How is it possible that someone is talented and involved enough to run for political office and win the election – but once in office, has no clue of the origins or purpose behind the very policies they are forced to consider? Specifically, policies dealing with comprehensive planning, such as Smart Growth, 30×30 land issues, energy, and transportation, all of which affect day-to- day life in the community. These are the issues that every city council and county commission in the nation is now faced with imposing on the community.

Yet when citizens attend council meetings and seek to speak out in opposition, discussing how such policies are negatively affecting their property rights, small businesses, and their neighborhoods, they are often met by their elected council members staring at them, with arms folded, scowls on their faces, and gavels in hand, ready to stop their testimony.

Even worse, if opponents try to explain that such policies are rooted in the global Agenda 2030, the Green New Deal or the Great Reset, now the officials really become agitated. You will get several different responses. A council member will say, “I have never heard of this before.” Another will chime in and say, “These policies are all local.” And then comes the final comment on the issue, “This is just how it’s done; everyone is doing it.”

A growing tactic by local and county governments is to hide behind the edicts of government-appointed boards. As I’ve worked across the country to stop the assault on private property and the farm industry, many elected officials have responded saying they oppose such plans, but there is nothing they can do because appointed utility boards oversee the issue. This was the case in Iowa and South Dakota as local residents fought to stop the enforcement of the Carbon Capture Pipelines in which private corporations were using appointed public utility boards to gain the power of eminent domain to just take the land they wanted for this private corporate project.

The fact is appointed boards are created by elected officials, usually to be the workforce to carry out programs that they approved. These appointed boards represent no one. They do not have the right or the power to make policy. They certainly do not have the power to prevent elected officials from representing and protecting the wishes of their constituents. The elected officials are the Boss of appointed boards! Any politician who uses the lame excuse that they have no authority to stop the actions of the appointed board has a different agenda. They want to avoid dealing with the very people who put them in office specifically to protect their rights. In short, they are cowards working against the people!

Where is the Republican Party? As insanity spews out of the Democrat Party, the long-time overseer of limited government, free enterprise and individual liberty has no response, no unified plan to counter the Democrats, and, indeed, seems confused rather than offended by the Socialist antics.

For the election of 2023, the Virginia Republican Party’s official plan to win the statewide election to control the Legislature was to encourage Republican voters to sign up for mail-in ballots or to be sure to vote early rather than to wait and vote on election day. For the past three election cycles the Democrats have proven this ballot strategy to be the kingpin of ballot insecurity. Democrats have the people in place to watch all of the early ballots as they arrive. This allows them to gain an early knowledge of how the vote is going and where they need to push for more ballots for their own candidates. The result of the Virginia election was no surprise to anyone knowledgeable in how the Democrats operate – the Republicans lost everything!

How could the leadership of the party not understand that they were falling right into the Democrat trap? Why won’t the Republican Party, nationwide, take up the fight to demand election day voting with paper ballots, as the means to assure election integrity? A great example of how effective this works is the recent Iowa Republican Caucus, where votes were all cast at the same time on paper ballots and the results were known almost instantly. For over two hundred years this is how the United States conducted elections in a fair and honest process. Yet the Republican Party remains silent and complicit in assisting its own demise.

At the congressional level it gets even worse. A few years ago, as Republicans were faced with the most open and blatantly radical agenda yet proposed by the Democrats, they missed their greatest opportunity to go on the attack and expose the insanity of the real goals of the Global Left. The Green New Deal represents the largest step ever taken by the Socialists/ Sustainablists forces that have been pushing Agenda 21 for over 30 years.

Introduced by one of the most radical members of Congress, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortrez, Republicans like Senate leader Mitch McConnell simply laughed, saying it was just too radical to be taken seriously. Then the laughing really started when the Republican-controlled Senate brought the Green New Deal up for a vote and the tally was 57-0. The Dems didn’t even vote for it themselves, went the joke. Such a silly, stupid little girl, they said with great hilarity!

Leaders of many establishment conservative organizations in Washington, DC laughed too.

Well, the fools are the Republicans, and some of those establishment Conservatives, as they failed to understand the determination of these forces behind that “silly little girl.” The Democrats set a trap and the Republicans marched right into it.

What really occurred is that the Socialist Democrats made a classic negotiating tactic. They came to the table and delivered the most radical, complete, all-inclusive agenda for the total take-down of the American Republic, our free enterprise system, our property rights, and our way of life.

The Republicans were completely unprepared for it. Since they have ignored the warnings of those of us who have led the fight against Agenda 21 for 30 years the Green New Deal sounded too nuts. Too far out. No one would fall for it. They laughed and dismissed it without a thought. The Senate vote showed them!

But, true to form for these elected officials who refuse to take the time to research and understand the true goal of such policy, the Republicans fell into the trap! For example, Florida Republican Representative Matt Gaetz announced that he was working on the Green REAL Deal! Said Gaetz, his bill would be more reasonable. The classic response. In the Senate, Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander countered with his “Manhattan Project for Clean Energy.” The difference from the Green New Deal? Almost nothing! Senator Lindsey Graham said “We owe it to the country to have an alternative to the Green New Deal.” He said he was frustrated because large parts of the Republican Party still resist the idea of climate change legislation.

Did any of these “leaders” ever take the time to study the roots of such legislation and read what the forces behind it say it’s all about? Sen. Graham and other faltering Republicans seem to not understand that any attempt to provide “an alternative to the Green New Deal” actually serves to legitimize the dangerous, wrong-headed leftist environmental movement.

This is exactly what the Democrats were counting on. They made an outrageously radical proposal that moves the agenda miles down the road and then – to be more “reasonable” the stupid Republicans join right in with just a little smaller proposal. That’s how we lose our nation – by being “reasonable” to tyrants.

This is the tragedy that is taking place across the nation, at every level of government. Those elected to represent the people don’t take the time to research and understand the true origins and purposes of the issues. They are surrounded by Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) that serve as the ground troops for the global forces. The NGOs bring them the legislation, the talking points, and the grant money – all in a neat little package. And they apply pressure to ensure the officials support their agenda. Incredibly, the officials call the NGO’s stakeholders – like they are their constituents who elected them. Meanwhile, except for a few, we aren’t there. They feel no pressure from us, no threat to their future. Is it any wonder why local citizens who do try to speak out, get the evil eye when they come to oppose those policies?

To change this situation before the nation is completely lost, Americans who oppose such policies must learn a very important lesson. The other side has a clear agenda, and they will not back away from it. They will not accept defeat. BUT – supporters of the American tradition of Freedom do not have such an agenda. We have simply been reduced to defending freedom. It’s not working as we have lacked the ability to express what we mean by freedom.

We must find a way to define our own agenda and get on the offensive, demanding freedom in every government action at every level of government. We must learn to paint a clear picture as to what life in America will be like under our vision of freedom. Make your opponents responsible for their own policies. Put their names to them. Make them defend their plans.

In the founding documents of this nation, we were assured that the government didn’t grant us our rights -we are born with them. Our rights are not “Constitutional” rights. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights grant us nothing. You have those rights despite those documents. We are “endowed by our Creator,” Government’s job, according to our founders, is to protect what we have naturally.

In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson said that our liberty is “self-evident.” In today’s language that would mean “obvious.” Unfortunately, there is nothing obvious. As sad as it is, Liberty should be obvious. It is to some, but we make the mistake of thinking it is obvious to our fellow Americans.

Today, we do not have a government that respects those rights. Just as our founders experienced with the King, we now have a long train of abuses from the government. We now stand in the same place as our founders stood in 1776 when they took action to end the tyranny of a king who refused to address their grievances.

We the People created Congress and all other levels of government. Unlike a kingship, they work for us! They’re out of control because earlier generations allowed them to do so. For too long, we haven’t been there to ensure they are listening to the people. But the forces who seek total control are there, and so elected representatives think they are representing them, not you and me.

Today’s freedom activists must organize effectively. That specifically requires action at the local level. The further government gets from the people, the more corrupt it becomes. Let’s organize to change that. Now is the time to prepare for this year’s vital election. Do not accept ‘the defeatist attitude’ that we can’t win. Get involved. Don’t let your local Board of Elections cop out by saying the State legislature makes the rules, so there is nothing they can do. Organize to keep the pressure on them to make sure all is run fairly and legally. Volunteer to be election observers and ensure votes are counted legally and accurately, and don’t allow anyone to push you out.

Forces which may want to do harm are less likely to do it if they know they are being watched.

Tyranny ends when free people stand strong. That is our duty for this new year.

January 24, 2024

© 2024 Tom DeWeese – All Rights Reserved

~ The Author ~
Thomas A. DeWeese is the President of the American Policy Center.

Tom is one of the nation’s leading advocates of individual liberty, free enterprise, private property rights, personal privacy, back-to-basics education and American sovereignty and independence.

Tom DeWeese’s commentaries may not be reprinted or republished without permission. All Rights Reserved. Submitted to and published by Kettle Moraine, Ltd. by arrangement, and with permission of the author.