(Tea) Party Hearty!

The United States of America came to be when the citizens
of thirteen English colonies in North America protested,
and later went to war over the relentlessly increasing
taxation and regulation of commerce, the centralized
governance of the colonies, and the arrogant unwillingness
of the Crown and the Parliament to even listen to the
colonists' complaints. One of the more famous acts of
protest that was staged before the war was the Boston
Tea Party.

One December day in 1773 a handful of Bostonians raided
the supply of tea shipped over by the British East India
dumping it into Boston's harbor. It has been said that
American freedom was brewed in the world's biggest teapot.

Today, many Americans are complaining to our federal
government, as well as to our state and local governments
about the profligate spending and skyrocketing taxes, as
well as the increasing regulation of not just business but
every aspect of our lives. With our complaints falling on
willfully deaf ears, we are holding "tea parties" to
publicize our grievances; these rallies alert and educate
people about the fiscal and general radicalism of our
elected officials and the painful consequences where our
fortunes and our liberties are concerned. The very spirit
that the American colonists exhibited over two hunderd years
ago in standing up to the British government is alive and
well in the American citizens standing up to Washington
as well as the state and local governments through rallies
and town hall meetings.

President Barack Obama and the Democrat majority in Congress,
joined (distressingly) by some republicans, ridicule us for
our objections to their "stimulus packages", their buying shares
in heretofore private sector entities to gain control of them,
and their arrogant desire for stringent regulation of our lives
under the rubric of countering global warming (more on that in
a future posting!). We get further disrespect and contempt
from the very people we elected to our state and local
governments, not to mention the media. We have been called
"howlers", "angry mobs", "racists(!)", and "astroturfers".
Yet we have conducted ourselves in a peaceful manner at all
our gatherings, never instigating hostile confrontations,
only striving to make ourselves heard and our point of view
listened to. We have, in fact, been jeered, physically attacked,
and some of our members being "of color" subjected to racial
epithets. One black man at a town hall meeting in Saint Louis
was slurred and assaulted just for selling buttons with
conservative messages at the event. He had to be hospitalized
for treatment of injuries sustained in the attack.
Apparently a politically conservative black person brings out
the "inner racist" in the diversity-loving, pluralistic Left.
Our ranks are made up of mostly, if not entirely, local
citizens coming together in our town halls and municipal
parks to share our views; our enemies have bben the ones to
bus people in from afar to crowd us out of town hall gatherings
and to shout us down at these meetings, even trying to disrupt
our Tea Party rallies.

Your favorite Peasant had the pleasure of attending a Tea Party
get-together in Milwaukee in September, and I found no angry
mob, no "howlers", no racists, and the only person spoiling
for a fight was a left-wing counter-demonstrator who attacked
a teenaged girl who was taking photos of the event. Thankfully
the pinko thug was apprehended and turned over to the police,
and the girl and her camera were unharmed. One of the attendees
who helped subdue the troublemaker was none other than
Joe The Plumber, one of the speakers at the bash. Joe is the
gentleman who questioned Obama during the latter's campaign
stop in Ohio, where Joe is from, regarding his palns for higher
taxes and increased spending to fix the economy. Joe became a
folk hero almost immediately! I had the great pleasure and
privilege of meeting Joe and visiting with him at the rally's
conclusion; he is a fine and patriotic man and now a renown
activist and plumber both!

Among the guests who addressed the gathering were syndicated
columnist Michelle Malkin, Milwaukee County Executive and
gubernatorial candidate Scott Walker, and local radio talk
show hosts James T. Harris (a conservative black man; so much
for we Tea Party activists being racist!)and Vicki McKenna.
We in attendance were civil, jubilant, carried no signs
with violent or obscene messages, and even cleaned up after
ourselves, not so much as leaving a single plastic cup or
candy wrapper on the ground! Contrast that to rallies held
by the lefties, who leave gobs of trash at the parks, college
campuses, and the grounds of city halls, state capitols,
and other such places. The left-wingers love to accuse we
conservatives of not caring about the enviornment, but THEY
are the ones who give Mother Earth a black eye whenever they
hold a political rally!

We who hold our tea parties are merely exercising our rights
to peacibly assemble and express our opinions and ideas;
rights that are guaranteed for us all, regardless of political
persuasion. Let us tell President Obama, the Democrat-comtrolled
Congress, and the sellouts in the Republican Party that we shall
continue to hold out tea parties, attend town hall meetings,
and to write, fax, e-mail, telephone, and visit their offices
in Washington, in our state capitols, and our city halls to
inform them that we don't want to fund through our taxes
dubious "stimulus programs" which will not stimulate our
ailing economy but instead will line the pockets of the backers
of Obama and his fellow dems. We do not want them to regulate
our businesses out of busienss, nor regulate them or our
personal lives with stringent mandates to combat an enviorn-
mental threat that does not exist! And we WILL make these
elected officials of ours listen to and serve us, NOT ignore
and disrespect us, not dictate to us, and to realize that they
are our servants, NOT OUR MASTERS! When these elitist fools
finally get all this into their arrogant heads, or we replace
them with people who do understand the role of public servants,
then the tea parties will cease; our work will be done.

In the meantime, let's (tea) party hearty!


MEM