My Day of Resistance Speech

Last Saturday, 2/23/2013, was the first Day of Resistance.

Dustin Stockton came up with the idea less than seven weeks ago and I am proud to tell you that I am one of the people who was helping out on the national level with the event from Day 1.

Dustin Stockton’s Western Representation PAC and The Tea Party.net put a lot of muscle and money behind the event to get it off the ground. Among others, Tiffiny Ruegner of Women Warrior’s PAC, Jerri Ann Henry, Kellen Guida and Jared from The Looking Spoon (who did a lot of the graphics you saw everywhere) also did a lot behind the scenes to help the event take off.

Of course, nothing could have happened without the 150 people who put on rallies across the country along with the volunteers who helped them out. There were several rallies that cracked the thousand mark, a number of tiny rallies and a lot in the 200-700 range. Yesterday, there were about 75,000-100,000 people (That’s the estimate I’m being given. It’s hard to be more exact than that because we haven’t heard from all the organizers yet, not every rally had a news story, and there were apparently a number of last minute rallies added that we didn’t have listed) who went to roughly 150 Day of Resistance rallies across 39 states.. But even the smaller rallies were a bigger deal than many people realize because there were a lot of first time organizers holding events. Saturday, they may have turned out 50, but because they learned from the experience, they’ll be able to turn out 250 the next time they put together a protest.

I spoke at the Conway, SC Day of Resistance rally. It rained all day and it wasn’t a huge crowd, but having been to the Tea Party rallies in the area, it also wasn’t the same crowd either. In fact, the very first person I spoke to at the rally told me she had only been to one political event before and was looking to get more involved. That’s exactly the sort of people we were trying to reach out to with this event and again, I am truly honored that I was able to be part of it.

What follows is the 5 minute long speech I gave at the event, followed by the text of the speech as it was written.

My name is John Hawkins and I run Rightwingnews.com. I’m also a columnist with Townhall and I am proud to say that I’m one of the people who helped organize these rallies going nationwide. If you’re wondering how we’re doing, we’re going to have 120 rallies across 38 states and we believe about 50,000 people are going to be participating. That’s not bad for something that was nothing more than a gleam in someone’s eye seven weeks ago.

Now, some people may wonder why we helped put these protests together.

Well, first of all, we wanted to send a message to Barack Obama. Congratulations about re-elected, but you were re-elected as President, not as king. Barack Obama is not our king and we are not his subjects. We don’t work for Barack Obama; he works for us.

We also have a message for Republicans in Congress. We want to let them know that the conservative grassroots, the Tea Partiers, and the Americans who care about their Second Amendment rights are still here. So, they better stiffen up their spines, unbend their knees, and do the right thing or we’ll make them pay when primary season rolls around in 2014.

Are you listening, Lindsey Graham?

Now, I also know that a lot of conservatives out there were demoralized by Mitt Romney’s loss last year. And not only did we lose, we lost to the worst President in American history. That stung. But folks, don’t forget that we also had our best year in half a century in 2010. In other words, we may have lost a battle, but we didn’t lose the war. We have a chance to turn it around in 2014 and put a Republican President like Rand Paul or Paul Ryan in the White House in 2016.

Last but not least, we have a message for gun grabbers.

It’s one word and that word is “No.”

No, we’re not giving up our guns and, “no,” we’re not giving up our Second Amendment rights! You want to ask why we need a gun? Well, we’ll give you the same answer Rosa Parks would have probably given if you asked her why she “needed” to sit at the front of the bus. The answer is, “It’s our God given, constitutional right and we’re not going to give it up.”

But, folks, this isn’t just about sending a message, it’s about countering a terrible tendency those of us who care about our country have. We have a tendency to sit on our hands and wait for the man on the white horse to show up and save us all.

When’s the next Ronald Reagan going to show up and save all of us?

We think that just because we can’t be Ronald Reagan, just because we can’t be Jim DeMint, just because we can’t be Wayne LaPierre, then what’s the point?

What can you do? Chip in $10 to a group you agree with and believe in — groups like Freedomworks, Heritage, The Franklin Center, The Club for Growth, The Senate Conservatives Fund, The Tea Party.net, Western Representation PAC and how about the NRA? You can put a sign in your yard for a politician you believe in, volunteer your time for a cause you believe in, share images on Facebook, retweet things on Twitter, vote, call your congressmen and let them know what you think! You think those guys don’t pay attention? Actually, they assume that if you call, there are 1000 other people just like you sitting at home. You don’t represent just you; you represent a thousand people when you call in.

Folks, like the saying goes, the biggest mistake a man can make is to think that because he can’t do a lot that he shouldn’t do a little. If we have 50,000 people doing the little things right, the big things will take care of themselves and we can get this country back on the right track, starting in 2014!

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