WAKE-UP CALL

“We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.”  Thomas Jefferson

These words have new meaning following recent events in our Capitol.  From March 5th to 11th, we watched a small group of state Senators brazenly and secretly advance a patently unconstitutional bill seeking to silence the Roman Catholic Church.  That this bill was raised by the Senate Judiciary Committee illustrates sadly just how far our society has drifted.  While Raised Bill 1098 ultimately was “tabled” for the legislative session, this experience should be a wake-up call for all freedom loving citizens in our “Constitution” state.

Truth be told, this story’s villain and hero can be found in the mirror.  For years, a generation of citizens has been too busy or cynical to find time for politics.  While we have tended to our families and careers, a vocal, active, and determined minority has consolidated more and more power in our federal and state governments.  In our distraction and/or apathy, we sowed the seeds that suddenly reached up and grabbed one of the most personal and sacred part of our lives.

This experience may yet prove a blessing.  In confronting Raised Bill 1098, we met the time honored guardian of liberty – good ole fashioned political activism!  Uneducated in the ways of  politics, we — the people – for the first time in a long time stood together for our freedom.  We also rediscovered that all politics is, indeed, local.  Overnight, we flooded our Capitol with telephone calls, emails, and letters.  And despite our hectic lives, we found time to board buses, organize car pools, talk with friends and neighbors, and travel to the Capitol to express concern and outrage or merely lend moral support to the cause.  We found strength in numbers and saw that our concerns were others as well. We realized that ordinary people, political novices, armed with little more than a primeval mix of passion and fear, could transform into effective community activists — and make a difference.

Only time will tell whether this was an isolated instance of populist outrage.  Many may suggest otherwise.  Those who wrote the emails and letters and placed phone calls to the Capitol, and those who lost sleep worrying about the intrusion of government on their lives — may tell you something stirred in them during the seven days that shook the Capitol; that they were transformed when they greeted tyranny knocking on their own Church doors.

Let’s hope that is the case. Let’s hope the shame of Raised Bill 1098 becomes a watershed moment in our lives as citizens and potentially public servants.  If the birth of Bill 1098 concerned you, if you hear the drumbeat of big government growing louder, and if you sense a slow and methodical loss of your individual liberties, remember the champion that delivered us from Bill 1098 — us!

Frank Alvarez

Ridgefield Republican