On October 31, 2022, Kim Monson examines the foundations of American liberty through the lens of property rights and faith-based civic engagement. Roni Bell Sylvester exposes the systematic assault on farmers’ and ranchers’ property rights through regulatory overreach and environmental activism, while Giuliana Day and Ted Mische explore why American churches have retreated from addressing critical moral and political issues.
Roni Bell Sylvester, a longtime Colorado grassroots activist who has battled unions, the EPA, the Department of the Interior, and the USDA over property rights issues, warns that the very foundation of American prosperity is under coordinated attack. She explains that without secure property rights, food and energy production become impossible, threatening national security.
Sylvester details what she calls the “decapitalization plan” targeting farmers and ranchers, where property owners face a relentless stream of regulations, conservation easements, and endangered species designations that deny them use of their own land. Unlike the well-funded environmental groups who receive government settlements and charge $800 per hour in billable hours, resource providers must defend themselves at their own expense.
The discussion turns to water rights, where Sylvester explains the critical distinction between consumptive use and allotment quantity. She warns San Luis Valley farmers approached by Denver interests to be extremely cautious about water sales, urging them to retain the margin between consumptive use and allotment quantity rather than signing away everything in a dry-up covenant clause.
“The people who deny you use of your property are paid to do so, but our domestic resource providers, they’re not paid to go to the Capitol and testify, to go to meetings, to try to stop any type of endangered species, conservation easements. There’s a litany of things that they come at you and attack you with that actually deny you use of your property.”
Roni Bell Sylvester, Property Rights Activist
Yvonne Paez, co-founder of Perspectives 101, reflects on a concept introduced by Navy SEAL Commander Rourke Denver at a recent USMC Memorial Foundation luncheon: harmonic gait. She describes it as finding the movement, the gift, where one is comfortable and doing what they were intended to do.
Paez connects this idea to the current state of America, noting that under communism and socialism, it becomes difficult if not impossible to find and express one’s harmonic gait. She calls on Americans to courageously use their different talents to pick up the pieces of a once great nation, speaking truth against divisive narratives and standing against what she calls a “three-ring circus.”
“Don’t worry yourself going looking for it or what is my purpose or anything like that. Just know, what is it that you do? But do it, and do it with selfless service to others, and you will see that it will reveal itself. Do your gift, your talent for others. Be other-centered, and it will reveal itself.”
Yvonne Paez, Co-founder of Perspectives 101
Giuliana Day, founder of Life Decisions Resource, and Ted Mische address the troubling retreat of American churches from civic engagement. Mische recounts calling over 700 churches during the Prop 115 campaign to ban late-term abortion, finding only one in twenty willing to even mention the proposition existed.
Day emphasizes that the teachings of the Bible address critical issues like abortion, transgenderism, and poverty, creating opportunities for pastors to provide moral direction to society. She notes that even when offering free legal defense to pastors worried about their 501c3 status, many still refused to discuss these issues with their congregations.
Mische invokes the Black Robe Regiment of the Revolutionary War era, when pastors wearing their clerical robes led their congregations against British tyranny. He recounts the story of Pastor Peter Muhlenberg, who preached from Ecclesiastes about a time for war, then dramatically removed his robe to reveal his Continental Army officer’s uniform underneath, rallying men to join the patriot cause.
“I called over 700 churches, and only one out of 20 was willing to even mention the fact that Prop 115 existed.”
Ted Mische, Pro-life Volunteer
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