Good morning,

When confronted with allegations of public corruption, we should all take a deep breath and reflect on the fact that as citizens we are responsible for setting the moral culture in which our public servants operate. We must stop making idols of politicians, and demand better of ourselves.

Here is today's Texas Minute.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Friday, October 9, 2020
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• Thousands of  small-business owners' lives and livelihoods are being crushed by Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive orders issued in response to the Chinese coronavirus. Tee Allen’s story illustrates the personal toll the governor’s policies are taking on individuals. Erin Anderson has the details.
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• Allen says months of struggling to stay in business has left her in “a dark, sad place.” But she is using her voice to fight back against the governor’s overreach, for herself and other small-business owners.
      
• It’s because of stories like Ms. Allen’s that grassroots activists are meeting outside the Governor’s Mansion tomorrow (Saturday, Oct. 10) at 11am to demand that he “Free Texas.”
   
• Brandon Waltens reports protest organizers have a radio ad playing in media markets around the state. “Set Texas free! It’s time to end the lock down and get back to our lives,” begins the ad.

• Authorities arrested and charged Carrollton mayoral candidate Zul Mirza Mohamed and charged him with dozens of felony voter fraud charges after catching him red-handed with a box of mail-in ballots belonging to local voters. Erin Anderson reports multiple mail-in ballots had been requested on behalf of Carrollton residents to be sent to a post office box in Lewisville, which purportedly belonged to a nursing home facility. Investigators contacted the voters and found they had not made the ballot requests.
      
• Investigators also learned the post office box was obtained using a fake Texas driver’s license and fake student ID from the University of North Texas, so they began surveilling the post office.
     
• Denton County Sheriff Tracy Murphree said his office was tipped off to the possible mail-in ballot harvesting scheme on September 23 by the Denton County Elections Office.
     
• Of course, Democrats and the establishment media would have us believe mail-in ballot fraud never happens...

• When it comes to building a grassroots army, the North Texas-based True Texas Project is doing it like no one else. Robert Montoya profiles the work being done by the organization in educating, motivating, and empowering other Texans to advance liberty.
     
• “From a conservative political standpoint, I feel like Texas took several steps forward in 2010, 2012, and 2014, and then started sliding backward. As time went by, however, many of our conservative champions were turned to the dark side, and became more and more moderate, establishment types who would no longer fight for the values on which we elected them. It’s been very disappointing... The only way to turn things around is citizen involvement.” – Fran Rhodes, president of True Texas Project
     
• It’s for this reason the True Texas Project has been doubling down, not fading away. Once operating only in Tarrant County, TTP now has chapters in Dallas and Denton, with others in the works.

Friday Reflection

When public corruption by government officials is alleged, everyone typically rushes to partisan corners in defense of their allies and to chastise opponents. No one will admit someone from their political team might have fallen prey to the seduction of power, and we assume our opponents live exclusively on the wrong side of the ethical divide.

We should all take a deep breath. 

As citizens in this republic, we must expect better of our public servants. More importantly, we must demand better of ourselves.

Take, for example, a store owner whose employees are cheating customers and making side deals with vendors. If the store owner allows the activity to continue, their error becomes his. He certainly won’t get any sympathy when those employees start stealing from the cash register. The collapse of the business is his fault, for the simple fact that he tolerated the culture that led to its demise.

The same is true in our republic.

No response to an allegation (or confirmation) of public corruption is more disgusting, however, than when people just shrug and try to excuse it as “how things are.” That is a sorry indictment of us, because it presumes someone else is in charge. 

As a self-governing people, we are, in fact, the ones in charge. We are responsible for setting the moral environment in which our public servants work. While the store owner I mentioned could just close his business, our practical duties and moral responsibilities as citizens are not so easily dissolved.

In the third chapter of Romans, we’re reminded of a simple human truth: “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” All of us are sinners, and so we sin. Every one of us, when given enough power, will abuse it for our own ends.

As Lord Acton put it, “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” 

This lesson pervades the pages of the Bible and history. The first king of Israel, Saul; his successor, David; and even the wisest king, Solomon, were testaments to this truth.

It is also why our Founding Fathers sought to replicate the biblical system of self-governance—which the people of Israel rejected, giving rise to the corruption of their kings. Our Founding Fathers envisioned a highly decentralized government, built around checks on power, to preserve liberty and limit corruption. Yet like the ancient Israelites, we’ve tolerated the unbalancing of those checks, even cheering as government power has been concentrated and grown beyond our constitutional framework. Then we feign surprise when this power is abused, and officials are found to have engaged in self-dealing activities.

The highest title in our republic is not ‘president,’ ‘governor,’ or ‘mayor,’ but ‘citizen.’ The greatest power should rest not in judges’ chambers, legislative offices, or executive mansions, but be held by the citizenry. Officeholders are not our leaders; they are our servants. 

Shame on us for offloading our responsibilities as citizen-leaders to the hired help. Shame on us for feeding the culture of corruption by making the servants more than they are, and enticing them with power to abuse in service to themselves. Shame on us for turning elected officials into idols.

We must not tolerate public corruption because “our man wouldn’t do this” or “at least it’s not the other party in charge” or even because “this is how things are.” 

Whether it’s a top official or a low-level bureaucrat, all are servants to the citizens. It is not to themselves, their peers, or their pals that public servants owe their loyalty. No, their fealty must be to the constitution and the citizens, first and only.

And more importantly, we must demand it.

Quote-Unquote

“Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is impossible that a nation of infidels or idolaters should be a nation of freemen. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom. No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.”

– Patrick Henry​