Richmond Tea Party

Posted by Larry Miller on April 15, 2009 under Why | Read the First Comment

As I write this, I’m just getting warm and dry after enjoying the Richmond Tea Party with a few thousand of my closest friends in a light drizzle. It was good seeing old friends and meeting new ones who are also concerned about the direction of our country. There were many fine speakers but that was almost secondary to just hanging out with our fellow patriots, or possible domestic terrorists… according to our Department of Homeland Security.

People were plenty jolly for being angry about bailouts, angry about government interference, angry about higher taxes and angry about government suspicion of their exercise of their God given rights. It must have been the fellowship of like minded people that let us all know we are not alone. The jovial atmosphere was a far cry from the raucous, sometimes violent demonstrations of leftist students of years gone by and of the G8 and G20 protesters of more recent days. The Richmond police who were on hand by the dozen had nothing to do… not even the ones on horseback.

It’s hard to know if the drive-by medias insistence on seeing this as primarily a tax protest when there are so many other issues at hand indicates either complete misunderstanding of the world we live in or a willful effort to mislead the public. We know what a rarity either case is these days.

The signs showed an desires to end the fed, stop taxing our childrens’ futures, keep the government out of personal lives, keep our guns, etc., etc. If the federal government is overstepping in any way, someone was there to point it out. This showed a breath of concerns and depth of understanding of that appears to dwarf that of our public servants inside the beltway.

Even the local media coverage seemed fair. The station I watched used reasonable quotes from attendees and the head count of over two thousand seemed on target. They even commented on a counter protest that was supposed to take place across the street… but no one showed up. Despite being a tax day, this one turned out pretty good!