| Dear Friends of Liberty,
I am sending this update on the Montana GOP State Convention in Billings to let those who were not able to attend know what transpired. I also am sending this to many folks who were there and crafted the final product that makes up the 2010 Montana Republican Platform. I welcome your comments and distribution to others on your email lists if you so desire.
I would say that we had an enormous amount of success overall, should be quite proud of the folks that represented the State and County Central Committees at the Convention, and applaud their efforts to defend and improve on the 2008 platform. Without going into a great deal of detail, we held our ground on every important issue from the 2008 platform and even added a few items that strengthened a very conservative Republican platform.
The National Affairs plank not only survived, but was enhanced with the addition of: a call for the outright repeal of the 16th Amendment, a requirement for a legal description of our State borders for Illegal immigration enforcement, a call to not only withdraw from the UN, but to throw it and it's bureaucrats out of the country. We greatly expanded the call for State sovereignty and private property rights, for the requirement of complete documentation of candidate eligibility before candidates for President, Vice President, US Senators or Representatives can even be placed on the ballot in Montana, and for the expanded promotion of "Fully Informed Juries" to halt judicial implementation of unconstitutional laws. We included a requirement that Congress declare war before committing troops to large scale military operations, a statement that we totally oppose putting US troops under UN or any other foreign command, and came out squarely against "cap & trade" or any other environmental taxes and classification of CO2 or other "greenhouse" gasses as dangerous.
I don't mean to slight any of the other Platform Committees that worked on many of the other planks; their efforts were exceptional. I am just more informed and involved with National Affairs, having served on that committee for the past two sessions. Representative Wendy Warburton served as our Chair and did a remarkable job of getting our ecclectic personalities to synthesize well enough to make things work. Her job was much like herding cats!
With the Agriculture and Immigration Planks, the wolf and other two legged vermin being illegally introduced into the state also did not fare well at all in the State platform and massive land grabs by the Fed were opposed on all levels. Gold and silver backed "sound money" stayed in the platform, and when opponents tried to segregate it for elimination, this time won affirmation on a straight up vote before the entire State Central Committee . When an manual count of delegates occurred on the floor, we actually had a pretty solid majority in favor of keeping the "Sound Money" plank. People are really waking up and joining our ranks.
All in all, it was a very fun and productive convention for Montana Republicans. We had succeeded in getting a very constitutional National Affairs platform passed during the 2008 Platform Convention only on a fluke and because the time to debate and discussion expired well before the many "moderate" (RINO) Republicans could tear it apart. A lot has happened in the two years hence, and in my opinion, we now have a solid majority of Montana Republicans that agree with our traditional constitutional conservative positions. In my opinion, the Parlimentary Chair, Congressman Rick Hill, has been friendly to our cause during both of these sessions and could have made our task much more difficult without his tacit support. I applaud his extraordinary ability as a parlimentarian and would surmise that Mr. Hill might be much more conservative than I previously thought. Quite frankly, I am very impressed with his actions.
Based on past experience, it may be several weeks before the officially adopted platform will be published on the www.mtgop.org website, but unlike in 2008, I think we have the actual support of the Montana GOP and many of it's officers. It will be worth your time to download and read the adopted 2010 Platform as soon as it becomes available. As Bob Dylan would say "THE TIMES THEY ARE A CHANGING"!!!!!
Thank you all for being such good friends, patriots and citizens. With folks like you we may actually be able turn our country around before it is too late, and once again live in true liberty and freedom. God save our republic!
In liberty,
Dan Happel - Chairman, Madison County GOP |
