Thursday, April 16, 2009

Are you Drinking TEA or the Kool-Aid

Yesterday, April 15th, tax day...Did you wait till the last minute or get yours done early?

I was really excited to attend the local TEA Party!  I brought my camera, held up my sign, and joined in the fun.  I met some really nice people and, when I asked them nicely, everyone let me take their picture {I should have them developed and post some soon!}.  

It was really nice to see all of the different types of people there together.  There were middle class families, college students, veterans, people in suits that just walked down from work.  There were tattoos, dreadlocks, piercings, dogs, kids, cameras and lots of hilarious signs!  There were not any 'extremists' shouting, it was wonderful gathering.  In all it was estimated that there were about 3,000 people that showed up!  

With all of those people in the middle of downtown I was surprised at the little news coverage.  I couldn't even find a story covering it on the local newspaper website.  And when I did finally find a story on it, the story turned into a critizism of the environmental impact of the tea that was thrown into the river.  And it was not limited to the local media.  Did any of you see the coverage by CNN?  Journalism really is dead...

After talking with several people about the TEA Party I realized that most people don't really understand what the protest was and why it was needed.  So here is my humble explanation for you...

The Boston Tea Party was a protest against taxation without representation.  This Tea Party was not a protest against paying taxes.  Most of the people there probably pay their takes in full and on time.  I don't have a problem with paying taxes.  Taxes are essential for the function of our country and provides for us a military, police force, fire protection, education, etc.  The problem is that they people that we voted into office are not represtening their constituents and spending without restraint!  The spending has been done by both parties, but it needs to stop! 

So I'm really happy that people are starting to make their voices heard together in such a wonderful way and that I got to voice my own opinions, plus take some {hopefully} really good pictures too!  I even had a little friendly 'run in' with the state police...More on that later when I get the picture that goes with the story!

I hope you all get involved with your local movements!  


2 comments:

Newlywed Hostess said...

I have no clue what they viewed when they looked up "manic Trout" but they were there for 12 seconds so they really wanted to see if I had anything about it. And it was on April 3rd.
I am trying to remember how I set up Google Analytics. If I can recall or find out who maybe sent me in the right direction I will let you know.

Sassy Engineer said...

Yay for you! I'm so glad you go to go. It was great to see so many different people out. I'm sure the one they held downtown was much bigger than the small one I went to at lunch, but we even had about 600 I guess so I was surprised by that. 3000 is awesome! I can't wait to see pics :)