Jane Chastain : Politically Direct

Let our countrymen know that the people alone can protect us
against these evils [of monarchial government]. Thomas Jefferson

It’s time someone had the guts to say it and my friend Tom Tancredo did just that at the Tea Party Convention in Nashville.   The problems in this country will never be solved by registering more voters.  Our problems will be solved by registering more informed voters.

By that I’m not suggesting, nor was he, that voting should be limited to those who hold Ph.D.’s or any degree of higher education.  However, voters should be able to demonstrate some understanding and appreciation of our system of government and how it was designed to work before they can register to vote.   At the very least, we should require new registrants to pass a  basic civics test, the kind given to immigrants seeking to become naturalized U.S. citizens. Read the rest of this entry »

On Tuesday, about 50 tea-party leaders met with Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele and there are concerns that this grassroots movement could be co-opted by the GOP. Many of these new political activists are crying “foul!”

It is no secret that the Republican hierarchy across the nation has been courting tea-party leaders but this meeting represented the first serious “real” date.

Can the tea party movement cooperate with a political party it once despised? Can it find a place or even coexist within the confines of a brand that many of these new activists feel is a “tainted”? Read the rest of this entry »

I will never miss another election.

I will never vote for a candidate whose stand on the issues I do not know, nor will I vote to reelect an incumbent whose record I do not know.

I will simply leave the box beside that office blank.

I will never vote for a ballot proposition that I do not fully understand.

I will not beat up on myself for the votes I failed to cast. Instead, I will give myself a pat on the back for every intelligent vote I make. Read the rest of this entry »

Last Saturday, upwards of 200,000 people left the comfort of their homes to come to Washington, to make a statement to their elected representatives:

“We want you to shrink the size of our bloated government.  We don’t want it increased, not for health care, the environment, education, art, farmers, saving the children, world peace or a thousand and one other excuses that politicians have used over the last century to increase the size of the federal government to the point that it has crippled the free market and the ability of taxpayers to provide for themselves.

“In other words, we want you to do less, not more!” Read the rest of this entry »

July 2,  marks the 233rd anniversary of our legal separation from Great Britain.  It was on this day in 1776, that the Second Continental Congress voted to approve a resolution of independence.

The next day, John Adams, the man who would become our 2nd president, wrote to his wife Abigail: Read the rest of this entry »