Patriots on Your Doorstep

Saturday’s door-knocking campaign capped a big week for the Redlands Tea Party Patriots.

The canvassing came two days after former Beaumont Mayor Jan Leja told more than 100 people at our monthly general meeting how important door knocking is in the wake of Republicans getting the shaft during the once-a-decade redistricting process.

Her speech was in addition to an Abraham Lincoln actor reciting the Gettysburg Address and singing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

On Saturday, and for the first time, State Assemblyman Mike Morrell joined our canvassing committee’s monthly walk in Redlands. Like the rest of us, he knocked on doors and talked with voters in eastern Redlands.

Overall, we knocked on hundreds of doors, distributed literature supporting Morrell, and recruited volunteers for the Redlands Tea Party Patriots.

Morrell is one of just five California legislators who has recieved a perfect 100 percent score from the uber-respected Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. Losing Morrell in Sacramento means the liberals will be that much closer to raising our taxes again.

We also collected signatures for Parental Notification, a ballot initiative that, if it becomes law, would require abortion providers to notify parents 48 hours ahead of their teenage daughter getting an abortion.

(After all, children can’t get aspirin or flu shots without parental permission yet they can get an abortion without their knowledge? I’m generally pro-choice, but this is even too nutty and too extreme for me.)

The values of the Tea Party movement are constitutionally limited government, fiscal responsibility, and free markets. The law allowing for permission-less abortions is a blatant and unnecessary intrusion of government into our lives. It cannot, for the sake of liberty, go unchallenged.

We conduct monthly walks in Redlands. Each walk attracts more volunteers than the month before. We keep knocking on doors and we keep collecting more and more signatures for the causes we adopt.

And unlike the now- moribund Occupy movement, we’ve never had an arrest, an act of vandalism, or advocated for violence. We do, however, take showers.

Political experts have told us that each door knock equals 11 phone calls or 22 pieces of mail. Considering how receptive voters have been when we knock on their doors, I would guess that each door knock equals 22 phone calls and 44 pieces of mail in Redlands.