter buddies to come and visit and leave comments. Send me an email if you want to blog on the new site for R3publican and/or if you would like to be listed on our friends page. Click on the R3 logo on the right to see the new site >>>>

The top post on the new site is about our Citizen’s Assembly for Oklahoma Sovereignty Event planned for January 3rd in OKC @ 7PM. Charles Key, Constance Johnson, and more will brief us on the topic in our first bipartisan format. We look forward to seeing how we can all work together on matters to protect the rights of all among us!

Please welcome Kaye Beach to our site and be sure to read her first post on Biometrics and the importance of you being informed on the topic. Make plans now to come to OKC on Jan 3rd if at all possible!

Blessings,
Sandie