Ken Lloyd for Outreach Vice Chair

My name is Kenneth Lloyd, and I am running to be the next Outreach Vice Chair for the Michigan Republican Party. This is my story.

I was born in 1990 with the condition known as cerebral palsy. It affects the central nervous system and makes it very difficult to control the movement of my muscles, which is why I use a wheelchair. Thankfully, I am in stable condition and the disability has not impacted my cognitive skills. I have never let my physical limitations stop me from working to achieve my goals in life.

In 2009, I graduated from Osborn High School as the Valedictorian of my class. In the fall of that same year, I began my undergraduate collegiate education at Wayne State University. In the spring of 2013, I graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor’s of Arts degree in political science from Wayne State University. In the fall of 2015, I began working on my Master’s degree in political science at Wayne State University. Politics is a great passion of mine.

One of the reasons as to why I am seeking this degree is because I want to teach political science at the collegiate level, to try to help offset the negative effects that left-wing indoctrination is having on the political thinking of college students. I understand the history of the Founding Fathers, and why they are so important. I want to keep that legacy alive and bestow it to the next generation. My own perseverance, aided by rapidly-developing technology, will allow me to make my dreams a reality.

I originally became interested in politics during the 2008 presidential election campaign. Most of my family members are Democrats. Coming from my experience, I would have probably voted for Barack Obama. After seeing the terrible results of Dodd-Frank and ObamaCare, I realized that direction in which the Democratic Party was taking America was, in fact, the wrong one. Around the same time, I began to vociferously study America’s founding documents and made some interesting discoveries. I quickly realized that much of the history that I was taught in public high school and university was inaccurate. Secondly, I began to realize that America has strayed away from its constitutional system of government, and toward the adoption of the very same type of powerful centralized government that our Founding Fathers risked their lives to prevent. Alarmed by this, I felt that it was my civic duty to get involved in politics to see what I could do to restore the Republic.

This patriotic feeling deep in my bones led me to attend Republican meetings, tea party meetings and Campaign for Liberty meetings. It was at those events that I learned what a precinct delegate was, and how they shape the role of politics from the bottom up. In 2014, I ran for precinct delegate and won a two-year term. I ran for re-election in 2016, and won my second two-year term last August. During my service as a precinct delegate, I have not missed a convention. I have made dozens of close friends. I have always conducted myself with the highest level of integrity and compassion. I always treat my fellow man with respect regardless of our disagreements. I hold my position with honor, and consider my choice to join as a Republican delegate to be one of the most fulfilling decisions of my life.

While earning my Master’s of Arts degree in political science at Wayne State University, I have been reaching out to students who have found some of our left-wing professors’ reasoning to be unsatisfactory. After class ends, I usually pull students aside and explain to them the ways in which the principles of the Republican Party are more logically sound than the propaganda that we hear from our professor during our class’ lecture. During a Constitutional law course last semester, one of my classmates expressed his irritation with our professor who was making excuses about why ObamaCare has failed the American people. I approached the student, who was visibility shaken, after class about the incident. The student told me that he was is a libertarian, and that he was going to vote for Gary Johnson for president of the United States. After 10 minutes of talking to him about the issues, I was able to convince him that Donald Trump was a more logical choice as a Presidential candidate.

That is the type of outreach that I conduct on a daily basis to the community at large. The classmate is now a close friend of mine, and I have kept him in the fold. He lives in the 13th Congressional District, and he is now involved with the impressive operation that David Dudenhoefer is running in the Wayne County area. I am confident that we will sign him up as a precinct delegate for the next election cycle. But the most important thing when outreach is principles. Without sound principles, outreach is pointless.

Here are the principles that govern me as a conservative:

Individual Liberty
Individual liberty is a principle without which a free and prosperous society cannot be maintained. The American Declaration of Independence states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” I take these words quite literally. It means each individual human being is given the right to enjoy individual liberty by their Creator, and that, no legitimate government may lawfully take that right away from them. Unfortunately, many political leaders in both parties have embraced government programs such as ObamaCare, Common Core and huge tax increases which undermine the individual liberties of the American people.

Free Markets
One of America’s Founding Fathers and the fourth President of United States, James Madison (also known as the Father of the Constitution) once said, “Government is instituted to protect property of every sort…” The fact that free market capitalism produces the most wealth for the largest number of people throughout society is the best reason to support that sort of economic system. Another reason to support and defend the free market system is because it is the only economic system that is compatible with the kind of respect for private property rights that Madison was alluding to in the aforementioned quote. In the free market system, individuals allowed to create wealth and keep the fruits of their labor. The money that individuals earn through their own labor is their private property. Since, earned income is a form of private property, as James Madison said, “Government is instituted to protect” it from harm (for example, to protect it from tax-and-spend politicians). This is the just and moral economic system that was responsible for shaping the greatest country known to mankind.

Constitutionally-Limited Government
Unfortunately, our country abandoned the principles of constitutionally-limited government a very long time ago. This abandonment became particularly evident during the Progressive Era. Progressive Democratic President Woodrow Wilson once said, “The chief instrumentality by which the law of the Constitution has been extended to cover the facts of national development has… been judicial interpretations, – the decisions of the courts. The process of formal amendment of the Constitution was made so difficult by the provisions of the Constitution itself that it has seldom been feasible to use it; and the difficulty of formal amendment has undoubtedly made the courts more liberal… in their interpretation…”. Wilson was basically suggesting that, because the Framers made it difficult to amend the Constitution, judges should egregiously violate their oaths of office, by interpreting the Constitution in ways that debauch and degrade its original intent. By distorting the true meaning of the Constitution’s provisions, progressive judges are able to uphold unconstitutional laws “legally.” Judicial decisions set unjust and unlawful precedents from there. Progressive lawmakers use these unlawful precedents to justify the enacting of more liberty-destroying laws. This is one of the reasons why the Republican Party needs leaders who actively push back against this unholy alliance between the political left and the judiciary.

The Right to Life
The Declaration of Independence contains the principles upon which the United States’ Constitution was based. It says, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” This shows that our Founding Fathers believed that every human being has the God-given right to life, and that, governments are instituted to secure such a right. It is for this reason that I believe that government is duty-bound to protect the right of life of every human being, whether born or unborn. I believe that every one of God’s creatures ought to be given a chance to live, and enjoy life, and have the opportunity to conquer the challenges that life throws at them, as I have done.

Those are the principles that I will communicate to the community as your Outreach Vice Chair. Throughout my campaign, I will be writing letters to the editor, giving speeches to different groups around the state, and conducting outreach questionnaires live on Facebook. I am not waiting until the election to get started on my outreach.

I hope that if you are a convention delegate in Lansing come Feb. 10-11, I can count on your support. I will not let you down. Even if you could kick a few dollars my way, and spread the word, it would be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,
Ken Lloyd
Dedicated Patriot and Conservative