At Convention of States’ 2022 Reclaiming Liberty Summit in Orlando, Florida, Lt. Col. Allen West delivered a stirring oration on the call of duty, sifting it into five key principles, the five Cs of leadership: Courage, Competence, Commitment, Conviction, and Character.
“These are the times that try men’s souls,” the former Congressman read from Thomas Paine’s “The American Crisis.” “The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”
Col. West noted that, once again, America finds itself in crisis. And once again, it is incumbent upon the true patriot to stand by his country. This, therefore, is our call to duty—like our ancestors before us, we must “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
“Any time you go out of your house, you’re on a battlefield,” the Col. proclaimed. “Now, what soldier, sailor, airman, marine, coast guardsman on a battlefield, in a combat zone, is gonna go out of their tent… without their weapon? Only an idiot. You don’t want to be an idiot, so when you leave out of your house, you need to have your weapon,” he said, raising a copy of the Constitution, “because this empowers you.”
Empowered by the Constitution and a clear understanding of our rights, we are equipped to ably “support and defend” that blessed document. But there are at least five more things we also need in the fight, West said.
1. Courage
“Courage means that, sometimes, you got to stand alone. Courage means that you… don’t go with the flow…. When you have courage, you stand up, and you look at the progressives, you look at the socialists, you look at the Marxists, you look at the commies, you look at the statists, and you tell them, ‘you’re nuts if you think you’re going to take this country away from us.’”
2. Competence
Next, West warned that, while courage is invaluable, without competence, it is useless. “With courage comes the second “C,” he told the audience. “You can be the most courageous person, but if you’re a dummy… how many people are going to follow a dummy into combat?”
“You’ve got to look people in the eye, look at people in the face, and with your courage and with your competence articulate the fundamentals of this great nation.”
3 & 4. Commitment & Conviction
The third ‘C’ is commitment, which goes hand-in-hand with the fourth: conviction. As Col. West explained, countless summer soldiers and sunshine patriots treat the fight for liberty as casually as our society treats marriage—as soon as the going gets tough, they jump ship without so much as a second thought. But with commitment, we bind ourselves, no matter how hard the fight may be; with conviction, we understand that the fight is worth it.
5. Character
Last up is character, which, as West defined it, “means doing what is right when no one is watching. When the State Director’s not watching, you’re going to do what’s right. When the Regional Director’s not watching, you’re going to do what’s right. When Mark Meckler is not around, you’re still going to do what’s right. Why? Because you have the courage to do what’s right, you have the competence to do what’s right, you have the commitment to do what’s right, you have the conviction to do what’s right, therefore, you’re going to have the character to do what’s right.”
With these five principles, Allen West argued that we, as a grassroots movement, can “light a fire in this nation” that burns until our present-day American crisis dissipates. It is possible, but we must first equip ourselves like soldiers ready for combat, ready to take back this country.
“That’s how history will judge us,” the Col. concluded—based on whether we possess the courage, competence, commitment, conviction, and character to stand up and say: “Not on our watch.”
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