Oath Keepers off to races as NASCAR examines sponsorships

Examiner – by David Codrea

“Let freedom roar on the track,” Oath Keepers proclaims in a new effort designed to spread public awareness of the group and its mission in a big way. “Help us put an Oath Keepers car on the NASCAR track, driven by Jeffrey Earnhardt!”  

Oath Keepers, regular readers of this column know, “is a non-partisan association of current and formerly serving military, reserves, National Guard, veterans, Peace Officers, and Fire Fighters who will fulfill the Oath we swore, with the support of like minded citizens who take an Oath to stand with us, to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, so help us God.

“Our Oath is to the Constitution,” the group pledges. “Our motto is ‘Not on our watch.’”

Foremost among their “Orders we will not obey” pledges:

We will NOT obey any order to disarm the American people.

“Oath Keepers are those who stepped forward, raised their hand and are willing to die to protect and defend our Constitution; that means everything to me and I’m honored to be a part this,” Earnhardt, 23, announced. The grandson of legendary seven-time NASCAR cup champion Dale Earnhardt is also a Mixed Martial Arts competitor, and is involved with numerous charities.

The reason for this public awareness campaign is “to bring the Oath Keepers’ message to the NASCAR audience and general public,” the group explains, adding “Oath Keepers is asking like-minded Americans to donate to get the Oath Keepers race car on the track and get our message about defending the Constitution out to millions.”

The race will take place at Dover International Speedway Dover, Del. On June 1, and will be televised on ESPN, with an estimated audience of 1.5 million, an estimated attendance of 40,000, and a national radio audience via the Motor Racing Network.

“Jeffrey will also do media promoting the Oath Keepers message leading into the race weekend, reaching millions more,” the group’s announcement continues. “In addition, the social media push using the Earnhardt brand will get attention and help spread the Oath Keepers message to millions prior to the race.”

“This is a rare opportunity to bring the Oath Keepers message to millions of NASCAR fans,” founder Stewart Rhodes tells supporters. “Many of them are veterans, and there are also a large number of active duty military who watch NASCAR.

“All donations go directly to getting this car on the track,” Rhodes continues. “It will take $30,000.00 to get it done, but I am confident that with your help, we can do it.

“The potential exposure is in the tens of millions,” he explains. “This could help make Oath Keepers a household name, and help to spread our message about the oath to millions of Americans who may not yet be fully awake to the ongoing assault on our Bill of Rights, and the rapidly increasing destruction of our Republic.

“You know how late the hour is,” Rhodes concludes. “Help us awaken the ‘Sleeping Giant.’ And besides, just imagine Mark Potok’s face when he sees this car on the track. Priceless!”

That’s a reference to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a frequent attacker of Constitutionalist groups and individuals that enjoys the lucrative enterprise of conflating them with racists and domestic terrorists — and a group that has been aggressive in trying to so tar Oath Keepers. And Rhodes may not need to wait until after-the-fact to see how the “progressives” react — they’re already doing it, and showing they have as much respect for the freedom of expression as they do for all other traditional natural rights and civil liberties, meaning none whatsoever.

“NASCAR plans to become more involved in race-sponsorship decisions by speedways in light of the continuing controversy surrounding the National Rifle Association’s sponsorship of the Sprint Cup race Saturday at Texas Motor Speedway,” ESPN is reporting.

That’s because “Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut wrote to News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch asking the Fox network not broadcast Saturday night’s race because of the NRA sponsorship.”

Murphy, of course, is not shy about abusing his elected office and power as a senator to try to intimidate heavily regulated corporations in order to discourage dissemination of ideologies he opposes. Don’t hold your breath waiting for him to lodge a similar complaint against the Mayors Against (your) Guns television ad campaign that uses phony “sportsmen” to stump for citizen disarmament.

Not that Astroturf should be viewed as competitive with grassroots. What Murphy is really doing is the oldest trick in the book that every cheap politician has done since he learned how to manipulate useful idiot “Authorized Journalists”– grabbing headlines for himself. And it looks like race officials are on to him.

“We’ve had fewer than a dozen responses,” Texas Motor Speedways President Eddie Gossage said. “Of those, only two had purchased tickets [to other TMS events]. There is no controversy or big uproar or even a tiny uproar. As for this senator, I appreciate a good publicity effort as much as anyone.”

And while public relations directors have tried to squelch having drivers appear before the NRA logo, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeffrey’s uncle, said “”I think it’s a good fit for Texas. If we win the race, we’re going to treat Victory Lane just like any other race, and we’ll be happy to celebrate just like everybody else has celebrated here in the past.”

“That celebration involves cowboy hats and pistols that shoot blanks,” the ESPN report explains.

Still, with the understanding that NASCAR is first and foremost going to treat any reconsideration of sponsorship as a business decision, increased publicity for the Oath Keepers effort could result in increased outcry against it by those who won’t tolerate a society that encourages diversity of opinions that don’t fit with how they want us to think. So with that in mind, NASCAR chiefs need to keep a couple things in mind before they let themselves get spooked by smears and lies:

First, they need to know who their core customers are, and the experience related by TMS’s Gossage ought to provide a good anecdotal gauge. Disapproval of rabid anti-gunners will not affect NASCAR’s bottom line (you’ll note no one is driving a Brady Campaign car). Disapproval of gun owners who take their Bill of Rights seriously certainly will. Big time. Heck, if they wanted to be smart about it, they’d have merchandising license deals with both NRA and Oath Keepers. Oh, wait…

Second, they ought to recall some Democrat staffers, afraid of what blogger Ace of Spades termed “Redneck Cooties,” who got hepatitis immunizations before going to Talladega for a NASCAR race.

Too bad society can’t be immunized against the terminal-if-unchecked disease of “progressivism,” which attacks all individual rights and can result in the body politic being completely taken over, especially with statist quacks like Chris Murphy trying to mandate universal “treatment” and disallow individual choices.

If you’d like to help Oath Keepers “find the cure,” race over to here. And tell your friends.

http://www.examiner.com/article/oath-keepers-off-to-races-as-nascar-examines-sponsorships