by Thomas Grady

We all know how life’s (and music’s) pendulum swings.  Methodically, left then to right, back to left – and back and forth and back and forth.  Tick tock.  Politics is no different.  Since America is recognized generally as a center-right country the fulcrum of our pendulum doesn’t hang over the center but over a notch or two to the right of the center.

Today the pendulum has swung so far to left that the folks occupying center-right have become abruptly terrified and have hit the streets in tea parties, organized into Glenn Beck 9-12 groups and 10th amendment movements.  They’re frantically grasping at the pendulum and will surely take possession and haul it back toward them.  With effect.

Let’s assume with some certainty that the pendulum swing-back, because of the nationwide protests, will cause conservatives to gain seats in both chambers in the 2010 Congressional elections.  Let’s assume further that this Congressional shift and President Obama’s declining poll numbers (which will continue) will cause a blistering battle for the 2012 presidential elections (outcome not predicted here).

But even if President Obama is re-elected, any agenda he mounts will be damaged before it ever gets to Congress; any progressive policy will be vilified and rejected.

When all this transpires (and this commentator surmises it will) the center-right will have flung the pendulum past themselves toward the far right, causing more drastic changes in 2014 and 2016.  I suspect many of us would be okay with this.  But….

…what then?  Are we finished with our 10th movement duties?  Do we settle back into our life-patterns assuming the pendulum will get stuck permanently up on that outer right edge and we have no more worries?  That’s usually what happens; we go to sleep.

I implore our 10th Amendment Movement founders and members to resist with tenacity this pull toward contentment.  We must strive hard and fast to institutionalize the “effects” of the 10th Amendment.  The Mighty 10th itself is already institutionalized in the U.S. Constitution.  But the effects are not.  That is the responsibility of all the 10th movements materializing across our country.

It will be easy, and commonplace, for tea party movements and 9-12 groups to creep slowly toward dormancy after that pendulum hits “high-side” to the right.  They will have accomplished their goal of bringing the country back to their bosom, where it belongs, and they will return quietly to the fruits of a conservative country.

Our 10th Movement must stand firm against this complacency.  Each 10th Movement must establish rock-solid organizational groundwork and a statewide pledging process that will remain in place and become a firm barrier between the pendulum and it’s outer most leftward swing.  This endeavor is not a three or five year project.  It is a project that must become permanent in as many state as possible.

Thomas Grady is the founder of the Missouri Sovereignty Project.

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