Pat Toomey speaks to conservative bloggers, activists

PITTSBURGH, Pa. – Saluting the conservative activists, bloggers and political junkies in the audience, Pat Toomey, candidate for U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania, spoke as the keynote speaker before the Americans For Prosperty / RightOnline.com forum dinner Friday night.

Red Dirt Report is here in the Steel City this weekend taking part in the conservative gathering representing Oklahoma and meeting other bloggers, journalists and think-tank activists who are affiliated with the new Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity.

Your Red Dirt Reporter had the pleasure of sitting at a table with Toomey, most recently the president of Club for Growth, who was heartily embraced by the conservative crowd. Across the Monongahela River, liberal bloggers and liberal icons like Bill Clinton and Howard Dean were attending the Netroots Nation.

Aired live on C-SPAN, the down-to-earth Republican candidate drily joked about Republican-turned-Democrat incumbent Sen. Arlen Specter and his decision to jump from the GOP.

“One look at a poll and Arlen Specter decided he wasn’t running against me,” Toomey said.

Of course many Americans who follow the news have seen the coverage of Specter at town hall meetings in Pennsylvania being chastised by constituents over his support of Obama’s proposed government-run health-care plan. Recent polls show Specter’s support dropping quickly here in the Keystone State.

“Pennsylvania citizens and increasingly American citizens are coming to the conclusion that Washington is out of control,” he said, adding, “I’d argue we have the most liberally-elected government in the history of the Republic.”

He noted how government doesn’t create wealth, rather, “government destroys wealth and redistributes wealth,” alluding to the idea that higher taxes will not make the nation strong.

“They’re attempting to take America down a road we’ve never seen before,” Toomey said, adding that Bill Clinton admitted at the Netroots event that even though the health care plan, proposed by Obama, is unpopular but must be forced upon Americans.

Clearly disgusted, Toomey said, “Such is their contempt for the American people.”

“They will not be able to get this done,” Toomey said. “The voice of the American people is too loud, too clear.”

And speaking to his own run for the Senate seat from Pennsylvania, Toomey said he thinks it is time “for courage in the Senate” and that if elected, he would make courageous and common sense decisions on behalf of the American people.

Toomey is a plain-spoken, appealing and appears to be in a much stronger position to beat Specter.

Pat Toomey's speech was exactly what American citizens need to hear--clear, articulate, and principles based.

Any Republicans or Democrats who "compromise" for the sake of popularity on the important principle being debated now involving future generations should be recalled at the next election cycle!

This is not about a frivolous question of which provisions are acceptable and which are unacceptable. This is about a power struggle between the principles the founding generation were willing to stake their "lives, property, and sacred honor" for, and those who, throughout the history of civilization have arrogated unto themselves power over other people's lives.

The current "issue" called "health care reform," or its equally obnoxious semantic twin "health insurance reform," is just the invasion of liberty by arrogant elected officials which has finally aroused citizens who, heretofore, ignored the decades-long power grab by those who were supposed to protect "We, the People's" constitutional principles.

Now, citizens are seeing that it is a matter of "principle," not an issue of semantics over wording.

They should not allow their elected representatives to be coopted by "blue dogs" or any other "wolf in sheep's clothing" that would allow what may turn out to be the most important watershed moment in the history of American liberty to be further threatened. Now, Conrad and Sebelius, and others, sensing the voter mood are throwing out "compromise" talk this weekend, all to punt for better position down the road. Seize the moment for the sake of posterity and just say, "no"!

A word from the author of our Declaration of Independence regarding citizens and oppressive government might give some backbone to today's citizens:

"The most effectual means of preventing the perversion of power into tyranny are to illuminate . . . the minds of the people at large, and more especially to give them knowledge of those facts which history exhibits, that they may. . . know ambition under all its shapes, and . . . exert their natural power to defeat its purposes." - Thomas Jefferson

And, for more wisdom from the same source:

" . . . this is a tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for a second, that second for a third, and so on, till the bulk of the society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery, to have no sensibilities left but for sin and suffering. Then begins, indeed, the bellum omnium in omnia, which some philosophers. . . have mistaken it for the natural, instead of the abusive state of man. And the forehorse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follws that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression."- Thomas Jefferson

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