[note: I gave the following speech in Bryan and San Antonio, Texas during an Americans For Prosperity "November Is Coming" event. I had no idea that people would ask for copies of the speech and for me to publish it online. Below is the video from San Antonio followed by the exact notes I read from.]
My name is Paul Croteau. I am a co-founder of FTR Radio.com, the largest online radio station solely dedicated to conservative content. I am a husband and father; I am a hard working computer guy by day and a red, white and blue bleeding patriot by night. I also happened to get my MBA from the Mays Business School in 1996.
But who am I really? Where did I come from? And why are you listening to me today?
My 12th Great Grandfather is Mayflower passenger John Howland, and fellow passenger Edward Winslow and eventual governor of Plymouth Colony is a distant uncle. I’m also a distant cousin of John Wayne and Humphrey Bogart (so don’t get me too riled up.) If I make you laugh it might be thanks in part to my relationship to Freddie Prinze or circus performer Tom Thumb. If I paint a picture of understanding or speak words that touch you, it might be my genetic links to Norman Rockwell, William Wordsworth or Edgar Allen Poe. But the lineage I am most proud of is my relationship to my 4th cousin Samuel Adams, organizer of the ORIGINAL Tea Party and father of the American Revolution.
I’m telling you this because I think it is vital that we all understand who we are and where we came from. My friends, when you look across this great land of ours, what do you see, and how did it get that way? Where did we come FROM? We came from the RIGHT… right? Look at a map of the world. America is here; Europe is there. We came here from the right. And when we expanded the size of America it originated from the right. All good things come from the right. After all, “He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the RIGHT hand of the father.”
So let me expand on this idea a little further. “Let me be clear.” When you look at the great moments in our country’s history, from where did they originate?
- Where did the Boston Tea Party come from? The political RIGHT.
- Who enacted the nation’s first-ever Civil Rights Act? The RIGHT.
- Where did the vast majority of suffragists fall on the political spectrum (including Susan B. Anthony)? The RIGHT
- What about the two black female co-founders of the NAACP? (Ida Wells and Mary Terrell, Republicans.)
- What party in 1916 elected the first woman to the U.S. House? (Republican Jeannette Rankin.)
- The first woman mayor in the US? (1926, the Honorable Bertha Landes of Seattle)
- Where did every single African-American in Congress until 1935 sit? The RIGHT.
- What about the first black member of the House of Representatives (South Carolina’s Joseph Rainey, 1870)
- First black U. S. Senator? (Republican Hiram Revels of Mississippi)
- The nation’s first black Governor (Pinckney Pinchback, Louisiana)
- The First Hispanic Governor was a Republican (Romualdo Pacheco, CA, 1875)
- The first Asian-American U.S. Senator (R – Hiram Fong from Hawaii)
- The first woman on the Supreme Court was a Republican (Sandra Day O’Connor)
Are you seeing a trend here? These wonderful accomplishments came from THE RIGHT!
What else did the Right accomplish? Republicans:
- Established the Transcontinental Railroad
- Passed the Land-Grant College Act
- Passed the 14th Amendment (to protect slaves)
- Republicans passed the 15th Amendment, extending to African-Americans the right to vote.
- Wrote and passed (40 years apart) the 19th Amendment
- Appointed the First Jewish Cabinet Secretary
- Established the Federal Highway System
- Passed the 1957 Civil Rights Act
I could go on and on. But there are those on the LEFT that like to call Republicans and the RIGHT in general the “party of NO.”
And in some cases they are correct. For example, the Right said NO to
- Slavery and the Ku Klux Klan
- Plessy v. Ferguson (which declared “separate but equal” to be constitutional)
- Military and educational segregation
- Ronald Reagan said NO to bigger government and NO to Communism, and his NO to higher taxes launched an economic boom, ending the stagnation and “malaise” of the Carter era.
My friends, as my lengthy but PARTIAL list shows, so many of the good things about America came from the RIGHT.
But times have changed.
Both parties have changed.
Our government has changed.
And the focus of millions of Americans has changed.
America is in trouble. Ours is an amazing and beautiful country that has done more good for the world than any other country in human history. Whether you look at things from a human perspective, or a financial perspective or a charity, creativity or productivity perspective, AMERICA is unmatched! Contrary to what our president and his kool-aid drinking followers think, it is my firm belief that the world should be THANKING America for all it has done, not condemning America for what it has failed to do.
Earlier this week, in Wisconsin, President Obama said: “The worst thing we could do is to go back to the very same policies that created this mess in the first place.” In other words the man is still blaming Bush.
I have to ask you Mr. President. what policies are you referring to?
- Are you referring to massive government spending? You’ve taken spending to levels never before seen in our country’s history. You’ve made trillion the new billion.
- Are you referring to isolationist partisan closed-door politicking and back room dealing?
- Are you referring to passing reams of legislation without ever reading it?
- Are you talking about telling the American people that we have to PASS a bill so we can find out what’s in it?
Mr. President, America has had enough. Enough of your campaigning, enough of your failure to lead, and enough of your far left ideology. You said in that same speech week “In November, [we are] going to have [a] choice.”
Yes, November IS coming. And WE are coming at you – from the RIGHT.
America is suffering now and our children may suffer tomorrow because two years ago 65 million people made the mistake of voting for a charismatic yet woefully inexperienced far left ideologue hell bent on molding this great nation of ours into some theoretical academia-created reality-defying government controlled monstrosity.
Not on my watch. Not on OUR watch.
And Mr. President, please don’t think that I’m a racist for disagreeing with you. I disagree with you because you are 100% liberal, not because you are 50% black. I – like the other 1.2 million members of Americans For Prosperity – are motivated by your ACTIONS and POLICIES, not your appearance. (Why is that so hard for some people to understand?)
And for those of you on the Republican side of the aisle: Do NOT make the mistake of thinking that you are safe from my wrath, or from our wrath. There are FAR too many Republicans that are no different than their power-hungry, tax dollar spending, arrogant and condescending counterparts on the left. And that’s what this bus tour is all about.
Policies from the LEFT continue to drive the Obama agenda toward bigger government. We want politicians to oppose big government programs or any other freedom-killing policies – or we will REMEMBER in NOVEMBER.
- We want to see you supporting efforts to repeal ObamaCare and replace it with real reform that puts patients first
- We want you to Oppose Cap-and-Trade Energy Taxes and any related EPA regulation
- We want you to Oppose any more Bailouts
- We want you to Oppose any attempts to regulate the Internet
WHY do we ask this? Because WE THE PEOPLE know our history. We know where we came from. We know where so much of the greatness of our country originated. It came From The Right. And we know that in order to save our country from further damage, those of us on The Right have to act now, with conviction, faith and steadfast determination.
I would like to finish with a quote from my aforementioned cousin Sam Adams:
“If ever a time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin.”
Are you an experienced patriot? Are you willing to stand up to the left? I am, and I will. Together, from the right, we can regain control of our government and our future. Thank you all for being here, and God bless our great nation
