The best symbol of the grassroots worker I can think of is the Republican Assembly… [NFRA’s] thousands of dedicated men and women are the ones who turn all those modernistic campaign devices into real votes.
“[NFRA] provides the nucleus of the Republican candidate’s volunteer work brigade. I know from personal experience. It’s hard to imagine my campaigns being anywhere near as successful as they were without the dedication of Republican Assembly members.
“I urge you to join today.
Like my precious friends Ronald Reagan and Charlton Heston, I am proud to be a member of the Republican Assemblies. There was a time when we in Hollywood fought Communism and believed in America. Now the liberals seem to run everything and want to destroy all that we fought for. But the NFRA isn’t afraid of that fight, and it grows stronger every day, and I am honored to be involved with people who truly understand what America is all about.
We are engaged in a social, political and cultural war, in our country and even in our own party. The Republican Assemblies are some of the most effective forces in that war, and I applaud your work.
The Republican Assemblies are unafraid, to stand up for principle or to stand up to the establishment.
The NFRA fights tirelessly to elect a strong, grassroots Republican Party leadership. The more they succeed, the more we’ll see real change in America.
Now is the time for Patriots to mobilize. The NFRA is a great vehicle for taking back our country.
If you picked up a Coke bottle and saw a rat’s head in the bottom, you’d never think about Coke the same way again. Republicans who vote for tax increases and bigger government destroy the Republican brand name in exactly the same way. It is the job of the Republican Assemblies to defend the brand Reagan built, and stop the people who are ruining it.
As a famous Californian once said, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.” That’s why, now more than ever, the National Federation of Republican Assemblies is looked upon as one of the preeminent guardians of Ronald Reagan’s legacy, providing a powerful, unwavering voice for conservative principles amid the pandemonium of modern politics. Their advocacy is vital to our party’s future.
When conservatives took back America’s largest Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, from the liberal leadership which had hijacked it, we used the same strategies and tactics that make the NFRA so potent a force today. Those strategies worked flawlessly then, and they’ll work as conservatives assert themselves in the Republican Party today.
In a political world of rapid changing institutions, the National Federation of Republican Assemblies stands as an anchor of principles on which conservative political leaders can depend. I am proud to be a member of the California Republican Assembly and to stand with Republican Assemblies all across America as they take back our party for true conservatives and stand for the values we hold dear.
The Republican Assemblies are truly a force for renewal within the Republican Party.
The Republican Assemblies are the conscience of the Republican Party.
Unlike too many other Republicans today, [the Republican Assemblies] stand strongly for the moral foundation of our Republic, which is that we are created equal and endowed by our Creator, not by our leaders, with our rights.
I am honored to stand with the National Federation of Republican Assemblies, one of the strongest voices for conservative values and a revitalized Republican Party in America.
If you want to see Reagan conservatives running the Republican Party, then the NFRA is where you need to be.
The NFRA can play a major role in the remaking of our Party. It can certainly be the organizational power behind the Tea Parties, working with those groups to give organizational effect to their outrage and passion.
The Republican Assemblies were the Tea Party movement before there was a Tea Party.
While many so-called Republican leaders would surrender the Culture War and sell out our sovereignty, the NFRA is a bastion of hope standing against them, and standing for a Constitutionalist America.
The NFRA endorsed me early, and it made a huge difference in the outcome of my race. Why? Because the Republican Assemblies are the real grassroots, the true conservatives, the soul of the Republican Party. And if you want more Marco Rubios, more Nikki Haleys and more Sharron Angles, getting involved in the Republican Assemblies is the way to make it happen.
The Republican Assemblies work tirelessly for conservative candidates and legislation.
The NFRA has never been more important than it is right now. We no longer have the luxury to nominate Republicans who, once elected, undermine the principles of individual freedom and limited government that define our party. Republican Assemblies across the country have kept the conservative movement alive and the future of our party and of our country ultimately depends on their success.
I’ve been a Republican all my life, was a precinct committeewoman for 16 years, president of the Illinois Federation of Republican Women for five years, attended every Republican National Convention starting in 1952, and served on the Platform Committee in 1984. I’m proud to be a charter member of the NFRA because I know it is doing the absolutely necessary work of restoring the Republican Party to its proper position of leadership for authentic conservative principles.
The NFRA is the flagship of constitutionalist conservatism within the Republican Party. It is intent on making sure the federal government has limited powers and the states have an independent sovereign place in our system of government. If we, the people, are to arrest the Obama march to collectivism, social democracy and an imperial presidency, we must swell the ranks of the NFRA and maintain its status as a principled defender of liberty.
When I was a high school student, Phyllis Schlafly’s book, A Choice, Not an Echo, was an important influence on my political direction. Today I support the NFRA for that same reason. The Republican Party must be more than just a cheaper, slower echo of the Democrats: it must be a distinct choice, for conservative values and for a future of freedom. If you long for that choice, then you should join the NFRA.
We need more people like you [the Republican Assemblies] who truly believe in the Constitution, in liberty and in standing up to an establishment that believes in neither.
The loyal patriots of the National Federation of Republican Assemblies…stand for the enduring principles that have made our Nation great. I thank the NFRA for standing at the ready to defend freedom and liberty no matter what the cost. Real hope is alive in the NFRA.An American Divide
Dr. Benjamin Carson
In an earlier era, Dr. Benjamin Carson’s speech before the National Prayer Breakfast last week would have been a really big deal rather than mere fodder for a brief squall on Twitter and cable news.
Born in crushing poverty to an illiterate single mother dedicated to seeing her children succeed, Carson became the head of the department of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins medical institutions when he was 33. He’s been a black celebrity role model ever since.
Even if you didn’t like the substance of what Carson had to say at the breakfast, his speech made for great political theater. President Obama was seated on the stage, just a few feet away, and he didn’t look like he was having a good time.
Success story: Dr. Benjamin Carson rose from poverty to become Johns Hopkins’ pediatric neurosurgery chief — and tell O what’s wrong with ObamaCare.
Intellectual historians of black America might make a great deal out of the image of a frowning Obama listening as Carson inveighed against a culture of victimology and dependency.
It’s too trite to say that the president is the incarnation of W.E.B. DuBois and Carson of Booker T. Washington. After all, DuBois renounced his American citizenship, became a communist and moved to Ghana at the end of his life. Obama, the son of a leftist (if not an actual communist) from Africa, went on to become the president of the United States — a significantly different story, to put it mildly.
But as Mark Twain allegedly said, history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme. The great argument between DuBois and Washington is often boiled down to integration versus self-help.
Washington believed that blacks should emphasize education and self-advancement first and worry about integration later. DuBois favored a civil-rights-first strategy combined with reliance on the leadership of technocrats — including what he called the “talented tenth,” or the best African-Americans.
Culturally, DuBois won the argument and the allegiance of liberals and the left, while Washington has often been unfairly cast as an Uncle Tom (despite fighting against racial injustice his whole life).
But in a country that’s elected a black president — twice — and passed the Civil Rights Act half a century ago, even if Washington was wrong about the sequence of priorities, it seems fair to ponder whether the time has come for his philosophy to get a second look.
Although much of Carson’s speech focused on personal responsibility, he offered two concrete policy ideas. The first is a flat tax. The Bible endorses the idea, Carson explained. Everyone should tithe — give 10 percent — in good times and bad. It doesn’t have to be 10 percent, he conceded. It’s the principles of proportionality and simplicity that matter.
Critics complain that the poor guy who puts in $1 will be hurt more than the rich guy who puts in $1 billion. But, Carson asks: “Where does it say you’ve got to hurt the [rich] guy? He just put a billion dollars in the pot. We don’t need to hurt him. It’s that kind of thinking that has resulted in 602 banks in the Cayman Islands.”
Carson’s idea for health-care reform is even more Washingtonian. Instead of the technocratic behemoth of ObamaCare, empower the individual. “When a person is born, give him a birth certificate, an electronic medical record and a health savings account to which money can be contributed — pretax — from the time you’re born ’til the time you die. If you die, you can pass it on to your family members . . . and there’s nobody talking about death panels.”
The beauty of Carson’s argument exceeds its simplicity, particularly as even economist Paul Krugman now concedes that something like death panels are inevitable if we stay on our current path. Taxpayers, the rich or charities can contribute extra money to the accounts of the poor, but at the same time, Carson says, the poor will “have some control over their own health care. And very quickly they’re going to learn how to be responsible.”
As a conservative, I’m obviously partial to all this. But there’s something bigger than a policy dispute going on here. Although DuBois and Washington were understandably consumed by racial questions, the philosophical divide between Obama and Carson is one we’re all part of now. And that’s a sign of the racial progress both DuBois and Washington fought for.
Editor's Note: We have reprinted the full text of Jonah Goldberg's column "An American Divide" from the New York Post. We encourage you to visit the original.
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