The Lion of Liberty Still Roars

Want to read great reflective writing?  Jim Durbin, on 24thstate.com, reviews the year of the Tea Party.  This is the best reflection on our nascent movement I’ve read.  I can’t imagine how anyone could top it.  One of my favorite passages:

On each day, you stood up and boldy proclaimed that you were free citizens, not cowed subjects. You reminded the Beltway crowd that elections are just part of a representative democracy, and in this country, men and women are free to assemble and petition the government for a redress of their grievances.

In a few hours, the networks will begin making projections.  We hope those projections will conclude that Scott Brown has won the U.S. Senate seat from Massachusetts.  No matter who prevails, though, we have learned that America’s conservative grassroots are wide the hell awake with caffeine coursing through our veins. 

Our wakefulness should frighten and humble the President and the Congressional leadership.  Your never-say-day battles from February to today have almost stopped a socialist, statist juggernaut.  Just last year, most of us thought our freedoms gone for good. 

When our children write the history of this era in American political life, they will look back on several key moments:  The collapse of Lehman Brothers, Obama’s inauguration, the takeover of GM, the passage of the stimulus, the Tax Day Tea Parties, the Town Hall tactic, and the 9/12 Rallies. In between these front-page events were moments and events of surpassing importance:  Rick Santelli’s rant, the February 27 Tea Parties, the beating of Ken Gladney, and the Massachusetts vote.

These latter events might not make it to the history books, but they should.  These were the moments that we came together and learned to walk.  These were the events that made us stronger.  These were the days we learned the lion of self-government could still roar.