Posted by
bob's my uncle on Sunday, July 05, 2009 11:10:32 PM
Yesterday, I attended the Dallas Tea Party at South Fork Ranch. As you may know, this is the place made famous by the 1980's TV show "Dallas". Now, we spent no time in the luxurious manse that J.R. Ewing used to call home. Instead, we were in the back pastures, sweating in the hot Texas sun. Despite the heat, our enthusiasm and patriotism was not wilted at all. Thousands showed up at South Fork to voice their concerns over our massive national debt, protesting runaway government spending, and the impending gargantuan tax bill which will soon fall on our shoulders, and the shoulders of our children and our grandchildren.
In a period of time just less than a year, we have moved from a government that had
some view to fiscal responsibility, to one that has no concept of an empty bank account. It seems that there is no end to the amount of federal spending, "investing", financing, and outright owning that this government can do. If they have any accountants in this administration, it is doubtful if they have passed their basic math skills. (Hey, wait a minute. Isn't Timothy "Turbo-Tax" Gheitner the Secretary of the Treasury? Hmmmm.) And they do not have any respect for the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence which we celebrated yesterday.
Update:
As many as 35,000 in attendance.
On Michelle Malkin's blog there is a streaming video link to the entire afternoon and evening events.
(here)
Entertainment was provided by
Beatlegras,
The Hunter Sullivan Band, and the finale by
Mickey Dolenz of the Monkees.
Local organizers, Philip Dennis, James Dickey, Ken Emanuelson, and Katrina Pierson gave opening remarks. See
http://tinyurl.com/p45dtz
for Dallas Tea Party Facebook page. (Also see
http://dallasteaparty.org/)
On the Tea Party roster we had:
Michael Patrick Leahy, co-founder of Top Conservatives on Twitter (TCOT) and one of the leaders of the national Tea Party Movement also spoke. (
http://www.michaelpatrickleahy.com/)
Congressman Michael Burgess, Denton, Texas (TX-26), one of the really good ones.
Dr. Merrill Matthews, (below), from the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI)
http://www.ipi.org/ . In his speech, he compared our current situation to that of the Founders. He said, "the greatest threat to our liberty is coming from Washington, D.C."
Jon-David Wells, (below), afternoon talk show host on 570 KLIF's "The Wells Report" (
http://tinyurl.com/cl9mlq) dressed in 18th century costume gave a rousing speech linking the importation of illegal alien labor to a dilution of benefits from our tax dollars and of our votes as citizens.
Michael Johns, (below), is active on the national level in the Tea Party Movement. He travels the country speaking for freedom and liberty. Michael spoke at Tea Party events in New Jersey on Friday, Washington, D.C., Saturday morning, and here Saturday evening. See his blog
here. He is also an activist on Twitter and Facebook where I have had contact with him.
Captain Scott O'Grady, if you remember, gained fame after being shot down over Bosnia and surviving to escape out of enemy Serb territory.
Wayne Allyn Root, (below), a Libertarian, declared W.A.R. on big government. Root, from Nevada was a college classmate of Barack Obama's. He says emphatically, that Socialists are running our government.
And of course, the headliner of the evening,
Michelle Malkin. This lovely lady of the Right spoke to us about the Founding Fathers and that we, the Tea Party Protesters are their heirs. Liberty is the reason for our celebration of the 4th of July. The "transcendent truth" of our founding is the "unalienable sovereignty of the People
over the government." "Freedom is not for the government to give, it is for all of us to be sure that the government does not take it away."
Funny story: This vendor was selling T-shirts, books, longhorn horns, and caps. He has a cow tail attached to a standard on his trailer. The sign says "If you're full of bull, give it a pull", so, naturally, I did. Unfortunately, when I let go, the cow tail came off of the standard and shot up into the branches of the tree above. Being the good citizen that I am, I volunteered to climb on top of his trailer and try to retrieve it. After a lot of effort, he and I finally got the tail back down. I told him that he needed to make his cow tail "idiot proof", to which he agreed. He considered me a good sport, so he gave me one of his caps.
I volunteered to sign up people for Tea Party email alerts. I walked all through the crowd, and there was something extraordinary that I noticed. Everyone I talked to was kind and polite. I sensed no annoyance by my intrusions into their space. Everyone was there for the same purpose and of the same mind. I did not hear any sniping back and forth about whether or not Sarah Palin is stupid, or should we ditch "Reaganism". The focus was on our ever-growing debt, the ever-growing government, and our ever-shrinking rights and take-home pay.
