I trudged out into the cold, rainy day to go to downtown Frederick to attend the local Tea Party rally today. I didn't expect much of a turnout since the weather was lousy. Boy was I wrong. Here the crowd begins to assemble in front of City Hall. All I had was my camera phone, but it did a good job.
I met this lady on the way in. It was the first of many signs.
Making my way into the crowd, passing by the flagbrella.
This lady was wearing her sign.
There were plenty of flags.
A very popular flag is the Don't Tread On Me flag, in several different forms. In the distance here is one of them, the First Navy Jack.
This person was draped in the company flag of the Culpeper Minutemen.
And of course, the traditional yellow of the Gadsden flag. Think we're living in America, where the display of these traditional early flags is a reminder of our heritage of independence? Nah, guess again. According to the Missouri Information Analysis Center, these are "militia symbols," and "members of the militia movement often subscribe to the ideology of other right-wing extremist movements such as: . . . Tax Resistors [and] Anti-Immigration [organizations] formed solely for the purpose of countering the threat of illegal immigration." Remember, comrades, Vice President Biden says paying higher taxes is "patriotic." By the way, if you voted for Ron Paul--congratulations, you're in the militia.
If I wanted to live in Europe, I'd be there already. We fought a war to get away from that, remember?
The bumper stickers read "Hungry? Out of work?? Eat your Change"; "Socialism / Trickle Up Poverty"; and "Look out taxpayers / Obama thinks you're rich."
This was one of my favorite signs!
From City Hall, the crowd moved on to Winchester Hall. "In The Street"? Bah. This is in the street!
Once again, The Man is keeping a wary eye trained on the Tea Party crowd. Well, and blocking traffic. Why?
Simply because there is nowhere for them to go. The streets were occupied by several hundred "right-wing extremists!" Including one lady I heard on the radio who identified herself as "an extremist mom." Ha!
Part of the crowd assembled in front of Winchester Hall. From there, they continued on to the Board of Education. Unfortunately, I did not have much time to spend and I had to get back to work. Ah, the pitfalls of being a responsible radical.
I will return briefly to earlier in the rally, back to City Hall. Standing in the center of the doorway, in the top center of the picture, wearing a dark suit, white shirt, and a tie, is Representative Roscoe Bartlett, otherwise known as the only sane member of the Maryland Congressional delegation. He has consistently voted against these billion-dollar boondoggles. In recognition of that, I will close with remarks made by Rep. Bartlett to President Obama just prior to the vote on the massive spending bill, as quoted by Jake Tapper of ABC News: "Mr. President, I probably come at this from a slightly different perspective. I remember when FDR beat Hoover in 1932. So I remember the Great Depression very well. I don't remember any of the many government programs affecting the course of the Depression. Government programs didn't work then, I don't know why we think they would work now. Mr. President, I think our obsessive borrowing has fully mortgaged my kids and my grandkids. Now we're working on mortgaging my two great-grandkids. Mr. President, I think it's more than a little bit selfish to try to solve our economic problems which we created by burdening future generations yet to be born." In 2010, any elected official who voted for any of these ridiculous spending bills ought to be drummed out of office. Period.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Category: Life
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