I arrived at the Texas State Capitol, today, to start petitioning for redress of grievances with the Texas Legislature. I had expected that they would presume me guilty of being a threat to others without any probable cause and make wearing a mask a condition of exercising numerous rights in the Texas Bill of Rights. They did. But that was the least of it.
They upped the ante once by making passage of the notoriously unreliable rapid COVID tests a condition of entering the Capitol building, thereby encouraging people to self-incriminate.
But the ultimate slap in the face of Texans was the martial, police-state display put on by the DPS. The DPS deployed in full tactical kit, in an intimidating martial display. The deployed in about platoon strength at each of the four entrances to the Capitol. Citizens were only allowed entry in one entrance into the Capitol, and that involved walking through a military tent after having visited the other tent for a COVID test.
The consensus of those asked about under whose authority the multiple assaults on the sensibilities of Constitution and liberty loving Texans was that it was done by the Texas Preservation Board. I know for a fact that the practices were not done according to the enabling statute for the Preservation Board. The Board is required to issue any regulations via the procedures in the Texas Administrative Procedures Act. Those procedures require that any new regulations be published in the Texas Register, receive public input in hearings, and then published as a new regulation with the Secretary of State.
That law was not followed. There is a provision for emergency rule-making, but they did not even bother with that. Laws, written, fixed rule-of-law, and public input? Who needs that, anyway? Not those who think they rule us.
The more I think about the martial display at the Texas State Capitol, today, the more perturbed I become.
The first question that any good journalist should ask the governor, the lieutenant governor, and the outgoing speaker who are the mainstays on the Preservation Board is: "What is the threat that was contemplated by this display?"
In other words, "Who were you trying to intimidate?" And why would you think they need intimidating?"
Was the display meant to intimidate Antifa, who invaded the Capitol Grounds and destroyed property on the Capitol grounds during the summer?
Or did the big three mean to intimidate conservatives? Was it meant to be a statement of solidarity with the Deep State propagandists who wished to tar Trump and all his supporters with the smear of the accusation of being violent insurrectionists?
Patrick Henry asked a similar question on March 23, 1775 about the occupation of the colonies with government troops, and came up with his own answer:
"I ask, gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it? Has Great Britain any enemy, in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us; they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British ministry have been so long forging."
The governor and the lieutenant governor owe the people of Texas an explanation of why they feel the need to intimidate people coming to the People's House to exercise multiple rights guaranteed in the Texas Bill of Rights.
Just when we need our Texas elected officials to reassure Texans that they will protect them from an unhinged, vengeful, and unleashed federal government and Deep State, we see evidence that they want to do some dictating, themselves.
Tom Glass lives in Northwest Harris County. Click here to reach his email. He is also on Facebook as Tom G Glass. He leads a group called Texas Constitutional Enforcement which can be explored at its website or Facebook group. And given the recent Facebook censorship, there are now Texas Constitutional Enforcement groups on Texan owned and operated Freedom Lake and Blabbook, as well as MeWe and Wimkin.
