Our offices were broken into over the weekend. A great deal of equipment was stolen, a fair amount of damage done.

All of us here feel violated. And we all, myself especially, feel we didn’t do enough to protect our Freedom Embassy, the hub of the center-right movement in Colorado.

But the fault is not ours. It’s odd how victims of crime blame themselves. The fault is certainly that of the perpetrator. But really the fault is with those in leadership of our city and state who have let this once beautiful place turn to crap. The swelling of sidewalk encampments, transients, filth, and political rioters are spilling into everyone’s daily lives and safety. Now it has reached inside this beautiful, beloved building.

Some 15 years ago then Mayor John Hickenlooper glibly declared his plan to permanently end homelessness in Denver in 10 years. Since then, he has proven the economic truth that what you subsidize you get more of.

Since purchasing this building nearly a decade ago, we have had to fight a battle of encroaching filth, litter, and trespassers. More and more we have had to clean up bottles, syringes, condoms, urine, vomit, and feces at our own cost because the government won’t fulfill its core function of public safety and cleaning up our streets.

Our leaders don’t pay to fix the private damage they have caused. We do. More precisely, our generous supporters do, leaving fewer resources to fulfill our mission.

We have paid to change landscaping and build physical barriers to keep people from trespassing, sleeping on, and trashing our property. We have paid for new camera systems. We even pay for private security to come by and move trespassers along. Mayor Hancock won’t even arrest those who vandalized our Capitol building. He has little time for passed out drunks on our property in a city of passed out drunks.

The power of our Freedom Embassy isn’t just that it’s our headquarters just blocks from the Capitol. It also serves the full, and often dysfunctional, coalition of center-right groups in Colorado. Scores of freedom-minded groups use our meeting spaces for fundraisers, trainings, strategy sessions, board meetings, and much more. Our three separate video studios create the right’s media center.

And most importantly, because of all this activity (and through our coalition efforts), the different and often warring factions of our movement are now more connected. They communicate face-to-face here so they stop doing the left’s work for them by sabotaging each other’s work.

This humble building has proven to be the most profitable investment ever made in building a permanent freedom infrastructure in Colorado political history. I don’t make that claim lightly. Now it’s under attack.

Over the weekend one of our partner organizations was holding training in our event space. Our cameras captured footage of one of the army of transients that infests our streets, waiting for the right moment to come through the door. He then hid for six hours until everyone was gone and went on a trashing and stealing spree.

The damage and theft could have been much worse. And fortunately we had good precautions in place that limited this criminal’s access to just a few places. And of course we will be updating our procedures, cameras, and alarms. This will take even more resources away from our mission to return Colorado to the beacon of personal liberty and personal responsibility.

This has been a difficult year for us all. We won’t let this crime slow us down, just as we won’t let this progressive takeover of Colorado slow us down. In fact it only motivates us more.

But we do have to deal with the very real issue of making ends meet. While insurance SHOULD pay for this loss, the extra cost of increased security and equipment will be on us.

NEVER before has our work been so needed in Colorado. Never before has the cost of inaction been so high. I am asking you today to help us not only build out the security needed for our building, but continue building out the infrastructure, the talent, the air time, and the machinery to win back Colorado.

I know it is a tough time to dig deep, but that’s exactly what I’m asking you to do. We can’t double our impact without doubling the ammunition we need to fight. And the battle is right now.

Please join us and recommit to Freedom in Colorado. Please invest in Independence Institute at a higher level today by clicking HERE.

Think Freedom

-Jon