LibertyForge

LibertyForge is a social network devoted to connecting voters and groups who support a constitutionally limited government. Since elections are the only part of our Republic that is democratic, and the representative to citizen ratio is so low, it only makes sense to have a discussion forum to enable voters to vet candidates and issues. The power of LibertyForge is in assigning a discussion forum to each individual voting district. As a member you enroll in your voting district discussion groups and focus your time and energy on the aspects of government which you have the most power and responsibility to effect.

The nature of groups by voter district enables coordinated activism on a whole new level:

• You meet neighbors of like mind in your own geographical area.
• Future leaders will arise naturally through name recognition from online discussions.
• Each TEA Party is welcome to have its own Group to use as a free resource for a web presence, meeting announcements and activism coordination.
• The work of monitoring our politicians and government is distributed among all of the members.
• Legislative Alerts are seen by the groups affected rather than mass emails to everyone.
• Notices of Town halls, debates and other events can be posted.
• Candidates, debates and news clips can be recorded, posted and discussed for the benefit of future undecided voters.
• Capitol Caravans can be arranged for carpooling to see your representatives.
• Limitless Possibilities!

Our Republic was formed specifically to protect the unalienable rights to Life, Liberty and Property granted by God the Creator. It is the protection of these rights and the restoration of our Republic that has inspired the creation of LibertyForge.

LibertyForge is a social network for connecting liberty minded voters across Oklahoma and enable coordinated regional activism. With 101 house, 48 senate and over 300 school districts along with 77 counties and 400 towns, a single conversation on Oklahoma political issues would quickly clog – Broken Bow has different concerns than Broken Arrow. With discussion groups based on voting districts, you participate in the few groups relevant to you and filter out everything else. This enables thousands of simultaneous productive conversations and enables several critical functions in the struggle to restore our Republic to its constitutional roles:

• The links on the right side lead to articles on politics, economics, history, etc. and to other friendly sites and sources to educate voters about founding principles and a variety of other topics.
• The tool bar across the very top of the site is the social network part of LibertyForge. Join the groups for each of your voting districts. Make friends in your area and around the state, announce town halls, organize meetings and talk. Through discussion forums, members provide a clearinghouse of information on issues, ideas, elected officials and legislation to inform voters.
• Our candidates are decided in the primaries by a small percentage of the most informed voters who’s sources of information are almost always biased. As a media business, controversy sells and campaign adds sell even better. TV, radio and newspaper reporters must compromise their point of view as a balance between pleasing their audience and their employer. Guess who wins that decision?  It’s no wonder the campaign with the most money almost always wins. A voting reference of our combined efforts can dramatically reduce the influence of money on our elections.
• Use the discussion forums to vet candidates and issues during elections. Share your thoughts or post a video from a debate. Provide links to relevant information. Most people don’t really consider who they will vote for until a week before the election. LibertyForge is a haven for undecided voters to get a Tea Party perspective.
• LibertyForge enables you to find like minded folks in your own area. You are not alone! If you don’t already have a local tea party, we can help you set one up. Each local Tea Party is invited to set up its own discussion group on LibertyForge. While the individual Tea Party groups maintain their own identity, LibertyForge can knit everyone together into a powerful statewide network of liberty minded people.
• Most importantly, LibertyForge provides a way for Tea Party groups to grow and coordinate their activism. How about Capitol Caravan groups? Share resources  – someone need help? Ask nearby groups! Pool printing orders. Share a common Events Calendar. Have you wasted time on a certain book? Let others know. Good books? – Let others know. Having a town hall meeting? Let others know – and report back! Having a protest or rally? Let others know. Did your Tea Party accomplish something great? Let others know!

LibertyForge brings to life a true participatory influence on government and a bypass of media bias and politics as usual. Take this opportunity. Join LibertyForge and Restore our Republic.

Thank You,
Keith Shankle    kshankle@gmail.com

Rural Oklahomans will become increasingly irrelevant in government because: the distance from the State Capital limits access to representatives, moneyed interests win elections and reduced internet access limits our ability to stay informed outside of biased media. We are almost entirely dependent on the education and character of our representatives. Without reasonable internet access it will become increasingly difficult to stay informed and connected with each other and our government. A special forum is devoted to sharing information on internet alternatives, what works, what doesn’t, what you get for your money. LibertyForge will strive to maintain a bandwidth friendly presence and limit audio and video content to links and Facebook.

We can no longer accept mediocrity as the standard for elected officials or ourselves. After 235 years, mediocrity is a proven failure. LibertyForge is declaring a set of standards in basic knowledge for voters and a much higher standard for anyone thinking to represent the people. Fame, family connections nor wealth are qualifications for office. Knowledge of founding principles, an oath to abide by them and the ability to debate issues are what matters most. And, in a culture steeped with special interests and potential for corruption, character matters.

We are working to distill the founders basic concepts into posts on Life, Liberty, Property and History to inform voters. For now the best summary is actually a John Birch Society video called Overview of America. Before asking the voters to invest their trust, a candidate must develop a deep understanding of our founding principles and economics.

A handful of reference documents are widely recognized as standards in the understanding of our constitution and basic economics. Going forward all candidates expecting the trust of the people much earn that trust by demonstrating a solid grasp of the ideas embodied in the following references:

The Declaration of Independence
The Constitution of the United States of America
The Constitution of the State of Oklahoma
The Law by Frederic Bastiat
The Federalist Papers by Hamilton, Madison and Jay
The 5000 year leap by W. Cleon Skousen
Economics in one lesson by Henry Hazlitt
The creature from Jekyll Island by G. Edward Griffin

A candidates character becomes vital when hard choices must be made. It is impossible to judge the heart of anyone but only prudent to use the choices they have made in the past as a guide to their future. Have they been divorced? If so, why? Infidelity to a spouse is no guarantee of infidelity to the voters but it does place a question mark. Have they filed for bankruptcy? There is no crime in going bankrupt but it does provide an indication of judgment relative to others. Is the candidate debt free? Or debt free except for their home? How a person handles their own finances is a good clue as to how they will handle the peoples. Have they held a job outside of government? Have they run a successful business? Did that business hire others? Have they served honorably in the military? More points go to active service than reserves. Have they been convicted of a felony? Drunk driving? I have heard that 70% of our state legislature are retired educators who will collect another state pension serving as a representative, and another if they move to the senate. If their motives are pure then why aren’t our schools the best in the nation?

These are all things that can give us a clearer picture of how a candidate will perform in office.

We welcome constructive criticism and concerns.

You can reach us by email to webmaster@libertyforge.us

You can leave a voicemail at 918..358..2378

Step 1  - Register and Activate your membership……. Here is a guide to New Member Registration

• Click Sign Up in the horizontal bar at the top of the screen. Note: usernames must be all lowercase.
• Check for an email from LibertyForge. Click on the activation link in the email to complete your registration.

Step 2 - Find out your voting districts……. Here is a guide to the Oklahoma Election Board

• The main purpose of LibertyForge is to enable coordinated regional activism focused on voting districts because this is where you have the most power to influence government. Use the state election board to find out your legislatative districts. Enter your info, click ‘search’ and on the response screen click on your Voter ID number. Keep this information handy. There are also several voting district maps here.

Step 3 – Join Your Groups ……Here is a guide to Joining Groups

• Now Login for the first time, click the Groups tab above and join the groups for your various voting districts and other groups of interest. Use the Search field underneath the Groups tab to help find your districts. For example: Skiatook will pull up “Town of Skiatook” and “School District of Skiatook”, 36 will pull up all house and senate districts with a 36. Find and join groups for your:

• Under the Groups Directory title you should see All Groups and My Groups. In My Groups you will find the groups you just joined – these are the voting districts you have the best chance of influencing. Now prowl around, find out stuff, contribute what you learn, meet your neighbors.

LibertyForge is a collaborative effort between David Mclain and Keith Shankle designed to inform voters and coalesce a statewide group of liberty minded voters and candidates. Our aim is nothing short of the restoration of our state and nation to liberty and it’s founding principles.

Across the top of the website you find groups based on specific voting districts. You join the Groups for your voting districts. Each Group has relevant forum topics to read and post comments and links to discuss election issues and vet candidates. Since you only see and comment on posts in your Groups, the entire state can carry on many conversations in multiple forums at the same time. Each forum is only relevant to the people in that group so, for example, members from Atoka don’t have to sort through irrelevant chatter about Tulsa issues. Each group contains forums pertinent to each candidate and a separate forum to debate about the candidates. It is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to vet the candidates in your voting districts. For example, post a basic bio of the candidates, links to video or audio of debates, and links to other internet sources. What is their record, if any? What legislation have they written, supported or blocked? As more members contribute material and analysis through posts, comments and ratings on existing comments, a clear picture will emerge.

Down the right side you will find links to other sites and blog style posts designed to educate voters. The progressive movement has been very successful in presenting a false image of our nations history through selecting both what we learn and do not learn. For example, did you know there was a depression in 1920 more severe than the Great Depression we all learn about? It was brought about by enormous growth in government size and spending and quickly resolved by cutting the size of government in half. The result was the roaring ’20′s. Washington insiders don’t want you thinking there are solutions other than the ones they present you.

Just as with the forums at the top, the posts on the right will cover many topics related to Life, Liberty and Property. We each have a blog for our opinions, we think they are the best opinions and everyone else should have them too! There is even a Brothers Keeper section to help our socialist friends find their way from regulations and socialism to the path of freedom, responsibility and charity.

It is your task to learn for yourselves, contribute your expertise and scour the internet for pertinent links and information to improve the content and inform others. As comments and posts grow we will take your comments and links and rewrite the section to be more concise and useful to new members.

We have no illusions that some will join to disrupt this process. Flag these posts for moderation and we will look into it.

Rural Oklahomans will slowly become irrelevant in state government because the physical distance from the State Capital limits direct access to our representatives and significantly reduced internet access limits our ability to stay informed outside of biased media. We are almost entirely dependent on the education and character of our representatives. Without reasonably fast internet access it will become increasingly difficult to stay informed, connected with each other and our government.

A special group is devoted to sharing information with each other on internet alternatives. What works, what doesn’t and what you get for your money. LibertyForge will strive to maintain a bandwidth friendly presence and limit audio and video content to links and Facebook.

Our choices in candidates are decided in the primaries by a very small percentage of the population. These are the most informed voters, however, their sources of information are almost always biased one direction or another because TV, radio and newspaper reporters compromise their point of view as a balance between making their audience happy and their employer happy. Guess who wins in that decision? As a media business, controversy sells and campaign adds sell even better. Is it any wonder that the campaign with the most money almost always wins?

Whether you are Republican, Democrat or other, LibertyForge provides a single stop for informing voters.

During the election cycle members build a knowledge base on each candidate and provide vetted links to other sites so voters can have one place to go for many perspectives on the candidates and issues.

During congressional sessions members track the progress of their representatives and alert them and us all when they begin to stray from the path of our founding principles and liberty. LibertyForge gives a voice to warnings by concerned citizens and provides us a chance to head off trouble before it starts.

There are several different TEA Party groups started, dissolved and maintained  for various reasons. Each group was started by to address specific concerns about various issues. All TEA Party groups have in common the overriding theme of limited government and our founding principles. Because it is so difficult to maintain momentum outside of election cycles, a concern of LibertyForge is that several independent groups are too vulnerable in the long term. Members get worn out, rub each other the wrong way, or just plain disagree on details.  Regional groups tend to be leader focused and the viability of any leader focused group is dependent on the leader and their relation to each member. But separated by distance, it isn’t feasible to maintain a single statewide group. The enemies of liberty know that movements have historically waxed and wained around election cycles. They are backed by enormous financial resources that have afforded a sustained push toward central planning type government for the last 100 years.

LibertyForge is a social network capable of connecting all the TEA Party members and groups together while still allowing the individual groups to maintain their own identity. Members can make friends, share ideas and learn from the expertise of others from around the state. These friendships and liberty activism can be maintained from your own home, library or laptop even after the adrenaline of election cycles wear off.