Time for TEA

Here are some photos from the TEA Party in Madison on Thursday. I will endeavor to get the videos posted to YouTube by the end of today. They can be found under the username CEMF100. This first batch belongs to the folks taking the bus arranged by the Sheboygan Liberty Coalition.

This second batch are signs from the rally in Madison.

\

That's it for my photos. There was one young woman carrying a sign that said "Help me Mr. Obama, They want to make me work and stuff!" on one side and "I am not your ATM!" on the other.
As with my other TEA Party experiences, this one was well attended by a very polite and congenial group of people who picked up after themselves when they left.

I was pleased to note that Pastor King refrained from using the vulgar terms to describe our elected officials and our predicament that he has used in the past. Indeed, aside from a few references to hades by a couple of the speakers, the only vulgarity I heard all day was from one of the Feingold supporters who was making a nuisance of herself.

She and her fellow youth(My guess would be university students) barged through the crowd shouting cheerfully "We're all neighbors , people!" When they were a little ahead of me, they stopped and were greeted with smiles and questions about whether or not they are even old enough to pay taxes. Then someone near me had a sign saying "Democrats" with an arrow pointing down that he held over their heads. The leader of this little group kept trying to grab it, but wasn't tall enough. Another attendee told some of the folks with larger signs to stop blocking their signs from view of the podium (and cameras) remarking that they have the freedom of speech too. As these young people tired of trying to provoke a response and were leaving, the young woman(I won't say lady) turned to someone and, in an entirely different tone than she had used to push through the crowd towards the podium, snarled "go f*** yourself"to the man behind me. This man, to the best of my knowledge, had said nothing more provoking to her than "come back when you've grown up and pay taxes". It was not said in a nasty way either, but rather as a kindly adult to an erring youth. This is a perfect illustration of the difference in character between TEA Partiers and those who oppose them.
Enjoy the photos.

"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. "~ Ephesians 6:12

A Tea Party illustration for the MSM and other collectivists who just don't "get it".

It seems that the MSM and others of the collectivist mindset do not quite understand the reasons behind the tea party movement. I thought a helpful illustration might be of assistance. It's not an exact parallel, but close enough, I hope, for basic comprehension.

In my mind, as well, I think, as in the minds of the founding fathers, government is like an unruly child that must be watched over every second of the day, lest the entire family come to harm through his mischief. Let's say, for the sake of this illustration, that our unruly child has become a college student and we, his parents, sent our credit card with him to use for certain, very specific expenses or in case of emergencies. This is not money we have, but money we are willing to work in the future to provide for those specific expenses. He was fairly responsible at first. After a few blips here and there, we have gone on with our lives and not paid much attention to the totals on the credit card statement.

We have just received a bill for several trillion dollars. The extra zeros caught our attention. We thought "how could that possibly be correct?" After checking with the company, we have been assured that it is indeed correct. Our unruly child, bereft of our close attention, has been behaving badly. He seems to have decided that, since we are(or were)the richest family on the block and since he has a credit card that seems to have no limit, there's no reason he shouldn't help others as well as himself. In fact it looks as though our unruly child has decided that he can provide for the entire world...as long as he has our credit card. He seems to believe that it is his duty to do so, since he has the means...our credit card. He has purchased houses, food and medicine for his friends, his friend's relatives and strangers. He has even allowed thieves to come into our home and take our things for themselves. These thieves are not required to follow our rules, but we are supposed to treat them as honored guests no matter how they behave because our child thinks they will return his generosity with a like measure of their own.

We have invited our unruly child to a tea party to explain the consequences of his actions.

1. He has put us so far into debt that we will never be able to retire and he must pay for the debt for his entire life as well. We are no longer the richest family on the block.
2. He is on the verge of causing our grandchildren to be in debt for their entire lives as well. This is immoral and unacceptable.
3. He has denied his fellows the satisfaction of paying their own way and possibly crippled them permanently in so doing.
4. He has usurped the responsibility of other families/communities to care for their own. This is detrimental to the character of those families/communities.
5. Thieves will not repay you for allowing them to steal from you except by stealing from you again. It is the height of foolishness to expect otherwise.
6. He has placed us in a situation where, at any time, our creditors may call our debt due and take everything we have. Then, not having met our debt obligations through our property, our creditors will be allowed to sell us into slavery to satisfy that debt. We hope that we have been a good enough customer that they will be willing to allow us the time to work to pay off those debts. (Unfortunately, our child is currently engaged in telling them what horrible people we are.)
   

We understand the humanitarian impulses and even the power trip that spending all that money gave our child and we're willing to work to pay it off. We, after all, gave our child the card and did not keep a close eye on it's use. We are responsible for these debts, but there can be no more spending.
If he agrees, he must live under our rules until we have a handle on this mess. The credit card will be closed. Any extraneous assets must be sold. Any payments he is making for expenses besides those we approved at the outset must be stopped. His friends(who are now his dependents) must be allowed to pay their own way. We can work to ease that transition for them, but there must be a transition, we have no other options. There is no more money. The thieves will be arrested and removed from our home to face justice.

Much of America is at the point of saying that if our unruly child will not follow our rules, he is free to go and live on his own, but without our support or our credit card. That anyone who continues to lend to him based on the expectation of our paying it back does so at their own risk.

That is what the tea party movement is about and the tenth amendment movement as well. We the People are attempting to once again exercise our authority over this government.


"Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king, which would take account of his servants.
And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him, which owed him ten thousand talents.
But forasmuch as he had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made.
The servant therefore fell down, and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all.
Then the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt.
But the same servant went out, and found one of his fellowservants, which owed him an hundred pence: and he laid hands on him, and took him by the throat, saying, Pay me that thou owest.
And his fellowservant fell down at his feet, and besought him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all.
And he would not: but went and cast him into prison, till he should pay the debt. " ~ Matt 18:23-30

Tea party reporting you won't see on the MSM

Here is a video that shows the overall demeanor of the gathering in Madison on Wednesday. I was a bit disappointed in the pastor, I expected better than drug references and crude joking from a man of the cloth, but if that's how he reaches his congregation, more power to him and may the Lord empower him to lead them to a place where that's not required of him.

There was, as I mentioned earlier, one other speaker who went beyond the bounds of conventional manners, but by and large the speakers were very good and stayed on topic.

Our crowd was clearly better mannered than the one in Chicago, but I can hardly blame them. When I consider how CNN and the MSM spin their coverage, I wouldn't be happy to see them covering any event I was at either.

"And Jesus said unto him, Forbid him not: for he that is not against us is for us."~Luke 9:50

Tax Day Tea Party, Madison, WI - The people who attended are Americans, not Astro Turf.

I have posted more on the speeches and their content on the AFB, but I wanted to address what I found to be one of the most important aspects of this event here. Some in our government and MSM reporters have called these events "Astro Turf" and have implied that the crowds were one step short of violence. I can't speak for the other demonstrations, but Madison's was absolutely one of the nicest crowds I have ever been in-and I'm including Farmer's Markets and fairgrounds in that comparison. 

 Our group initially went to the Alliant Energy Center to park and take a shuttle bus to the Capitol Square for this rally. It was soon apparent that this was not going to work. For one thing there was a steady stream of cars and tour buses loaded with folks from across the state who had the same idea.

 Mostly because that's how it was supposed to work. 

Unfortunately there were not nearly enough buses to shuttle all the folks who were showing up for this event. For a second thing there were already at least 200-300 people waiting for the two or three shuttle buses that arrived every 5 minutes or so. Far from being discouraged, many people just started walking. (Now it's at least 2 miles (and probably closer to 4)from the parking area to the capitol building, so this was not lightly made decision from a time standpoint.) 

We decided to see if we could find some parking closer to the event and the Lord blessed us with a spot about two blocks away. Something I noticed about the over 300 people still waiting for the shuttle buses when we left, (still with a steady stream of cars and buses arriving), was that, even after they realized they were going to miss the beginning of the rally due to the dearth of shuttle buses, they were still upbeat and patient. They were courteous and patient. They were helpful to each other and patient. I don't think I heard anyone swear all day. (Except one of the speakers. My son would tell you that I have a low tolerance for even the mildest expletives, so this is really saying something.) 

 The tone of the event was further set for me by this encounter as we approached the capitol square. There was a young woman (She looked about 17 or so to me) carrying an American flag. As she walked it was coming perilously close to dragging on the ground. When I caught up to her and said "you want to be careful, that flag's almost touching the ground" she apologized to me and adjusted the way she was holding it to keep it farther from the ground. 

 My son and I were in the closest bit of the crowd-about 50 feet from the speakers on the main sidewalk. (There is an excellent-although incomplete photo of the crowd here.[My apologies, the website is no longer active])There was no pushing or shoving. Folks were careful of their signs and flags and each other. We did not see any counter-protesters although the friends we drove down with said they saw about 4 Acorn folks being ignored by the rest of the crowd.  When folks wanted to move closer to the speakers, they said "excuse me" and other folks made way. 

When I was having trouble with the names of the speakers, the man next to me (one Mr. Paul Hopp as I found out later so I could say thank you here -  Thank you Mr. Hopp. :) ) who was a bit taller and with a better vantage point would tell me the names. He eventually insisted that I change places with him so that I could see the screen where the names were being displayed. There was some chanting done as well as some booing, but it was, for the most part, well intentioned, good natured and not at all inappropriate. 

 There were many remarks made by various MSM sources that these events were "Astro Turf". That they had been secretly organized by the GOP. CNN had predicted they would have less than 100 in attendance, the local newspapers grudgingly predicted a few hundred. There were actually, by the counts I have heard so far, between 5000 and 10,000 people who showed up for this event. 

Most of the people I spoke to were not fans of the GOP, feeling that the GOP had betrayed America by their profligate spending during the Bush and Clinton administrations. I don't recall any of those near me identifying themselves as republicans and, in fact, the president of the WI GOP was heckled and booed a bit by the crowd when he spoke.(Well the fellows handing out signs opposing the governor's plan to add a transit/commuter rail system to Madison, [and why, when the city buses are losing money already, would you add a train?] were members of the GOP, but they received a fairly cold shoulder from the crowd. Not many would take a sign from them.) 

 At one point, when one of the speakers lambasted Congressman David Obey for his writing of the state budget, the crowd booed Mr. Obey appropriately. (Non-fiscal items do not belong in the state budget, period, to say nothing of the other excessive spending proposals.) But when that speaker said, "It could be worse, you could be married to him", the crowd near me loudly chanted "Cheap Shot, Cheap Shot, Cheap Shot." I heard one of them saying "We're better than that" and I had to agree. 

 The organizer, Mr. Mark Block of the Wisconsin AFP chapter, thanked the Capitol police for their help and relayed their request that we leave any sticks attached to our signs outside when we went in to visit our legislators. Everyone I saw did so without objecting, either leaving their signs outside to collect later or breaking the sticks off and leaving them in a neat pile. 

An uncharitable reporter might spin this request to imply that the capitol police thought we might use the signs to attack someone, but, in reality our state capitol is a beautiful building with many fine artworks and historical monuments in it. The sticks would also pose a safety hazard to the attendees themselves as the crowd was compressed to fit in to the building. The request was appropriate and respected by the attendees. 

 Those legislators who were not in hastily convened committee meetings (Ironically enough, requesting more money for housing entitlements.) met with their constituents, discussed their concerns and addressed what they needed to do to have their voices heard in this bastion of entitlement mentality. (At least mine did,[Thank you Mr. Kestell and Mr. Liebham] but they didn't vote for the budget and they have done what they could to let their constituencies know what was wrong with it. I wonder what the liberal legislator's discussions were like-if they weren't hiding in the committee meetings.) 

 There were senior citizens and babies. There were teenagers and married couples. Those with suits and designer clothes were outnumbered by those in jeans and T-shirts, but it is Madison after all. There were businessmen, stay at home moms, students and hourly workers. From what I saw the crowd really didn't leave anyone out. The uniting factor was love of and concern for our country, our state, our families and our fellow citizens. This was America and I am sad for all you folks that didn't attend. If you only heard the highly spun comments I heard in the news coverage later, then you missed seeing the real America. 

  "But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;"~Mt 5:44