North Texas Tea Party Meeting

This past Wednesday I attended my first North Texas Tea Party meeting and had the privilege of hearing special guest speaker Rafael Cruz, father of Texas' US Senate Republican candidate Ted Cruz. He had many good points during his speech, however I want to focus on two that I found particularly interesting. He made a statement that there are two main issues that need to be addressed: political correctness and voting principle (he later addressed the point of apathy instead).

I found myself agreeing with him when it came to the idea of political correctness. He said that many of the necessary debates and dialogues in politics don't occur because people are worried that they aren't being politically correct; so instead of addressing a problem with solutions, they dance around the issue and nothing gets resolved. Ron Paul mentions that the reason we have the First Amendment isn't so we can talk about the weather, but so that we can discuss controversial issues. Our society has become to sensitive to personal offense, that instead of saying what needs to be said, what others need to hear, we beat around the bush or talk about non-issues.

I must admit I used to be politically and socially apathetic. I don't know how I ever lived like that, but it was a time where my focus on "worldly news" was actually entertainment news. And I understand the interests people have in celebrities, but in the end, following the news of someone else's life won't do any good for your own. People need to wake up to the fact that by being apathetic, they are handing their voices, their lives, their freedom over to the rule and mercy of those in power.

"Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you." -- Pericles (430 B.C.)