I attended the Tea Party rally organized by Mr. and Mrs. Garland Smith and held last Saturday in Wright Park. There are a few observations I would respectfully request to share with your readers.
Attendance this year seemed to be a bit off from last summer's small gathering, and there was an absence of the sort of inflammatory language which characterized that rally: no references to armed insurrection and "blood running in the streets." That was commendable, as was a reminder for everyone to vote this November and to encourage others to do likewise.
Three of the speakers seemed a bit more restrained and thoughtful in their remarks compared to what I heard last summer. The fourth speaker seemed to be obsessed with fighting Communists (who, by the way, lost the Cold War 20 years ago) and with vilifying the president and other officers of the federal government by innuendo, name-calling, false accusations and outrageous myths which have already been discredited by those who take politics and governance seriously. This type of mindless blather is, I think, on the decline in our national dialogue.
The first issue raised during the rally was a perceived need to vigorously protest those (by implication, the Obama administration) who seek to change government in radical, but unspecified, ways. I have to ask: What change currently on the horizon is more radical than the recent threat by Republicans in Congress to alter the 14th Amendment in order to redefine who does — and does not — qualify for citizenship?
One of Saturday's speakers lamented over-regulation by the federal government. Seriously? Who was over-regulating the mega-investment banks two years ago? You know: the ones who came within a fraction of an inch of wrecking our national economy?
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