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by Ned Ryun, American Majority

We are in a fascinating period in American history, where a confluence of developments has transformed our citizenry’s relationship with government. The mainstream media is distrusted and dying. The majority of our elected officials – let’s not bother with terming them “leaders” – no longer care to represent the interests of the people. In response, the American people are rising up in protest at a rate and in a manner not seen in decades, if ever.

Congressional approval ratings are at historic lows at around 14% (an acquaintance joked that during the American Revolution, the British Crown had double that approval rating, with roughly a third of colonists supporting the Crown and Parliament). Rasmussen recently reported that only 21% of Americans believe our government has the consent of the governed, and CNN reports that 56% of Americans believe that our government poses an immediate threat to American citizens’ rights and freedoms . . . well you get the idea.

The American people are making it clear where they stand, and in an unmistakable manner. Next week, on April 15th, more than one million people will be at more than 1,000 Tea Party protests across the country as more and more Americans come out to protest where elected officials are taking this country.

These events, though, are more than simply about venting and having their voices heard. They serve to connect people and communities and grassroots organizations. They also allow us to celebrate and remind the rest of our fellow citizens about our Nation’s founding principles: free men, free markets, and the rule of law, which so many in Washington and in state capitols seem to have forgotten.

But we must not allow all of our efforts and energy on April 15th to dissipate on the 16th. If our voices are truly to be heard, we need to build on our protests and begin implementing. A return to our founding principles as a way of life will only occur if those in the Tea Party and 9-12 movement dig into their local communities, hard-wire their electoral precincts, identify and get people trained to run for state and local office, build muscular grassroots coalitions to keep their elected officials accountable, and create greater transparency in local government. Only thenwill we begin to see real change.

That’s why American Majority, Smart Girl Politics, the John Hancock Committee for the States and RedState.com are joining together to conduct the Post-Party Summits: Organizing for a Free America. The time for the Tea Partiers and 9.12ers to organize in a concerted fashion has come.

The Post-Party Summits will not be about firing people up with motivational speakers, though we’ve got some great talent coming in to do just that. It will not be about whipping up emotions and telling people, “We need to fight. We need to have our voices heard,” and then sending those people home with no mission or goals or tools to achieve them. No, the Summits are about empowering people. They are about giving people the useful tools for making the necessary and great changes needed to turn this country around. Each Summit will have 15 workshops with topics ranging from how to hardwire your precincts, to running for office at the state and local level, to conducting voter registration drives, to learning how to become an investigative journalist. The Summits are about organizing, networking, and more importantly, about winning. After all, the people who get to create policy are those who make it across the finish line on Election Day.

Let me explain why they are called Post-Party Summits. It mostly has to do with the fact that they are in the weeks following April 15th. However, it is also about the idea that freedom-loving conservatives must take it upon themselves and move past a reliance on traditional political parties. The country will not be saved by political parties. A party for party’s sake isn’t going to get us very far.Do we really think that simply electing Republicans in the fall solves our problems? We’ve been there, done that. We do need a change of leadership in Washington and elsewhere, but America will only be truly saved by those Americans who take it upon themselves to do the hard work necessary to turn this country around.

Our Summits are all about reinvigorating American Exceptionalism: the ideal that it is the individual – not the government – who is capable of rising to the great tasks and accomplishing great things. I challenge people when I speak that they should not assume that the person standing to their right or left will do anything to save this great country; they, themselves, must act. For too long we’ve assumed that the right things would be done by our elected officials; as a result we as a country are in something of a political depression, lost in those wrong assumptions.

No more.

We have awakened and we know the tasks before us: we must have new political leadership that puts into policy the great ideals of our Founding: limited government, free enterprise and individual freedom. We must have new leadership that reflects the values and interests of the American people, not the interests of the political class or those I call the patronage system cronies. We must have responsive government that respects the American people. We must have the American people engaged and demanding greater accountability and transparency from its government and leaders, and that accountability must be ongoing, irrespective of who is elected to office. The time for that change is now.

A good model in American history is what the Progressives were able to achieve between 1912-1920. In those eight years, they fundamentally changed American government and the culture. Their “reform” included the 16th Amendment and the income tax, which led to the formation of the Internal Revenue System. The Progressives founded the Federal Reserve, the Food and Drug Administration, and a myriad of other regulatory agencies that have now become overbearing and intrusive into Americans’ lives. Their so-called “progressive” reforms have led to less freedom and liberty for the American people, and an explosion in the growth of government and its spending (the U.S. government’s entire spending was 2.5% of GDP in 1900. That percentage alone would not cover Medicare’s costs in 2010).

But what the Progressives, or as I call them, the Regressives, did a hundred years ago, liberty-minded people can do now: we can bring about the greatest change in American history over the last century. We can stop this slouch towards statism, this growth of government into every nook and cranny of our lives, and return this country once again to the classical liberalism of our Founders.

However, these changes will not come easily: do you really think the Left is going to roll over, or the political class is going to willingly relinquish power? The only way we bring about the changes needed is if we organize in meaningful ways and become the long-term political force that I believe the Tea Party and 9-12 movement can, and must, become. And those of us involved with the Summits are certain that the Post-Party Summits can be important contributors to furthering what our fellow citizens have started.

If you’re interested in organizing for a truly free America, come join us at a Summit.

Come join the new American Revolution.