RTA Introduction

Today, in the United States, we have an organized political group for just about everything. We have one for gays, blacks, Hispanics, women, and gun owners, just to name a few. However, there is no group for the ordinary American. The man or woman who gets up every morning to go to work, pays his taxes, and take care of his kids. He / she has no time to "join a protest" or "march on Washington", and as a result, has been left behind.

However, the miracle of the internet has changed that. We can organize without leaving our homes or offices. We can have our voices heard through our computers and telephones. In less than 15 minutes time, we can send an e-mail to our congressman and both our senators.

You may have had an experience, in which you made a phone call or wrote a letter to your congressman with little effect, and you would be right, it has virtually no effect. Acting alone, we are powerless. If you get any response at all, it will be a well-crafted form letter from your congressman designed to offend the fewest number of people and make you feel like he / she cares about your opinion. However, you may remember the early summer of 2007; the immigration law was stopped in its tracks from a ground swell of opposition from the average American, people like you. You may even have been a part of this historic occasion. All we did was write e-mails and call our congressmen, but we stopped the US Congress and the president of the United States dead in their tracks.

This was an event in which the average America responded to a particular outrage. However, we were reacting...playing defense. In the end, this is a loosing strategy. Doing this, we can only hold the line, slow things down. In order to make things better, we need to learn to play offence. We need to make them respond to us!

That's what this website is designed to do. Organize the average American to push back the tide of socialism that has gripped this country and to restore it to its roots. That's where our name comes from. RestoreTraditionalAmerica is both our name and our mission statement. We use the word "Traditional" because the terms "Liberal" and "Conservative" have become so polarizing. We believe that ideas on this website will appeal to both sides.

Our founding fathers knew that a representative republic was a tenuous undertaking. That's why when Ben Franklin was asked what type of government was being created, he responded; "A republic, if you can keep it". It was thought by some of the founding fathers that a revolution would have to be fought about every 20 - 30 years, since the tendency for people to vote their own self interest is so strong. If that is true, we are long overdue.

Socialist groups have been politically active for a long time and they have a big head start on us. They have been relentless in their pursuits and if we are to be successful, we have to take a page from their play book. They never stop. If they can't get what they want through legislation, they try to get it from the courts. If they can't get ALL they want from a law, they get what they can and try again tomorrow. This effort will take time. The move to socialism has been in operation in the U. S. for about 100 years. It will take at least half that to turn it around.

Should you decide to join us, this is how it works:

You will be asked to create a user ID and a password. Nothing new here, you have to do that for every website. However, you will also be asked to answer a few questions about who you are, like your income level, race, and education level. These questions are entirely optional. We simply would like to know how broad our group is and what makes it up.
You will be asked what state you are from and who your congressman is. These questions are not optional. To be effective, we need to know how much of the political landscape we are covering, and more importantly, you need to know who your representatives are.
You will be asked to choose which issues you have in interest in. This is one of the things that sets us apart from other organizations / websites. As a citizen and voter, you need to be concerned with a broad range of topics, not just one or two. We offer a number of topics for you to choose from and we want you to choose only those for which you feel strongly enough to be willing to write an e-mail or make a phone call. Be sure to read our strategy for each one, since that is a statement of our position and a preview of what you will be asked to do.

Here are the ones that we can think of now. This list will change as we grow.

War on Terror

Taxes

Education

Liberal Judges

Christian Attack

Border Security

Social Security

Term Limits

Welfare

Unconstitutional Spending

Liberal Press

Liberal Schools

Environment

Energy

When you choose an issue, be sure to including a weighting factor. Some issues will be more important to you than others, so this weighting factor is used when evaluating your representatives' voting performance. It will produce a score that is based on what is important to you.
You will need to get set up to write your congressmen. We don't want your participation in this to take much of your time and with a little set-up, you can do it very quickly. This involves putting your congressmen's website on your browser favorites and creating a directory for your e-mails. We will show you how to do this so that you can send an e-mail to both your senators and your congressmen in less than 15 minutes, start to finish. You will be asked to write a lot of e-mails. You need to be good at it.
You need to send a "test e-mail" to your congressmen. This is simply an e-mail to your congressman and senators on any subject that you choose so that you have the experience of having done it. It is a dry run of your "e-mailing system" and prepares you for the first time you are asked to join us in an "action".
You need to monitor the website and participate in the discussion on our strategies. We start with what we believe are ideas with broad appeal, but we hope to have a vigorous debate on how to attack this problem. We want as much input from you as possible.
We will occasionally send you an e-mail asking you to write or call your congressman on a particular issue. This is called an "action". We will supply ideas on what to write, but we want you to write the e-mail in your own words. We will also ask you to do it within a particular time period. This is because it is more effective to have a bunch of e-mails at once than to have them dribble in over an extended period.
Some of our actions will be offensive and some defensive. The defensive ones will be in response to a particular outrage that is going on in congress. The offensive ones will be us setting the agenda. For these, you need to depend on our que. However, for defense, you should feel free to act on your own in addition to the actions that we suggest.
When you respond to an action, we ask that you record your action on the website. This is because you are acting on your own and we have no idea how effective we are as a group unless you do this. It is simple to do (just click on an item and type in a date). You will also be able to monitor the actions that you have taken over time since we will give you access to your own records.

Note that this is one of the unique parts of our strategy. Rather than you filling out a petition and giving it to us to present, you send it directly. At least at the beginning, this will act to our advantage. A congressman realizes that for every person that writes, there are many more that feel the same way. Until they catch on to us, this should work in our favor.
You need to decide if you want to fund us. If you do, we ask for a small amount monthly, sent automatically. We suggest funding in this way in order to put the smallest burden on both you and us as possible. We suggest no more than $10 a month. That's why it needs to be automatic. If you have on-line banking, this is very easy to do. If you don't, just relax and use the website for free.

You need to take this funding issue seriously. Our competitors are very well funded and we cannot seriously compete on a shoestring. We need millions of members and will have to advertise extensively to get them. Money is power and our competition has a lot of it. If you decide not to fund us, find another group that you are passionate about and fund them. This is one of the most important means of having your voice heard. You cannot afford to let others have this power to themselves.

Should you decide not to fund us, feel free to use the website for free as long as you like. We need lots of people who are willing to write e-mails whether they fund us or not.

That's our case. Please feel free to look around the website as much as you want. We hide nothing. You have access to every part of the website except the parts that only make sense to members.