Why YOU should hear Sheriff Clarke’s CPAC speech extolling the virtues of self-governance

Delivering closing speech at CPAC around 3:30PM ET
I will not fail to deliver. pic.twitter.com/xUWf1UHlwH

— David A. Clarke, Jr. (@SheriffClarke) February 25, 2017

 At CPAC last week, thousands of conservatives gathered to celebrate the election of Donald Trump and talk about the shared values that make America great.  But one speaker, Sheriff David Clarke, went beyond the common ways that conservatives are united now, and explained what originally made America great.

Frank Luntz wrote, “If there is one thing Democrats, Independents and Republicans agree on — and there is, in fact, only one thing — it’s that it’s time for a new relationship between the citizenry and their government.”  We agree, and so — apparently — does Sheriff Clarke. He said:

And once we have tasted it, we can  never have enough to be sated.

“A piece of freedom,” said the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “is no longer enough for human beings, nor for the nation…Unlike bread, a slice of liberty does not finish hunger. Freedom is like life. It cannot be had in installments. Freedom is indivisible – we have it all, or we are not free.”

And at it’s core, as a conservative, I believe with all my heart that in furtherance of the common good, Freedom means: You decide.

You.

Your family.

Your household.

Your neighborhood.

Your small town.

Your State.

And, yes, in those few matters of national scope, Your Nation.

But to cede, as a matter of simple course or expediency, to cede those powers too quickly or injudiciously to Washington DC is just wrong.

And it always has been.

“So we have come to a time for choosing,” said President Reagan. “Either we accept the responsibility for our own destiny, or we abandon the American Revolution and confess that an intellectual belief in a far-distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.”

How refreshing is that simple concept, that we who run our lives know the course of our own destiny better than some Congressman from California, or Judge from Joplin, may know it, sitting in a mahogany-paneled office in Washington making the decisions that can undermine all of our best efforts?

And how refreshing to see a return to that respectful thought, of the importance of self-determination, and a turn away from the conceit that was its predecessor, on Pennsylvania Avenue.

I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed the Sheriff’s speech, and how I want every single American to hear it again and again.  Self-governance is the key to this nation’s future.  Thanks, Sheriff, for the reminder.

Listen to the whole speech by clicking CONTINUE: