The Asheville Tea Party held a debate of North Carolina 11th district congressional candidates at Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College Friday evening before an audience that nearly filled 400-seat Ferguson Auditorium.
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS
By Tim Peck
TEXT OF INTRODUCTORY REMARKS
Good evening, patriots.
The Asheville Tea Party is a nonpartisan group that stands for restoring the supremacy of individual rights in American society; for re-establishing an objective rule of law under a constitutionally-limited and accountable government; for fiscal responsibility that does not privatize profits and socialize losses. We stand for the full realization of an economy that is free from political interference and political controls. And we stand for tax relief for private individuals, business-people and entrepreneurs who involuntarily provide boundless resources to an unlimited and corrupted government.
Our goal is to transform our socialistic economy and our socialistic culture into one that unequivocally champions and advances individualism, personal responsibility and economic freedom.
But we may not get there right away. It may take time. It may take a long time. At any rate, we are here today to begin the long and hard work of righting our faltering ship of state. We now live in a nation that our founding fathers would not recognize. We live in a nation that has reversed the subservient role of government. And, for us today, there is a lot of work ahead.
And I think we can succeed, so long as we narrow our focus to those things that are most important in advancing our values over the long term. And so long as we focus on unity over division. The cultural and political landscape is our battleground and let it be said: We are present for duty.
The accomplishments that lie behind us now are many and important. We have held several Tea Parties here in Asheville. We have held several health care reform protests. We have met with, called, faxed, emailed and generally hounded our representatives in Congress with complaints, criticism and positive recommendations for legislative action. We have established a presence on the internet and in local media reporting. We are running ads in newspapers and on the radio to promote our events and issues. And now we are holding a political debate for all candidates running for NC House District 11. (Although, not everyone showed up.)
At the national level, we participated in the recent March on Washington that drew an official estimate of 1.2 million strong. We attended the successful National Tea Party Convention in Nashville last month. (You may have heard about that.) We have built and are building coalitions with other groups sympathetic to our cause. And we are busily sweeping liberty candidates into office across the country and giving big government politicians from both major political parties a lot of heartache.
The plans we have ahead of us are also many and important. Locally, we have established a political action committee that will enable us to identify, evaluate and promote specific candidates for elective office who match our criteria for suitability. We are planning now for the next March on Washington in September. (We hope you can join us for that.) And we are bubbling with enthusiasm as well as ideas to carry us through the present drama-laden election season and on to the next and the next and the next.
They thought if they ignored us, we’d go away. They thought that if they insulted us, we go away. They thought that if they fought us, we’d go away. Not only is the Tea Party Movement not going away, we’ve gone international. Now folks are holding tea parties in England.
Everywhere we can, in public and in private, we have sounded a persistent message of who we are and where we are going. And it should be clear to anyone paying attention: We are NOT going to shut up. We are NOT going to go home in surrender. We are not going away — EVER.
Thank you. Thank you all for being here.
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RELATED
GOP candidates spar at Asheville Tea Party debate
by Jonathan Walzak | Asheville Citizen-Times | March 6, 201
While they sometimes disagreed on solutions, the candidates generally agreed on two opinions: The current leadership in Washington is corrupt, and voters need to take their anger to the polls.
The Speech in Context
