Texas Conservatives Must Organize or Lose

OPINION

We need to organize. "We" as in conservatives. It is becoming painfully obvious that nothing is being gained while we disparate factions of conservatives create our own niche organizations and blogs and snipe at each other. I am plain sick and tired of this. We have been sidetracked and divided, and it might have been on purpose, but forget that. We let it happen and it is up to change it.

Conservatives in every town and county in Texas should get together and form a "Freedom Club of ______". These local organizations will be the rallying points for all of our conservative causes. They can meet once or twice a month in person, they can hold fund-raisers to fund their activities.

A few hours of their time each month isn't too much to ask for conservatives who think the world is crashing is it? There should be a dues, let us say $20 a year. That isn't too much for people who think stopping socialism and tyranny is important. Half of the dues can stay local and half go to the umbrella state-wide organization.

The local chapters should focus on local issues. How their local taxes are spent, on stopping government projects and spending on things that tax dollars should not be used for. The state-wide organization with local chapters and tens of thousands of Texans supporting it would have some real influence, some real meat on the bones.

No more signing some petition or voting in worthless online polls. We need real activities by real activists. We have enough keyboard commando's what we really need are people who can show up when we need them in person. We are the most invisible group in the country and that needs to change.

Now as I was saying about be divided. We are divided every time some sub-group decides it doesn't like this issue or that issue and demands that we not fight for our beliefs. We have libertarians fighting for gay marriage and legalizing drugs, we have pro-abortion "Republicans" who love to say we should drop it as an issue.

The answer should be no. This proposed organization "Freedom Clubs of Texas" or even "Freedom Clubs of America" should reject these sub-groups demands. If they do not want to be a part of the conservative movement, they should not be allowed to infect it. They drain the conservative movement by forcing us to fight amongst ourselves. They have enough of their own niche organizations and should not be allowed to infect this one I am proposing.

I apologize again, I just wanted to get it off my chest. Some day I hope conservatives do come together and get active and get organized, or I fear this slide into the abyss will continue.

“Final Mile” Rail Project Seeks To Soak Taxpayers

(Austin NN) AUSTIN, TX- "Traffic is bad, and it's getting worse, and it has been ignored for several decades," said Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell. The he and “Project Connect” continued to ignore local traffic as they huddled over plans for a pet rail project. A rail project that could (definitely will) cost local taxpayers more than $300 million while doing next to nothing to alleviate traffic in Austin. They also promise that the other half of this project (another $300 million or so) will come from federal taxpayers (because Austinites don't pay federal taxes?)

"The car is going to continue to be the dominate means of transportation here in the area, but there are going to be options available through the various options Project Connect instills," said Project Connect Urban Rail Project Leader Kyle Keahey. Instead of addressing the dominate, and most logical, means to address the traffic congestion their idea is to spend a massive amount of tax dollars to benefit very few local travelers.

Friday Project Connect members met to start developing a specific route for the first phase of the project -- the central corridor in downtown Austin. Leaders describe it as "the final mile" that will tie the entire regional system together.

"The only criteria that I have right now is that we tie together the three dense population nodes of downtown, and that's the University of Texas, the Capitol complex and downtown Austin," Leffingwell said. So the question is, do a large number of people routinely travel from the Capitol building to UT and from downtown to UT? What do they do with their vehicles, which they rode to get there, while they travel in this triangle?

I guess that is not their problem. These few people riding the trains the rest of us pay for will eventually have to get back in their vehicles and get back on the highway and regular roads. So while the traffic in the triangle might be a few cars less, there is no actual benefit to the rest of us. Well, besides the honor of subsidizing their comfy ride.

By the time this proposed “final mile” system is up and running it will be sometime in 2020 and will likely cost much more than the local voters will be asked to pay. The long con begins in earnest as “Project Connect” kicks off seminars and webinars, pretending to invite public input – while actually being used to push propaganda to get a bond issue passed in 2014.

If Austin really wants to do something about the traffic they should concentrate on what it is that is congested, the roads. Forcing everyone to pay higher taxes so one percent can ride in style downtown while not fixing the real problem is not the answer.

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