The Tea Party in Boston knew how to right a ship

By Sandy Rios

Two-hundred-thirty-four years ago, a core of American citizens -- just like you and me -- pledged their lives and their fortunes to break free of the bondage of taxes, regulation and the tyrant known as King George. They signed their name on the dotted line knowing full well it was no exercise in penmanship, but a commitment to establish freedom once for all in their land. 

They won their freedom -- ours too -- and for generations, Americans have worked hard, worshipped freely, developed the natural resources of this beautiful land, explored the boundaries of space, engineered, designed and created things fantastic and beyond imagination in science, medicine, technology. We've invented cars and computers and technologies...fantastic devices...developed organizational skills and structure. Based on the perfect blending of law and freedom, Americans have felt free to pursue their gifts, their dreams and have lived and died by their own ingenuity.
 
Religious freedom has flourished because America's religious foundation -- Christianity -- is by its nature a faith exercised in free will...not born of birth or obligation but of choice. It was with this foundation that early on Jews and later members of all world religions found a place of sanctuary and not punishment for their unique religious conscience. Freedom is the foundation of strong religious faith and the foundation for strong economic growth and the foundation for the release of human ingenuity and energy.
 
And America has not used her strength only on herself. She has welcomed the world's people, yearning to be free. She has used her prosperity and the strength of her character applied to military might to protect and defend nations all over the world, not as conquerors but as warriors handing out chocolates to little children...offering hope and peace...building up where we have made war. Making friends and allies of our enemies...sending unbelievable amounts of money and human treasure to aid in tragedies, build hospitals, feed the hungry, fight the diseased. There has never been a country like America...never.
 
A few years ago I was speaking on the grounds of the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa, when an attendee amazed me with his remark: "If America falls, where else will the world turn? Who else will take its place as a beacon of hope and life and freedom?"
 
But the Canadian wasn't the only one who feels that way. When we open the phones on my radio show to discuss the dangerous trajectory of our nation, we hear from former citizens of Eastern Europe and Nazi Germany and Cuba who fill the phone lines with lament at what they see happening in the country they have so grown to love. They never thought they would see the day when their beloved America would go the way of the country of their first love. Amazed...dismayed...people who understand better than many of the current generation what is slipping away before them.
 
Even the Germans, once our arch enemies -- and who, up until recently, were the radical opponents of conservative leadership in this country -- have demonstrated their true feelings about their former enemy. A recent article from Der Spiegel states:

Angela Merkel is traveling across America this week. It's a country she loves, but the German chancellor is still having trouble connecting with Barack Obama....The chancellor was last in Washington on Nov. 3, 2009. She was there to give a speech to the U.S. Congress, a rare honor for a foreign leader, and when she was responding to a journalist's questions shortly before the speech, something happened that almost never happens to her; she swallowed. She had a lump in her throat, and it rendered her speechless for a few moments.
 
She was excited because this speech meant a lot to her. Then she stood up in front of the assembled U.S. Representatives and Senators and said that because of the Berlin Wall, America had long been "the land of unlimited opportunity" for her. "I had to create my own picture of the United States from films and books, some of which were smuggled in from the West by relatives," she said. "I was passionate about the American dream...the opportunity for everyone to be successful, to make it in life through their own personal effort."

When the Chancellor of Germany can weep at the thought of the greatness of America while the American president can only apologize, and express shame for its alleged evil, what does it tell you?
 
It tells you that this president should never have been elected. It tells you that he does not love this country like you do or I do or even like the Chancellor of Germany does. Could an enemy do more to dismantle and destroy it? His mentors from the earliest years were leftists...from his mother and father to his Communist mentor, Frank Marshall Davis. Barack Obama has never been enamored with the America he has never known. The hero of his mentors was the old Soviet Union. Why else would he bargain away our nuclear power to Russia, an entity far past its prime except for the romanticism that comes with being raised with Marxist ideals?
 
Why else would he implement economic policies that create and sustain unemployment, institute unsustainable debt, reward non-contributors and punish the ambitious, wealth creators? Why else would he dismantle the world's greatest medical system, dooming healthcare to mediocrity, medical innovation and research to a standstill, hamstring the nation's space exploration, prevent the exploration of our own energy supply...implement crippling cap-and-trade policies to further break our economic backs, all the while feigning he's doing the opposite?
 
We will not survive the policies of this president. If we don't rise up as our forefathers did 234 years ago, we will lose what they sacrificed for -- and, make no mistake, many of them lost almost everything they had in the pursuit of freedom. We will have lost the freedoms they sacrificed for in addition to what we have worked to achieve, but most of all lost that which our children and grandchildren will never have even experienced.
 
We are at a tipping point. Either we turn this American ship around quickly, or we will all go down with it. The tipping point is fragile...if the ship leans one way, it will purge the nation of this leadership and all who follow it.

- Out with the czars...the sexual radicals like Kevin Jennings, "Safe School Czar" who believes in sex between children and adults. And Chai Feldblum who wrote the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) to assure that people of all sexual deviancies cannot be discriminated against even in public schools.
 
- Out with the tyrants in Congress who would punish corporations who dare to disagree with the administration's policies.
 
- Out with the leaders of ACORN and the SEIU who break the law to steal elections and destroy American institutions with impunity.
 
- Out with the lawyers at Justice under Attorney General Eric Holder who protect terrorists and put their own citizens at risk...who release members of the New Black Panthers charged with intimidating voters while placing law abiding citizens on special watch lists.
 
- Out with a president who treats our friends like enemies and our enemies like friends.
 
- Out with a president who bows to the Saudi prince and the Chinese president, who gives flowery speeches to the Arab world claiming America is a Muslim nation, while disrespecting and degrading our own traditions.
 
- Out with a president who says "Whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower, and when conflicts break out...one way or another...we get pulled into them." Whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower?!!!
 
- Out with a president who wishes his nation weaker...one who sets about to make it so.

Yes, the tipping point is fragile -- and if we tip the other way, we will find out readily what it's like to not be a military superpower, as terrorists and rogue nations gladly take us up on our weakness.
 
We will find out what sustained and increasing unemployment is like, what poverty for more Americans looks like -- more stores boarded, more businesses failing, more government handouts until they dwindle when there are no more so-called rich to provide them. We will find out what less freedom to express ideas and opinions is like, restrictions on conservative talk radio and alternative media, minimal healthcare, seniors neglected and dying earlier, the privileged political class at the front of the medical lines -- all lines for that matter. And the American ship sinking into the abyss of poverty and obscurity.
 
What separates us from those two paths? It is, simply put...the Tea Party movement. It is their insistence on continuing to be able to speak the truth, to make their own choices, to voice their opposition to a tyrannical government, to defend the Constitution and exercise their First Amendment rights in public protest.
 
Who do you think is energizing this country? Is it the politicians in Washington? Is it the Republican leadership? No, they are motivated by this movement. While some have been lulled to sleep by the opium of power, others want to do what's right -- and the energy of the Tea Party Patriots has given them the courage to speak up and fight.
 
Which way will this great nation tip? God willing, it will be in the way of the Boston Tea Party Patriots before us who knew exactly what needed to be thrown into the ocean.

 Sandy Rios is host of the "Sandy Rios Show," heard weekdays from 3 to 5 p.m. on WYLL AM1160 in Chicago, a FOX News contributor, and serves as president of Culture Campaign, a non-profit dedicated to awakening a sleeping army of concerned citizens never before involved in public policy. This column is printed with permission.