This update is news? Well, in a way, yes. What's newsworthy is seeing that liberty continues to ring modern despite efforts to diminish and quash the movement. Perhaps you missed the recent hearings in D.C. about the IRS asking "are you now of have you ever been" questions of patriotic groups. That was followed by the irritating news that the NSA has been mining masses of domestic phone and bank metadata. Closer to home, many have been chaffed by this county's being a testing ground for some of the most oppressive regulations in the state - often framed as "more than necessary" and voluntary.
As for the website update, WE were pleased to see that the following short feature remains on the tea party's home page:
What Part of “Infringe” Don’t They Understand?
Whatcom Tea Party (website)
Webster’s dictionary defines infringe: to encroach upon in a way that violates law or the rights of another. The US and Washington State constitutions frequently use the term “infringe” in regards to the actions of government on its citizens — saying it may not.
Infringement burdens and frustrates rights. You know it when you feel it. Making voters take a test or pay a fee would frustrate or burden their right (ability) to vote. Forcing us to pass what we write or say before a political correctness board would burden and frustrate our First Amendment right to free speech. Taxing and regulating legal things or activities to the point that nobody can afford them, such as building permits, French fries, soft drinks, tobacco, or limiting the Second Amendment right to bear arms burdens and frustrates those rights.
Rights are not something you need, they’re something you have. You have the right to speak truth to power. You have the right to self-preservation, self-defense. You have all the rights you were born with, whether or not someone else thinks you need them at this time, and whether or not you should choose to exercise them. They’re yours at birth: no government can grant them, therefore, no government can rightfully take them away.
The role of government is to protect our rights, using the specific powers that We the People grant to it. Infringement is the exact opposite of government’s rightful role: a major malfunction and gross malpractice.