Last week a local newspaper made note of the fact that I filed as a candidate for Oregon’s Senate District #28. If you haven't heard the news, it's true – I did.

The ideals and traditions that have made America great will be the same principles grounding my candidacy. These are the principles for Life, Liberty, and the freedom of our individual pursuits.

Allowing Oregon’s citizens the right to work toward these ideals will be my goal. Pursuing these freedoms will do more to help Oregon than any of the results oozing from progressive legislators.

Several of the future economic deformations headed toward Oregon families are: **

• more unemployment due to minimum wage increases;
• increased tax penalty for the working poor who bump up through the state and federal income tax tables (which are not adjusted for inflation);
• annual increases scheduled for agricultural pumping costs;
• increases in household electric rates exceeding $190 per year;
• grid distortions caused by the green energy fleecing of Oregon taxpayers.

Our American traditions are being lambasted, altered and undermined by collectivist ideals. These arbitrary and capricious ideals mask the nature of modern governments.

The history of mankind is filled with stories of oligarchs, tyrants, and dictators. Their arbitrary forms of government have been the general rule. Restrained government is our American exception.

Oregon needs a Rebirth of Liberty – the liberty and spirit that embodied our American Institutions. As Americans, living in Oregon, we can use the elements from our past and return to a system that will protect our future.

These elements are well known. They show themselves in our courts and town halls. They weave through our neighborhoods and blossom in our relationships. They are what remains of our nation’s individualism, voluntarism, constitutionalism, government by law, representative government, limited government, natural rights, moral order, private property, thrift, industry, and competition. Unfortunately, these enduring principles and American traditions have been chased from history.

These principles comprise what our founding fathers meant by their use of the word “liberal.” They meant “liberal” as in “liberated.” They birthed the tradition of representative government, self-governance and individual Liberty. This is the only legitimate replacement for the historical authoritarian tradition.

The Founders did away with the hierarchical political values brought from Europe. Their desire was to start the American form of government on an obvious (but never before tried) idea about dispersed control. They started withequality among people and finished with active consent as government's limiting boundary.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

These are not new thoughts. They should be well known to all American's and anyone who has ever dreamed of coming to America.

Yet, the newspaper I mentioned earlier identifies me as one who is a, “prolific writer with a pretty easy-to-find track record of strong anti-government views.”

They ask their readers, “Is this the right person to become the legislative ‘face’ in Salem?” 

What do you think?

• Do you still admire our Nation’s Founders?
• Do you believe in Liberty over Security?
• Do your believe in fighting for your Rights?
• Are you an “anti-government extremist”?

All of the Founders of our great nation would have been characterized as "anti-government extremists." I am proud to be associated with such good company. But they were not "anti-government" they were anti-authoritarian. They, in fact, created a historic enterprise; a government that was "a more perfect union."

They each had a prolific thought-life that has been the admiration of generations. They were not afraid of picking up a quill and scribbling out their ideas. They were so committed to their treason that those who signed declared, "[F]or the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."

Today’s progressive movement has thrown aside our American tradition in favor of a Utopian dream fulfilled by big government authoritarians. To the dismay of liberty loving patriots all over Oregon, the progressive movement is wielding it's majority with thoughtless abandon.

Together we must return to the ideals that guided the men & women who fought the tyranny of the ruling power during the late 1700’s. Men like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Sam Adams and women like Abigail Adams, Mercy Otis-Warren and Penelope Barker.