Tea Parties Revisited

I feel the need to respond to some of the things being said about the tax day Tea Parties that were held nationwide on April 15th. The amount of ignorance and misinformation being passed around by the mainstream media and liberal blogs is simply stunning. I don't know what we expected, but this is low even for the New York Times.

The first issue I would like to address is the charge that these events (which turned out 700,000 protesters) were organized by Fox News and/or Rush Limbaugh. This is imply false. The New York City Tea Party I attended was organized by an enterprising young gentleman named Kellen Guida who, using the amazing networking power of the internet, rallied over 12,000 people to City Hall. Mr. Guida is by no means a stooge for right wing billionaires or Fox News. He's just an average citizen who decided to take action.

It is true that Fox News covered the Tea Parties heavily, thereby promoting them to some extent. They did this because they saw an opportunity to scoop the other stations. Fox News knew that CNN and MSNBC weren't going to touch this, and therefore, by playing up the fact that they had exclusive coverage, Fox boosts its ratings. Unlike its competitors, Fox is driven by profit, not ideology, and that's as it should be in a capitalist society.

In hindsight, it may have been a mistake to hold the Tea Parties on tax day. Although the symbolism and historical significance is nice, the emphasis on taxes has somewhat derailed the actual purpose of the protest, and has fueled (wholly unfounded) criticism that those in attendance were merely the greedy rich, who don't want to pay their fair share. While taxes are certainly an integral part of the big government machine, the primary focus of the Tea Parties was to protest the rapid expansion of the federal government and its power over average citizens. The massive budget deficit, out of control spending and taxes are all symptoms of this problem, but the focus should be on the overall disease, the ever expanding beast that is government power.

What is really outrageous, though, is the far more serious charge made by Janeane Garofalo (apparently a political commentator now. Funny, I thought she was a comedian), among others, that everyone who participated in these events were "redneck racists." Now, as I said, I attended the New York City Tea Party, and I can personally tell you that the crowd was made up of all classes, all colors and people from every walk of life. I saw a lot of clever protests signs, but not a single one that had any racial component to it.

Of course, the media wouldn't know that, because they weren't there. In fact, Fox News was the only cable news station to show up. You would think 12,000+ people rallying at City Hall would be newsworthy, but I guess that would ruin all the name calling fun. I was particularly disturbed by some of my friends and coworkers parroting the "racists" line, which they picked up from newspapers and television. So I guess this is the way it's going to be. You can call George Bush a murdering Nazi, but a peaceful demonstration against the policies of the new President is considered racist.

The undisguised mocking tone coming from the left is telling. We saw the same thing with Sarah Palin. Whenever liberals get scared, they resort to cheap shots and derision, and judging from the reaction to the Tea Parties, they must be terrified. I, for one, had a hopping good time and I hope to see more of these sorts of events in the near future. It's nice to know that we Americans who still believe in small government and individual liberty still exist, and that we are not alone.