The bill passed the Tennessee Senate with 26 Yes, and 3 No; the vote in the House was 76 Yes, 16 No, and 1 Present/Not Voting. This bi-partisan support for a bill that does nothing if not increase the ability of the legal and law enforcement authorities of Tennessee to better protect the citizens of that state from terrorist threats (including organizations/entities that encourage/support terrorism) shows that a certain rationality has returned to public discourse, and re-focused the response of government, at least in Tennessee, from politically correct falsehoods and multicultural wishful thinking, to a more pragmatic acceptance of threats and a realistic approach to terrorism prevention.

When the bill is signed into law by Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam once an entity has been designated as a terrorist organization, it is a felony for anyone to knowingly help that entity with money, advice or any other aid.

Previous versions of the bill had included the words “jihad” and “Sharia” but the passed version of the bill does not. In fact, there is no differentiation made in the passed legislation between any specific ideology, or religious views that might encourage terrorism, or violence. All those who might support “entities” or “organizations” designated as a terrorist organization whatever their religious or ideological views might be, will fall under the purview of this new law.

The bi-partisan passage of the “Material Support to Designated Entities Act” in Tennessee is an official acknowledgment of realities and a long overdue response on the part of high level politicians in America that threats (and actions) of jihad and terrorism are the results of a specific ideology. The bill did not pass in a political vacuum.

Less than two weeks before the bill’s passage, Geert Wilders, the persecuted Dutch Freedom Party leader, drew thousands to his “A Warning to America” speech in Nashville on May 12, 2011. Wilders can see in his own country what it means to be losing a civilizational war against Islam.

Tennessee is a hotbed of resistance to political Islam. The Middle Tennessee ACT (Act for America) chapter is the largest in America and has brought in monthly speakers on the nature and danger of political Islam. Their events routinely draw hundreds.

Nearby, the city of Murfreesboro has also recently started an ACT chapter. Murfreesboro has been the site of a spirited and lengthy resistance to Islam by opposing the construction of a local huge mosque/Islamic center.

In the political background of the bill’s passage were the lobbying efforts of the Tennessee Eagle Forum, led by Bobbie Patray (known as “Ms. Bobbie” to every politician who sits in the Tennessee Legislature or the governor’s mansion). She is a political force unto herself and was involved in the passage of three other bills that resist Islam.

Senate Republican Caucus Chairman Bill Ketron and House Speaker Pro Tem Judd Matheny have proven to be strong leaders by weathering a full court press against the bill by the “main stream” media at the local and national levels. Nashville’s mainstream newspaper, The Tennessean, ran a Sunday front page article creating the “Big Lie” that the bill would prohibit Sharia law and make it illegal to practice Islam in Tennessee.

The “Big Lie” resulted in a small media storm that caused Al Jazeera, New York Times, Fox and others to show up and record what they apparently hoped would be the modern day equivalent of the Scope’s “Monkey Trial“, held in Dayton, TN in 1925.

CAIR organized a protest at the Legislature. The ACLU weighed in to oppose the bill (for many, reason enough to support the bill). Adherents of Islam packed committee meetings and attended sessions with the bill’s sponsors – to no avail.

When the votes were counted, it was a bipartisan group of concerned Americans who won over an energized Muslim Brotherhood, the ACLU, and a biased newspaper. The passage of this bill is a significant step by the state of Tennessee in resisting the Islamic attack on our civilization.

It has often been suggested since 9/11 that any discussion of Islam in which the doctrine of jihad was criticized was an offense against religious tolerance, multiculturalism, (and political correctness) mainly due to the contra-rational concept so prevalent after the jihadist attacks in New York, Washington, Pennsylvania, Bali, Mumbai, Kenya, Israel, Beslan, London, Madrid and hundreds of other places, that Islam is a hijacked “religion of peace.”

Only after adherents of Islam (i.e., Muslims) gave non-adherents real cause to fear Islam (9/11) and those who implemented its doctrine of jihad did the term “Islamophobia” enter common usage. The passage of the Material Support bill in Tennessee overturns the false concept that legitimate discussions of the threat of Islamic jihad doctrine are somehow inherently bigoted by acknowledging, through bi-partisan supported legislation, that such discussions are based on facts and critical reasoning.

Tennessee is famous across the country for its friendly and hospitable people. In fact, the United States is known across the world for these same traits of culture. Adherents of Islam in Tennessee are allowed to freely practice their religion; this bill does not in any way interfere with the legal practice of any faith.

The Tennessee Material Support bill is not about religious intolerance or bigotry nor is open discussion about Koran, Sira, and Hadith, and what some adherents of Islam do on account of these sacred Islamic texts. The continued tolerance for Islam in the United States in this post-9/11 world is a significant commentary on the openness and decency of the American people and our ongoing difficulty in accepting that a religious ideology could be the source of so much hatred, violence, and intolerance.

Those who commit violence due to the Islamic doctrine of jihad have been telling us clearly – through their videos, publications, public statements, writings, organizational charters, and acts – that their motives are entirely in line with the ideology of Islam and that they are meeting their jihad obligations as laid out to them (as adherents) in the doctrine to which they adhere. Bin Laden himself was quite clear on this point, as were his jihadist minions on 9/11 and afterward. We have not been very good listeners.

Since the horror of 9/11 many Americans continue to refuse to accept that our world now is riven by an ideological conflict on account of which the fate of the United States and of the entire West now is at stake. We are still a House divided.

Abraham Lincoln, in his famous “House Divided” speech, delivered in Springfield, Illinois, June 16, 1858, regarding a different matter (“slavery agitation”) said:

In my opinion, it (slavery agitation) will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free.

Now, in our own great ideological war brought upon us (due only to the fact that we exist), and not caused by us – it is clear that our country (and the West in general) cannot long endure half realist/learned, and half denialist/ignorant.

It seems altogether fitting and proper that the former Confederate state of Tennessee should set the pace for realistic engagement in this civilizational war to defend our freedoms and Constitutional Republic.

Who could have known that ten years would be required for reality to shatter our dreams of what we want the world to be, and replace our fantasies of coexistence and global brotherhood with the truth of the existence of people and ideologies whose purpose is nothing less than our destruction and all those who live and think as we do?

This acceptance of the lessons of distant and recent history and of our finally paying attention to the words, actions, and foundational doctrines of our enemies is nothing more and nothing less than a culture-awakening “moment of truth.”

There should be no calumny associated with speaking the truth. There ought to be an acceptance of reality for what it is, rather than a rejection of it because it is not what we’d prefer.

The actions of the Tennessee legislature in passing SB1028/HB1353 are laudable for many reasons first and foremost that it accepts reality for what it is, and takes concrete legal steps to secure the people of that state from ongoing threats of terror and violence. There is no civilization that can sustain itself with passive denialism and Utopian wishful thinking.

Perhaps it is not excessive rhetoric at all to suggest that the passage of the “Material Support to Designated Entities Act” in Tennessee marks a turn-of-the-tide moment in recent American history. Perhaps more rational voices – supported by history, evidence, and the actions of those whose purpose is our destruction – will be heard with more patient and open ears in halls of learning and law across the country, and Tennessee’s model of acceptance of the truth will sweep the land from east to west and north to south.

What remains now is for Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam to sign the bill into law.

Please consider sending Governor Haslam a note via email (bill.haslam@tn.gov) mentioning that you support Tennessee bill SB1028/HB1353 (Material Support to Designated Entities Act) and that you strongly hope that he will affix his signature to it.

Co-authored with Dr. Bill Warren

DL Adams is an analyst and historian.
Dr. Bill Warner is Founder and Director of the Center for the Study of Political Islam. Dr. Warner’s website is PoliticalIslam.com.

Many pundits debated the lessons from the the New York “23rd race” and the heralded defeat of Dede Scozzafava and subsequent loss of Doug Hoffman.  A couple things were clear.  The Club for Growth money that went to Hoffman was not enough to bring home a winner.  It was equally obvious from the loss, that the national outpouring of grassroots support from Tea Party activists all over the Country was not enough.

What was clear to those closer to the campaign was that all of the assistance poured into a flawed operation could not put humpty dumpty together.  An axiom from business holds that before you automate a process you must first perfect that process.  The cash and volunteer support were in effect the automation that the Hoffman campaign desperately needed.  The “machine” however, lacked the fine tuning so that most of the “inputs” ended up as waste and proportionally little product flowed out of the campaign apparatus.

Every campaign needs at least two critical element pairings; campaign and money or campaign and people.  Hoffman had plenty of money and people but too little campaign.  Next time, the Tea Party supported candidates will have all three elements.  Enter, the Ensuring Liberty PAC.

From the founding documents:

The Ensuring Liberty Corporation, a 501(c)4, and its affiliated PAC, the Ensuring Liberty PAC (ELPAC) were formed to address the next step in the growing impact of the TEA Party movement through fund raising, candidate recruiting and the development of  a Congressional Caucus of like-minded representatives that stand for the TEA Party “First Principles”.  These first principles are:

• Fiscal Responsibility
• Lower Taxes
• Less Government
• States’ Rights
• National Security

In short, Ensuring Liberty will combine the money of Club for Growth and the grassroots mobilization of the Tea Party movement with a proprietary “’campaign tool kit’” that enables a standard set of electioneering practices” to make sure the money and people inputs result in super-efficient outputs.  This should satisfy both donors and “doers” as will the commitment that their support will be limited to candidates who fully embrace these unifying first principles.

Another unique feature of Ensuring Liberty is that successful candidates will be expected to caucus in support of the first principles knowing that their fidelity or lack thereof will be reported to the Liberty PAC membership.  The Ensuring Liberty caucus member who turns his back on the principles, will expect the membership to turn their backs to him.

Many in the mainstream media will get the facts wrong.  In fact, the announcement of the PAC by board member Mark Skoda received over 1000 media hits, many of which made wild erroneous assumptions.  So to all the MSM editors out there, here is a serving of facts on the new Tea Party PAC. Have some more fun spinning them.

Ensuring Liberty will target a limited number of key races in 2010 with a plan to target many more in the following cycles and fully restore America to her first principles.  Activists in Congressional districts unlikely to change will be steered to support candidates where ELPAC is at work.

ELPAC plans to work within the two party system rejecting as counter-productive, any effort to create a third political party.  The PAC founders are already busy fulfilling the goal of raising $10 million in the 2010 cycle.  They expect to raise these funds primarily from small donors.

Ensuring Liberty isn’t a PAC for politicians. Rather, it will focus its support on those patriots who have answered our nation’s call and stepped forward to run for office, often with little experience in the political realm. ELPAC will help them with the tools they need to run effective campaigns and–most importantly–win this fall.

Ensuring Liberty will ensure victory this November.

Let me add, finally, that I know there has been much debate about the next steps the overall tea party movement should take. Whether it should stay focused locally or evolve into a regional or even national organization. There are passionate patriots on all sides of this debate and it shows the strength and health of the movement. But, Ensuring Liberty isn’t really part of this debate.

Ensuring Liberty isn’t about leading or changing the tea party movement. It is a tool, a complement to whatever the tea party becomes. ELPAC is a resource to ensure that the best candidates run the best campaigns they can this fall. With your help, this time, I know our side will win.

On to battle.

Early in January RedState blogger Erick Erickson slammed the National Tea Party Convention. Erickson compared the convention organizers to Nigerian scam artists.

Let me be blunt: charging people $500.00 plus the costs of travel and lodging to go to a “National Tea Party Convention” run by a for profit group no one has ever heard of sounds as credible as an email from Nigeria promising me a million bucks if I fork over my bank account number.

I am led to believe a number of the sponsors who lent their names early on have grown wary of the event. That lines up with what I am hearing.

The tea party movement was always about the unorganized masses of concerned, passionate Americans uniting together with a common voice to protest the direction of the country. From that passion, others have sought to make money off the tea party movement. Some have done it for good. Many have not. And more and more we are seeing some people rise up to claim the mantle of “leader” of the tea party movement. Many of us who have been around for a while just want to know who the heck these so called leaders are.

But Erick Erickson had a change of heart. Today he is not as suspicious of the event. The RedState blogger actually was impressed with the convention and thinks it may bode well for the future of the tea party. We caught up with Erick earlier tonight: