Do something
Reader: “I’m following your past advice to do whatever I can do.”
After my October 12, 2017, post Legal Insurrection is 9 years old, and filled with dread, a reader emailed me, seeking advice on what he could do to “advance freedom”:
Hi, I love reading your articles and all the articles at Legal Insurrection. I’m a young conservative engineer. I’ve been in the workforce for a couple years.
Frankly, you have some of the best foresight on what is going on in our country. Stay in the fight for freedom! Keep going with Legal Insurrection. It’s so encouraging to read your updates and those of your correspondents.
Regarding your 9th anniversary post, I had a friend who was an Oklahoma Trump Presidential Elector. She got HUNDREDS of letters urging her to not vote for Trump, which was probably the beginning of Resist. Thankfully, she was not harmed and cast her Elector ballot for Trump.
What do we do? I’m planning on getting involved in Americans for Prosperity. They’re the only national group that seems focused on canvassing/community organizing. Which given the Left’s success with canvassing/community organizing, is a little shocking. We need to build permanent conservative infrastructure, not temporary campaign infrastructure that is folded up after the candidate leaves office. And temporary campaign infrastructure that enriches the mainstream media/social media companies/search engines with money. These are hostile institutions to conservatives.
If you had three pieces of advice for me to advance freedom, what three things would these be?
My response:
Thanks for the note and for reading. Not sure I have the answer. Soros and others on the left have successfully created a self-sustaining ecosystem and echo chamber, unlike the right where donors tend to keep things on a tight leash. Involving yourself in groups like AfP seems like a good start. I tell people who ask such question that you should do whatever you can do, you can’t solve all problems. And local matters too, including school boards.
The reader wrote again recently, having saved our prior email exchange, after my post The value of Trump to the Trump voter is that he stands between them and #TheResistance.
Here is the reader’s email:
Professor Jacobson,
Thanks for your recent article on the Value of Trump. You hit it spot on.
Honestly, I’ve completely come around to your view on the Russia investigation. Obviously, Russia did purchase some bad clickbait election ads. Then the Democrats demanded an investigation, which they got. Then Jeff Sessions, due to media pressure, recused himself. Then Rosenstein got the Special Counsel. As Special Counsel’s go, they will almost always find a crime. That’s their job. Alan Dershowitz wrote a forward for the book, Three Felonies a Day. I’ve never read it, but the summary shows that the average American may commit three felonies a day. For innocuous things. So, there’s always going to be something for a Special Counsel to use.
The Russia Investigation. In his quest for the Presidency, Trump surrounded himself with Paul Manafort and a few other shady characters. They have possibly committed past crimes. One thing my legal counsel friends told me was that in federal court criminal cases, you’re pretty much guilty. Whether you did it or not. The prosecution can wait as long as they want to collect evidence (within statute of limitations) before arresting you. They will nail you to the wall; therefore, people are more willing to plead out. As a condition of the plea, they may be required to provide information on possible crimes located near Donald Trump in his past life. Possible crimes committed by people close to Donald Trump. Lather, rinse, repeat. The noose gets tighter.
The Democrats have it dialed up to 11 all the time. I can’t stand it. They are doing everything to undermine our country and our families. To completely destroy them and rebuild them in Bernie Sander’s mold.
I’m following your past advice to do whatever I can do. I’m volunteering for Oklahoma State Auditor candidate Cindy Byrd, the true conservative in the race. I voted early in the primary runoff. For local matters, I’m beginning to network and form relationships within the OK conservative community. That’s where I’m at now.
Thanks for listening, Professor.
If you spend any time on social media, you will see that #TheResistance is organizing like crazy. They are energized by hatred of Trump and Trump voters.
It’s really important that we all do something. What I do is Legal Insurrection, as well as giving whatever support I can to conservative and pro-Israel students on campus.
You can’t change the political world alone. But you can help change a local school board, a local election, or something else that affects your life.
It’s important work, whatever you do. So long as you do something.
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Comments
“They are energized by hatred of Trump and Trump voters.”
Not just Trump, but US. Let that sink in. The left has a long history of political violence. Please don’t sit this one out.
I’m working to get Republicans to avoid the mistake they made in 1932. Supporting Prohibition when the country was against it.
I started 7 years ago.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/09/the_democrats_2012_victory_plan.html
Democrats are the obvious enemy. I’m not especially worried about them since I can see them. What I’m worried about is the GOP establishment. I’m not sure enough GOP voters understand the way they’ve been screwed by their own party over the years.
Great advice – except for the school board part. It’s not a matter of who’s in charge of the government monopoly bureaucratic “public” school system – it’s the fact that it’s a bureaucratic government monopoly which is “public” only in name. Claiming to be religiously neutral, it is permeated with leftist religion. It has been used as an illiberal oppressive tool of the state since its beginning. A tool that powerful cannot possibly avoid becoming corrupt. It is owned by the teacher’s union / Democrat politician complex.
There is some hope that DeVos may be able to chop it down to size a bit. The most effective thing an individual can do is to keep his/her kid(s) out of it, and possibly help someone else do likewise.
Every Church should either be running their own school or supporting a church which does.
Malachi 4:5-6
Time is running out.
Great advice. From experience, let me add this. Don’t wait for the ‘great idea’, the perfect match to your skill set, etc. If you can’t think of anything, just find a group you support and volunteer. They always need bodies. It takes willingness, not skill, to hand out flyers, canvass neighborhoods, etc. Get out and make your voice heard beyond the echo chamber of conservative blogs and etc. Once you start, the perfect opportunity will find you.
We need to make noise at city hall, school boards, etc. It’s our fault if they win by default.
Yes! Do something. Whatever way you feel you can help turn the nation around. I volunteer with Project Appleseed as my way to help “bail the ship of our Nation”. Using marksmanship as a way to get more people in touch with their American Herritage and the costs American have borne in blood and sweat to give us the liberties we have today. A small taste of the hard work many of our forebearers endured my learning how to shoot a rifle to military expert standards and marry thatbwith this history of April 19th 1775. i can only change the minds of people one person at a time, not hundreds of people. But if a person comes outof one of our clinics a changed person and b3cimes more civic minded, it becomes a lasting change not a one rime stirring of emotions at a rally.
Three moths of leftist frenzy and wailing on tap as we head to November. It is going to be Hateapalooza. Fake Polls, Fake News,it will be a sight to behold. Just turn it all off and vote MAGA. That is what you can do.
Okay, if you really want to know what you can do:
Follow legislative proposals and CALL your reps/senators when there’s something good or bad going on, as we did in 2006-2007 when Bush was proposing amnesty. Stopped it in its tracks. We also mailed in bricks, which is why they voted to build a wall but then never funded it. THEY COUNT PHONE CALLS, I am telling you. They count phone calls.
Next, you can vote in primaries. You have the BIGGEST selection of operating principles in primaries. In the fall, you only get to choose between bad and not so bad.
Next, you can write letters to the editor to bring up information you know that the general public may not be aware of because the newspaper won’t tell them. Example: Write a letter telling readers how many inmates in their local jail are illegal aliens on any given day. I asked my sheriff, and on that day, it was 7% which was 49 people. Think about what that costs….
You can join the local GOP and easily easily easily become a precinct chair and go to the conventions, local and state, where the folks are elected. As a local GOP chair, you also usually can get a membership list of your precinct. It will tell you who votes in primaries and who votes only in generals. And whether they vote dem/gop in the primaries. Then you can go door to door to get them out to vote on election day.
So many things you can do!!!
Don’t forget there are a limited few but successful organizations that focus on the younger generation. The sooner there is an EFFECTIVE counteracting force to the educational system, the better. I’ve decided I have to do both – impact each and every local election – and play the game for the next decades. The progressive movement has been playing the long game, for over a century.
I have made one donation to Turning Point so far, e.g. They seem to have been more effective in about 5 years than Campus Reform has been, but both are perhaps worthy of money and attention. There are a few others, too.
I second your vote for Turning Point. Thanks for mentioning it.
I’m going to quote Malcom X, but reflect on the quote, not the man: “Only a fool would let his enemy educate his children.”
X spoke in a different context for a different era, but look at this new millennium and the sea of violent, sedititious marxist bastages who swarm our streets to scream their hatred of America.
Our enemy is educating our children. They do it with our tax dollars, and are indignant if we object to their toxic intersectional marxist ideology. Legal insurrection is replete with examples persecutions and prosecutions.
It’s all about power, even on the K-12 level. Look at the massive war chest of the teachers union and the nasty, ugly campaigns they wage against any school choice initiative in any state. It’s their power paid for with our tax dollars. That’s the Leftist way.
The problem with individual conservatives is that we lede orderly, successful lives mostly focused on family and careers. We’ve precious little time to be professional rioters to storm the streets to demand our way or we’ll kick in your teeth!
Couple that with the gutless wonders in Congress who claim to be ‘conservative’, but only put on a wank off show for the cameras when they want our vote. It’s not tough to figure out why many of us cheer a street brawler like Trump in this toxic political environment.
I’m in Missouri. I blog and fight mightly about local issues to champion liberty. I was involved the recent ‘right to work’ vote that went down to stunning defeat earlier this month. I was shocked at the amount of voters who voted against liberty and for tyranny. I’m fighting hard to defeat the hyper-partisan, baby killing advocate Sen. Claire McCaskill(D). It’s a toss up right now.
God bless you, Professor, and all the authors at LI. It’s a great blog!
One of the best replies I’ve seen here in awhile. Thank you!
Thank you. Now, if only I could convince the Professor to let me write for L.I…. ????
Re: LocomotiveBreath1901:
Have you asked him? ;^)))
The advantage we now have is that the Right is now the counter culture.
The one Big thing the Right has going against it is its belief in Prohibition.
Prohibition doesn’t work. Not for alcohol. Not for guns. Not for drugs.
It would be nice to have a consistent message on the subject.
It doesn’t work for murder either. Try to find a better argument.
I’m trying as fast as I can. Thanks to you and your distinbushed people in Samdy Eggo I what I learned Krav Maga.
I learned Judo in Japan. I d0n’t think it’s necessary to tell you how many weapons Armizare, sword and dagger, the Italian art of arms. I qualified with. I want to know, who did this? Is he proud?
Sorry I was typing too fast. Is he proud?
I post comments on the Internet. With working, being sick for some reason almost every weekend, and trying to sleep enough to have sufficient energy to make it through another 10-hours of fairly strenuous physical labor on 2nd-shift in a hardwood factory, it’s about all I can do. Now I need to try to sleep for a couple of hours before going into work.
Is there anyway to discuss ideas with President Trump or his advisors? I have in mind a way he can punish the Progress Fascist politicians and do a great thing for the country at the same time. I just need to be able to present it to those how can put it into effect. I live in a slave state, aka California, so there aren’t any politicians that I can approach.
ConradCA…. I read a fellow who said that if you tweet at Trump in the early morning hours, like 2, 3, 4 a.m. sometimes he’ll see it, because no one else is tweeting at that time.
Have no idea if true, but just a thought.
It took one small incident at the local village level to get involved in finding my voice 11 years ago. I have not run for office as I find being able to be a public voice at all levels has proven to be more useful in supporting the issues on the floor. I have since that time subscribed to supporting local government at the village, town and county level, making myself known with the facts and have editorialized and spoken up at public meetings. I attend State Senator and National District Congressional Town Hall Meetings keeping current with the legislation they are sponsoring or issues they need to support at the levels and committees they serve on and others legislation that they need to sign on with. I have their email and fax numbers in a file ready to use in the moment.
As to the school district which is State Public Mandated Education, at the local school district level the differences one can make is to only elect those who have kids in school and who have demonstrated to be conservative by their actions with their affiliation via the community at large. If they are affiliated with a local church, consideration is given to the tenor of the congregates of that church. Living next to a “Blue Liberal” County, these things contribute to keeping us “Red” and our voices heard and prevents infiltration by those who want to neutralize our conservative votes and voices.
I’ll just add one more thing: If you have a local version of TrueTheVote, support it. Doesn’t matter how many we get to the polls if they get to count them without oversight.
A wise man once told me “You can’t change the game for yourself. What you can do is learn the game and change it for those who come after/behind you. And let them advance the guideon after you’re done. The trick is to do it while both growing and not losing your soul.”
He was an amazing man. And the older I get, the more I see how right he was.
Very well written letters by this young person. There is hope for our youth is this is a reflection on some of them!