Twenty Small Ways to Help Get Our Country Back on Track

05 May, 2009 by John Hawkins

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“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.” — Thomas Paine

“You know it took us 80 years to get to where we are today and it’s going to take us 80 years to contain it and start to unravel it. It’s not going to all happen tomorrow and if people think it’s going to happen tomorrow, then they tend to give up and don’t take the little steps that they need to take today. We need to start with the little steps. We need to start chipping away and that is how we get back in the game.” — Mark Levin

If you want to turn the tide in this country, you don’t need to wait for some leader to ride up on a white horse so you can take his orders. Nor do you have to be a Rush Limbaugh, Ronald Reagan, Newt Gingrich, or Billy Graham to start making a difference. To the contrary, what you will find is that when there is a big enough, enthusiastic enough army of foot soldiers who want to get this country back on track, a worthy leader will emerge to carry out their wishes.

The key to getting to that point is for YOU PERSONALLY to do what you can, with what you have, where you’re at — for the good of this country. Once there are enough of us who have that philosophy, you will be surprised at how fast this country can start to turn around.

Towards that end, here are some small suggested actions that YOU PERSONALLY, in your everyday life, can do. In fact, many of these actions are so small you may not think that they’ll make a difference at all. But, from tiny acorns, mighty Oaks do grow.

1) Read the Constitution and read the Bible: If you understand the Constitution and the Bible, you’ll understand the foundations of this country and will be better able to tell when the country or the church is going astray.

2) Support and/or join organizations that are making a positive difference: There are a lot of great groups out there fighting the good fight, including but not limited to: Americans for Prosperity, The Club for Growth, The Leadership Institute, The National Rifle Association, NumbersUSA, Media Research Center, and The Sam Adams Alliance. Your local church could use your support as well.

3) Go to your local Tea Parties: Shake a few hands, read a few fliers, listen to some speeches. It’ll be fun and it’ll help you connect with other likeminded folks.

4) Get involved with local politics: Everybody gets excited about electing Presidents, senators, governors, and Congressmen, but the school boards, precinct delegates, comptrollers, and other less glamorous positions are more important than people think. Furthermore, a handful of determined people whose efforts might barely be noticed in a big race can often have a tremendous impact on these small contests.

5) Join the Republican Party: If you’re an Independent, Libertarian, Reform Party member, or Constitution Party member, join the GOP and try to reform one of the two parties that runs everything, from within — instead of pointing out all the things that are wrong with it from outside the party and being ignored.

6) Volunteer to help a political candidate: Even if you don’t have any candidate you like enough to help locally, phone banking through the internet is common enough now that you can definitely make a difference somewhere for a candidate who genuinely deserves your support.

7) Give God his due: If you’re a Christian and you achieve something worthwhile, publicly let people know that God deserves a lot of the credit for your achievement.

8) Pray: Pray for your family, your friends, your country, and yourself.

9) Ask your pastor to make short videos: One of the things Christianity most desperately needs in this microwave culture is charismatic pastors who can do short 2-4 minute explanations of Biblical stories and Christian beliefs that can be put on video. One pastor with a tiny flock can make a video, put it on YouTube, and reach tens of thousands of people, many of whom normally never step foot in a church.

10) Church: If you’re a Christian, go to church. Take your children. Invite your friends to go to church with you.

11) Undercut your local liberal paper: Cancel your subscription to your paper and read it on the internet. They make much less money per viewer on the net than they do from subscriptions. Furthermore, instead of placing ads in the classified section of your paper, use Craigslist. It’s free, effective, and it helps deny the newspapers the very revenue they’re going to use to spread lies about people you support.

12) Forward great articles to your friends: When you find a great article or blog post, send it to your friends. The conservative publications you support can use the extra traffic.

13) Support the advertisers on friendly websites: Advertisers who spend their money on conservative websites deserve to be rewarded. Take a look at their ads and if you’re so inclined, buy. At a minimum, those clicks will make it more likely that the advertisers will buy more ads on conservative websites in the future.

14) Donate your money: Giving a few bucks to your favorite blogger’s tip jar, your local church, your favorite charity, a deserving organization, or a politician fighting the good fight can make a difference. Even small amounts really add up if enough people do their part.

15) Protest political propaganda in your child’s school: You should demand that your local school not foist their political propaganda on your children. If a school is exposing your children to material you find objectionable, call them and complain. Write your local newspaper. Call your local politicians. Go to a school board meeting. Write some blogs and try to get the story out there. Teachers can have whatever political opinion they want, but they don’t have a right to indoctrinate your child.

16) Stop being so afraid to offend people: There’s a lot to be said for being polite and trying to get along with other people, but we’ve gotten to a point in our society where many of the most angry, abusive, and manipulative people label themselves as victims even as they trash everything good in this country and take advantage of people’s better instincts. At some point, standing up for what’s right has to take precedence over protecting everyone’s feelings — and we are at that point.

17) Vote for a viable candidate: I hate to break it to you, but if you don’t vote, your opinion doesn’t matter. Moreover, there isn’t much practical difference between not voting at all and voting for candidate who’s going to get one percent of the vote. Find the candidate in the general election whose views are closest to yours, who has a chance to win, and vote for that person. Then, make sure your friends get out and vote for that candidate, too.

18) Contact your Congressional representatives: You may think that your Congressman or senator doesn’t care what you think — and sometimes, you’re right. But, members of Congress typically love their jobs and when the people who vote them into office start contacting them in numbers, they do pay attention. Sometimes, that makes them change their minds about how they’re going to vote.

19) Contact corporations: Corporations may be the only people more sensitive to bad publicity than politicians — and why should that only benefit liberals? If a corporation is supporting a movie, a person, or an event that offends you, trashes conservatives, attacks Christianity, or that you think is bad for children, let them know that you don’t like it. These days, it’s easy to find all the contact information you need on Google.

20) Show up and speak up: This is the last one on the list because it’s the most important. The world is run by people who show up. Whether it’s church, a Tea Party, a campaign event, a conservative conference, a school board meeting, or a town council meeting, the people who are there and are willing to speak their mind are the ones who change things. Make that person YOU!