Fellow Bikers, I’ve been very busy lately attending other Freedom minded organizations meetings and going to the Tea Parties. People are looking up to Abate of SC because we have set the precedent in our state for activist organizations. The other day a spokes person for the 9-12 Project asked Abate to speak at the Wake up SC Rally at the statehouse. The 9-12 Project was co-hosting this rally with another organization called First Freedoms. I felt honored that another organization would ask a bunch of bikers to speak at one of their rallies. This rally was on July 3^rd on the steps of the statehouse. We were introduced as the granddaddy of activist organizations in our state.

The following is the speech that I gave in it's entirety.

 

 

Wake Up South Carolina

The History of ABATE

Back in June of 1971, a new motorcycle publication was introduced called EASYRIDERS--a motorcycle magazine for the entertainment of adult bikers. This came into existence by the hard work of Lou Kimzey, the Editor, along with the owner of Paisano Publications. Along with Lou were Mil (Hog Expert) Blair, Editor-at-Large, and Joe Teresi, Senior Editor. Joe was the one who came up with the needed funding to get things running smoothly. He was owner of D&D Distributor, later known as Jammer.

About the same time that EASYRIDERS got underway an organization by the name of N.C.C.S.I. (National Custom Cycle Safety Institute) got going. Joe Teresi was Vice President of this group. This organization was for manufacturers and distributors. Their main function-was to come out with their own safety standards for custom parts. They concentrated mainly on custom front ends and frames with raked necks. They are credited for keeping a lot of junk off the market and were able to keep Big Brother at arm's length.

In Issue No. 3, October 1971, EASYRIDERS started a non-profit organization just for bikers. It was called NCCA (National Custom Cycle Association). At the time, in 1971 no other motorcycle magazine except Roger Hall's "Road Rider" was even giving an inch of space to anti-bike legislation. Yet Lou Kimzey saw fit to take on the extra burden of starting a motorcycle rights organization.

It wasn't long until Lou changed the NCCA to ABATE (A Brotherhood Against Totalitarian Enactments) because It was discovered at the last moment that the NCCA name was not available for use as a non-profit corporate name-the initials being too similar to those of another corporate name. They came up with this name because it means to reduce in amount, degree, or intensity; lessen, to put an end to,

to make void.
It should be noted that the little funds that ABATE had in the early days went to hiring an engineering firm to determine whether a raked front end or an extended front end was safe. This resulted in two lengthy documented reports, complete with engineering drawings that established proof that they were safe. This allowed bikers to fight in court "unsafe vehicle" tickets with scientific facts--not just opinions. EASYRIDERS, on behalf of ABATE, also picked up the tab on a test case concerning an extended front end being unsafe. From 1971-1974 most of ABATE's efforts went into fighting such laws. Had it not been for the efforts of ABATE and EASYRIDERS in the early 1970s, choppers would have been outlawed.

Currently we have Abate organizations in 44 states. In 1974 Abate of SC was formed by Jesse McDugald and Lou Kimzy of Easyriders. On June 16^th of 1980 we accomplished in getting our helmet law at that time amended to apply to those under 21. ABATE of South Carolina only had 200 members when this victory was achieved! In 2006 we managed to get our property taxes lowered to 6% to match automobiles. These are just a couple of Abate’s accomplishments.

Structure of our organization

Abate of SC is a non-profit organization which operates in the style of a Republic. We have a constitution that our board of directors follows. The BOD is made up of the state co-ordinator, assistant co-ordinator, legislative co-ordinator, secretary, treasurer, newsletter editor, membership co-ordinator, our webmaster and 8 area co-ordinators. Under the BOD we have 36 chapters throughout the state with thousands of members. Needless to say we’re pretty strong due to our numbers and especially by our activities at the Statehouse. Our Senators and Representatives know us and know us very well. We have 3 Rallies a year here at the Statehouse. The second Tuesday of January we have what we call Lobby Day, this is the opening day of the Legislative Session where we show up in force to set the tone of the session and meet with our legislators to let them know we’re watching. The first Sunday in May we have our Motorcycle Awareness Rally because May is Motorcycle Awareness month. We also have a rally the first Sunday in October to show support for our current helmet law. As legislative co-ordinator it is my duty to keep our members informed and educated on all the legislation going on here so I end up doing extensive research while they’re in session. Every other month we have a legislative meeting to go over our strategies. In between those meetings we have a BOD meeting.

Philosophies

Our philosophy is to defend Liberty period. This nation is about our freedom to choose, not government control over your life. We have a few sayings that we like to use such as “silence is consent”, “Let those who ride decide”, “Education not legislation” Silence is consent is my personal favorite. If you don’t let your representatives know how you feel about certain legislation no one else will do it for you. This is one of the keys to defending Liberty. Every member of your organization needs to be registered to vote and more importantly exercise that right. Every member must know who their legislators are; you’d be surprised at the number of people who don’t know who they are. If an important piece of legislation is going to be discussed in a committee meeting I make sure I have a few members show up to speak and I supply them with the information they need to get the point across intelligently and professionally. We also make use of a computer program that I like to call the phone tree. With this we can record a message to send out to all our members urging them to call the chairman of a certain committee. We also give them the bill information and the contact information. Once this goes out the chairmans phone will ring off the hook with individuals calling, this goes out to all our members. In the past when we did this we have had staff members call our co-ordinator and tell him to call the dogs off, they get the message.

I tell our people all the time that this is no time for complacency. Just as soon as you let your guard down something will happen.

I believe this is happening right now, it’s just now raising its ugly head with this administration in the Whitehouse. We Bikers have a Forum which we call the Biker Republic, the people on this forum are from Abates from around the country to include Hawaii. We’re usually discussing what’s happening in a particular state and try to help one another with their problems legislatively. Recently though we’ve been talking more about the state of our nation, more so than motorcyclist rights. We see what’s coming down the pipe and we don’t like it. We’re looking at Socialism which has been happening since the New Deal, we’re also looking at Fascism and Collectivism. We see the growth of government bureaucracy in which they have an agency for everything. If they could phase out the USDOT and the NHTSA and let the money spent on those agencies go to the states to take care of their own roads and revert the Federal gas tax for highway maintenance back to the states, that alone would save the government money. The old saying “money is the root of all evil” is even more pertinent today. Here in our own state the resort town of Myrtle Beach just recently passed 15 draconian ordinances trying to keep bikers out of Myrtle Beach, one ordinance in particular supersedes state law and is in the South Carolina Supreme Court now. They even raised the property taxes to help finance this and they didn’t stop there they even raised the sales tax by 1 cent. We are waiting on a ruling on this and I feel confident that we will succeed. Bikers in other states are looking at us for leadership on this case so it won’t happen in their state. Our freedoms are more vulnerable in the small towns and municipalities, with the smoking ordinances and school boards raising taxes. We have to start at the lower levels of government and work our way up. It’s a never ending fight.

Abates Goal

Some of our goals in Abate are to maintain our current helmet law, stop government intrusion into our personal freedoms, and get some of our members elected to office from the municipal level to the state level and beyond. It makes me feel good as a freedom fighter to see all of you here. I feel honored as a member of Abate to be able to speak to you. You are one of us. Abate is an organization of like minded individuals from all walks of life who love freedom and Liberty. We are not a club, we are Grassroots Freedom fighters and will stand up and make it known that we’re not going to put up with our servants ruining our lives and taking away our freedoms. Benjamin Franklin once said; "In free governments the rulers are the servants and the people their superiors and sovereigns." We refuse to let our nation become a nanny state. I sincerely hope that all of you will join us in this fight, now and in the future. I’d like to leave you with quote from Thomas Jefferson.

"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere."

--Thomas Jefferson to Abigail Adams, 1787.