Old School Style
This is my favorite story from Flag Day. About 4:00, we saw the first bolt of lightning off in the distance and those that provided our sound system quite reasonably starting tearing that down. The problem is that we still had 2 hours of speakers lined up.
Just like our forefathers used to do it.
Most of the crowd headed for the cars, but a hardcore group of about 100 stuck around until the very end. Rather than give up, Cincinnati Tea Party Political Liaison Eric Tipton, headed for the picnic table and the remaining crowd gathered round. He gave a rousing 10 minute speech.
After that, we found a bullhorn in the crowd and I stood with Kristine Cassidy of iCaucus.org.
Bullhorn and photo courtesy of Paul Odioso
Shortly afterwards, the heavens opened and the larger group headed for the roof on the stage. Two smaller groups were trapped underneath 10×10 popup tents about 40 feet back while Harald Zieger started his speech on the stage. The solution of course was for Brian Willis and I to pickup the tents and walk the crowd up to the stage so they could join everyone else.
Tom Tabback, author of Things Forgotten, then wrapped things up in a fiery 20 minute speech while Karen Best (Cincinnati 9/12 President), Justin Binik-Thomas (CTP Vice President) and I distributed ice cream cups to the crowd before they melted. It was an honor to have Tom up here. He spoke the day before in Missouri for the Midwest Fair Tax Rally and drove to Ohio with his wife and 4 kids (under 12) to be with us.
Photo courtesy of Paul Odioso
June 28th, 2009 at 6:34 am
I find it ironic that you turn out on flag day, a day set aside to honor the symbol of our country; a day to honor and show support for OUR country. It is not a day for wealthy conservatives to complain about paying their share of the wars they started. You are not patriot! You are selfish! Those tax dollars go to paying for social programs that help people in all of our communities! People hurt by the economic downturn caused by nearly a decade of YOUR foolish ideas. They go to paying for the wars started by YOUR party (and let’s face it, 90% of the deficit was Regan and Bush II)! They pay for the health care of thousands of veterans wounded in those wars. If you care so much about the national debt, then why protest taxes? It’s a classic straw man. It is impossible to be anti-debt and anti-tax, they’re mutually exclusive arguments. Again, if you care so much about taxes, why don’t you organize to volunteer free services to the local, state, and federal governments? If everyone pitches in a little time for free, we can make some budget cuts…. Oh yeah, because it’s a straw man argument, what you really stand for is cutting YOUR TAXES; not supporting OUR country! Stay home, we don’t want to hear a bunch of winey rich Republicans crying about how they have to pay off the deficit that they created.
June 28th, 2009 at 9:57 am
Samuel,
Welcome, and thanks for the comments. A few quick responses:
1. Federally run social programs are wasteful and inefficient. We send our money to Washington and get it sent back to us. We lose the “bureaucracy tax” as they siphon off some funds and then tell us how to spend our own tax dollars.
2. I argue that those social programs are designed to create dependancy and therefore hurt as much as they help.
3. The downturn was caused by both parties in their support of easy money from the Fed and their encourgement of lax lending standards.
4. Our group is non-partisan and therefore you are putting up a strawman everytime you say “your party.” Most of us are doing this because we are just as angry with Republicans as Democrats and don’t feel welcome with either party.
5. You can be anti-debt and anti-tax. We don’t deal in absolutes. We recognize a legitimate role of government, we just think it’s smaller than what you probably prefer. You can reduce debt by reducing spending.
6. Taxes are a necessary evil. They incur deadweight loss and reduce incentives to economic activity. Therefore, they should be kept to the minimum possible level. We recognize that minimum does not equal zero.
7. We are patriotic. We celebrate the country our founders created for us and the Constitution as it is written. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t recognize our government today because our politicians ignore the Constitution unless it’s convenient.
8. Get past this our team versus your team crap. Politicians of both parties are corrupt and in bed with corporate lobbyists and special interests. Chances are, we both oppose the corporate subsidies. Instead of finding common ground or showing any interest in what we actually believe, it’s just attack, attack, attack. We aren’t nearly as different as you believe.
-Mike