Category:
General Political Activism
Dinner was especially good last night, and I laid down for a little nap afterwards that extended until about half an hour ago - and now I have a spare moment for looking up a thing or two related to my upcoming participation at the Libertarian National Convention in St. Louis this Memorial Day weekend. Rare thing for me are spare moments as you can tell by the sparse postings here on my blog.
When I got to the schedule, I noticed Bob Barr as 'Keynote', and my mind went through a ten-minute scenario of me, with my 'V' mask on, standing up to ask him, well, all kinds of things and ending up being physically removed from the room after giving them every last piece of my mind on several issues. It scared me for a moment, but not only can I see it happening, I am one of the few people on Earth right now with the cajones to pull it off.
Normally I would keep thoughts like this to myself, but besides Chris (and maybe a spook or two) I don't know who reads what I write here. With as few comments as I get I feel a little more lax about what I divulge, probably to my detriment, but, what the hell - you only live once (that's all I have solid proof of right now, anyways).
While I'm here, I might as well comment on April 19th. Patriot's Day. Second Amendment March and Articles of Freedom National Dedication Ceremony - both at the Arizona State Capitol. It was called a 'Freedom Rally', and it was pretty cool - for a small gathering. Here's what I wrote for the We The People website:
Arizona State Capitol Hosts Historic Event
By Ed Vallejo – Arizona Coordinator for WTP Foundation
In conjunction with the Second Amendment March, there was a “Freedom Rally” held on the Senate lawn of the Arizona State Capitol this past Patriot’s Day, where a number of Arizonans listened to speeches by Second Amendment supporters and ate from ‘sack lunches’ – all while bearing arms.
This was followed by an “Articles Of Freedom National Dedication Ceremony” for which I served as Master of Ceremonies for the remainder of the afternoon (armed as well). The We the People Foundation for Constitutional Education had presented the States with an austere Program for us to use, and I based the Arizona Program on their outline.
I began by introducing myself to the audience along with fellow Delegate Sylvia Boutillier, and proceeded into the Dedication To The Founding Fathers.
When I was finished, I gave the signal to Brandon Smith, Son of Maricopa County Coordinator Sterling Smith, to bring in The Colors (armed). I explained to the crowd that we were fortunate to have the Second American Revolution Flag that I brought back from the Continental Congress to use for the days’ Ceremony. I was moved, personally. I then asked his father, Sterling, to read The Patriot’s Prayer.
When the Prayer was finished, I asked the audience how many times they had been to an event where when it came time for the National Anthem that quite often there would be loud music on speaker systems and few people actually singing? I told them today would be different. Today, we would fill the air with our own voices, and proceeded to sing the Star Spangled Banner – a cappella!
I did not sing alone. I admit that many were timid to begin with, but as we went on, people’s voices got stronger. More people joined in. It got louder, and by the time we were done, everyone was singing. I had had the feeling that not using any recordings would personalize the Ceremony, but I was surprised at just how involved people had gotten, and it felt really good.
We followed the National Anthem with The Pledge of Allegiance and The American’s Creed (even though there was discussion about not using the Creed because of the offensiveness of the line “A DEMOCRACY IN A REPUBLIC”).
Bill Terhune of Lake Havasu City then read from the writings of George Washington, and then Lavvy Vernere of Phoenix read the Statement of Purpose. I then led the audience in taking The Pledge. It was at this point, I ‘deviated from the script’. I had two main reasons for doing this.
Before I found out there was a suggested Program, I had sat down and wrote a speech, and wanted to use some of it if we had time (which we did). I also knew ahead of time that we were combining with the ‘Gun Crowd’, which pleased me to no end being that not only was I known in the Phoenix area as an ‘open carrier’, I also served on the ’Firearms, Militia, and Second Amendment Committee’ at the Continental Congress, and helped craft some of the language in Article 4. This was an opportunity too good to pass up. I used some of the speech I wrote – which ended with me reading Article 4 in its entirety. They liked it.
By the time they were done cheering me reading ‘abolish this’ and ‘repeal that’, I resumed with the list of Elected Officials to be served that day, and read the conclusion of the Program - followed by leading the cheers “GOD, SAVE OUR CONSTITUTION!”, “GOD, SAVE AMERICA”, and “LET FREEDOM RING” three times each.
After the Ceremony was over, I invited those who wanted to participate in the Service of the Articles to follow me back to our table, and took the flag from the stand and departed. Once back at the table we had set up to distribute literature, we separated into several Teams in order to cover more ground.
By the end of the day, TEN people were officially served, and I had the good fortune to be the first to serve someone. While I was distributing copies to the Teams, State Representative Carl Seel walked up to the crowd and started shaking hands. I dropped what I was doing and grabbed a copy and a cover page and jumped up (startling those around me) and proceeded to serve Rep. Seel in front of everyone! When I asked him for his signature, he laughingly asked “I don’t have to go to court now or anything, do I?” and I told him no, he was just signing that he received the information, and he gladly signed. I turned to the Teams and said “It’s that easy!” That seemed to ‘prime their pumps’, and they all sprang into action.
I stayed at the table to receive proof of deliveries while some teams went into the Capitol Building itself, and others departed for Senators’ offices in other parts of town. Once all the Servers at the Capitol had finished, we packed up what we hadn’t handed out, picked up all the signs and banners, and took the table and materials back to our Activist Center – The Freedom’s Phoenix Workshop.
Sometime later that evening, the last proof of delivery page was dropped off at my home. The six Officials that We The People wanted specifically served – plus four more – had been served, and plans for more had been discussed. Those not scheduled to be personally served will be done so by Certified Mail. It was a good day in Arizona.
Let’s get it ON.
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This is a good example of why I don't write here that often - I'm out DOING. I sure wish more people would get out and DO also. It would make life a lot easier for people like me who rarely have a 'spare moment'.
I hope things are well with you, Chris.
Ed
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