Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Mom?
by Janalee Tobias (Utah)
Address given during Freedom Forum of the IAP National Conference,
January 27, 2001, Murray, Utah. Ms. Tobias is President of Women
Against Gun Control.
Okay, I just have to sing the title of my speech, because then in
case you aren't familiar with the song, [singing] "Who's afraid of
the big bad Mom? ..." that all I'm going to sing of that. Okay,
this is the official title of my speech, and by the way, I just wanted
to say, this is a great opportunity and experience for me to be here
today, and as I listened to Janine speak -- well I feel like a pup here,
with Jim and Janine and everybody here, and I got tired listening to all
the things that she's done and -- because I don't want to keep doing
this -- I don't know if I want to say that 30 years from now I'm still
doing this, because its sort of tiring, but its gets in your system and
its fun to kick politicians around a little bit.
Mothers
This is the official title of my speech, Who's Afraid of the Big Bad
Mom, because some people from some groups and some big bad wolves are
very afraid of Moms. And they should be because mothers who are
generally the primary care givers to children are very protective of
them. In fact, most mothers I know consider it a compliment if you to
tell them that they are over-protective of their children. And they
should be over-protective. Mothers have to endure morning sickness,
weight gain and labor pains just to get them into the world. And that's
the easy part. Raising them up is the hard part.
I got a little carried away on the "ups" here, but here we
go: Picking up, wiping up, washing up, sweeping up, patching up, getting
up, making up, dressing up, tying up, starting up, shaping up, finishing
up, fixing up, packing up, folding up, raking up, hanging up, baking up,
working up, keeping up, putting up, -- but never giving up. Believe it
or not, these uplifting experiences are just a few of the things that
make us so over-protective of our children. That's why we care so much
about raising up our children in a world that is safe.
I'm going to get carried away on the "safes" here again.
Safe from harm, safe from evil, safe from harm, safe from speeding cars,
safe from abuse, safe from falls, safe from mean people, safe from mean
kids, safe from over-crowded classrooms, safe from over-crowded cities,
safe from pollution, safe from drugs, alcohol, and other harmful
substances, safe from pornography, safe from rising propaganda --
-- like is in this school handout that my little daughter brought
home yesterday trying for kids -- and it has a whole section on Gun
Control, saying we need tougher laws, tougher gun laws, help save kids
from gun violence; and I'm very, very proud of my little ten-year-old
daughter because -- its her birthday by the way, so I'm having lots of
parties and stuff, and I had one yesterday -- so it will be a party all
weekend, so I'm not shirking my duties -- she wrote "Stupid"
right there [on the paper] on Gun Control; [applause] and she did write
a little smiley face where it says a tax cut would help families. --
-- so we want to save kids save gun control, safe from high taxes,
safe from excess in government spending, safe from tyranny, safe from
corrupt government, -- but not safe from freedom.
Freedom
Freedom keeps kids safe from the things we want to keep them safe
from. That's why big bad people are afraid of Moms. One of the other
ways we help our children is not to give up their freedom without a
fight. That's why most mothers I know are like my mother cat when she
has kittens. If a big mean German shepherd dog -- and some of you may
have German shepherds, and I know you believe this -- if the big mean
German shepherd dog gets too close to her baby kitties, and she thinks
that their lives in danger, she will arch her back, claws ready to
scratch, hiss, bare her fangs, and run after the biggest meanest dog in
the neighborhood. And what do the dogs do? They take off running with
their tail between their legs. Yes, it is true, that German shepherds
turn into little wimps when they get around a mother kitty. Yes, they
do.
I know that our mothers will fight to the death to defend their
young. That's the way all mothers are in the animal kingdom, whether it
be cats, dogs, bear, steer or fox, or lions. However, female mammals
have some advantages that humans don't. Animals have built-in their
self-defense mechanisms of sharp teeth and sharp claws, the ability to
run fast and climb trees. That's why one of the things that I and others
fight for is to be able to defend ourselves, our husbands and our
children, and our country with the use of firearms. Because there are so
many others who want to take that right away. But that isn't very
lady-like of them is it? -- taking things that don't belong to you.
Especially when these high-profile mothers like Hillary Clinton and Rosy
O'Donnell have body-guards with guns -- Shame on them.
I'll bet the Jewish mothers in Hitler's Nazi Germany wish they would
have had guns to protect the ones they loved. That's why in America guns
are humans best self-defense mechanisms. And we have to fight to keep it
that way. I and other mothers have chosen not to give up our children's
safety and freedom without a fight. That's why big bad people are afraid
of Moms. This has caused me and other mothers to become unlikely targets
by government and business officials.
Politicians
A few years ago I was changing diapers and I was watching the news on
TV, and I was watching all these politicians, and I was getting madder
and madder, and I thought, you know -- it would be real easy to fight
for freedom because politicians are full of the stuff that's in these
diapers that I change every day. [ laughter] And I'm use to helping my
kids all the time, and politicians are always messing up, so all we have
to do is just fix it up and clean it up, and wipe up their messes.
So I figured it would be really easy. In the past few years I've
worked with a lot of these people in here, sponsoring a lot of rallies
and protests and boycotts. I find it embarrassing to talk about how many
rallies and news conferences and protests I've sponsored. But there's
nothing funner than having pictures and newspaper articles and some
signs -- that a lot of them have been on the front page of the
newspapers to backup what I say.
And I'm getting more and more toothless the more I fight for freedom.
I'm currently being sued for $2 million and all I have to do for the
plaintiff to drop the lawsuit is to keep my mouth shut for four years.
My friend who is being sued with me and who has three children -- one of
them a "special needs" child -- and I have not agreed to these
terms. I'm not going to keep my mouth shut. I don't care what price I
have to pay. Even though it would be a lot less expensive and a lot less
stressful, we feel very strongly about being able to speak up for what
we believe in and try to make our communities a better place to live.
[Comment from audience: "You must be really effective if they're
suing you."]
Yeah. I guess I'd be mad if I only got sued for $100,000 or
something. [laughter] I'm mad because some mothers in Provo are being
sued for $10 million. [laughter]
Hate List
Okay, I've been listed as a leader of possibly the only women's hate
group in the United States by being against gun control. Some of the
reasons are I have been against gun control along with dozens of other
freedom-oriented citizen groups, along with the Ku Klux Klan and the
Aryan Nations, -- in fact you are very brave to have me here today. It
could be black helicopters flying around here anytime. So I'm here.
I've spoken directly with them, and they are saying they don't know
how the Women Against Gun Control got on that list. And, by the way,
they were getting away with this on having Women Against Gun Control and
some other citizen groups on that hate list. And literally, I'm not
always this brave. When I found out I was on the hate list, I did start
to cry, and I told my husband I can't take it any more. And I can
explain why, because I have been harassed so much.
Then I got real mad, and I got so many calls from throughout the
United States from attorneys and other people that wanted me to sue them
and go after them. And I thought, you know, that was really not a nice
thing they did. So I agreed to go on Jim Dexter's [Utah talk radio] show
and talk about it.
By the time I got home from Jim's radio show, the Deseret News had
called me and I ended up on the front page of the Deseret News that
night, and the Salt Lake Tribune. I had TV stations come out to my house
to find out why I was a hate group. And what I forgot to do -- my home
is sort of a little print home, and I have an arm sticking out of my
oven -- I forgot to remove that. When Danall, he walked into my kitchen,
he said, "Tobias, what's that arm hanging out there?"
[laughter] "Oh, that's just some of those crazy liberals."
[laughter]
Simon Riesenthall said they were claiming they don't know how he got
on that list. But any Jew who survived World War II knows that lists
don't just generate themselves. We were told that they did a web search
on any web site that came up that talked about guns and gun shows were
put on the list. But not even all of those groups -- they of course
didn't put the NRA in and they didn't put Gun Owners of America on --
and my gut feeling is the reason they didn't put NRA on there is the NRA
has lots of money and they would be suing them so fast. So they
generally had to pick on Moms, and housewives, and people who are
concerned about their children.
I've had my truck window shot out, my tires cut, gasoline and garbage
put all over my lawn. My cats have been tortured. I've had my sprinkler
system sabotaged. I've been threatened and harassed. I've gotten like
the greatest hate phone messages on my phone. I was going to play them
for you, because I love hate messages, they are so filled with hate.
When people like you, its so sweet and special and make you happy and
make you teary-eyed. But when people hate you, man they say all kinds of
real interesting stuff. And I've had mean-spirited letters-to-the-editor
written about me. And by the way, I just did start filing police
reports. The police are very good. They know that I'm being harassed.
And if I call the right then, they are very kind to me.
Republican Politics
[Utah] Governor Mike Leavitt you have joined the Big Bad Wolves
Afraid of Mothers' Club. You held a news conference three days before
the Republican Primary Election and encouraged Democrats to go vote
against extremists in the Republican Party. I was running as a
Republican for Utah House District 50 against the Republican
tax-and-spend power Lloyd Frandsen. He targeted me and three other men,
spent $60,000 of his personal slush fund money -- an unprecedented move
by a sitting governor in the state of Utah -- and hired a telemarketing
firm to call every person in my district to tell them that Governor
Leavitt would like them to go and vote for Republican Lloyd Frandsen,
because Lloyd Frandsen was the superior candidate.
I was not very gun-shy about my feelings about Governor Leavitt on
this issue. I called his office demanding an apology. They made a
mistake and left this message on my answering machine -- KTTK Radio made
a song out of it, its on CD -- and I played it to all the radio
stations, so it got aired and the Deseret News printed it word-for-word
in their newspaper. Dan Harrie from the Salt Lake Tribune called me the
next day, and asked me how I felt about what the governor had done to
me. And I said, man, I feel like a big fat elephant stomped all over me.
I said, man, he thinks he's the King of Utah. He's such a -- and I just
went on-and-on. Well, the next day, I had to look at the Salt Lake
Tribune, and there on the front page was a picture of me calling
Governor Leavitt a big fat elephant. [laughter]
I guess its a good thing that the governor just acts like a Democrat,
and he isn't really actually a Democrat. Because I might have called him
a big fat name for the word donkey. [laughter] So I salute the mothers
in this room, and the Independent American Party, throughout Utah and in
the United States, and even throughout the world who are not giving up
without a fight -- the right for their children to have a future where
they can still have their own money to spend and make their own choices
about their lives. I'm grateful to the mothers who are not giving up
their freedom for safety.
Rights
I hope you are all as sick and tired as I am of our rights being
taken away in the name of "saving the children." I am so sick
of that. The sad thing is, when I ask these mothers just how they are
going to save their children from someone who is trying to harm them.
They get a blank look on their face. They say, well we will just dial
911. Well, most feeling loving mothers, that I know, will not dial 911.
They're going to reach for their nine millimeter.
I know why so many people are afraid of mothers. It's been said that
the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. Its a very frightening
thought to me. Frightening, because as we all know, parents that are
rocking the cradle do not always belong to minds that believe in
freedom. Just look at some of the powerful hands that are ruling the
world now. We cannot let the tyrannical oppressive cradle-rocking hands
speak sign-language for us. The million mothers who marched in
Washington, D.C. last year, to demand gun registration and licensing and
other restrictions on our freedoms are rocking the future of this nation
to sleep every night -- that is, unless they have already aborted their
babies.
Fathers
I've talked a lot about mothers today, and I don't want to leave out
fathers because even though modern technology has surpassed anyone's
modest imagination. In order for there to be a mother, there must be a
father. In the old days, fathers and mothers used to actually live
together. But thanks to the Feminist Movement, the role of fathers has
been diminished. Many homes are without fathers, and our nation is
suffering.
Research now indicates that fatherless families are fueling the crime
explosion. The County Research Council cites an impressive array of data
on the connection between fatherless families and crime. Studies of
violent rapists -- 60% from single-parent households. Adolescent
murderers -- 72% with divorced or unmarried mothers. And juveniles in
long-term correctional facilities -- 70% did not live with their fathers
growing up.
I salute the fathers of this nation who are fighting to preserve
freedom. There are so many freedom fighting fathers that I have such
great respect for -- for they give freely of their time and resources.
Many fathers lose money taking time off work to attend meetings and
other activities in which they actively participate in to preserve our
rights. Because, as you all know, many public hearings in the
legislative sessions are held during working hours -- I kind of wonder
if that's on purpose.
And something that really got under my craw once, is one of the first
little protests I staged when Jim Bradley was county commissioner and I
was in Gun Rights. We thought probably 40 or 50 would come out to
protest, because they were going to require registration on all guns --
that was before the Brady Bill was passed. And we packed the room. And
before the meeting started, Jim was out in the hall and he said to one
of his political pals, "What are all these people doing here? Don't
they have jobs?" I thought, yes they do have jobs. Yes we take the
time off, are losing money or paying for babysitters -- we're losing
money to be here you arrogant so-so. Now he is a Democrat.
Now many fathers spends thousands of dollars on flyers and stamps and
other donations for the cause -- instead of spending money to upgrade
their life-style. I specially salute my own father for being a family
man, and fighting for my freedom in World War II. And most of all, I
salute the father of my children for being so incredibly supportive of
my passion to preserve freedom. I wouldn't dare be so active without his
financial and emotional support. The truth is, he's silently behind the
scenes egging me on. And he tells me to go fight when I get upset over
the many disparaging remarks made about me.
Now I guess its not about mothers and fathers here today, because I
know there's a lot of men who don't have children. And they are in a way
even more unselfish than people with children because they do it for the
good of society without thinking of their own children to pass on a
legacy. Also, one of the greatest activists I know, Nancy Harrington in
Georgia, she's the Executive Vice President of Women Against Gun
Control. She doesn't have children, but she works a full-time job, and
she comes home at night and spends about twelve hours at the computer
answering all the e-mails that we get and working very hard.
And I'm so honored to be associated with like-minded people who care
about preserving freedom. And its just a few of us here, but I know that
we have the power, because people that don't have the passion are like
little drolls that don't even have a soul -- that kind of walk around
and look around and just look at people's eyes -- they just go from one
place to the next -- filling the gas tank, finally taking off and
heading home to watch TV the rest the night. And they really don't care
about anything else, so long as they have beer and chips and whatever.
But we all know that freedom keeps us alive.
"What white is to the eyes, what oxygen is to the lungs, what
love is to the heart, -- freedom is to the soul." And I think that
all of us here believe that way. I want to thank you for inviting me to
speak. And I hope that we can continue to make the big bad wolves always
afraid of us. [applause]
