The #dontgo Movement and the future of the Republican Party

This summer in the middle of the heated debate over offshore drilling, The US Congress under Speaker Nancy Pelosi decided to take a recess and turn out the lights. House Republicans refused to leave. Without power they communicated via Twitter and the #dontgo movement was born. Two of the prominent members of this growing movement are Leslie Carbone and Eric Odom. I have included their reactions to the election here:

"Two hundred thirty-two years ago, the American colonies recast themselves as free and independent states with the words: “[T]o secure … rights, governments are instituted among men.” Eleven years later, delegates representing these states adopted a Constitution that established a federal government and explicitly listed what that government may do.

The quill pens with which the Constitution was drafted had scarcely been replaced in their wells before cries rang out for the government to venture beyond these enumerated functions and misuse its power to molly-coddle some at the expense of others. As early as 1794, Congress was asked to consider a resolution spreading $15,000 of taxpayers’ money to a group of French refugees. James Madison, remembered as the “Father of the Constitution”, shot down this early wealth transfer with the words: “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.”

For roughly a century, Mr. Madison’s integrity lived on in his successors. But a depression in the late 1800s gave rise to the so-called Progressive Era, which called for government to ignore its charter and start spreading wealth around. Within a couple of decades, Americans would be saddled with that favored tool of the redistributors: a graduated income tax. In another couple of decades, the New Deal expanded government with a panoply of programs and interventions. Then the Great Society extended its meddling fingers even further, to the point where it is nearly impossible to live without being the double-sided culprit and victim of state-sponsored plunder, at once ravaged by the moral cancer that afflicts both master and slave.

And so the temptation to rely on the federal government, as a matter of first resort, has become so ingrained that the Republican Party as a whole has forgotten how to stand firm against it, and even that it should. Instead of pointing out that it is simply not the proper purview of government to protect people living below sea level from hurricanes or to bail out irresponsible banks and borrowers from the consequences of their own errors, Republicans embraced these impossible, inappropriate tasks, and many others.

The result was the insidious undermining of the GOP’s commitment to limited government, the free market, and strict construction, and the Party’s well-deserved loss of the trust of its constituents.

The Democrats, on the other hand, are not afflicted with this split-personality disorder. They believe in misusing government to serve their own absurd dreams of utopia. They’re consistent; their disastrous policies match their ludicrous beliefs.

The Republicans’ disastrous policies contradict their correct, purported beliefs.

And a consistent message, no matter how asinine, will beat a correct philosophy undermined in word and deed every time.

If the GOP is serious about pulling America out of the moral morass into which it has dragged her, it must start by recovering its correct principles and adopting policies and rhetoric that match them."

Written by: Leslie Carbone

Time for regime change


Tuesday night dealt a heavy blow to the free-market movement, but unlike a lot on the right, I see it as an opportunity for us to finally rally and move to the offensive position.

Being on offense is going to require a lot of work, and I believe we’re now in a perfect position to lead a major portion of the charge.

As mentioned on two radio shows last week, the #dontgo Movement is going live with the new website on Monday morning. We have a sleek new design that you’re all going to LOVE. And more importantly, the site has a lot of new community style features that will help us organize and work together as a single unit.

But before we unroll the new website, I would like to point out what I feel should be one of our first courses of action.

REGIME CHANGE

Many on the right, especially those in the GOP realm, claim to be “leaders” and refuse to give up their comfy positions of power. Our “leadership” in Congress has, to be quite blunt, completely failed on all fronts.

And now, when we need bold new leadership like never before, these same individuals are quickly scrambling to regain control and continue driving our movement in the wrong direction.

We simply cannot let this happen.

Starting next week, I propose we launch a widescale call/demand for any and all “leaders” who have failed us to get out of the way and make room for real conservatives to step up to the plate.

It’s time for much more than a movement. It’s time for a full scale revolution in the way the right functions. It has become apparent that Washington D.C. is not going to change anytime soon, so we need to bring our revolution OUT of the beltway and get local. We need to take the fight to our local school boards, our town councils, and our state legislatures.

We simply cannot allow our movement to be ran over by careless politicians who care nothing more than remaining in power.

We in the #dontgo Movement have quietly waited for the right time to step on to the battlefield, and I for one believe that time is now.

Please take the weekend to ponder ways we can work together to make politics local again, and let me know your thoughts and feelings.

On Monday, we come out swinging as a revolutionary Movement. We have a lot of work to do, so let’s get ready to get out there and do it.

Warm Regards,
-Eric Odom
#dontgo Movement