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Post-Tea Party thoughts

by Rossputin | 12:19 am, April 16, 2009 | 8 Comments

[A new poll question: Do you believe the Tea Parties will lead to any sustained political activity by the day’s participants, or was it basically a one-time thing for the vast majority of them?]

It was a day to inspire a little optimism for those of us who believe in liberty and expect better from both our state and national governments. Denver’s Tax Day Tea Party was, in my opinion, a great success despite not having a great sound system in place.

The crowd, from young to old, was enthusiastic and generally in an excellent mood.

And the Gadsden Flag (yellow, rattlesnake, Don’t Tread On Me, etc) was on wide display…doing good for the heart of a libertarian.

Although I heard of two people being removed from the event, I never personally saw disruption, nor jeers nor signs from leftist disruptors.

There were hundreds of flags and signs being held by the (my guess) 3,000 people there. Others have estimated as many as 5,000 people. Unlike left-wing highly organized rallies with professionally made signs, you could tell these banners were efforts of love (for our nation and liberty) and frustration (with governments which are destroying both.)

Although a lot had been going on before the noon start time, the proceedings officially began with the Pledge of Allegiance. My thought was “I’m sure MoveOn.org rallies are JUST like this…not.”

Speakers talked of being “sons and daughters of revolutionaries”, of “taking back our country”, and repeatedly of the massive debt that the federal government is saddling future generations with.

Jon Caldara led the crowd in a round of cries of “No you can’t”, as opposed to Obama’s empty “Yes we can” mantra. “Gunny” Bob Newman talked about the time of our founding, including the fact that his great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather (maybe I missed one “great”) was the guy who signaled Paul Revere to start his famous ride. Politicians and candidates spoke, but mostly avoided partisan politics or mention of political parties.

About 10 members of the General Assembly (and a couple of state Senators) came out to the balcony above the crowd, bringing great cheers as well as a minute-long chant of “Where is Ritter?” (For those of you not in Colorado, Bill Ritter is our truly horrendous governor who has every reason to be a one-termer and actually left Denver today, presumably to escape questions about the Tea Party.)

The Tea Party, rather than being about partisan politics, was about people finally getting angry enough with government to get involved. The message was to stay involved, that the winners in politics tend to be the ones to make an effort.

It’s unusual for conservatives and libertarians to protest. That’s generally something liberals do. Particularly libertarians…we just don’t normally think of telling others what to do. Again, that’s something liberals do. But as I said, the energy in the crowd was consistent and uplifting.

I realize that my liberal readers (not that I have very many of those) will simply not understand what I’m talking about. But that’s OK. Just as they think the world is full primarily of people like them and that we lovers of liberty and respecters of the constitution are a fringe group, I look forward to the day when we can, at least for a few minutes, think the same of them. That time is coming. And the further both the Colorado and the federal governments continue down their current paths, the sooner that time will arrive.

Link to Original post at Rossputin.com.

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Comments

  1.   Mellani Day
      April 16th, 2009 @ 6:31 am

    Thanks for being there and recording the event! Thanks also posting and spreading the word so that those of us who couldn’t be there can be a part vicariously and can be energized with hope that so many people are fed up with what is happening with government growth and interference into people’s lives — not to mention T.E.A.!

  2.   Ashley R
      April 16th, 2009 @ 8:28 am

    Great tea parties in Ft. Collins and Loveland too! They said there were around 2000 people in Ft. Collins! At the end of the Ft. Collins rally, Cleve Tidwell gave a tremendous speech that really rallied the crowd. He said he was probably going to run for U.S. Senate seat, and people sounded excited to have him on our side!

  3.   David Zuniga
      April 16th, 2009 @ 10:00 am

    Put TEETH in your post Tea-Party citizenship, folks. The AmericaAgain! project is real self-government. We can enforce the US Constitution against each and every one of the 535 members of Congress, using a local CHSA (Citizens’ Homeland Security Association). Find out more at america-again(dot)blogspot(dot)com and start living like a self-governing, responsible citzen of these sovereign States!

  4.   rockthrower
      April 16th, 2009 @ 11:50 am

    ‘Pelosi: Tax Protest Is AstroTurf, Not Grass Roots’

    (Roll Call) — Roll Call newspaper reports that House Democratic leaders on Wednesday “shrugged off” efforts to turn April 15 into a day of “nationwide ‘tea parties’ aimed at protesting tax hikes and wasteful spending.”

    In an interview on FOX TV in San Francisco, “Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) chalked up the GOP grass-roots effort as ‘AstroTurf.’ … ‘This initiative is funded by the high end; we call it AstroTurf, it’s not really a grass-roots movement.”

    The story goes on to report that one senior Democratic aide “has been circulating a document to the media that debunks the effort as one driven by corporate lobbyists and attended by neo-Nazis.”

    The tea parties are “‘not really all about average citizens,’ the document continues, saying neo-Nazis, militias, secessionists and racists are attending them.”

    Funny – I was at the Tax Day Tea Party in Denver, and didn’t observe a single Neo-Nazi, militia member, secessionist or racist. Maybe they were stealthily infiltrating the crowd while disguising their true identity and affiliation?

    Oh, wait – that was the Leftists! My bad…

  5.   Mike Krause
      April 16th, 2009 @ 7:16 pm

    While the turnout for the the Tax Day Tea Parties, both here in Denver and around the country were impressive, I’m not quite sure what the point is. I mean really, where was the outrage by the Tea Party protesters over the last seven years as George Bush and a Republican controlled congress took this country on an unprecedented spending spree, dramatically consolidated power in the Executive branch, added thousands of pages of new laws and regulations that intrude in to the personal and economic freedoms of Americans and created and grew a domestic security and surveillance apparatus (Homeland Security)that considers the constitution to be an inconvenience? Sorry, but I don’t see much reason for optimism…put the Republican party back in charge in Washington, and my guess is that more than half of the “protesters” who were at the capitol would again be cheering on the same kind of policies they were jeering on Wednesday.

  6.   T.L. James
      April 16th, 2009 @ 9:48 pm

    Did you notice how many of the protesters were jeering the Republicans, as well?

    I’ll grant you that a lot of people on the right were not paying the close attention to the excesses of the Bush administration as they should have, or simply refused to listen to criticism of his administration because they regarded him as a fundamentally decent man who, in the overwhelming majority of cases, the criticism was wrapped up in or consisted in its entirety of ugly and disgusting slanders against the man personally, attacks motivated more by a deeply disturbed and obsessive hatred of the man more than any actual concern with civil administration or national leadership. But as polls showed, dissatisfaction with his performance (and that of the Republicans in Congress) grew over time — something to which many Republicans can attest personally, their own opinions of Bush and the GOP having soured over things like the Harriet Miers fiasco and the arrogant and insulting intransigence over the border fence.

    With the mitigating factor of party loyalty now gone, and the White House and Congress alike in the hands of the Democrat Party, a lot of Republicans are more cognizant of the dangers of federal excess and overreach than they were before — which is only natural, since part of the job of the opposition party is keeping tabs on the actions of the party in power.

    However, the big wakeup call has been the trillions of dollars in borrowed money flushed down the drain recently. Whatever reckless spending the GOP Congress and Bush administration engaged in prior to January 2007, it was dwarfed by the outrageous pork spending and bailouts over the past five months (a period which includes both Bush and Obama administrations and two Democrat-controlled Congresses).

    You might want to look up the concept of an “asymptote”. It aptly describes the rate of growth of federal spending, the corresponding rate of growth in the national debt, and the resulting growth in concern over and opposition to federal profligacy and overreach shared by citizens like those who attended yesterday’s tea parties.

  7.   margy wilson
      April 17th, 2009 @ 6:12 pm

    even in new york we have had enough! do not like PORK tell schummer hope this is a new year for all of us, as we dont want to love the country we love.

  8.   margy wilson
      April 17th, 2009 @ 6:15 pm

    we here in New York had a great turn out. we love this country and don’t want to loose it by becoming europe. hate the PORK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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